A Failure You Experienced

      For 10 years I excelled as a barista. I could work just about any machine, from the old Marzocco Italian imports that you could hurt yourself on if you weren't careful to the ultra-sleek automated robots that took all the art out of the craft of espresso. I enjoyed my work, and was able to perform at high speed with great efficiency. I handled espresso machines in over 30 different coffeeshops. 18 months in a vegan cafe in the midwest and 8 1/2 years of working for Starbucks took me all over Orange County and Los Angeles. Everytime I passed by a Starbucks I'd pop in, drop off my flyer. It was simple enough. One page that listed my name, my cell, my credentials and an offer to cover any barista's shift on short notice. This meant beyond my regular hours at whatever Starbucks location I was employed at, I might take on a relief shift in... Question Mark City. That's the joy of Los Angeles and Orange County. There's more cities and hidden spots within them than any civil engineer or urban planner could keep up with. In every new situation I was expected to shine, walking in cold. I loved this.

     In May of 2009 I worked as a barista at Starbucks of Rose Hill, Kirkland, WA. I loved and hated this. While I was still keen on the espresso bar and loved socializing with the staff and customers I was growing burnt out on the job. 10 years was a long time. I hadn't made management, hadn't finished school, and felt like I was playing the role of the entertaining monkey everyday. I came home, I made coffee, played hip. I went to work, I made coffee, played it up for the tips. I kept seeing patterns forming before me, in social interactions at Starbucks. What isn't widely known is that coffeeshops are all meat markets. The interplay ranges from subtle to outrageous, but it's non-stop. I grew more and more fascinated with psychology with every year of life and Starbucks was a social laboratory. By the time I was fired in May of 2009 Starbucks had become in my mind a Social University. I was crushed for being terminated. It wasn't the end of my world financially. I'd been tardy 3 times in a quarter. So I was fired and told I could return in 90 days. I had a month's rent paid in advance, knew I could make scratch selling plasma, get fuel money from unemployment, food from my EBT card and I had little in the way of needs. I'd never been unemployed for more than 2 months at a time since I was 14 and my biggest worry wasn't the failure to work. It was the failure to be a person.

     I knew I was the component of my life experiences, my thoughts, my environment and spirit. I knew most of all though, that all of this was guided by intention and the force of survival. Without my job I spent my days searching for work, everyday filling out and turning in applications, scouring the internet for leads, networking, polishing my resume and interview skills. I read books like a convict, wrote like mad, filling pages everyday. I meditated twice a day, exercised harder than I did before, phoned and texted every old friend I could and told them the news. I wanted to tell every single friend I knew "I just lost my job but I'm fine." I don't know if I was telling them or telling myself. What I know is that from telling people this, I had to continuously evaluate myself. I didn't feel whole without my job, but it wasn't because the job defined me. I define myself and I learned this from being unemployed. I was missing the social laboratory, the learning, the convenient venue of engagement for what I was learning. I needed to find out who I was without the barista title. With the green apron on, behind the espresso bar I was pegged all the time for being "more than meets the eye". I used to get told on a weekly basis that my "Energy was amazing" and "Who are you? What are you doing here?" "Wow, I know this isn't really what you do, man." but I was afraid to show that to the world, to carve my path from my fully activated self. I searched for a job, and didn't realize I was also searching for myself. I'd always known myself, always found myself, but for a decade I'd grown used to being full of potential and showing it off in a field that I grew complacent in. I recognize now that all failures are an opportunity to put a mirror to ourselves and find out who the best of us is. Failure doesn't show you who you are. It shows you who you are not and where you are towards what you have always been becoming.