I once applied and interviewed at a bookstore cafe for a barista position. It was way closer to my home, and I had almost a decade of experience working in a coffee shop at that point.Â
Got to the interview, and it turned out they didnât want a barista, they wanted someone to spearhead their new cafe, as the cafe that had been in the store before didnât want to resign their lease with the bookshop. They wanted to put their own cafe in its place, all new menus etc. They needed someone experienced to train their new staff, to handle window displays, to communicate with the bookstore owners about changes and needs of the cafe, to be able to handle inventory and ordering.
Okay, I had basically done most of that stuff at my previous job. I asked if cafe positions would also be required/trained to work the bookstore.
They would. They would be required to run the book sale counter, stock and reshelf books, and help bookshop customers find things. They would alsoâdespite having an outside cleaning companyâhave to help maintain bathroom cleanliness. Theyâd have to take out trash, and clean spills, and vacuum.Â
Wow, thatâs a lot, I said. Is this a managerâs position, then?
No, I was told, it wasnât, but there was a chance that after a training period it might become one. And that made me pause, because Iâd been working as the front-of-house manager at my cafe, and I knew how much work that entailed, and what kind of money I was making, and it was only the commute that had me looking for a new job.
So I asked what the job paid.
$8. E I G H TÂ D O L L A R S. Per hour. Barely above minimum. For all of that work. For someone they expected to get an entirely new cafe up and running, and then also do the work of the bookstore and the cleaning company as well.Â
I thanked the woman for the interview, said Iâd have to talk to my significant other about the impact a four dollar pay cut would have on our finances, and that I wasnât sure it was the job for me. She asked me to sleep on it, and sheâd call me the next day.Â
This is a job I was way more than qualified for. I had years of experience doing exactly the things they wanted. It was a convenient location, close to my homeâI could walk there if I absolutely had to. I did not go home and talk about that four dollar pay cut and what it would do to our finances. I knew as soon as she told me that not only was it not feasible for us, it was downright insulting. That little money? For a frankly ridiculous list of responsibilities and expectations?
She called back the next day. I thanked her again, and told her in no uncertain terms that my time was worth way more than what they were offering.
And whenever people bitch about Millennials being lazy, not spending money, not buying housesâŚwhatever the complaint of the month isâŚI think about the very nice lady who conducted this interview, and how confused she was that I didnât want the job.Â
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