#cafe server

I work as a cafe server at Barnes and Noble. I know your mind wants to immediately romanticize the notion of being a barista in book store. NO. STOP. I will save you the trouble and let you know up front that ~it is the worst~ for a myriad of reasons.

I’ve been having a lot of lower back pain over the last few months, and in the last few weeks in particular, it has gotten so bad that it is interfering with my workouts (running, hot yoga) and normal daily activities (driving, sitting down). It’s been really frustrating because I wasn’t sure what the cause of it was. Was my running form off? Did I lift something wrong? etc., etc. I think I have narrowed it down to my job. As a barista, I am standing on my feet all day, basically in one small area, on a hard concrete floor. To make matters worse, we do not have anti-fatigue mats in our cafe. I have always felt that we should, especially given that the cashiers up at cashwrap have them. When I first brought it up over a year ago, they told me something about how dirty the mats would get if we had them in the cafe. To which I responded with a look of bewilderment and disgust (disgust at their horrible excuses, not for how dirty the mats would be). I am definitely going to bring up the issue again, though.