Mondays

Today is, for a little while yet, Monday. It is that most dreaded of days, the start of the workweek, heralded by the bleeping of alarm clocks, greeted by bleary eyes and sour moods. And it must be truly awful, for all I hear about it. Customers tell me; cashiers at other places I visit tell me; everyone tells me.

They tell me, and I wonder, either this must be a great lie, or something bordering on tragedy. Either people simply like to complain that much, or they simply hate their jobs that much. Neither is a pleasant conclusion to reach, of course, but I find the latter to be worse.

And I don't have much to say, beyond simply that that's too bad. I like Mondays; I like my job. I like, I guess, that maybe I can help people hate Mondays a little less.

Of course, I also know that not everyone has the same luxury that I do, by which I mean the same lack of responsibility. I can split my time between the coffee bar, the trail, and the gym, because I have no responsibilities to anyone or anything else. I'm young, and lucky, and I get that.

But still. No one gets in to the coffee business simply because they like the beans. You deal with hundreds of people a day, many of them every day, so you have to love that too. On some level, you have to love them too. And so you want better for them, if not people in general. You want them to be happy, to enjoy whatever sense of fulfillment and enjoyment your life affords you.

You want them to love Mondays, because Mondays mean a chance to make things, do things, to be amongst people and life. You want them to love Mondays, because you're there, right then, a part of their Monday. You want to elevate the whole mess, if that's what it truly is, or at least offer something like a reprieve.

What you don't want is a cold transaction, bills changing hands, social graces grunted inaudibly, the malaise solidifying. So don't let it happen. Choose better, because people come to you for more than coffee.