Analysis of the author's argument and thesis

N" Why Should I Be Nice to You?: Coffee Shops and the Politics of Good Service"

By Emily Raine, Issue #74, December 2005

In her essay, "Why Should I Be Nice to You: Coffee Shops and the Politics of Good Service," author and former coffee shop barista Emily Raine argues that cafe employees, in an effort to re-assert their individuality, should be rude to their customers. It goes against what we all think of as good customer service, perhaps, but Raine builds her argument by demonizing the coffee shop industry and illustrating how their current business model is only a facade of good customer service. While I appreciate Raine's point-of-view, I wonder if there may be a better way to provide good customer service than what she suggest. Being rude, if that is really what she means, just goes too far.

We've all visited the kind of coffee shop that Raine is writing about in her article. She barely disguises that she is talking about Starbucks and shops of that nature. Raine has worked in other customer service industries -- she likes working in the industry -- but this affinity does not extend to the coffee shop world. The pay was poor, the shifts were scheduled oddly (so as to never add up to full time), and the customers "displayed that unique spleen that emerges in even the most pleasant people before they've had the morning's first coffee." It seems an obvious fact of life that morning customers in a coffee shop might be grumpy. I was left feeling that Raine could have cut them more slack.

The author does make good points, however, when she discusses how baristas and other customer service workers have become cogs in machines. Because of the assembly-line nature of the coffee shop, the barista only has a brief encounter with each customer, maybe just a few seconds at a time. Raine supports this argument with evidence based on how modern coffee shops are laid out. You place your order with one person, receive it from yet another and pay a third. Sometimes even more employees are involved, depending on what you order. Not only does this assembly line system affect the customer's experience, it makes for unhappy employees. Instead of one employee seeing a customer through their entire experience, they become drones, repeating the same miniscule tasks over and over again for their entire shift. In other words, everyone is grumpy. "The one aspect of service work that can be unpredictable -- people -- becomes redundant," Raine writes. Baristas are bored, and stuck within the constraints of "good service" as "defined and enforced from above," and the assembly line nature of coffee shops "preclude[s] much possibility of creating warmth…it interferes with throughput."

The end result is a complete lack of individuality on the part of the barista, which Raine contends is an even worse employment situation than fast food workers. At least fast food workers (those in the cashier positions) fulfill an entire customer's order. Raine thus contends they are not gadgets in a machine. The result, she argues, is that customers are "much ruder" to cafe staff than other food industry workers because they are not allowed to "act as individuals," and that the public only sees baristas as workers, "never as possible peers." Raine objects to the entire idea of serving and being a servant, and she rebels against the class system by showing her actual emotions to customers rather than affecting patience and good will. She wants the customers to be noticed as a person; to break through all the customer service fakery, she's rude.

Honestly, I can't get on board with Raine's conclusion, no matter how well she has set up the argument throughout her essay. First, I think she may be over estimating what customers want from their coffee shop experience. Do they want possible peers and to see the people who make their coffee as individuals with their own complicated emotions, or do the customers simply want a cup of coffee? Does good service necessarily entail a personal interaction with your barista, or can the customer feel well served if they walk into the Starbucks with a hankering for a peppermint mocha and leave with said drink in hand, prepared well. Raine's entire argument is from the point-of-view of the worker and not from the customer, and while the employee is required to provide good service, it is not necessarily up to them to define what good service is, or to necessarily enjoy how the company demands they perform it. Raine may have the desire to assert her individuality identity at work -- which she points out is nearly impossible while wearing uniforms and confirming to other personal appearance requirements -- but she acts as if that is her right and, more important, that the customer will somehow benefit from it. I cannot agree.