Leif speaks about Investing in Employees

How do you make coffee at home? I like to make a pour over with my new goose neck kettle. I feel like it literally makes all the difference in the whole world. It’s so beautiful, it’s so much easier, it makes a really good cup of coffee. As opposed to just dumping some water in the filter, I feel like a magician.

Favorite origin: Ethiopia

Favorite drink: I love a pour over at home. But if I go out, I treat myself to a latte. I like an 8oz alternative milk latte. Or a cortado. Depends on how much milk I want.

Favorite album to play at work: I like to listen to a lot of curated radio stations or playlists, so that I don’t have to keep changing it. For a lot of fun, I do like Frankie Reyes, cause it just sounds like fun carnival music.

I started my first coffee shop job in 2004. I worked for a wholesale account of a roaster in Olympia. It was a farmer’s market cart, it was my first coffee job, and it was very much about making 90s lattes. We had a giant pitcher of milk, and we would stick in the steam wand, turn it on, turn it off, pour some lattes, stick it back in there, turn it on, turn it off. It was not up to code AT ALL.

I was there for a few years. It’s funny to think back to that time. I used to skateboard down the hill to get to work and then I would have the skateboard propped against the cart. I remember that I had to get up really early and that was the thing I wasn’t used to. But it meant there was nobody on the road for skating, which was nice. It was a totally different time. When I was done with work I wouldn’t skate home cause it was uphill- lets be real.

I don’t think there were parameters to the espresso. The line was always so long, because it was the only coffee cart in the area. There might have been one other coffee shop in Olympia. But anybody who was coming to the cart was waiting in this massive line, so it was always just like ‘go go go!; just make drinks!,’ just pulling shots and dumping them in. There was no latte art- it felt a little bit like fast food. I don’t know if the owner was following the guidelines set by the roasting company. Cause now that company is doing really well for themselves, and they make really good coffee. But at the cart it was just emphasis on speed and no care or parameters for espresso. I don’t even know where I got the idea that a shot was ready or wasn’t, it was just ‘take it out, pour it in, lets go!’ 

But there was a point where we got to visit the roastery, and that was the moment when I thought ‘wait a minute, what is this? this is really different from what I’m used to”- it was my first introduction to small roasteries. I could tell the tone at the roastery was really different from how my manager was running things. We got a chance to have a better sense of what is actually an espresso shot, and how it comes out, and I remember going back to work with a new found interest for the finer parts of coffee. I tried to implement the new things I had learned, but there continued to be an emphasis on speed, and at the same time I was making bagel sandwiches! I gained a lot from that job- I learned how to multitask in a really small space, and how to make tips. But there was only so much time I could focus on implementing what I had learned at the roastery.

At the time what attracted me to the job was just needing employment and having a little bit of service industry experience. I’ve always loved coffee and I thought it would be cool to learn about coffee, how its processed, how lattes are made. I had been to a local roasting company cafe in Olympia, and it was the first time I had an Ethiopian drip coffee. I had never known that coffee could taste like that. Then I got this coffee cart job and my interests was piqued. If I was going to work a job, which I needed, I wanted something that I was also finding interest in.”

After working at the cart for a few years and getting that first exposure to coffee, Leif moved to Portland. “My first job in Portland was at a very busy neighborhood coffee shop, as a barista. When I was working as a waiter after my first coffee shop job, I remember a popular Portland roasting company got an account in Olympia. I had visited Portland before and had tried some of the coffee from this company, and I flipped out cause I had never tasted coffee so good, besides that Ethiopia Yirgacheffe that I mentioned earlier. And then they were in my town! I was obsessed with going to that coffee shop and drinking coffee from that roaster as much as I could.

So when I moved to Portland and saw that this café served the local roaster I was so into, I was really excited to work there. Up until that point my coffee knowledge was so limited. When I got my training through this local roaster, I was laughing to myself secretly because I was still only aware of the 90s latte. And so when they were like ‘one pitcher per drink’ I thought to myself ‘oh my god, this is hilarious.’ Everyone else at the training knew that, and outwardly I was like ‘oh why yes, of course, that is what we should do.’

Starting to Learn more about coffee through this roaster was when I got really interested. I was like Babe, Pig in the City, ‘like wow they have a whole training just for us?!’ There was a trainer who would come and visit us at the wholesale café and talk to us about coffee, and I was really excited. I wanted to learn and was super into it! I was told by this company that I could go get training and practice at the roastery any time- I really wanted to get good at making coffee and latte art. It was a creative expression too- I am an artist and thinking about all of the materials- the espresso, and dialing that in, and the milk, and getting that dialed in, and doing that, and pouring this, and tilting the cup- all the components- it was a fun and new creative expression. I got really interested in thinking of it as a craft that I could fine tune. And also make a living, and work with the public interacting with customers. I really liked all the components and felt like it was a fun job. I could be creative, be myself, have freedom with my schedule to make art on the side, and learn about roasters, and farmers and different beans. It was empowering to feel excited about this job, and to get to have all this knowledge and practice. It seemed like there was a lot of potential for growth.

BUT, my manager at this shop unfortunately wasn’t really into it. She didn’t care- I don’t think she had the time to care. It was disappointing to me was that I didn’t really get supported or encouraged to fulfill all those interests at that wholesale café. Again, the roaster who we got our beans from was, in theory, super encouraging, but my employers were like ‘we can’t support you in doing all that. We just don’t have the infrastructure. You can go on your own time.’ But I would go and come back with new training, and my manager would say the same thing- ‘speed is important- we are too high volume, and can’t afford to hire more people.’ So it was experiencing the potential vs reality, and that was frustrating.

And then the reality of the roasting company and their encouragement; that too ended up feeling more theoretical than practical. On the ground level, in reality, it felt like a strong male-bro-dominance vibe, and was really stupid, and sort of surprising- but also not surprising at all. I think of coffee as something that is really community oriented and something that is between two friends, or groups of people coming together across culture. So to come into feeling the bro vibes was a disappointment. It was men only talking to men, seeing all white men with beards working in the higher ups, a man trained me- I just basically didn’t see any women, or queer people, and maybe one person of color somewhere in the roastery. But mostly it was pretty much the same age bracket white dude, with the same Portland aesthetic. When I would see baristas, I would see more queer people, and more creative and interesting people, and still, at that time I didn’t see a lot of baristas of color. That was problematic.  

Back at the shop, when resumes would come through and I would see a queer person, or a person of color, or a woman, come up with a resume, I would put their resume on top of the pile. To try to influence who was interviewed or hired. But unfortunately, when a person of color was hired, I saw racism acted out on him by the owner.

Another layer was that the men who were higher-ups at the roasting company, and at my coffee shop, would come into the café and would straight up not talk to me. They would only talk to the people that looked like them. I would feel patronized and it wasn’t encouraging. It didn’t feel like it was my space- it felt more like I was in their house. On the other side of that, as a nonbinary person, I would see the very feminine looking straight girls get plenty of attention. So they could then say, ‘see? We’re not sexist.’ It felt like a show.

I was at that shop for about five years. There wasn’t a lot of support or time, not a lot of guidance, so I just had to sink or swim. Even when we switched to another roaster, nothing about that looked any different. It felt like the exact same trainer, just in a different body. The same owner system, just different bodies.”

Something Leif sees as lacking in the coffee industry is support from employers for staff who want to further their coffee education. “Even if it was just twice a year, a requirement that you go to a training and we’ll mark it off that you did it, would go such a long way. Even if it was just to follow up and show that there is support. Some minimal system in place. If there was any way of that being encouraged more by the management. Rather than discouraged- I was blatantly told not to go to trainings by management because they would tell me not to do what I had learned. And this was based on nothing other than speed. The thing is though, it wouldn’t have taken any more time to make a nice-looking drink. The only reason it would have taken more time is because we needed more support in the training. There was an underestimation of my abilities, and not trusting that I could actually succeed if I had the tools. I could bang through that line just as fast, if not faster, with good looking drinks.

I think that lack of trust is based on financial fear of the small business owner. And I think that it is connected to the fact that it’s a male dominated space. A dude owns this business, and runs this business based on how other dudes runs these businesses, and so there is a narrow idea of success. There is only “one” way to do it, and ‘you can’t do it, just do it my way because you probably can’t figure this out.’ It’s just the classic system: ‘don’t bother asking us questions, don’t bother getting better, or learning.’ Which is really unfortunate because there is so much opportunity there. In some ways, sure, it’s just a job. Push the buttons and make it happen. But it could make a big difference to somebody to learn a skill, succeed at the skill, and go home. It’s such a great opportunity to foster that mentality in your employees and not just as employees- it feels good to be a person in the world and feel like you are succeeding at something. Coffee is such an accessible thing to teach someone. To cut that off is super stupid! It’s just a really big missed opportunity. That can probably be said for lots of different jobs. And lots of different skills.

Why cut that off? I mean I know why- to make more money, or to be at the top, and all the fear that could come from empowering someone. Like if I empower this woman of color or this queer person, they are going to take over the world. Or take over my job. And that’s just bull shit. Over all it makes for a better community, a better work environment, makes for a supportive group of people- to open up opportunities and create a system of support. Instead of people going damaged and drained, and underpaid and undervalued, they can go home feeling like they succeeded in something and like they are empowered to learn a skill. And can see themselves succeed with it- even if its just knowing that you made beautiful drinks today, and banged out that line, and going home feeling like you have energy for your friends and your dog and your partner, or whatever. If you invest in your baristas, take care of them, your business will grow exponentially. If that’s the goal, that would do it, and everybody wins. The owner always wins the most, but everyone else can win that way too.

After working at that café for five years, I heard of an opportunity to work, at a place, a roasting company, that I saw as offering me all the things I was lacking at my current job. I would have support, I would have education, I would have empowerment in my position as a barista, and the time to learn more about coffee and craft. I actually took a pay cut to move to this new job; it was a financial cut, but in other ways it was a raise in feeling supported and nurtured. That felt worth it to me because I was so beyond depleted by the chaos at my previous job.

Seeing this new job where, at the time, a queer woman of color was running the show- to have that and see that immediately, and to see other queer people and people of color working behind the bar at this company- it felt, to me, like a more sustainable work environment. And for a long time, working there, I did feel like I got all those things I was looking for. I didn’t go home feeling drained and with no energy.”

At this job Leif felt support both in education and also emotionally, as an employee. “I think what really made this job so good for me was the support behind the bar – customers are customers, you’re gonna have good ones, you’re gonna have bad ones- and there’s a different culture at every shop with who is coming in. But being behind the bar and feeling the lack of stress- there was organization, and systems in place to support everyone- was extremely calming. Especially in contrast to the chaos I was experiencing previously. The chaos was removed so that I could just calmly focus on what I was doing. Even something as simple as the drink set up code- that eliminated a bunch of static, chaotic noise.

But what ended up happening with that job is a very clear example in the contrast between what it looks like to have non-cis male energy in higher up management, and how completely different that environment feels from the alternative.

That incredible WoC, queer manager left the company after a few months of me working there, and everything went to shit. In the sense that everything went right back to how it used to feel at my old jobs. I went back to feeling unsupported and disposable. It was an undeniably different experience. The incredibly stark contrast between those two experiences speaks volumes to a larger issue that is rampant in the coffee industry. It feels imperative that people of color, women of color, and queer people, are a part of upper management and of creating systems. Because that’s who companies are hiring. That is who is working those jobs, so the people working should be reflected in the management. And, no, it doesn’t have to be everyone. My direct manager at that job was a white dude, but he was working under the guidance of a woman of color. That reflected in his ability to support us. Because that was his job- to do what his boss was telling him to do. It was a trickle-down effect, almost like having an interpreter.

This type of support, in addition to educational support, is very important to have, especially for non-cis male workers. My cis male coworkers had a very different experience of working in customer service. I was thinking about this- that for myself and other queers, or cis female humans, something that is very commonly discussed is sexual assault, in the sense of like ‘my abuser just walked in, I’m going to the back.’ That’s a super common thing, and us just being like, ‘we got you -we will text you when they are gone.’ And that happened all the time and I think that’s not happening for cis men. That and fielding the spectrum of very direct misogyny, to under the radar misogynistic things we all pick up on. These are experiences that employees need support with.”

Leif believes that cultivating a sustainable work environment, especially if it can be felt by customers, directly impacts the health of a business. “I think a business creates its clientele, to a certain extent. And there are so many ways to mitigate that. For me, as a customer, a café that I will return to is a space that I walk into and see a diverse group of people occupying that space. And those people don’t even have to be people I agree with, but there is a mix of people. Maybe a group of people who might not even normally mix- but there they are, enjoying their coffee. That makes me feel like I want to go in there and hang out. Or walking into a café and meeting the owner, cause they are sitting on the couch. That feels awesome, to know something about the person who owns a place. I think a level of transparency around ownership is important, rather than it just being some dude storming around behind the bar- is he the owner? Is there clarity around that?

This is a social, cultural, community, type of product. And that is what’s going on. Your product is your staff, your employees. To not be respectful of that is exploitive. Its exploitive of community, of culture. It’s pretty easy, as a customer, to see if the ownership doesn’t understand that. When companies are run off of a falsehood regarding this fact, you get poor work environments and inauthentic interactions behind the bar and with management, and that leaks out into the product and out to the customer. That’s going to attract people who don’t give a shit. And those people are going to treat your baristas like crap. They are gonna get drained, they are gonna quit, and then you’re just going to hire someone else. It’s a cycle.

Having respect for your employees, having management that actually reflects the employees- that can also be success. And that is the type of success that should matter.

If you are a coffee shop owner and you don’t understand the importance of the human interaction between customers and employees, and that the baristas are the face of your business, especially if you want to be more behind the scenes, then why are you in this business? If you can’t get behind them, and you can’t support them, you aren’t going to succeed. And if you do happen to succeed like that, you are succeeding on the back of some serious bullshit.”

Advice Leif would give to new baristas looking to get into the industry: “Look for places that have something that reflects your values. That’s where I would suggest trying to get a job. If there are learning opportunities but you need to do them on your own, go ahead and do them on your own. But, remember there is a community of people who are interested in coffee and supportive. Like podcasts, and this project. Grab a barista friend, someone who reflects your identity, and ask them to go with you to a training opportunity. Don’t feel intimidated- go ahead and get the support you need. There are resources out there for you. Know that if you do that it could open up doors for you at another job. Even if your boss isn’t investing in you, know that you can always invest in yourself.

It’s really easy to think that you’re ‘just a barista,’ or that you’re not important. But actually, its fine. It’s an awesome job, and if you do care about it, even just as a baseline interest, you can invest in it and yourself. It’s your livelihood, it’s your rent. Get the support you need.”