Workplace 31 - Barista for a Day

A while ago a couple of enterprising Brisbanites set up a website called PloyMe. It matched up employers and staff that were just looking to cover shifts. One-offs and short term jobs only. Was pretty fun if you were just looking for something to fill in time here and there.

This is how I found that Moray café in New Farm were looking for a barista for one day. It was a public holiday  – I can’t remember which one - but they were expecting it to be busy and couldn’t cover it with their usual staff.

So I rocked up there nice and early, got the lay of the place. It was really quiet, only one other staff member and the chef in the café. Made a few coffees and got to know how it worked for about an hour before one of the owners dropped by and mentioned that I was supposed to be there next week, not today. Oops.

I worked for another half hour or so then some cash in hand and off I went, an unexpected day for myself.

The next week I went back to a very different café. It was CRAZY busy, everything was manic. As with most cafés that are used to being quiet and suddenly found themselves with a line out the door, it wasn’t going great. We were running out of everything from clean cups to pasta, the owners were desperately trying to split up tables to make more space, sometimes with people at them and orders were flying everywhere. Pandemonium. I was absolutely swamped with orders and constantly running out of cups/spoons/beans… the café wasn’t prepared for this! I’m pretty certain they didn’t actually own enough coffee cups and mugs for the number of people suddenly in the venue so coffees were held up waiting for tables to be cleared by the frantic wait staff so I could get some clean cups. This went on for about 6 hours.

Needless to say I was very glad to get out of there mid afternoon and head home, my earned cash safe in my wallet. I’m sure it’s a lovely café on a quiet Tuesday afternoon but unless a lot has changed in the last few years, definitely to be avoided any public holiday.

Another feature of PloyMe was that employers could leave comments/reviews on you to give future employers an idea of what you were in for. According to Moray Café I was not very suitable for working in a café environment as they’d received complaints about how long people had had to wait for their coffees. Clearly this was my fault which I felt was a bit unfair.

Anyway, lovely location and generally pretty cruisy, Moray café might be delightful to work at usually. And PloyMe is a lot of fun if you’re just looking for random shifts here and there.