How To Not Suck At A Cafe

So, as most of you would be aware, I work at a cafe, and have been for the last four or five months.

Working in the hospitality industry has opened my eyes to SO MANY NEW AND WONDERFUL THINGS!!!!
I have wanted to write about this for soooooo long but I just never had a chance to.

So I'm doing it now.

Here goes.



I have compiled a few do's and don'ts for EVERYONE who frequents cafes. Since most people will visit a cafe at least one in a blue moon, THIS BLOG POST IS FOR EVERYONE!
And I hope you will not read it and do the opposite of what I am saying, because that is just childish and silly. And I can promise you that the cafe staff will be stabbing you in their minds.




First off.
Some of the most ANNOYING THINGS EVER for cafe staff to have to deal with are the following:




1. Full water glasses/cups left on tables
Whhhhyyyyyy?!?!?!?! You got the water, can you please please PLEASE just drink it???? I understand if you misjudged the level of water you poured yourself, but WHY do you have to leave a FULL GLASS OF WATER ON THE TABLE?!

Now I have to make multiple trips to take all of your flippin' glasses to the kitchen. You could have at least tried to drink some of it. Water is good for you, and no one really drinks enough of it. So before you get up and leave your filthy table covered in dishes, could you just drink the water in the glass?
Thanks, hun.






2. Chairs that are pushed out half a mile from the table
I know you're in a rush to leave the cafe, clearly, but you have two seconds to push the chair in under the table don't you? Oh, you don't? And you'd rather just get up and leave the chair out in the middle of the gaps between the tables causing a very dangerous hazard for people trying to carry their arms full of dishes back to the kitchen? It is very much appreciated.
PUSH IN YOUR FLIPPIN' CHAIRS PLEASE! Its common courtesy.






3. People who sit on dirty tables when there are a billion clean tables to choose from.
Honestly, why? Just PLEASE tell me what reason you have for possibly doing this?????? I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!!
You realise I didn't have a chance to wipe down that table yet, WHY ARE YOU SITTING AT IT?!?!?!
Oh, you're going to complain to me now about the table being dirty? That is just fantastic <3
I won't point out all the sparkly clean tables around you that you could have sat at instead, because you're the customer and you're always right.






4. People who buy something and then don't eat it.
The amount of wasted food in the cafe is absolutely disgusting.
What happened to the whole " there are starving kids in Africa so finish your meal"?
I understand if you eat the majority of the food and then you leave a little because its just too much food, but you barely touched your Pasta/Burger/Fries/Slice/Muffin/Sandwich.
You can always ask us for a takeaway container or bag if you can't finish it. You paid for it. Why do you want to just throw your money away?
I don't understand.
If the food is terrible you should tell us.





5. People who let their kids create a gigantic, disgusting mess and don't even bother to try and contain it.
They are your kids, you could at least try to help us keep the place at least minimally tidy. Kids are unbelievably messy. Letting them pour their fluffy's all over the table is really unhelpful. We have napkins at your disposal. You could at least TRY to clean up after them a bit. I know its our job to clean up after you but have a little consideration for the poor cafe staff that are constantly cleaning up after people's kids.






6. People getting mad at slow food/coffee deliveries when the cafe is insanely busy.
If you wanted your food and coffee in 3 minutes, you should have gone to McDonald's. There is only so much we can do in the time that we have. We are trying out best. Please don't yell at us because its not our fault and we're doing the best that we can :(





That's all I can think of at the moment. I will more than likely add to this list.
Thanks for reading and I hope it has opened your eyes a wee bit :)


LOTS OF LOVE FROM ME! <3


(I'm not always this rant-y. It has been a super long day and I NEED A DAY OFF)

I Don't Like Chocolate

Ello blog,

I felt compelled to write this. I wanted to, but wasn't sure. Then my flatmate Katie said I should definitely do it, so now I am.
I am listening to some awesome praise music while I'm writing this so there is a chance I will get distracted and not make proper sentence structures. I am also sitting in the living room while Katie makes her dinner, so there is also that contributing factor to me potentially not making any sense.

Is it rude of me to write this while I'm in a room with her? She probably wouldn't think so. Well she told me to write this so I'd say no.




So, chocolate.

Girls go crazy over the stuff.

Most of my friends, Joella especially, are clear examples of this.

If she gets given chocolate, it is demolished in a matter of minutes, or collection of minutes, depending on the size. Off the top of my head I know that Chloe is the same.
Goodbye chocolate, it was nice knowing you.




This is NOT the case with me.

People give me chocolate, four months later, it is still sitting on my desk, unopened.

I don't want to eat it.
I don't feel like eating it, ever.
If I end up eating it, its only because I figure I ought to. Like the chocolate would feel bad if I didn't eat it after four months of it just sitting there.




Chocolate is also a great gift idea, I'm sure you know this.

People give me chocolate as a present.

I don't eat it.

Well, that's not true. Sometimes I'll have one piece every few days, if its expensive chocolate, like those Belgian ones. Or Ferrero Rocher.



If its a slab of chocolate (like the Black Forest one sitting in my flat's treat cupboard for the past two months) it will not be consumed.



I buy chocolate, thinking I will want it as a nice treat sometime, and then that time never comes.

I don't like chocolate.

At all.

Its average.

How are people so obsessed with it??????

Sometimes I accept people's offers of chocolate because I just want to fit in and be like everyone else. But if I'm being honest, I don't really want it.



Last year I used to give all my chocolate to my friend Matt because I didn't want it.

I still don't want the chocolate I somehow obtain. Seriously, who wants it? Because I don't. SO MANY CHOCOLATES IN MY ROOM THAT I WILL TAKE A WHOLE YEAR TO EAT!!!




I will be frank, there are certain TIMES OF THE MONTH when I do crave a bit of the ol' chocolate, but these moments are few and far between. I realise now its not enough to warrant a trip to the supermarket. One time I wanted Tim Tam slams SO BADLY that I went out and got some. But this has only happened once.

That packet of Tim Tam's still has a singular Tim Tam waiting to be consumed. I had the pack with only two biscuits removed sitting in my bedside table for many months. I slowly made my way through the packet over the last month. Slamming three Tim Tams at a time. But the last one has been in there for a while. And I don't want to eat it.





Its like the Black Forest that I had offered to people back in.. March? We ate the first two rows while watching a movie, then I put it away and never had any more of it.

I don't want it.


I guess you are getting the picture.

Martz does not like chocolate.

I tell people this and they still buy it for me.

They forget I am a rare breed of girl that does not enjoy chocolate... / a rare breed of human.

I must be very strange to not like the stuff.







You must understand that I do not have a sweet tooth.
I have a salty one.

Put a hunk of biltong in front of me, a piece of soy-drenched sushi or another savoury treat of some description and I will surely devour it.

That's why I eat all the chips, you see.
Because I don't want to eat the chocolate.

I should have named this blog "The Girl That Doesn't Eat Chocolate", maybe people would give it to me less then.




But anyway, its still nice that people want to give me presents so I'm thankful. But please, if you can help it, don't insult me by offering chocolate to me. Instead, why don't you help me out and take the chocolate off my hands?? :)

Because I don't want it.

Like, actually.




When I finally get married one day, I hope my husband will never buy me chocolate.
Instead, he can give me a box of savouries. I prefer the spring rolls to the samosas, but both will do.

Chocolate I will never eat

Tell me, do you feel like eating chocolate now after seeing all those pictures of chocolate? Because I don't ;)

University And What I Never Told You

Hi everyone!

It feels like its been awhile since my last post but it probably hasn't...

I'm back in Kaitaia for a few more days so I thought I would finally write my POST-GRADUATION BLOG ENTRY!!! It has been brewing in my mind ever since the auspicious occasion, some ten days ago.

So yes. Here it is. The picture above, taken by the lovely Aimee Storm, features my parents and me in front of the famous Otago University clocktower. It is essential for every Otago Uni graduate to get a photo in front of it, so I did. Even though I find it extremely cliche and overdone, I relented in following this trend.

My four years at University were some of my best.

I wouldn't say they were the best years of my life, because that is super depressing considering they are now over, but they were definitely essential.

Before going to Uni I was extremely ... what's the best word to describe it... pathetic?

I would refuse to walk anywhere by myself. I had never driven a long distance or flown on a plane by myself. I HATED talking on the telephone and actually cried before my Mum forced me to call the StudyLink people a few months before I moved to Dunedin.

I was still very much a child.

As for the singing, well, I could barely manage to sing above a whisper. I was quite happy to sing along to songs in the car, but if you asked me to sing without music or along with a guitar, I found it EXTREMELY difficult. I refused to sing in front of strangers.

My secondary school did not adequately prepare me for the workload of Uni, but I seemed to manage.

At the beginning of my first year I used to do ALL my readings. I thought that's what you did at University. You took it seriously.

I quickly realised that you didn't need to do the readings to pass. Especially not with Film and Media Studies. A lot of the things I was reading about were never even mentioned in class.

HOW WAS THIS RELEVANT?!?!

I spent so many hours learning about the history of the media, how newspapers were invented and changed over time, bla bla bla (I forgot everything now, clearly). But the moral of the story was: I didn't have to do my readings. So I stopped. And I only did them if I specifically had to for an assignment.

Uni got a lot more fun at that point.

Most of you have heard tidbits of my drinking escapades. Its no secret I drank too much in my first year and the first half of my second year, but I still did alright in my studies.

I still wasn't doing all my readings and I could easily maintain a B+ average.

My proudest moment in my first year was when I wrote an essay on a film I had never watched.

I got an A.

It was things like that which made it seem like I didn't have to try that hard.

I probably should have, but I didn't.

This carried on through my second and third years. I did still try, don't get me wrong. And I studied hard. I always did my assignments and the readings necessary for them, but I tried to do the minimal amount that I could. Only because I knew that I could do it and still get good marks.

I NEVER handed an assignment in late.

I also NEVER pulled an all-nighter.

I also NEVER failed a paper.

I also NEVER got lower than a B- for a paper.

So, as you can see, I was still trying. I could have tried harder, but I didn't want to.

As a film student, I was required to watch, usually, four films a week (ones that they gave you on a list).

But I didn't always do that.

To this day there were films that I was interested to watch, that I was SUPPOSED TO WATCH, that I didn't.

And I would reference them and write about them as if I had watched them, but I never did.

This is probably making me look really bad...

I'm not trying to condone lying. I guess what I am trying to point out in this blog is that it is possible to get by pretending like you know what you're talking about, but you have to be careful.

I would have preferred if I had done all the work, but I just really couldn't be bothered.

Everything changed in Fourth Year.

All my previous techniques were no longer valid.

I HAD to do all my readings.

I HAD to watch every single movie.

The bare minimum was no longer enough to get me through.

WHAT A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM!

The reason fourth year was so hard was because I wasn't used to doing all the work that I now had to do.

As most of you would know, I struggled BIG TIME! But in the end I did the best that I could.

And maybe it wasn't good enough, but I tried.

I guess it shows that I got what I deserved in the end.

My dad likes to tell me that coming to University was a waste. But I think that is a straight-up lie.

I have met my best friends for life at Uni. I really believe that.

People like Briar, and Joella, and countless others, who never fail to be there for me when I really need them.

I wouldn't have met them if I didn't come to Dunedin.

I also never would have gotten the confidence to start writing the music that I'm writing now, or even sing in front of people.

And I wouldn't be that crazy ex-film student who has something to say about almost every film, and why or why not it works in terms of its character-development and use of motifs.

So thanks Otago University.

I know I was a questionable half-assed student at times, but I tried my best in the end.

And that's all you can ask for.

I have my shiny degree now, and even though I have divulged all my secrets, you can't take it away from me.

:) x