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OhJeezOhJeezOhJeez.

What a waste of a good title. Oh well, can you tell I'm nervous?

I have an interview at Starbucks this afternoon (in under four hours from now, to be exact). Funnily enough, I'm somewhat less worried about the interview itself as what might happen when I get the job.




See, the company profile emphasizes customer service and quality or some such. American Eagle is kinda nuts about customer service. Like, being friendly and real, helping customers find what they'd actually like to wear and getting them the sizes they need and outfitting them basically before they even needa ask for anything, and so on. And, given how small, low volume, and otherwise handicapped my store is, we need amazing customer service to survive. Fantastic training, really.

This also isn't my first coffee shop job. I used to work at The Gryphon Coffee Co. in Wayne, PA. When I worked there we still hand-tamped each shot of espresso and emphasized quality somewhat nuttily. Like, I once had to remake a cappuccino 3 times (for a regular, ultraloyal customer, fear not) until I got the milk foamed just right (it should look like white paint not tapioca pudding).

Also, apparently, due to manager drama/madness, this store is really really shortstaffed. "Desperate" might even be a good word here, apparently. So I should be pretty well qualified at a store that could really use some extra hands.


So what's got me scared is my usual anxiety about job-ness. That I'll fail. That I'll let them down. That I will disappoint my manager, whose esteem apparently determines my entire self-worth.

This store's downtown; it's a bit of a hike on the metro. They're opening shifts are at like 4:45am and the metro doesn't even open until 5:00 and I couldn't hope to get there before 5:40.

But even with that aside--I don't know if I trust myself enough with getting up that early to be able to make any promises. Like, I wake up at 6:30am every morning to take my meds, but usually go back to sleep until 8:30am. I've been known to wake up to 4am alarms when needed, but how certain can I be??

Do you see what I'm doing here? I'm psyching myself out. I don't even have the job yet, and I don't even know if they'll need--nay, demand--me to open, even. For all I know they'll be understanding and schedule me mostly for later in the day. For all I know I won't even get the job at this store.

Who knows! And yet I'm already freaking myself out. Over nothing. Over unestablished events and possibilities.


This is how I con myself into avoiding stuff. My terrible habits of avoidance are already fairly well documented here, I believe, but this is how it can often start. Worry, plain and simple. I'll end up skipping class for months, but start off scared of some tiny uncertainty or hesitating pathologically because of it.

It's so stupid. And it almost always turns out to be nothing--and even when the worry is fulfilled in some way I survive it, as it turns out.

So I'm going to go get ready and head out early. At the least I won't be late today and I can get a feel for the area and store and stuff. Maybe even write or pray some to distract myself.

Everything's gonna be okay. I just gotta let it.

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