It was already a long day.
There was a special circle in hell designed for managers who scheduled students who're supposed to be cramming for exams to open god-damned coffee shops. There
had to be, otherwise Oliver might as well give the fuck up and go live out his life growing weed in the basement like the drop-outs back home. As he started out in utter dismay at the morning rush bustling towards the shop, all he could do was thank his lucky stars that he hadn't been schedule to open
and work the damn place by himself today.
(Yes. Yes that had happened before.)Downside was that the person currently working the register was his manager. Bright side was he wasn't working the register.
Somehow, Oliver managed not to wince (too obviously) as he overheard a long, drawn-out, complicated order being aimed at said managed and quickly handed his way. He took in a deep breath, staring at the cup waiting for him in no small amount of horror as he finished up the drinks he was currently blending together. Oliver glanced at the pair at the register only once, grateful that at least one of them wasn't clearly overcompensating for a lack of personality with complicated drink orders (not that they weren't both overcompensating for something, jesus christ), before getting to work. Considering that this drink required about twice the number of steps as their most complicated on-menu items, he was not fucking appreciating the tapping foot and clearly impatient old lady stare that was being directed at him while he tried to put together flavors that ought not be put together.
Maybe it was that stare that did him in. Maybe it was just general stress, or the 1.9 hours of sleep he'd gotten the night before, or maybe their machines were so fucking old it was a miracle they hadn't exploded years ago. Whatever the reason was, nothing would change the fact that, while Oliver was attempting to make this old bat's drink, somehow all he accomplished was spilling a half gallon of milk all over the counter and spraying steaming cream directly at her blouse, miraculously missing the guy she had in an apparent death grip.
Fuck.
There was approximately 2.4 seconds (he counted them) of utter silence before the noise started. The lady was ranting and raving, his manager was bursting a blood vessel between yelling at him and trying to kiss her ass, and there he was, in the fucking middle of it, dripping dairy products and contemplating the pros/cons of throwing himself at the nearest window and hoping for the best.
"This is the last time I hire a good-for-nothing student who can't even handle making one drink!"Ok, wait, rewind. What the fuck?
"Hey! This is the first time I've spilled
anything since I started!" Oliver finally spoke up for himself, straightening up to his full 5'6'' (not that it did him much good), a manic sort of gleam in his eyes only found in the very angry and very, very exhausted. It was especially manic considering that he was both. "And I
told you last week that the machines needed more than just a good cleaning! It's been falling apart for months! I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner! We shouldn't even be doing
simple drinks with this shit, much less that
abomination of processed milk she ordered!"
The satisfaction at yelling at his boss only lasted the time it too for
"YOU'RE FIRED!" to be shouted and/or spat in his face. Oliver shrunk back, somewhat, before realizing that being spectacularly fired in the middle of morning rush meant that he could just leave the copious amounts of liquid products decorating the counters, floors, and customers for his boss to clean him. And not him. That knowledge alone was enough for him to squared his shoulders, roll his eyes, throw his soaking apron in his manager's red face, and saunter out of the coffee shop as if he shoes weren't making pathetic
squish-squelch noised with every step he took.
Fuck today. He was going home, he was going to take a shower, and then he was going to sleep until his afternoon lecture.