Today at Greggs
Today the Greggs staff were all boys/men, no girls/women there were 2 guys one who knows what’s what and one whom i didn’t recognise and didn’t seem ready, the one who didn’t seem ready approached Peter to serve. Peter asked for a black coffee in a regular size whilst making an accompanying hand gesture depicting what felt like an accurate regular size space in height between his hands due to a semi-conscious sense that he might give him a large. A large doesn’t taste as if there is any extra coffee, but rather just seems to result in a more diluted coffee and is just generally too big.
A regular in a more dedicated espresso bar or coffee house would be a much smaller size than a regular in a Greggs. A Greggs regular would maybe be even bigger than a large in those types of places. In these proper coffee places, they would often offer a regular in a tone Peter interpreted as the barista offering the opportunity to make the connoisseurs choice of the shorter stronger coffee. This suspicion had been confirmed twice by 2 different baristas making remarks like good choice when he opted in for the perceived recommendation. No such implications or situations ever happened in Greggs, the lack of these kind of situations, low price, and that one of the girls would give him his coffee and sometimes a pasty for free was what made going there the standout choice for his repeat morning patronage. The young chap serving Peter was one of those tall ones who seemed unintelligent within the context of their job performance at Greggs but was probably rather intelligent in their correct context and is likely undergoing studies at the nearby university doing something like international business major with French BSC, or Medical Chemistry, maybe with rowing as an extracurricular activity.
He was the type of young Man that may neglect to line up the seam of the cup with the point indicated on the lid. The optimal placement of the lid places the mouthpiece sipping hole 180° parallel to the seam of the paper cup. The small steam hole vent that prevents the occurrence of a vacuum should typically also fall in line with the seam.
If you are ever drinking from a takeaway coffee cup and each time you take a sip a small amount of the liquid contents drips out, the cause is less likely to be the structural integrity of either the cup or the lid, but rather the placement of the lid in relation to the seam of the cup. If the paper cups seam underneath the lid is directly in line with or is in too close a proximity to the hole in the lid through which you drink, the cups seam on the rim will form a channel carrying the hot liquid content over the breach from the internal housing of the cup to the external causing drippage. His mind just didn’t seem focused on the subtle but infinite minutia of the Greggs customer experience or lacked the crucial element of fluency that necessitates consumer satisfaction.
Once the transaction was processed and the young man placed the coffee on the counter Peter asked for a new loyalty card which the young man proceeded to hand over completely blank not thinking that the coffee Peter had just purchased constitutes at least one stamp. Peter made no mention of the lack of Greggs insignia branded loyalty stamp, just said thank you very much and left. The lack of any stamp will likely enhance the chances of multiple stamps being given by whoever serves him next time he thought to himself.