METROPOLITAN DIARY
Fetching Coffee
Dear Diary:
It was 2015, and I was an intern at a literary agency with offices near Union Square. My duties included reading manuscripts and fetching my boss his morning coffee.
His requests were unpredictable. A cappuccino with soy milk one day, a latte with almond milk the next. A full week of almond cappuccinos followed by several days of soy lattes. For a brief stretch, two soy cappuccinos poured into one big cup, then back to almond lattes.
I became a regular at a coffee shop around the corner, where the baristas quickly learned my face but, of course, could never master my order.
“Almond capp today?” a server would ask expectantly after several days of my having ordered exactly that.
No, I would answer apologetically. Soy latte.
One morning, as I was paying, the manager looked at me.
“OK, I have to ask,” he said. “How do you decide what you want every day?”
“Oh, these are for my boss,” I said. “I have no idea how he makes the decision.”
I laughed, but the manager seemed concerned.
“You have to get him coffee?” he asked. “Does he let you get anything for yourself?”
I paused. It had never occurred to me to ask.
Back at the office, I handed my boss his drink and walked across the hall to my desk. As I settled into the day’s reading, I sipped carefully from the large tea the manager had brewed for me, no charge.
— Drew Zagami
Above and Beyond
Dear Diary:
When I was pregnant with my first child, I took the subway to Midtown every day from my home in Brooklyn. I think I was offered a seat about half the time.
One day, I got on the train after work and there were no seats. I was ready to stand the rest of the way home.
The conductor happened to stick her head out of the cab. Seeing me, she stepped all the way out and announced in a loud, clear voice to the entire car that the train would not be moving until someone offered up a seat.
Immediately, there was a shuffling and someone stood so I could be comfortable for the trip home to Brooklyn.
Thank you to that conductor.
— Samantha Fong
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/04/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html
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