I'm sitting here in this messy room on the third floor overlooking the tiny valley with a view of just the corner of Lake Washington from the balcony. It's home.
It's been nearly four years since I left Montana and I literally can't imagine anything different anymore. Everything has panned out in a way I never could have imagined and my FOMO (which has become it's own internet acronym now) seems silly and ill-placed. I realize that fear was completely internal; it was a fear of growing up and becoming a real person.
I grew up.
And I still have a long way to go.
But that's a different story.
What I'm really thinking about at 2 am (which is WAY past my bedtime especially since I have to be up at 3:30 some days) is coffee. It's a thing I think a lot about these days for sundry reasons.
I'm also thinking about how I need to put away my laundry and vacuum, how I'm going to work out tomorrow if my knee is still aching, and when, oh, when I'm going to carve out time to call my grandparents. But I'm listening to Postal Service on Pandora and it's really putting me in a funny mood. Somehow nostalgic and forward-looking at the same time.
And let's talk about how Ben Gibbard married Zooey Deschanel and they lived in Seattle for a chunk of time in those apartments on Capitol Hill. But that's also beside the point.
I think I've maybe made a decision about my life. There are obviously no guarantees but it's funny how sometimes things just work out. I've made a very intentional effort to move forward. I've been stagnant for some time. Even in moving forward I've been stagnant. I've done what I've had to do to stay on top, always being the best, always doing the next thing in the line of things I'm doing to impress whoever I need to impress.
But this time I stopped.
I stopped and considered my position. Where I was, who was around me, where I could go. I stopped unintentionally moving forward so I could change direction, maybe somewhere I actually want to be. People keep asking me: "When are you going to be an ASM?" "How long until you have your own store? You would be a great store manager." "Are you going to stay at this store?"
Never. Never am I going to do these things that are in the immediate line of what I'm already doing.
Does that answer your question?
I am in this hub, this coffee hub. I often forget the magnitude of the company I work for. My sight line can be so small: register to bar, oven to hand-off plane, cup to mouth. But when I hear things like, "Howard mentioned your store at Shareholders last week and oh, he'll probably be in within the next 1-3 months," (Thank you for that excellent time frame, that's something I can really prepare for) it really reminds me of where I am.
Howard is the last person I have to meet. I've met and trained the VP of Retail, made a poor quality cappuccino for the President of Starbucks America and accidentally pawned the mistake on someone else, had a lively debate with the President of Starbucks Canada. I usually underestimate the significance of the things that are happening around me, it's so routine. It's like there's this constant buzzing but I'm so used to it I don't hear it anymore.
So I'm listening, I'm stopping and taking a different path. One that I might have to carve out for myself a little bit. I'm not following everyone's advice. I have a plan. I'm making it happen. I'm learning the ways to get ahead in this company and in business. I hate it; I think it has nothing to do with real skill but I'm playing their game. I'm networking. I'm setting up meetings at corporate and being strategic in who I meet and when and what paths to cross to make the networking stronger. I'm name-dropping. I'm schmoozing. It might be something I'm really good at, but then, I've always known that. I've been in customer service for 8 years and I've schmoozed my whole way through and impressed a lot of people. Now I'm schmoozing with a purpose. I'm thinking about coffee and what coffee can do for me. I have a goal and I have a plan.
It's funny that now I have some solid idea, everyone is telling me it's the wrong thing, the wrong path.
I've never been more excited to prove everyone wrong.
I have a meeting at corporate in about a month with a guy in the Global Coffee department. I'm going to get a time frame and an idea of where I can actually fit and how I can get to where I eventually want to be. Because I think I know that.
Do I know what I want to be when I grow up? No. I probably never will. But I think I've found something I would love doing, that would keep me fully engaged and excited, and would challenge me. Something I may have to work for. I've always done things because I've been good at them; I want to do something because I want to do it.
And herein lies the challenge: a future of my own design, and one that I might actually want.
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