Suits were coming to take hold of their daily coffee fix. A dusty wide-striped navy coupled with once-fashionable leather shoes orders a flat white. He might as well demand a skinny latte with extra foam and a pinch of chocolate powder on the side. These corporate sharks constantly climbing their socially twisted career ladders are as posh about their cuppa’ as domestic matrons are fussy over their precious chicks. All of this to make another statement of ambition, as well as outline their possibilities to have small things done to their liking.
A pair of silver-haired gentlemen take a seat nearest to the main entrance, subconsciously or consciously making apparent their time is not to be wasted. Tightly gripping their files or placing them gently next to their coffee cups to make maximum use of any free moment they might get to go over meeting reports and competition statements or pitch an idea to a superior they have managed to lure for an ‘informal chat’.
Every now and then a female enters. She might be leveraging her macchiato with proudly exhibited legs on “10 heels looking down on the many male colleagues already settled with their one-shot lattes with three brown sugars. They are trying to stay healthy, you know. She hands over a £10 bill and walks away without accepting change. She empathises with the long hours and aching feet of that weary-looking waitress putting in the extra effort to afford that fourth term at uni, yet does not appreciate being caught red-handed having such a sentiment. No one ever made it easy for her but the line of her bright red lips says she has made peace and big bucks despite.
Another female, lively chatting to a male companion ignoring the inconspicuous frown of the long legged and lean corporate black panther. She quickly orders a hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows on top as loud as she can, rumbles in her wallet for the exact change and takes a seat in the most comfortable cushioned chair available. She does not tip, she does not spare a glance to other suits and she does not make apologies. She is who she is and makes sure everyone knows it.
The barista, meanwhile, juggles between wry smiles, every type of coffee imaginable and lemon cheesecakes. She takes your money, she smiles. She offers you biscuits, she smiles. She gives you back change, she smiles. She turns to the next customer, she smiles. A twelve- hour shift on her feet, followed by at least four hours of revision and cramming, followed by four hours of sleep, followed by six hours of lectures. There are not enough hours in a day. She is a robot but a smiling one at that.
There are statements to be made of each and every one of them. They are not without past mistakes, future success and families back home in Surrey. “Your accent is too posh to order a flat white.” I want to say to the suit standing before me but I hold my tongue as he drops a picture of his grey-haired mother and two children sitting on those same shoulders I see humped before me and because for all I know, he might have read “Ruf Ruf the Rabbit” as a bed time story to his children and made funny bunny voices to go with it. That is not posh, that is a suit with a story in its pockets or more likely, in its sleeves.
