Barista Memes

Abstract

Last year during a particularly hard winter I was invited to a (now defunct) private Instagram chat group of femme and trans baristas.  We logged on mornings at 6AM to wish one another a good morning and swapped anecdotes of misogyny and appalling customer behaviour in the workplace.  I considered this a form of free group therapy. Another coping strategy I used was making memes at work. To ferment is to seethe with agitation or excitement, to work up, or to incite (trouble or disorder).  I’m not supposed to ferment at work.  My memes are about what I wish I could say to customers but am unable to do because my position in customer service requires amenability and a friendly attitude.  My Instagram account becomes a repository for the frustrations and anxieties that arise during a shift. I can post flippant content on the internet without feeling the need to contextualize or provide nuance because I have an audience who shares similar politics and/or work experiences.

Résumé

L’année dernière, alors que l’hiver était particulièrement rude, j’ai été invitée à participer à un groupe de discussion privé (désormais démantelé) avec des femmes baristas et des baristas trans. On se connectait le matin à 6 h pour se saluer et échanger des histoires de comportements misogynes et odieux de la part de certains clients dans notre milieu de travail. Je considérais nos conversations comme une forme de thérapie de groupe. Incidemment, j’avais trouvé une autre façon de gérer ce genre de situations en faisant des mimiques au travail. Le mot fermenter signifie fulminer de manière agitée ou excitée, fomenter le trouble ou le désordre, ou les inciter. Je ne suis pas censée fermenter au travail. Et mes mimiques imitent les répliques que j’aimerais donner à certains clients, mais que je dois réprimer, car le service à la clientèle exige de ma part une attitude aimable et courtoise.  Mon compte Instagram est devenu un recueil de frustrations et d’angoisses vécues durant mon quart de travail. L’Internet me permet d’afficher des messages teintés d’arrogance sans pour autant ressentir le besoin d’en donner le contexte ou de nuancer, car mon auditoire vit aussi des expériences de travail semblables aux miennes.

Last year during a particularly hard winter I was invited to a (now defunct) private Instagram chat group of femme and trans baristas.  We logged on mornings at 6AM to wish one another a good morning and swapped anecdotes of misogyny and appalling customer behaviour in the workplace.  I considered this a form of free group therapy:

“[laugh-cry emoji] [handclap emoji]”

“Lol yes.”  

“I like a lot.”  

“Relatable content.”  

“Same.”

“Lmao.”

“[laugh-cry emoji] [laugh-cry emoji] [laugh-cry emoji]”

“Lolololol.”

“My hero!!!”

“So good!”

Another coping strategy I used was making memes at work. Like the commentary I shared with my barista chat group, my memes affect a greater visual public as well. They travel in ways that I cannot.  The supportive space that I’ve cultivated online cannot disrupt the negative interactions I experience while working but it does validate my frustration, my anger, my hurt.  Service industry work is precarious and often without benefits so we need to rely on informal systems of care. Women and trans people have always cultivated these networks and with our current economic shift towards the tertiary (or service) sector — what has been described as the feminization of the economy — we are simultaneously experiencing more abuse from the general-public-as-clientele and a dwindling of “the elements of the social democratic good-life fantasy — job security, health and retirement benefits, steady hours, a living wage, vacation, weekly nonwork time, among others[…].”[1] In other words, it is “impossible to write about precarity without writing about gender because undifferentiated labor is reforming along these lines.”[2]

To ferment is to seethe with agitation or excitement, to work up, or to incite (trouble or disorder).  I’m not supposed to ferment at work.  My memes are about what I wish I could say to customers but am unable to do because my position in customer service requires amenability and a friendly attitude. This subversion is a contemporary iteration of travail de la perruque, an expression conceived by French scholar Michel de Certeau and used to describe personal work that happens during/is disguised as work hours.[3] Social media can serve as a repository for the frustrations and anxieties that arise during a shift. I can post flippant content on the internet without feeling the need to contextualize or provide nuance because the majority of my followers are navigating similar circumstances.  The hyperindividualism of late capitalism functions to break down of class solidarity yet to open a dialogue is to be an agent of fermentation.

Figure 1

Barista Memes #1, copyright Elise Boudreau Graham, 2017

Figure 2

Barista Memes #2, copyright Elise Boudreau Graham, 2017

Figure 3

Barista Memes #3, copyright Elise Boudreau Graham, 2017

Figure 4

Barista Memes #4, copyright Elise Boudreau Graham, 2017

Notes

• [1] Malcolm Harris, “Working Beauty,” The New Inquiry, Feb. 12, 2012, https://thenewinquiry.com/working-beauty/
• [2] ibid.
• [3] Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).