In a cafe's storage room, I read an article by a food writer who listed ‘the 20 most annoying things servers do at restaurants’.

The listing included a number of salient points, like when a waiter squats to eye level beside you to take an order as if he’s about to give a pep talk for an Oz Kick team. Or when a waitress asks “do you know how the restaurant works?”, which, he argues, is code for ‘Do you know we came up with our own bootleg version of tapas so that you can spend more?”

I haven’t committed any of those malpractices, I believed. After working as a barista for eight years, I like to think I’ve grasped the customs of customer service.

Not only from working behind the bench but from the other side, too, as a part-time journalist whose job was to review cafes and write articles like ‘the 20 most annoying things servers do at restaurants’.

Understanding the realities of both sides has fostered an acute awareness. I know as well as anyone the pain of waiting a long time for a takeaway cappuccino before work, of a dry sandwich from the cabinet, or when a server mixes up a long black with a long Mac.

That is why I agreed with the food writer’s number one most annoying thing a server can do, which was to be negligent. He went on, describing that he’d rather an ‘upselling, wine-spilling creep’ than someone who simply ignores customers.

It was then that I decided to get back to work in the cafe. I put my phone in my pocket and my apron back on and walked out of the storage room, the premier spot to hide from customers, and behind the counter. The few minutes of absence had led to a long line of people impatiently waiting to order.

Before attending to the customers, though, I asked the barista, who had a thick pile of unmade docket orders, if he needed help. We were the only two workers that day.

“Do you mind getting more sugar?” he said. “A guy just double dipped.”

“What?” I asked.

“He double dipped,” he said.

A lady at the front of the line interrupted. “Excuse me,” she said, obviously irritated.

“I’ll be with you in a second,” I said to the customer, rolling my eyes, then turned back to the barista.“ You mean he stirred the sugar and then put it back in the sugar?” I pointed to a jar next to the coffee machine reserved for the baristas.

“And he licked the spoon,” he said.

“He licked the foam off the spoon then put it back in the sugar?”

“Yep,” he said matter-of-factly, although I could tell he was fuming. I was, too. I mean, what person in his right mind could think that’s a perfectly okay thing to do in a cafe?

“That’s not cool,” I said.

"I know," he said. "There needs to be more awareness about what it’s like on our side of the bench," he said. “Then people would think twice about doing stuff like that’

I began reminiscing. Stories of cafe mishaps came back to me unbidden. There were plenty. I was daydreaming about one in particular (which involved my brother nude in a cafe) when I heard a cough. It was one of those fake coughs that attention seeking people do to let others around them know they’re there.

I turned to the offender. The lady at the front counter was, after all that, still waiting to order a morning coffee at the counter. “Sorry,” I said. “What can I get you today?”

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