8:16 am Starbucks on a Monday

For this morning’s Daily Deac, we’re all about observation.  It’s 8:16 am in Starbucks on a Monday morning and I am waiting for a meeting to start, so I am putting on my people watching hat.

I think it’s safe to say that as a general rule, your Deacs are not early birds.  I can count the students here on one hand.  There are three on the lower level who are ensconced with books and/or laptops.  A fourth just joined as I typed this.  Three young women and a young man.  The just-joined looks like she might just have been exercising.  Sweatshirt, running tights, sneakers.  I realize this might also be the just-rolled-out-of-bed look.

There is a group of folks at the back table on the lower level who look a little older.  It could be graduate students, or young faculty.  As I peek up toward the Starbucks loft, I can see a couple of students with coffee,  but most of the comfy brown leather chairs are unoccupied.  It won’t look like that at 10 or 11 am.

The young man to my left is reading a textbook that looks like it has at least 600 pages and 8 point font.  I have no idea the subject, but he is highlighting every now and again, and seems quite serious in his pen strokes.  The young man is nicely dressed: jeans, a good looking sweater.

I see a lot of young women arriving at Starbucks for to-go coffees.  The uniform of the day for women seems to be very tight fitting jeans or leggings, then boots.  Most are wearing coats and light scarves that serve more fashion than cold protection.  Boots, bare legs, and short skirts are also represented.   Two more young men have breezed through.  One was in jeans and a hoodie, the other in khakis and a button down shirt.

Even first thing on a Monday, our students are putting in the effort to look nice.  If you’ve been following our ZSRx Parents and Families online class, one of the distinctives of the Millennial generation is that they are clean cut and well presented most of the time.  If this Starbucks had been here in the early 1990s when my friends and I were here, I can promise you you would have seen an endless parade of jeans, tshirts, and a generally slacker attitude toward clothing, hair, and makeup.

There is a nice selection of bluesy music on in the background.  I expected a lot of the students might opt to wear their earbuds and listen to their own music, but so far none of them are.  They either like what they hear, or they are able to tune it out, just as they tune out the whirring of the milk steamers and the calling out of orders.

My meeting arrives and we move upstairs.  There are actually about 6 students in the loft, all sitting apart, all appear to be reading or working.  3/4 of them are young women.  None on their earbuds.  They are enjoying Robert Johnson’s blues, just as I am.

And that’s the view from the ZSR Starbucks from 8:16-8:30 Monday.

Calm.

Quiet.

Bluesy.

Well-dressed.

And boots everywhere.