This is my first time really talking about this, so please excuse any weird phrasing.

I've also changed my name and my associate's names for privacy, as I'm sure they wouldn't want to be connected to something like this.

I used to work in a coffee shop. It was a rundown place nestled on the line between Florida and Alabama. It's situated right

beside a highway and blocked off by Linky Pines. The owners, I won't say their names due to privacy reasons,

built it after they got married 15 years ago, but grew too old to take care of it. They ended up giving it to

their snobby millennial son-in-law, who flunked out of business school four years ago. He took all of

the walls down and got rid of the stained brown carpet and yellow walls, made all four walls completely

glass and the floors white.

It looks good, better than it used to be, but completely wasted when you remember that it's a crappy coffee place

with three employees in the middle of nowhere across from an Exxon gas station.

The manager, the snobby son-in-law, we'll call him Robert, rarely came around after he realized

how slow business really was. It was kind of sad, actually. He poured all this effort into it,

only to turn out 25 or so customers a day. Now, Robert only comes in to deliver my check

where a dozen pastries to the sheriff's office a few miles down the way.

If it sounds bad, it's because it is.

I work with two other people, but they can't afford to put us all on one shift like they did before.

So now I work the night shift, coming in around 3 p.m. and leaving it around 9 p.m. or so.

We close for an hour in between each shift so we can brew more coffee and bake pastries.

My co-worker, Molly, would almost always come in late for a graveyard shift at basically 11 p.m.

But it didn't matter. Robert couldn't care less as

long as he didn't have to be there. Molly was really sweet. So today I got in around 3.15

and entertained a few guests who came in for black coffee before a football game. That brought

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