“Excuse me. Excuse me, young man?”

Karl Bowden blinked and looked at the lady who had approached the counter. She was wearing a navy business suit and a deep scowl. One of the morning commuters from out of town, she had her coffee cup gripped tightly in her well-manicured hand.

He put on his best rich-customer smile (which was a lot different from the smile he reserved for everyone else) and said, “How can I help you?” He only died a little on the inside when he heard the lilt in his voice.

“This is all wrong,” she said. Her words were brisk and clipped. A woman who was used to being obeyed. “I ordered an iced half-caf ristretto venti 4-pump sugar free cinnamon dolce almond skinny latte, but this is a soy skinny latte.”

She said it so fast that it took a second for his brain to catch up. He looked down at her cup, at the computer-printed label on its side.

Be nice, he told himself. Just because she was ordering a complicated coffee, and just because she was clearly far wealthier than he would ever be, didn’t mean she was a bad person. He could handle this.

Besides, it was my mistake.

Except it wasn’t. Perky Pete’s Percolatorium prided itself on its complex coffee drinks, trying desperately to keep up with those larger, better-known chains, but feeding its customers more and more complicated sugar swill meant longer and longer orders for the baristas to navigate. If you got more than two orders wrong a day, you got docked. It was a system designed to make mistakes, a conspiracy against the worker, a capitalist plot to—

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Here, let me remake that for you.”

Whew. He’d managed to be nice. Mission accomplished.

“I’m running late for a meeting,” she said, “so I really needed you to get this right the first time.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Karl saw the morning manager, Dewey, wiping down the pastry counter.

He looks busy, but he’s listening in. Keep being nice.

It was hard.

“Absolutely, ma’am, sorry to keep you waiting,” Karl said.

Before he could reach for a new cup, she muttered something under her breath.

“Pardon?” he asked.

“I said I don’t have time for this.” She tapped those manicured nails on the counter.

He took his hand off the cup he’d been reaching for. Be nice. “So you’d like to cancel the order?”

“No, I would like you to make it now, and make it correctly, and stop wasting my time! I’m very late!”

Be nice! “Sorry, when you said you didn’t have time—”

“Make. The. Coffee.”

He picked up the empty cup and walked to the espresso machine, painfully aware that both she and the manager were watching. Grind, grind, hiss, hiss, pump, pump. It’s not that different from porn, when you think about it.

But making jokes to himself wasn’t helping, and he tried to concentrate so he wouldn’t screw up this order.

“Young man, I’m waiting.”

“Be finished in a second, ma’am,” he said.

Wait. Had he done three pumps of syrup, or four? She’d distracted him. Oh hell. He glanced over at her, and did one final pump, just for safety.

Under her agitated glare, he brought the cup back over to her. “Here you are,” he said. “And again, sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Young man,” she said, her voice chilly. “I clearly said four pumps. Not five.”

His jaw hung open. Now Dewey was making no effort to hide the fact that he was watching Karl; the manager was staring right at him.

“I…five? I’m pretty sure it was four, ma’am.”

“Perhaps your elementary school education was interrupted on the day they taught counting,” she said.

He took a deep breath. He could handle this. He’d promised his whole family, no more blowing up on jobs, no more getting fired. Just be nice and make her the damned coffee again, and don’t worry if your pay gets docked.

“The thing is,” he said, “the pumps are sugar-free, so it’s not really adding extra calories to the cup, and honestly the syrups are so sickly-sweet that you can’t taste the difference between one pump and five, so basically—”

Dewey was at his side in an instant. “Karl, I’ll take over from here.”

The customer said, “I cannot believe you are wasting my time arguing about my order! Maybe if you’d gotten it right to begin with—”

“If your time is so important, why don’t you order something simple?” said Karl, horrified to hear the words coming out, but unable to stop them. “A black coffee with a packet of sweetener would’ve taken thirty seconds, and you could have been at whatever meeting you’re going to that is so much more important than anything in my morning, since I only exist to serve your disgusting appetites--”

“KARL!” shouted Dewey.

The entire place went quiet.

Oh hell, oh hell, oh hell.

“To my office, Karl. I’ll talk to you in a second.”

“Okay, Dewey.”

Dewey’s office was a chair back in the storeroom. Just the one chair, so there was nowhere for Karl to sit. He felt like the defendant in a trial.

“You know you can’t talk to customers like that,” Dewey said. “Their money is what keeps Perky Pete’s going.”

“Their money. What did she do to earn that money? You know she’s just going to sit in a board-room scowling at a powerpoint, acting like she’s making life-or-death decisions, Dewey. She’s nothing. She’s a parasite.”

“She’s a paying customer, no matter what your political opinions are, and she deserves our respect.”

“Dude, did you hear her voice? What about the respect I deserve?”

Dewey looked pained. “You have worked here for three months. When you’ve been here as long as the other guys out front, we can talk about respect.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not like this is a career. Do you expect me to be sixty years old, still serving these creeps who come in to take advantage of the underpaid labor of an entire supply chain, these people who are dumb enough to think fair trade coffee is actually a thing that exists, instead of just being a commodity in the grasp of massive multinational—”

“Jesus, Karl. You’re fired, okay? I can’t sit here and listen to any more damn lectures about why the company is evil.”

“All right, all right. Let’s calm down. I’m sorry, dude. You’re right. This isn’t Perky Pete’s House of Politics. No more insulting customers, I swear. From here on out—”

“Nah. You’re fired. I’ve got a million people who want to do this job, and I don’t need an opinionated know-it-all scaring off the customers.”

It took a second to sink in.

Fired? But I was doing my best!

Not that he would ever admit that to anyone. Because the minute you said you were really trying to get something right, that you have done your best, the world would snap its jaws and eat you up.

Besides, it didn’t matter. Dewey didn’t care. Karl had opened his big mouth (again), and that’s all that mattered. That’s all that ever mattered to people. It didn’t matter how right you were, it didn’t matter that you had all the facts on your side. If you said something that was different than what they believed in, down would come the guillotine blade, off with your head.

“Do I lose my employee discount?” Karl asked.

“What?”

“I was hoping I could get an espresso on my way out.”

Getting fired was one thing. Telling his brother Simon was quite another. Karl and Simon used to share a place, but now Simon was together with his fiance Evan, and Karl was solely responsible for the rent. He could probably borrow some money from his folks…but Simon would rake him over the coals if he found out Karl had blown another chance.

I guess I could move back in with the folks, if I didn’t mind never having a shred of human dignity ever again.

That was a great idea. What a way to prove yourself. His mom would love it, having her little boy at home again, to dote on and cook for and pat on the head, having him around to fix their computers and mow the lawn. Oh, Karl, she’d say, you and your silly political ideas, I could listen to you all day, while his dad rattled the newspaper and harumphed and said The boy needs to learn about the real world.

Maybe he just wouldn’t tell anyone. Most of the guys he hung out with were the same ones he’d known since school, and they all knew Simon, and so it would only be a matter of time before Simon found out.

Except Burns. Burns was separate from everybody else. He’d listen. He’d understand, and maybe have some advice that wouldn’t suck.

With a hopeful spirit, Karl pulled out his phone.