Good deed

It’s been more than 20 years since I worked as a barista in Seattle. (I know, how cliche.) I spent the first few months begging the owner to bring back enough $1s and $5s for change by mid-morning —which was his stated mode of operation. But often as not I found myself standing awkwardly with a line of customers at the cash register, all of us just waiting for him to return from the bank at the noonday rush. I decided after a while that what I could do instead was dig into the hefty box of weekly tips, stowed under the counter, early in the morning as I opened alone. I replaced $10s and $20s from the register with smaller bills. I thought nothing bad could come of my solution. The ensuing calm and orderliness of having enough change lasted for a few weeks, except that the owner started questioning whether I was stealing cash. Not at all! I said, horrified. I asked why he thought so, and he shrugged: no reason. After a week he started giving the other barista more of the tip money than me, though I worked twice as long. Finally he fired me, saying he absolutely knew I was stealing money. I still denied it vehemently. It wasn’t until a few years later that I put the pieces together. He was suddenly seeing $10s and $20s in the tip jar and plenty of $1s and $5s in the register. He thought I was helping myself to the larger bills, when I was in reality helping him, the other worker, the customers, the cafe, and my own sanity. Let this be a lesson to us: no good deed goes unpunished, as they say in this world that prefers to live with familiar insanity and chaos. Love wins in the end, though, says this other world; you might just need to wait a bit longer.