ACHES & PAINS OF A BARISTA...AND OTHERS WHO ARE STANDING ALL DAY AT WORK

Last Christmas I was given a coffee machine to help me reduce my spending at Costa!  Good plan you might think as every Saturday and most Sundays for nearly 6 months it had been my job to head there and buy the food and drinks for the workers who were doing up my house!  

Placing my order for food I would wait briefly at the end of the counter, watching the baristas create masterpieces with hot chocolate, cream and marshmallows, before speedily returning home with my goodies before it all went cold and my paintbrush started hardening up!  There was no time to enjoy the ambiance, watch the passers by, read the papers or relax in a cosy chair.  So a coffee machine was a good call.  

However, now the work has been done and the lure of the coffee shop, which has never abated, can be met I am once again a regular visitor sitting and relaxing ..... 

However over recent weeks it has been brought to my attention that for some time spent in a coffee shop is not quite as rosy.  I’m not talking about the customer here but about the barista.  Speedy, youthful and generally pretty cheerful the life of a barista can be hard work.  Long hours on their feet, repetition of the same activity for hours at a time, aches and pains from tamping, heating milk and till work to name but a few.  

It seems the articles on this ever increasing number of workers are few so I have put together some suggestions to help them and anyone who spends long hours on their feet doing a repetitive job.

Key to reducing problems are:

*Varying tasks throughout the day, ie an hour doing one thing then swapping to another

*Taking regular breaks. One suggestion might be If you're standing all day to do a bit of walking around..

*Making sure that equipment you’re using is at the correct height so you’re not reaching up or looking down at it all day long.  Where possible move it to your height.

*Wearing the right footwear.  There are a lot of very flat, unsupportive shoes in fashion at the moment, like pumps and ballet shoes.  Wearing shoes with some support and keeping the heel low but not flat will help to keep the bones of your feet in the right place and reduce tension through ligaments and tendons.  

*Making sure you’re physically fit enough for the job, arms, legs, core all need to be working well

*For tasks that are particularly troublesome, for the barista it might be heating milk or tamping, looking at other ways to do this activity would be valuable.

None of this is rocket science but I’m hoping that if I start the ball rolling here with some suggestions, others will add their comments to help put together a comprehensive plan of action.

Comments welcome......