I’ve had the same job for just over three and a half years. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s 42 months, or about 1,304 days. But who’s counting, right? I guess I just like my job or something since I’ve been doing it for what feels like an obscenely long time. Three and a half years is basically a generation in retail/food industries, it seems. I remember being a high schooler and working with people who had been at the same thing for three, four, five years and imagined that to be an entire lifetime. I thought, “How could they do the same thing for so long?” I wonder if the high schoolers I work with think the same thing about me. I remember starting out as a green bean and asking a supervisor how many people they’d worked with in the three years she’d been there, and she said she literally couldn’t even remember the faces or names of a fourth of them. Now, here I am, being asked the same questions I asked, and that’s when it really sinks in.

However, the time I’ve invested in staying at the same place has returned a lot of benefits. My hard work has paid off in that I have the respect of my boss, and his boss. While it kills me to think of selling my soul to the Man, the thought of furthering myself someway in the company also appeals to me (perhaps because I just want to see if I can get good at another thing). Being at this job for such a long time has allowed me to build just enough of a repertoire with upper-level management that I’ve become more than another barista.

When I have good days at work, I feel confident, competent, and actually good at something. For a little bit, the self doubt stops and, even better, I measure up to my own impossible standards of excellence. While I don’t like being in charge of people, knowing that I can control the way I want things to run can definitely be advantageous. As the senior baristas move on and the new people float in to replace them, the pool of truly knowledgeable baristas shrinks. I told myself I never wanted to be the person who just happened to know everything because it would turn into the person who has to know everything. Yet, somehow I find myself in that role, and I’ve found it isn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.

Not too long ago, I had my first, genuine “damn I feel old,” moments. My boss had just left for the day and I was ready to take the shift over. When I walked out on the floor to see how things were going, I was dumbfounded to see that no one I worked with was out of high school. I listened to their banter over the headset for the remainder of my shift and wondered at what point I slipped through the cracks. I used to know all about celebrities, books, movies, music, hip slang. I couldn’t keep up with their conversations; it was all so…irrelevant to me. Even so, I really liked working with them because it got me out of my own echo chamber for a little bit.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with a retired school teacher who brought a new life to the store, and as those high schoolers put it, she was “bad.” I loved working with her because we had more in common than my peers who were much closer to my age. Between her and the high schoolers, I’ve begun to really appreciate the different groups of people I get to work with. I feel that with each interaction, no matter how brief, I can use to improve myself and my ability to supervise.

I think that finally, and most importantly, the best thing to happen after working somewhere for a long time is that I develop almost another family with the very regular customers I see five times (or more) a week. If I have a conversation as short as 60 seconds with someone multiple times week, sometimes days, that really adds up to a lot of minutes. There are some truly special customers who have become more than just customers to me. Isn’t it a thing where people meet people at coffee shops? Well, working in one is just like that, getting to see different friends throughout the day. So many have helped me in tough situations, mostly pertaining to my car. I can’t say how many times I would have been stranded at work if it wasn’t for the kindness of people I am lucky to have met. Not to mention what they do for everyone else the numerous things they do for my coworkers. I’m supposed to be the one brightening their days, but more often than not, they’re the ones who end up brightening mine.

While I can’t say how long I’ll stay at the same store, or even the same company, I do know that I have enjoyed some parts of being at the same place for a while. Until I know what’s next for me, these will be the reasons why I’ll continue to stay. Plus, also, free coffee.