The Milk-Stealing Incident

So there I was at work, one busy afternoon in the cafe. As a barista, you get used to having your day-to-day routine interrupted by all sorts of unexpected situations. But this one caught me completely off guard. I had been making an iced coffee for Sarah, our regular customer who’s always asking for skim milk and two sugars. She's a nice lady but can be quite particular about her orders. Anyway, as I was getting ready to pour the milk into her cup, I accidentally grabbed the wrong bottle, whole milk instead of skim. This was when my mind started racing. Whole milk would throw off the flavor balance for Sarah’s order, and she’d definitely notice something wasn’t right if I served it that way. So in a moment of desperation and probably not-so-quick thinking, I poured some of the whole milk into another cup on the counter and replaced it with the skim milk bottle. The other barista, Mark, walked by just as I was doing this and gave me one of those looks like he knew exactly what I had done. But here’s the thing, this little act felt wrong even to me as I did it. It’s not that I wanted to get in trouble or anything; there’s just something about deceiving a customer, even if it's only slightly, that doesn’t sit well with my ethical barista compass. Ever since then, every time Sarah comes in and orders her iced coffee, I have this moment of guilt, wondering when the day will come where she’ll notice or worse, call me out on it.