The Pensive Pencil

By Jen "Looch" Luciani and Robert "Pooch" Puccinelli, with guest writer Mike Phillips, June 12, 2007

Please give me some tips in how to hire a qualified psychotherapist to help me deal with my problems. - Psychotherapless, 28, Chicago

Looch: First of all, kudos to you for taking steps to better yourself. Time and patience are two things to take along with you in your search for a qualified psychotherapist, or any therapist/counselor. One must invest time to find a therapist with whom they will feel safe and who has experience in whichever area one needs help. Obviously, defining the issues you would like to address is a good place to start. There is counseling for just about any issue—general emotional difficulties, just being sad, wanting to talk about life’s challenges with someone other than friends and family, marriage and family, substance abuse, sexual abuse, you name it. Try an Internet search or calling a few offices to learn about the office’s approaches and philosophies (Jungian, Freudian, Feminist, Adolescent, etc), to find a good fit. Also, counselors and therapists of all stripes must put in time and money for proper training and certification. If you are a student, you can check out the counseling center on campus. Many companies (if you are so employed) can refer you through Human Resources to such services. Also consider affordability, scheduling, location and compatibility.

Pooch: After actors (I’m one), therapists are probably seen as the most messed-up people on the planet. Common sense dictates that those most interested in exploring psychological problems are often those most afflicted by them. Courtney Love’s mother is a therapist and if you read her interview in Psychology Today, you’ll meet a woman more interested in protecting her own image than protecting her relationship with her daughter. That’s the type of therapist you’ll want to avoid – one focused more on their own needs than yours. Many therapists need therapy. The key is to find someone whose ego is under control. That means they do not need to be liked by you, they do not need your approval. It also means they are not deriving too much pleasure from their position of power.

The Mayo clinic describes the many different styles of therapy to choose from. My favorite is cognitive-behavior therapy, but there are different strokes for different folks. If you want talk therapy, write back and I’ll forward you the name of an excellent therapist in the Loop. More often than one would hope, sexual lines get blurred, so if you’re a woman, I’d recommend a female therapist. Also, more of your friends may have experienced therapy than you expect, so ask them about their experiences. But in the end, it’s a bit like dating. You try many people out and hopefully find the match for you. If it’s not working, you have to be willing to try someone new, and if your therapist tries to make you feel guilty about ending the relationship, get the hell away from her or him as fast as you can. Many people are afraid to look at themselves, so I applaud you for having the courage to take this step.

When one goes out to eat at a café and there is no server but a tip jar, what is the proper amount to tip? What if there is no tip jar? – Potts o' Money, 26, Chicago

Pooch: We forwarded your question to Mike Phillips, a ranking local barista for one of Chicago’s premier coffee pushers. We warned him that he wouldn’t be getting a cut of our massive profits from this column, but he was still kind enough to answer you:

Coffee Mike: The thing that makes this question difficult is the number of variables. It’s definitely not a straight 15-20% like our restaurant brethren receive. In an ideal world it would be much closer to that of our bartending, alcohol-slinging brethren. Variables include…

a. What is the quality of the drink/cafe? This has to do with the overall effort of the café serving you. Are they going the extra mile to bring you the highest quality, most socially responsible coffee in the most engaging and efficient environment possible or are they selling you blood java out of a low rent skeezy slopshop? I think everyone would agree that one type of café deserves more reward than the other.

b. What is the level of preparation involved? Unbeknownst to many, pulling a good shot of espresso is a very involved, multi-tiered and sophisticated art. You need to have a good blend of high quality beans, shipped properly, roasted perfectly, ground precisely according to variables such as humidity, the age of the beans and the desired type of extraction. Then you need this coffee to be dosed, leveled, tamped and extracted from a machine with exacting temperature and pressure controls. Then this task must be repeated with consistency for however many shots your drink needs. Not to mention all the variety of milks and milk alternatives that need to be mastered for the purposes of frothing, steaming and pouring the perfect topper into your beverage.

Now, if you compare that to the effort involved in, say, the making of a top shelf gin and tonic, it’s baffling how much less the barista will usually receive in tips compared to the bartender. Basically, if you order something fancy and it is made well, tip accordingly – at least as much as you would a bartender. If you order a cup of coffee at an airport over-the-counter, that’s probably worth a bit less in tips.

c. How good was the barista’s service? Was your barista some disaffected hipster with a vacant stare that equals their knowledge of the coffee they are serving? Or was he or she an involved barista who knows how to work with coffee, prepares it with passionate skill, and is able to help you grow in your appreciation and experience of the world of coffee? (And what a wide world it is.)

d. What is your relationship with this barista? Is this a shop you have never been to or is it your home away from home? Do you have meaningful conversations together with your barist and a fairly broad familiarity with each other’s lives? Are you a "local" that gets a discount, a "favorite" who every once in awhile gets free drinks or, most fortunately, "part of the family" that gets to drink until you pop on the company tab? What if you think your barista is a wicked hottie and want to get to know them better?

Each of these situations have a particular etiquette. If you have never been to the café, I say go entirely off of the answers to questions a through c. If the relationship is more personal then so should be the appreciation. I am not saying to drop big bucks, but don’t stiff someone after smiling and chatting together for a few minutes – that’s just poor form. If you are lucky enough to live or work near a coffee shop that rewards such a thing as geography (and many do, just ask if they have a local discount) then it’s always nice to return the love a little. Again, not necessarily big bucks, but these folks fall firmly in the no-stiffing category.

If you are in the occasional freebie group (yay for you, someone thinks you’re special...), at least a buck should be falling in the tip jar (people in this category usually know this and got there by knowing how to show appreciation in the first place).

If you are in the family, well, you’re just that – you get the best service, the best drinks and are probably a former employee, or a friend or lover of someone behind the bar. These folks already know what to do.

Now, how about that infamously attractive barista you have been eyeing for months? Throwing money around, while it may help him or her to pay the bills, won’t buy you love. Tip like a normal person and focus on being nice. It will go a whole lot further.

All in all, any one of these considerations could be the principle determinant in how you tip on any given day and help you to maintain a respectable level of legitimacy. An oversimplified formula would be to leave lose change for a straight cup of joe and a buck or buck-plus for any espresso-based drinks. Just know that we know who shows love and who doesn’t. I'm in no way implying that there is any retribution given to poor/no tippers, but there is always karma.

The life of a barista is for the most part a low-paying, thankless romp through a land of cranky monsters, who just want caffeine and sugar injected into their systems as rapidly and cheaply as possible. Most don’t even realize that they are interacting with actual human beings (small things like lack of eye contact, carrying on cell phone conversations while ordering and asking for drinks and sizes not on the menu indicate this type of disconnect). Try to smile, realize that baristas are working hard for very little cash and have just as long of a day ahead of them as you do. Heck, if every person, from those that grew the coffee to the barista serving it to you, were paid a living wage, that 24 ounce vanilla soy decaf latte with two extra shots that you love so much would probably cost you around 12 bucks. Consider yourself lucky that the exploitative world we live in lets you get it for the price you do.

Send your questions to Looch & Pooch and their guest respondents at [email protected].