I was a college barista. My two favorite tasks were facing the bills and rotating the stock. I often think of those tasks when I prepare to write my long Substack articles. They can also help you with your media literacy.
I was a college barista. My two favorite tasks were facing the bills and rotating the stock. I often think of those tasks when I prepare to write my long Substack articles. They can also help you with your media literacy.
Back then, we didn’t have Apple Pay. People used cash or credit. The coffee shop was on the bottom floor of one of the buildings. Word was that the classy coffee shop was across the way, but our coffee was affordable (I can’t promise it was good). People would slide dollar bills from their pockets and the bottoms of their backpacks across the counter, and I’d slide their drink back. Between customers, I’d take a moment to clean up the drawers. You were supposed to make sure each drawer had the right denominations, and the easiest way to check was to turn every bill face up. When all the faces matched, so did all the amounts.
In many ways, media literacy is a sorting game. When I’m trying to make sense of a photojournalist’s work, I often start by just looking at every picture from an event. Sorting, organizing, and getting everything in order come before deeper meaning. When I see people jump to conclusions, I suspect they never sat down to organize the original ideas.
My other favorite task was restocking the cooler. You had to put the oldest sodas at the front so the stock rotated correctly. The oldest stuff at the front would be bought first. Take this as a metaphor: are you rotating your ideas? Many of us get excited when we learn something new. The new idea becomes a shiny prize that seems to explain everything, and we trot it out over and over. But often, older ideas are more salient.
Now put these ideas together, especially for these 75 days. Mostly, I hope to help you see your ideas differently and connect them in new ways. Each week, tally what you have. You’ll hopefully start to see things differently, but as you do, don’t lose sight of the fact that your existing ideas may still be relevant. Build new thoughts, but don’t lose the old ones.
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