Danny prides himself on being the one Barista at the WE Starbucks that doesn't get weird about high level personel. That isn't to say all the others are /super/ weird, they just... are intimidated by the people who could literally ruin their lives at the drop of a hat.
Danny is just built different. You kinda have to be when you face off against the tyrant king of the dimension that holds all dimensions together /and win/ at age 15. Not to mention the whole "on the run from the government and your parents after several weeks of torture that is still technically legal" thing.
All this to say, Danny has very, very few fucks to give to the people who run the company that his lowly Starbucks job is placed in.
This does have the unfortunate side effect of making his managers unhappy with him when he doesn't show the 'correct' amount of respect to the people who come and go. He is on thin ice after the last time he stared down a WE Board member until they stopped yelling at him. It doesn't matter that Ms. Fox, the PA for the CEO, likes him and stood up for him during the incident last time, he is supposed to be on his best behavior.
This particular, red-faced, spitting mad customer is not one Danny recognizes. There are a combination of factors that lead to Danny's quote-unquote breakdown on this customer and Danny takes a half a second while he waits stonefaced for a break in the man's rant to list them.
- Danny wasn't able to sleep last night. The combination of insomnia, ADHD, and PTSD made it literally impossible.
- Danny has weathered four of these people already and has only been here for an hour.
- Tam, the PA for the CEO that likes him, told him two days ago that she is moving jobs so he won't see her nearly as often anymore. Danny considers Tam a pretty good friend. They even text each other memes now!
- Every one of the angry people so far have been interview candidates for Tam's job including the man in front of him.
- Danny is just. So fucking tired. He does not have the patience for this.
The man finally stops for a breath and Danny takes that as his que. "So what I am hearing is that you want me, literally the lowest person on the Starbucks corporate ladder, to personally loose my job because we don't carry the specific brand of soy milk that you prefer?"
The man opens his mouth to say something and Danny holds a hand up to stop him. One if his coworkers snorts quietly and the other mutters, "Danny just snapped," so quietly that Danny is absolutely sure no one was suppossed to hear it.
Time to put his hard earned psychological evaluation skills to use. He has never been more glad for Jazz's special interest in psychology then now. He is loosing his job after this for sure, so he is gonna make it count.
"No, I think it is your turn to listen. You, Sir, aren't actually mad about any of this. You are, at most, a little annoyed by the change in product but ultimately give less of a fuck about that I do about your quite frankly /childish/ temper tantrum."
Danny refuses to acknowledge that the pair of people walking through the door are Tam and Mr.Drake-Wayne. He knows that Tam will enjoy the show, at least, and maybe if he makes a good enough impression he can get Mr. Drake-Wayne's phone number to ask him on a date. Tim is fucking pretty, sue him. Danny keeps his eyes firmly locked on the man in front of him.
"No you are mad because you were dismissed from your interview for PA to the CEO 20 minutes early because you think you could do the job of CEO better then the young Mr. Drake-Wayne and acted like it. You think your 'real diploma', bachelor's in Business Management, and generational wealth make you inherently better then people like Mr. Drake-Wayne and I who dropped out of high school and haven't publicly persued any higher education. You think that people like him should be here in my shoes where you don't have to pretend to think of them as actual humans deserving of basic courtesy and respect, so when he called you out on your frankly archaic biases and dismissed you from being eligible for the position ten minutes into your allotted time with him-which you were already insulted by because the meeting was based on /his/ schedule instead of yours-it made you uncomfortable. You don't like that someone so young and seemingly uneducated is better then you because it doesn't fit your narrow little world view where the only people worth calling people are the ones who grew up with silver spoons in their mouths."
Danny is pretty sure Tam is holding back from cheering him on. He swallows the grin that threatens to appear because of it and finally takes his eyes off of the asshole only to pretend to inspect his nails, letting boredome suffuse the air around him as he keeps going.
"You can't just say that to him though, because reguardless of how bitter and jealous you are that he is in that spot instead if you, you recognize that he has all the power in that situation and you just have to deal with it. But you don't like feeling small and wrong and out of control, so you decided that you would do what always makes you feel better when someone you consider lesser comes out on top of you; you found the nearest little guy that you could scream at without consequences and proceeded to throw the exact kind of temper tantrum you can't throw in front of Mr. Drake-Wayne."
Is that a hint of awe in Tim's eyes? Danny fights another grin down when Tam looks at Tim and a menacing kind of glee makes its way into her expression.
"Unluckly for you, I don't need a high school diploma or college degree to be able to tell that all this screaming is a result of a superiority complex used to mask the fact that you know, in the back of your head, deep down in the bottom of your heart, how insignificant you are. You have to pretend those things like age and official education and wealth make you better then you are because otherwise you would have to face the reality of your own abilities. If those things don't matter, then you are mediocre at best. And if you are mediocre, then what makes you different from the people you consider below you?"
The cafe is silent as Danny finally looks back up at the man and grins. "It's okay though, you can keep yelling at me if you want. Sometimes our feelings are just too big to fit inside our bodies and we need to let them out, but we don't always have the tools to do that in a healthy way. Maybe after you feel better, you can look into some better coping skills then taking your misplaced agression out on innocent baristas."
Tim may or may not have just fallen in love.
"Tam I want him to be my PA," he turns to Tam, whose face promises merciless teasing.
