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#13. Meet Ashley Rodriguez, the boss barista 🇺🇸
86 Plays3 years ago
This episode is about Ashley Rodriguez, a long time #barista turned freelance writer and podcast host of Boss Barista. In this episode, we talked about her barista experience, how she started the Boss Barista podcast; Ashley also shared her tips on how to become a coffee writer, how to balance your work life, and much more.
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Moving from city to city in hopes of finding the perfect coffee shop, Ashley has elected to harvest her love for coffee by starting the Boss Barista podcast some four years ago. The show allows her to consider her experiences as a barista but also relate them to larger problems within our current coffee community, never hesitating to take a different direction every episode!
A true supporter of her community, Ashley strongly believes in supporting local businesses and providing smaller roasters and baristas with her platform so that they can be heard. With a similar mission to us at I’M NOT A BARISTA, Ashley isn’t afraid to ask the hard hitting questions and brings “taboo” topics to the table, such as tipping, health insurance, and salary amongst other things.
She has made a point of telling us that anyone with questions about freelance writing and podcasting should email her if they need help getting their foot in the door! To read more about her podcast, her experiences, and her career path, make sure to read her coffee story on our website and listen to our podcast episode with her!
You can check Boss Barista's website
http://bossbarista.com
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/bossbaristapodcast/
You can also support her podcast on Patreon now
https://www.patreon.com/bossbarista
Read more coffee stories on
https://notabarista.org/
Order Coffee Wristbands and support I'M NOT A BARISTA's charity work
https://notabarista.org/product/notabarista-coffee-wristbands-2023/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Ashley Rodriguez's Journey
00:00:09
Speaker
Hi, my name is Mickey, your host of M Not Barista Podcast. Today, we have the pleasure of talking to Ashley Rodriguez, founder of the Boss Barista Podcast, one of the top barista podcasts in US. Ashley has worked her way up through the world of coffee, from being a barista on Times Square to campaigning for changes to be made around low wages and tipping in the coffee world.
Challenges in the Coffee Industry
00:00:33
Speaker
She's never shying away from confronting problems the birds of the world has. Ashley openly discusses topics such as worker exploitation, health care issues, and poor compensation for those in the coffee business. And during the pandemic, she has drawn attention to the coffee crops that were left unused. She challenges every issue in every sector of the coffee industry, from farmers to roasters, baristas, and cafe owners.
00:01:01
Speaker
Ashley wants to use her podcast to raise the awareness of those problems. Now situated in Madison, Ashley has been able to focus on her podcast as well as her work as a freelancer writer. She's building a strong audience that stands behind her as well as having the opportunity to support her local coffee community.
00:01:22
Speaker
So Ashley, welcome to Amnal Barista podcast. I have to say I'm a big fan of your podcast and I've been listening to it for a while. I really enjoy all the episodes that you're interviewing different people for the coffee community. But today is all about you, the person behind the Bas Barista. So let's talk about you. Yeah. So my name is Ashley Rodriguez.
Career Transition and Passion for Coffee
00:01:44
Speaker
I am the host of a podcast called Bas Barista. And I'm also a coffee writer. I've been a Barista since
00:01:53
Speaker
2010, I was a teacher and I hated it. I was really lost and I wasn't sure what I was going to do next. And I ended up applying for a job as a barista a couple of places and I didn't get hired anywhere. And I ended up working at this one coffee shop in Times Square in New York, in Manhattan. It was maybe the busiest place I could have thought to go work. But that's where I got started. And that was, like I said, 2010.
00:02:19
Speaker
Wow, 12 years in the coffee industry. You did choose a good place to start your coffee career. So what happened after that? Yeah. So I worked at this coffee shop in Times Square and I got a pretty
00:02:34
Speaker
sound introduction to high volume very quickly. So we made hundreds of drinks an hour. We were so busy. There were nine people behind the bar. And it was a very like Starbucks sort of experience. We wore uniforms. We had
00:02:51
Speaker
flavored syrups like we had caramel macchiatos like the whole the whole deal but i ended up really liking the process of making coffee like i liked having like systems i liked having um
00:03:07
Speaker
flows that worked really well. There was this one person I worked on bar with, her name is Perla, and she's still maybe the best bar partner I've ever had. I really loved when I would be on shots and she would be on milk and we would just work together in this really beautiful harmony. I think that that's something that I had never really had before in any job that I worked. I was 23 at the time.
Struggles and Growth in San Francisco
00:03:30
Speaker
Then I wanted to learn more about coffee, so I jumped around to a couple of coffee shops in the New York City area. I lived there for six years, five of them doing coffee, and then I took a job in San Francisco in 2015 to be a coffee trainer because I thought that that was kind of the next step.
00:03:51
Speaker
Maybe that's something that I can touch on a little bit, not necessarily advice, but just because a job has a fancy title doesn't mean it's necessarily a step up because it ended up being, for me, a lot more difficult than my other coffee jobs were. It paid less just because I didn't think about the cost of living in San Francisco.
00:04:11
Speaker
And it just wasn't the job that I thought it was going to be. And I should have asked better questions about it. So I worked there for a year. Then I ended up managing a coffee shop in Oakland. And I worked and kind of jumped around Oakland for a while. And then I moved to Chicago in 2017.
Freelancing and Advocacy through Boss Barista
00:04:28
Speaker
And at that point, I really struggled. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I worked at a couple of coffee shops.
00:04:34
Speaker
I worked as a food runner at a restaurant, which I had never done before, which like baristas I think are just going to be good at that kind of work. I ended up taking to it really quickly just because I was really good at seeing like 20 things in front of me and being like, I can do this. And then I decided to do full time freelance work. So that was early this year. So now I'm a full time freelance writer.
00:04:57
Speaker
And it's been going really great. It helps me kind of live out some of the values that I've talked about on Bosporista, which I started in 2017, and I've been doing copywriting since 2013. It sounds like coffee prior to different cities in the US. My question will be, which city do you like the most? I think if I could afford to live in San Francisco, I think I would have liked San Francisco the best, but San Francisco is so expensive.
00:05:24
Speaker
Definitely. San Francisco is a great place for a special coffee and have very strong coffee community there. I want to ask you, what stopped you being a barista? I think that I felt like I'm a person who says yes to everything.
00:05:44
Speaker
Unfortunately, I don't know how to say no. I'm getting better at it now. But at that time, I guess I probably stopped being behind the bar probably in 2018, 2019. I think I felt dual pressure to be an adult. I was in my 30s at that point. I didn't have health insurance.
00:06:04
Speaker
And I think I felt this pressure to do something that felt more adult-like, which is a false narrative. That's a false dichotomy, and it's a false thing that I think gets presented to baristas. But the truth of the matter is that most jobs in the United States that are barista jobs don't offer health insurance, don't offer benefits. That's just part of it. That doesn't sound so good, barista without health care. Is it still the same nowadays?
00:06:29
Speaker
Oh yeah, absolutely. There are certain places that do. There are big companies that do. And that's part of it too, is that you have to work for a big company for that to be kind of true to get health insurance. And that wasn't something that I was super interested in. And as Boss Barista became more interesting to me, I wanted to focus on that more. And I think I just also wanted to work for myself. I've had so many bad experiences with bosses that
00:06:53
Speaker
At one point, I was just like, maybe I just need to step away from formal employment. Maybe I just need a break from it. I wouldn't be opposed to going back behind the bar, but I don't think that that's... I think I would just be more cautious and more careful about investing so much of my energy behind the bar. After all these years in the coffee industry today, how do you feel about making the first choice, becoming a barista, and do you think it was the right decision?
00:07:22
Speaker
I wish it was. I wish that being a barista was the best choice because I do think it is. I love being behind the bar. I think that the pleasure of working a bar with other people is unprecedented. There's a camaraderie that builds between you and customers that's really beautiful.
00:07:41
Speaker
But as a barista, I never got paid more than like $13 an hour. So there was that toughness to it. And I also felt like I worked at places where I've had multiple managers or multiple bosses tell me like they don't know how to make coffee. And I felt like, well, if my labor is the labor that's generating money, I'm making coffee.
00:08:05
Speaker
Like, what are you doing? I just couldn't wrap my head around that. I remember I worked one place. I was the manager there. And I had never taken a sick day. And I had a friend who needed to go to the hospital. And so I took him. He lost vision in one eye. And I texted my boss. I was like, I can't open. I have to go take my friend to the hospital. And my boss got so mad at me because they couldn't open the cafe because my boss didn't know how to make coffee. And I was like, what's?
00:08:32
Speaker
Problem here like I'm getting paid peanuts and you're making money off of my labor But you can't physically open the coffee shop without me like there's a problem here So I think I got kind of just burnt out by that By the way, did you get your health insurance in the end?
00:08:49
Speaker
I've fought for my own health insurance at my last coffee shop job, but I had to do it in a guilt. I had to guilt my boss or I had to guilt the owner because the owner was my boss. So it was me. I was the manager. And then there were a couple of other baristas. There was like three or four baristas. It was a really small shop. And I asked my boss, I was like, you have health insurance, right? You have health insurance through this shop, right? Like, what does it say to you that you have health insurance? And I do not.
00:09:15
Speaker
So that was the only way that I was able to get health insurance, but it felt bad to guilt someone into doing it, you know what I mean? I believe having health insurance in my country depends on which country you're living in. It could be very, very different. Based on my personal experience, I used to live in Denmark. Everybody has a health insurance, and as long as you pay your tax, you get a proper job.
00:09:41
Speaker
I think many people don't understand being a barista is not that easy. It's not just you stand behind a bar making coffee. It's a demanding and physical job. It's also very challenging because you always need to perfect a cup of coffee, right? And I know bars often have many issues with their backs, hands raised, and legs. So having health insurance is definitely very, very necessary.
00:10:06
Speaker
So what happened after that? Did you start your podcast directly after that?
Motivations and Interview Techniques
00:10:12
Speaker
So I was actually still working as a barista when I started it. It was something that kind of started as an idea in 2016. I did a series for barista magazine on coffee podcast. That's back when I was their online editor. And I've always really liked audio as a storytelling form, but I'd never really explored it.
00:10:31
Speaker
And I reached out to a couple people that had started a coffee podcast, and the response that I got from them was pretty negative. They had said some stuff on their podcast that was really weird and a little bit misogynistic. And I thought, if these clowns can do it, so can I. So I literally just borrowed an H4N recorder, which is the recorder that I'm using right now.
00:10:55
Speaker
I borrowed one from a friend of mine, and I just started recording. And to be totally frank, those early episodes are bad. They're not super good. We were still really trying to figure out, how do you record two people at a time? How do you record? I didn't know what Zencaster was until 2018. So we'd call people on Skype, or we would call people on the phone and record it. We just had no idea
00:11:17
Speaker
how to do it. So we were still trying to figure things out. This is with my co-host Jasper at the time. She was part of the show until about 40 episodes in. She is a community organizer in San Francisco now. And I feel like at first it was just this like source of frustration, like being able to vent about what in the coffee industry frustrated me. And then it slowly evolved into long form interviews that focus on
00:11:44
Speaker
people who we don't hear from a lot. I'd like to think that the people that are on my show are all so intelligent, so smart, and have things to say that need to be talked about more. So we have an episode coming up about past crop coffee, especially during the pandemic where warehouses are full of grain and coffee because sales were not as expected. So what do we do with past crop coffee? We talk about tipping a lot. We talk about
00:12:11
Speaker
you know, farmers who are frustrated with like white roasters coming to origin and like trying to forge relationships that might be false. So so that's kind of the direction that Bosporista has gone. And so it's like for the last four years, it's definitely evolved and changed. I imagine it will continue to evolve and change.
00:12:31
Speaker
You are doing a wonderful job that you really raise the awareness of so many problems in the coffee industry through your podcast. I want to ask what is the most challenging thing you ever faced in your podcasting career? Yeah. Um, I think.
00:12:47
Speaker
I've really struggled between the personal and the impartial. What is Bosporista? Is Bosporista me or is it beyond me? I think that both are true, but I've found that the closer I get to the things that I care about.
00:13:04
Speaker
Like, if I'm struggling to figure out what is interesting to me or what I want to talk about, I'll often go inward. And I think that that's counterintuitive to how you think about presenting something to a large audience, right? Like, you want to pick things that are popular or things that people are talking about. And oftentimes, I try to pick things that I am excited about because I know, number one, if I'm excited about it, someone else is. Like, that doesn't mean that, like, just because I'm not hearing about it doesn't mean that
00:13:33
Speaker
It's not popular or maybe people are waiting for somebody to talk about it. But secondly, that interviewing is a 50-50 relationship and I am part of the interview. And that's what makes them compelling is the relationship that you build in this really short period of time with somebody else.
00:13:53
Speaker
I was actually watching, have you ever seen Hot Ones? It's this interview show with a guy named Sean Evans and it's on YouTube. And he asked these really, really personal questions like he gets really deep. He does a ton of research on people, but they eat hot wings as they do it. But they get progressively and progressively hotter and like they're funny and they're light, but they're also
00:14:16
Speaker
incredibly interesting. And I think what Sean Evans has really nailed down is the idea of Sean is part of the interview. He is creating a shared experience between these two people. And I even thought about that. I was like, what shared experience could I create between me and my guest, especially if we're not in the same place? Maybe I need to do a cupping challenge with everyone right before we start talking. Something that kind of
00:14:40
Speaker
builds a sense of relationship between the two people. Because I think that that's what's most exciting about podcasting, is that you get to have a really pointed conversation with somebody. And it's allowed. You're allowed to ask questions. You're allowed to be curious. And curiosity is encouraged. Thanks for sharing. I think there are some good tapes there that I can learn. So talking about building this relationship with your guests, what is your secret sauce for that? Oh, God.
00:15:08
Speaker
I think being genuinely curious and asking questions and not being judgmental. I actually took a lot from this one episode of, I watch a lot of TV. I took a lot of inspiration from this one episode of Ted Lasso, which is this Apple TV show. And one of the things he says is the different, like it's something about the difference between certain people is that some are judgmental and some are curious or something like that.
00:15:32
Speaker
And I realized, like, as a barista, as a young barista, it was really easy to be judgmental. It was really easy to say, like, oh, actually, like, we don't serve caramel macchiatos, or actually, we only have, like, but it's like, why is this person asking me this question? Like, be curious. Ask them, like, oh, is a caramel macchiato, like, your favorite drink? Like, this is something that's kind of similar. Like,
00:15:53
Speaker
I think just being genuinely curious about where people are at is really, really hard because it's really easy to make judgments. It's really easy to assume things. And asking a question is a lot harder. And I'm grateful to the podcast for making me more curious. So I think that, honestly, that's the only secret I have. Also, I love hanging out with babies, and people bring their babies to the coffee shop, and I love that.
00:16:18
Speaker
I totally agree with the part that you need to be curious so you can be more open-minded. And for most purposes, is there anything that I can do to reach that status, to be more open-minded and not judging?
00:16:32
Speaker
I would say so. And I think it doesn't require you to change you. You know what I mean? You can still be an introvert. You can still be quiet. You don't have to be this bubbly personality to give good customer service. And you also don't have to be that person to survive at work. I just did an episode with a person named Brittany Sims. And they were talking about how you are human at work. So bring that humanity to work. People want to see your humanity. And people want
00:17:01
Speaker
people interested in their own humanity. So like asking a question is always...
00:17:06
Speaker
is always going to be an opening of a door. I think very rarely have I asked a question where someone was unwilling to answer it or maybe that I like was too personal. But like, if you know someone's bummed out, it's like, hey, like, what's up? Like, do you want a cookie? Like, also just like, give away free shit. I'm always I'm always like, well, I'm always just like, there's no it's like someone drops their drink and like you don't give them a free drink to replace their drink. Like, what are you doing? Come on.
00:17:32
Speaker
But that's a managerial hiccup that I've noticed at some coffee shops where I'm like, oh, you have to empower your baristas to make your customers feel good and give them a drink if you mess theirs up. Anyway, that's a pet peeve of mine. But I think just asking questions and being willing to ask questions in a way that feels safe and appropriate to you, I think is really the only thing that I've learned.
00:17:56
Speaker
So the first step to empower baristas as a coffee shop owner, you need to give your barista proper health insurance first. While we know that the pandemic has changed so many things since last year, and then baristas not being a barista anymore is the major thing in the coffee industry. Many baristas choose to change their career, maybe they become a freelancer, programmer,
00:18:21
Speaker
And some decide to twist their career a little bit from being a barista serving coffee behind a bar. Now they are creating videos or writing articles about coffee or sharing the knowledge. So any tips from your personal experience that I can help these baristas who are exploring their career? Totally.
00:18:43
Speaker
I would say that number one is just to start writing. There's so many free platforms to write. I write my newsletter on a sub-stack, and I don't get paid for it. So just start jotting down ideas. It doesn't have to be fully formed. I'm definitely of the mindset that you write, and then what you actually present is what's edited. So I often will just write and then wake up the next morning and be like, what? What was this?
00:19:12
Speaker
Podcasting now more than ever is so easy to get into. I host my podcast on an app called Anchor and that's free. It's on your phone. You can record it on your phone. There is music that's free and available to use.
00:19:27
Speaker
I think it's easy to get caught up in the idea of perfection, especially as baristas, because we're taught to perfect our shots, to nail an extraction. But the creative process is different. You have to screw up a couple times, and you will grow. Like I said, my first couple of episodes of Boss Barista were bad. They were just bad. And I've learned so much just by doing. And I could not have learned to do Boss Barista if I hadn't made the first iteration of the show.
00:19:54
Speaker
This reminds me a good saying that a thousand miles journey begins with a single step. So it doesn't matter what you do. You just need to get started and think that's, that's the golden rule. Get it started. Especially in the 21st century, we have access to all the information you need, their online courses, Skillshare, or you can just simply Google or check YouTube videos.
00:20:21
Speaker
It's so much easier today, but if you ever want help, please email me. I will help you. It is so nice of you. Thank you so much. We know that you have your own boss barista. In addition today, you also have your freelancing job. Tell us more about what is your typical day like.
00:20:40
Speaker
I am not necessarily a super productive person. I'm not great at having a schedule. I have to set deadlines for myself. I have to set certain parameters for me to get work done. Sometimes when an editor tells me, oh, I have no deadline for this, I'm like, no, please, please give me a deadline. I need a deadline.
00:21:04
Speaker
So generally, I try to write for like three to four hours a day, kind of depending on what I have on my docket. Today is actually a really interesting day because I have an interview with you. And then at 9, 10, I have another interview for a story that I'm doing. And then at 11, I'm recording a podcast episode. That's atypical. I don't usually have that much recording. And I try to almost always space out my recording time or like my face to face time with people.
00:21:27
Speaker
But I try to spend at least a couple of hours a day writing. I have three actually hard rules for my life. I don't always follow them. But I try to walk at least like 10,000 steps. And I know the 10,000 steps means nothing. But it's just like a nice metric for me. I try to walk 10,000 steps a day. I try to do yoga every day. And I try to read 50 pages of a book every day. I don't always do it by no means. But I feel like focusing on the personal parts of my life and the things that enrich my life.
00:21:56
Speaker
make me more productive about my other stuff. I have no idea how you manage to do so many things a day. Obviously, you pay more attention to your mental health and the physical health. Those things are very important, especially in pandemic, where you have to change your lifestyle.
00:22:18
Speaker
I know that you were recently relocated to a new city. Moving always means a lot of changes coming after, so what is going to happen next and what is your plan for the future?
Life Changes and Community Engagement
00:22:30
Speaker
So we're in Madison, Wisconsin right now. We just moved literally like a week ago. My partner works for Ruby Coffee Roasters, which is what I'm drinking in here. And they're based in Nelsonville, Wisconsin. So they're only like about an hour and a half from Madison, but from Chicago, where I was living originally, they were a little bit further. So we wanted to be a little bit closer. And also the pandemic kind of showed us that we didn't need to live in a big city. I went full-time freelance for,
00:22:56
Speaker
in January. But before that, I worked for a beer website and I was going into an office, not during the pandemic, we shut down because during the pandemic, but I'd never done that. I'd never just worked for myself full time. And I have so much writing that I do. And it was just a matter of making my life work. I do have an anchor client. I should mention that. So not all the writing that I do is coffee related. I do not make a living just on coffee writing.
00:23:22
Speaker
I was good to know, diversifying your income resources for important nowadays. I feel like that's super important to clarify. I do anchor work. So I have a cohort of designers who I talk to. If they ever need someone to do copywriting work, then I'm brought in to do that. So I write a lot about things that are just not copy-related at all, but they're clients who are well-paying and pay on time.
00:23:51
Speaker
If you want to be a freelance writer, I would highly suggest finding an anchor client. You can start anywhere with that. Talk to your designer friends. They probably know people who need copywriters. But if that's not the case, there are websites that I hate, like Fiverr and stuff like that. But if you really want to get your foot in the door, that might be an okay place to start. I wouldn't recommend it if you can avoid it.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm hoping to do more full-time freelance work. I'm hoping to be more connected to my community. We're in a very walkable neighborhood right now. I actually went to a wine store a couple of days ago, and someone was wearing a cocoa cinnamon t-shirt, which is a roaster in North Carolina. And I was like, oh, I know those people. And they're like, yeah, we're coffee people, too. And I was like, this is great.
00:24:32
Speaker
So it was really nice to build that connection. So I think that my goal living here in Madison is to focus obviously more on my freelance writing work, have a kind of a lower cost of living just because Chicago is a huge city, to build a little more community just because Madison's a lot smaller. It's a city of 200,000 people. Chicago is a city of...
00:24:50
Speaker
$9 million. Coffee is always about the connection, isn't it? So we have talked about your career, how you started from the beginning, from the birthday, and then having your own podcast right now. And next, let's talk about coffee itself. What coffee do you drink every day? Or how do you pour coffee?
00:25:11
Speaker
I am the laziest. So my partner wakes up significantly earlier than I do and he brews coffee at like six in the morning and I will drink whatever is in the coffee pot. So usually it's something from Ruby coffee just because that's where he works.
00:25:26
Speaker
Um, but I'm also part of a project called the matchbook coffee project. Um, and we do, we have coffees that we bring in every month. Um, so sometimes it's one of those, but almost always I'm drinking drip coffee that my, my partner brewed at like three hours earlier. Um, and, and yeah, I don't, I'm not fussy. Like I don't, I don't really care as long as I get coffee in the morning, I'm fine. Like I'm, I do live next to a coffee shop now, which is really exciting though.
00:25:53
Speaker
So do you brew coffee at home at all? Because you're the host of a boss barista, and it's kind of surprising to hear that you do coffee yourself. I don't do it a lot, honestly. Because Jesse's up earlier than I am, I usually don't. But if he's not here, I will usually brew myself coffee, or I will go out. I will make it a point to go somewhere.
00:26:17
Speaker
My friend owns a coffee shop here in Madison called Bradbury's Coffee. So when I first moved here, I was there every day. And like I said, there's a coffee shop right next to me. But if he's not here, I might take that as an excuse to go do coffee somewhere else. You are lucky that you have some good coffee shops very close to you. I want to ask, do you consider yourself now as a freelancer or a entrepreneur? And how do you see the difference between the two?
00:26:47
Speaker
I think that they're both kind of not necessarily exactly the same. Like it's not the same. It's not two circles, but it's certainly like a Venn diagram of overlapping stuff like that. So I think for me, freelancing has been has been good just because I feel like so much of my values about work and bosses
00:27:07
Speaker
haven't really been actualized. I have a lot of feelings about how power dynamics work at work, and I very rarely have experienced leadership in a way that feels true and meaningful to the needs of
00:27:20
Speaker
staff and workers. But yeah, I think freelancing requires a lot of planning, which I struggle with. And it also requires a lot of flexibility. So there are days where I'll wake up and I'm like, oh, I actually don't have a ton to do today. I need to catch up on invoicing. Or, oh, I have an article due tomorrow.
00:27:39
Speaker
I guess I'm going to be up all night working on this. And as a writer, I think something that I've had to learn a lot about is how to take criticism and how to adapt my responses to people in different ways. So I have an editor at Standart who I love. His name is Luke Adams. And I love working with him because he is willing to edit my work and just go for it. And I trust him completely. Every edit he's made has been outstanding.
00:28:04
Speaker
Um, and I think that we have a really good working relationship because I trust him completely. And he knows that he has my trust to make edits. Um, but then there are other editors who are going to be like, I didn't like this piece. And you're like, well, what about it? Did you not like, and you kind of just have to guess. So I think being adaptable and flexible to like criticism has been probably the thing that I've learned the most about as a freelancer. Is there any plan for boss barista and how do you want to develop this plan for him in the future?
Future Aspirations and Personal Life
00:28:33
Speaker
Um,
00:28:34
Speaker
I don't know. I hope that Bosporista actually makes money. That would be cool. It doesn't. He doesn't? Not really. I have a Patreon, but I make about $450 per month on the Patreon. Half of that I dedicate to community resources. So half of that gets donated immediately. And then the other half is upkeep. So like my microphone.
00:28:58
Speaker
my website. I do transcripts of every episode. I do an automatic transcription and then I'll clean it up and do it myself. There's that upkeep. I'm starting to finally get a couple of sponsors and by a couple, I mean one. No, two. I've had two.
00:29:15
Speaker
So that's exciting. It would be great if I can make Bosporista a little more sustainable just because I spend maybe a quarter of my workload on Bosporista for the fact that I don't get paid a quarter of my workload for Bosporista. And then I would like to be just writing more coffee stuff. So I do a couple of articles for Serious Eats.
00:29:34
Speaker
where I review coffee equipment. And that's been really cool. And then I really want to get more into photography because my latest article for Standar, I took the photos for the for the article that I wrote. And that was really, really cool. And I think it just made it like a holistic experience. So as a journalist, as someone who writes, it would be great to be able to contribute photography for each piece.
00:29:55
Speaker
That's awesome. And then you can do podcasting. So actually you can do a lot. Whole multimedia conglomerate here. Yeah, exactly. Like you can write, you can take photos, podcasting, and next you can do videos too. So I do two scares review. So perfect together. Yeah. Great. Thank you. One last question. Name three things you like most. Oh gosh. I love my dog. I love chicken nuggets.
00:30:24
Speaker
Chicken nuggets. Yeah. I have the palette of a seven year old. I love.
00:30:37
Speaker
And what else do I love? I guess I love. No, I was going to say I love yoga, but that's not true. I like I like like it. I do it every day, but I don't love it. And I also I also think that this is maybe a surprise. I love being alone. I love spending time by myself. OK, in that case, you consider a introverted person.
00:30:59
Speaker
I would say so. Well, you do. I don't come off of it. You have to be really open, right? I love point totally, but I think that that's different than I think podcasting is an interviewing is all about having a pointed conversation. There's no small talk when you're doing podcasting. You get to ask really interesting questions, and that's kind of the premise of the podcast.
00:31:24
Speaker
You're right. Asking direct questions of super important podcasting. Thank you for sharing that. And also thank you for spending the time to join us and in producing this episode. So it's so nice to talk to you, to learn more about you. Is there anything else that I didn't ask, but I would like to share or to mention? Uh, no, just, you know, follow Boss Barista podcast on Instagram and listen to the show and email me if you ever have any questions about getting into freelance writing. So.
00:32:13
Speaker
Thank you so much, Ashley.