On the occasion I decide to spend $4.50 on a drip coffee from an artisanal shop, the barista serving me is usually a bubbly woman with a septum piercing and a tasteful forearm tattoo—or, if male, a pasty environmentalist with flabby arms. Obedient and helpful, they smile and wish me a good day as they hand me my order. This is not to say that Caleb Caudell, the author of the new essay collection Hardly Working (Bonfire Books), isn’t obedient or helpful as a professional barista. He has held this role across various Indianapolis cafés for over ten years. But he is overeducated and underemployed, the Emil Cioran or Arthur Schopenhauer of latte salesmen.
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