Tea and Real-World Advice at A Baked Joint

On the recommendation of a friend, I visited A Baked Joint in DC yesterday for a coffee date with a colleague.  When I say coffee, I really mean tea.  And when I say date, I really mean a very adult, real-world meetup with a WM alum I met late last year.  He currently works as a field service engineer with Agilent Technologies and introduced me to the idea of pursuing that career myself.  It was honestly such a mind-opening realization when I first met him, to learn that I could make a living of installing, servicing, and maintaining analytical instruments.  It probably sounds boring, I know, but right now, it's at the top of my five-year plan.

So in keeping contact with him, we met up in a super trendy, recently opened coffee shop to talk shop; giving career advice, catching up, and swapping stories about our analytical chemistry lives.  The sister store of Baked & Wired in Georgetown, A Baked Joint, in the Mt. Vernon Square area of DC, offers freshly baked breads and a wide variety of coffee and teas, all in a beautifully open space, complete with an open kitchen.  I've been told the breakfast biscuits are the must-get item, but that'll have to be for another time.  In my sickly state, I only ordered a jasmine tea.

Apologies for the plagiarism, but these photos were taken from A Baked Joint's instagram, found here:

It was a nice change of pace, getting out of Northern Virginia and seeing someone outside of my normal circle.  He heavily emphasized not becoming stuck in the job I have now and pursuing the career if it was what I really wanted to do, so I'll be sure to keep that in mind when I decide to change jobs.  Also, I might have to start to take my tea presented as they do.  I have a glass teapot and I thought I had a small wooden tray.  If not, that's always something I can find at a nearby Goodwill.

Currently listening to: "Fire and the Flood" Vance Joy