The Second Chance
After Diane proved to be such a perfect fit, I started looking at resumes differently. That’s how I found Ethan, a 24-year-old with autism who had a degree in business administration but couldn’t get past the interview stage anywhere.
His resume was impeccable—organized, detailed, with perfect formatting—but he’d been turned away from seventeen interviews in six months.
‘They say I don’t make enough eye contact,’ he told me during our interview, his fingers methodically arranging the sugar packets on the table into perfect rows. ‘Or that I seem too rigid.
‘ I watched as he aligned each packet with mathematical precision and thought about how that same attention to detail could transform our inventory system, which was still mostly Eleanor’s handwritten notes. ‘Can you start Monday?’ I asked.
He looked up, startled, his hands freezing mid-arrangement. ‘You’re… hiring me?’ The disbelief in his voice made my heart ache. ‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘I need someone who notices details others miss.
‘ The smile that spread across his face was like watching the sun come out.
Within two weeks, Ethan had digitized our entire inventory, created spreadsheets that automatically calculated our bean usage, and developed a system for tracking which pastries sold best on which days.
What I didn’t expect was how customers would respond to him—or how his presence would attract an entirely new group to Common Grounds that would change everything about our little coffee shop’s mission.