As a barrista working at a very busy coffee shop in downtown Philadelphia, one thing immediately comes to mind when I read this. Does this study count the time from the order being placed, or the time after the register drawer is closed? Because if I've noticed one difference between men and women customers, it's how long they take to produce their money! My unreliable and possibly biased impressions are: men are slightly more likely to give whole dollars (as opposed to exact change) and can get money out from their wallets faster. Many women (I wouldn't say most of them, but a significant number) have to set their handbag (which is getting larger daily, btw) on the counter, open it, dig for a wallet, retrieve that, open the wallet, select bills, close the wallet, close the handbag). And I would say that women are more likely to try to use exact change, which could double the time, whether or not they actually find that change. Also, if I had to dig for more explanations, I'd wonder if there is a faint impression given to the servers that men are looking for a more functional experience - caffeine delivered efficiently - while women hope for more of a quality product and don't mind a few extra seconds of care taken on their drink. There can be a lot of difference in the outcome of a drink depending on whether the maximum time is taken to froth new milk or ensure the perfect proportions of the ingredients. So now I've used my own generalizations about women to prove that I have none?

Good points: I've also noticed that women take much longer to get their card/cash out and pay for the transaction. My experience is that typically (though not always) they take longer to order, as well.

I wonder if part of the "contempt" aspect is not so much discriminatory in the classical sense, so much as men are probably more likely to give the impression of menace, and in general are more impatient, should the service be slow. In other words, barristas are serving the men more quickly because they feel more pressured to do so, and in the case of male barristas it's more "Here you go, bro, I know you hate to wait." So it's not that women are getting short shrift because they're women--they are getting "normal" excellent service; it's that men are getting "on the double" service because they're men. I therefore wonder if they'd find that men's drinks are overall lesser quality because they are rushed.

Interesting observations. I have noticed similar behavior in super markets. Men tend to have payment at the ready, while most women don't even begin to open their purses until after the tally is announced. To me it seems as if the concept of paying for their groceries comes as a complete surprise to some of them.

Some waitress friends have noted the difference in tips too. I've consistently heard that white middle-aged men tip better than most anyone else, while blacks of both genders tip the least, with Sunday church goers marginally above the latter. My friends never mentioned women per se, but likely that was because the men paid for the meals most of the time.

Of course coffee shops may be different than a regular restaurant.

-R

Excellent point with regard to payment at grocery stores. I'd also add that my experience is that women are more likely than men to be talking on cell phones while they are in line at grocery stores or java joints, a practice that slows down the system while a gal shuffles through her purse one handed in search of her checkbook or wallet.

Taking longer due to taking longer to pay might be a good theory. But it doesn't work in the cases that I have experienced at the Starbucks drive-through. In those cases, it isn't the person making the beverage, its the cashier, who wanders off to talk to his buddies. When I have a female cashier, it is all I can do to hurry up and shove the change that she just gave me away, because her hand, holding my drink, is already coming my way. When it is a male cashier, I can leisurely put away my change, then I sit there waiting...waiting...waiting... while he laughes and jokes with his buddies before he turns around to pick up my drink, which had been ready and sitting behind him since he handed my my money. This is the pattern that happens to me time and again when I go through the Starbuck's drive-through.