Anna was late. She knew waking up for an opening shift was going to be rough, but she didn't expect whatever the heck that was. It could hardly even be considered waking up as she literally rolled out of bed, threw on barely appropriate clothes and only hoped she didn't stink to high heavens.

She made her way to her little car, "I shoulda left earlier," she shivered, "if there's such a thing as earlier than this". Her clunky, zombie-like footsteps on the tarmac were the only sound accompanying her grumbles and mumbles in the early morning air. Too early. Too early for other people, too early for the sun. Too early to hear the unusually quiet highway in the distance. It was too early and Anna was just a little late. She checked her phone for the time and in that very brief moment, "oof-", stumbled right into her car.

"Who put that there?" She breathed in and out and hurriedly massaged her whole face with open palms. "Wake up, wake up, wake up... you can do this. You've gotta do this."

She tried the handle, right right I have to unlock it first, and then set forth for her first opening shift.

She'd been a closing shift kind of employee for as long as she could remember, which was probably for the best since she, on average, couldn't wake up before double digits. But then, with great gratitude and slight misfortune, the class she was waitlisted ages for offered her a spot in their summer course. The biggest problem was its runtime, four hours. That big block of time tore through most of Anna's etched-in work schedule and would've left her with hardly any hours- until her manager suggested her the opening shift. Which now, on the road at 3:30 in the morning, Anna was regretting.

Somehow, without hitting any light posts or people, she made it to the overpriced, over-glamorized coffee house she worked at. Her coworker was already there, hulking form lingering by the door. Her headlights flashed over him to reveal his arms crossed and head tilted back. She parked and walked up to him, assuming he was taking a power nap.

"Good morning, sunshine. Late already?"

He wasn't napping.

"Yeah, I didn't realize that 4am was gonna be this early," her voice was more gravelly than a country road.

He opened the door, "what time did you go to bed", let her inside and locked it again, "Kris, I don't even know if I went to bed," and flipped some switches. The cafe area lit up. Anna stumbled her way behind him to the back room and fumbled with her apron.

"So, have you ever opened before?" Kristoff typed his employee numbers into the register.

"Well," Anna huffed, tying her apron proving itself an arduous task, "I was trained ages ago, so theoretically I should be able to open."

His fingers hovered above the computer screen. He turned to her, unamused.

"A simple 'no' would've been fine." He fiddled through a drawer and came out with a list and two headsets.

"Okay, so just follow this." He handed her the list, worn and stained like all things paper in a coffee shop. "I'll be doing my shift duties back here. If you need any help, I can talk you through it on the headset."

Kristoff put his on and sat on the squeaky swivel chair. Anna turned and left the back room, adjusting the giant headset to fit her pea-head. She walked and read and, thanks to the timestamps next to each task, found herself already behind schedule. The tasks themselves weren't hard, a lot of them similar to the work done when she was a closer.

It was just going to take some getting used to in this groggy state of mind. The headset dinged softly to indicate a car in the drive through. Anna was confused.

"Don't answer that." Kristoff's static voice came through. "We still have 20 minutes 'til open."

"So I just, like, leave them there?" Anna didn't think that was nice.

"Yeah."

Then again, Kristoff wasn't nice. Anna rolled her eyes at him, though he couldn't see it, and defied his cynical authority.

"Hi there, welcome to Sven's Den! Uh, unfortunately we aren't open yet, not for a little while. Uhhh..."

"Oh!" A sweet voice crackled in from the drive-through. "No, no, I apologize. Thank you for letting me know."

Anna raised her eyebrows. No shouting, no threatening, no backhanded commentary- perhaps people were nicer in the mornings rather than the obnoxious customers from literal hell she usually dealt with at night. "Yep! No problem. Thank you for understanding," she replied and watched the camera as the car pulled through.

A nasally, high-pitched impersonation of herself came over the headset, "uhhh unFORtunately, uhhhhh..."

Anna, lacking any ability for repartee this early, blew an immature raspberry into the headset microphone. He responded with an equally immature one of his own. As the time wound down to opening, Kristoff made his way back to the floor with register drawers in tow.

"Wow, I'm surprised the building isn't on fire." Anna mustered up the most sour face she could and he chuckled, mostly at his own joke. He tossed the keys at her. "Ready to unlock the doors?"

"Yeah."

She wasn't, evident by her trying the bathroom key, "wrong," then the back door key, "wrong again," and finally the register key, "how are you this wrong?"

"There's only so many keys on here, you'd think I'd get the right one by now," she glared and jingled all four of the keys on the key ring. Kristoff held out his hand and Anna gave up the infuriating item, then he unlocked the door. First try. She walked away, arms in the air.

"Whatever!"

It only took a few minutes for the first (official) customer to come in the drive-through, though it wasn't the person from before. He gave her a big bill.

"Keep the change," he said and drove off.

Anna was once again struck by a nice gesture usually unknown on night shift. As she counted the money, she noticed at the bottom was a folded piece of old receipt paper in the otherwise empty tip jar. She took and held it up. It crinkled as it opened, a handwritten note on one side: "I want to apologize again for this morning in the drive-through, have a great day!"

It was cute. It was dopey. Anna pocketed the receipt in her apron and grinned to herself.

It was a great way to start her first opening shift.