A couple of years ago, Ajamu Offord was happy to have gotten a job as a barista. The COVID pandemic saw the end of an increasingly successful sales job with a fashion company, he said, and a degree in international relations and five years abroad weren’t helping the now 33-year-old Jersey City native find opportunities beyond that customer service realm. Offord’s excitement about the chance to grow with a burgeoning cafe waned as a friend told him he deserved more than what he was getting there; Offord vocalizing that was soon followed by his dismissal, he said.
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