Talk to anyone in coffee about what drew them to, or kept them in, the coffee business, and they’ll all give you one big reason: the people.

The coffee world’s tight-knit global community of geeky, gregarious, and pleasure-minded people tends to create an infectious enthusiasm, and as specialty coffee has grown in popularity, it’s made a coffee lover’s world feel all the more welcoming.

So, in an industry full of magnetic personalities and creative minds who stimulate one another, why is it so hard to keep great people in coffee-serving jobs?

Written by Liz Clayton, a coffee writer and photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Read by Sabine Parrish, staff writer at Standart.