ok kids i got the inside info im currently a supervisonr at starbucks. i first must say that i hate the corporate world. i been homeless many years, worked on organic farms many years, been a coffe shop junkie for about 15 years. i always prefered ma and pa buisnesses. but as far as the starbucks phenomenon, it couldnt have happened to nicer people. first off, i get full benefits for working as little as 20hours a week, not to mention free stocks and free lbs of coffee. plus i make 10 bux an hour and get over 3 an hour in tips. now as far a s starbucks and thier place in the world economy. they actually pay above fair trade prices for all thier coffees. plus they will pay the farmers up to 10 cents a pound extra if they incorporate, fair wages for thier workers, organic techniques, conservation, and local economy investments. they also actively recycle and donate throught the local, national and world comunities. they seeem to be all about it. i know that corps are the devil, but starbucks seems to be cool to me. now as far as them hurting the local coffee grind. i kinda have to disagree based on my observations. i see how wal mart puts ma and pa out of buisness and at a sever disadvatage. seeing as that i go to a coffee shop daily since about 1992, i would have to say that the starbucks phenomenon has increaseed intrest in real coffee, and i would have to say that it helps the smaller, indy coffee shops by creating a larger customer base. now as far as quality, they really encourage the farmers to producer a purer, higher quality product, as aposed to a cheaper/ larger product. then they pay alot of very talentted people to roast those beans. every new harvest is roasted different depending on what these coffee snobs feel is the ideal roast. its hard to find a better coffee. most of starbux coffees are organic, but as farmers cant afford certification, barely anyy of them are certified. after working in the organic industry for a decade, i kinda see eye to eye with them as most organic companies get busted for breakin the rules, but then pay thier way out of it, whereas the ma and pa that "organics" was dsesigned to save, are edged out by rules and fees which are unreasonable. i gotta give starbucks both my thumbs up.
Do you think if you worked at wal mart or other corps.. your views on them may change.. I like Starbucks by the way [i posted some positive stuff earlier within this thread-- i agree with gillian it was a good post
no not really. i cant really get all hyped up on caffine for free that way. seriously though, as ignorant as i try to be, i cant help but do my research before i form an opinion.
ug the great starbucks debate! i have been- until recetly- in the 'oh starbucks is so evil!' camp. hell i even work as a barista in our tiny, independently owned coffeeshop. but lately i've just had to be honest with myself: i love starbucks coffee and fuck it, i'm drinking it. yay.
WayfaringStranger, I loved your post...it was very infomrative to kind of here this stuff from an "insider". But still I stand by my position of not wanting to support them. This is what I've heard...maybe you can set me straight! I've heard that if you have tatoos, you have to cover them while working. One of my friends said her friend had a tatoo on his hand, and he had to wear a glove to cover it. Her other friend had one on his neck, which he had to cover with a bandaid. I believe tatoos are a freedom of expression, and if you want to have them you shouldn't be forced to cover them up...especially if they are not inapropriate or offensive. My last reason for not liking Starbucks, is just all the ones around here (Oregon/Washington) they all have this kind of wierd vibe...like wayyyy to "I'm a coroporate business man, I need my coffee then I'm gonna rush outta here to go do things! Hurry!" I dunno if that made any since, I just have this wierd feeling about the place...like it's not a friendly, welcoming vibe that promotes conversation, expression, etc. That's one thing I really love about the ma and pa shops. Plus, Starbucks has seemed to become such a status symbol!
makes sense midget. as far as tattos go, wehn people get them in visible spots, they pretty much expect that its going to limit thier job selection, maybe not how much money they can make, but what they can do to make that money. could be a blessing or a curse. i had dreadlocks for years and it was impossible, being a man at least, to get hired for much of anything in the straightlace world. having long hair all the other times i ran into it alot too, just not as extreeme. as far as the atmosphere of a starbucks, some can seem cold, some can seem warm, but they are all corporate, no smoking, yuppie, rich people in a hurry, crank them out, type of places. some are nice to sit in, some arent. they do have great porches though. a local shop can have more freedom to allow smoking and live music and personality. starbucks isnt ideal in that way, buuuut, thats dosent nesecalrily make them bad. and they got the coffee down, theres definately no hit or miss with thier beans.
I've never seen any Starbucks with a porch around here (well, maybe one...I guess it kinda has a porch) where you at man? What Starbucks are you working at? Sometimes I doubt if some of these guys know how to make drinks...becuase often times, I've got some gross stuff from Starbucks!
Go to Starbucks's Web site and see just how many calories are in some of their specialty drinks. If I go to Starbucks, I'll usually have some bottled water or juice and *maybe* a pastry or little something to eat once in a while.
actually we just had a panera bread open here; i like starbucks coffee better, but i like panera better overall. our starbucks is teensy and wicked snooty, whereas panera is huge and the snoot factor is lower....
No, that made no sense. How do the people who patronize an establishment make it bad? I've already posted that people who hang out at Starbucks are snobby assholes, but people in a hurry to get where they're going? What has that to do with how the business is run? Get your coffee or chai and go if you can't stand "busy professional people". In progressive places (not the PacNW, obviously) like Howard County, MD it is against the law to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, citizenship, facial hair, body art or jewelry. A company I worked for in the late 90s tried to get me to shave my goatee. I had my lawyer make a phone call and I got a nice bonus off the books that Friday. Sometimes the law works in our favor. So rather than bitch, try changing the law and then SUPPORT IT. I've been to Portland on many occasions. If you can't get enough signatures to get a bill sponsored to stop discriminating against people who have ink, you aren't trying hard enough.
Starbucks caters to professional and high-income groups by charging high prices for coffee and emphasizing quality. They provide an environment of class and fineness that distinguishes them from, say, Dunkin Donuts or the local convenience store. From what someone who used to work for them told me, Starbucks has the best quality coffee. They do strongly emphasize quality control and pay a high price for it. Obviously, Starbucks is not the place for hippies (at least most of them).
I try not to go to Starbuck's but I must admit I do from time to time. Their coffee's mediocre, and every Starbuck's I've been to feels sterile (I can't stand their pastel paint fetish nor all that boring, numbing artwork they display) and/or is buzzing with pretentious types who make having an enjoyable time real hard by their airs and loud, banal chatter. Sadly their mediocre coffee is still better than the usual mysterious murky water you get in New York. I used to live in the San Francisco area. There I went to Starbuck's only twice in 5 years because 'Frisco has quite a few great coffeehouses that blow Starbuck's away. Unfortunately New York has few independent coffeehouses per capita (and very few that are worth writing home about), and, sadly, Starbuck's is just about everywhere. So what's a coffee-for-blood guy to do from time to time? (sigh) I also don't like Starbuck's greed. I have a friend in Philadelphia who owns a busy cafe. Starbuck's tried to put him out of business for no defensible reason. My friend built his cafe up with over 10 years of hard work and with few initial financial resources. Not long after his place had become what he'd dreamt of at last, guess who moved in on the same block? Yes, your friendly neighborhood Starbuck's. Starbuck's knew what they were doing. They tried to take the fruits of his life away and leave him nothing in return, just like a bully with muscles too big for his small humanity. I'm very happy to report they failed!! My friend's still going strong. The one thing I like about Starbuck's is the staff. The employees are almost always courteous, patient and helpful. They also usually act like humans, and not like vacuous drink-dispensing robots or lunatics. These qualities are treats as far as service goes in New York. I'm glad to hear that Starbuck's treats their employees well. I'll give them credit for that. I wonder, however, if they would do anything decent if there weren't so many protests against them. Thanks, Starbuck's employees, but you're too good for that joint!
okay hipsters, we're talking about a "coffeehouse" here. Next to oil, coffee is probably the most politicized commodity in the world. Most of the people who grow it - don't make much money. Ever consider how few pennies from each cup of coffee actually go back to the farmer who grew the beans? It is a commodity whose profit return is enormous....the most Wallyworlded of the food groups. Caffein is the most hideous and insidious of addictives (he mutters as he sips his morning Java...) Wonder why it is that Starbucks has the dubious honor of stepping up to the plate these days and offering recent grads and post-grads their best chance at paying back their whopping inflated student loans...(a 40-year term, anyone?) Well those are the great new jobs that replaced the blue collar sell-off to southeast Asia. But enough of all that! A coffeehouse - was where important historic events once happened. Somewhere in between Woody Guthrie's rambles, and a Beatled mania - was the advent of a particular social institution that evolved a musical, cultural, political perspective. Without them, we would hardly have had a Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Donovan, James Taylor, Harry Chapin, and about a gazzillion other songwriters of the era. Starbucks is really the 21st century corporate reduction of this quaint tradition. Slip right in, plug in your laptop, ramp up your $20/day habit, and don't worry about a thing. Your tender sensibility is not about to be challenged by the likes of live entertainment, or any alternative point of view. You can privatize this public space - in fact, in the grand tradition, you are encouraged to do so! Starbucks is a franchised takeover of something many have forgotten, and many others have never known. The Bitter End, The White Cat, The Purple Onion, Grumbles, The Groaning Board, The Yellow Door, Punky's Dilemma, The Beech Tree, The Village Gate, Smokey Joe's Cafe, Fat Albert's, The Jailhouse, The Riverboat, Holy Joe's, The Back Fence, Diamond Jim's, Uncle Sam's, The Familiar Stone, Beat City, The Nightkitchen............ I could go on and on. Every town had one. Every city had a few, or quite a few. This was a circuit well-travelled. It was a scene. People came out, just to be there. It was an oral tradition. The closest thing you'll find to that now - happens in here. It ain't the same. Not only does Starbucks not even pretend to offer this up to the masses - it doesn't even have to. Just as Disney re-invented Main Street America, Starbucks commodified and corporatized the cup of coffee. My particular roots go back to a time of caffeinated speech, and a particular individualized and unique set of expressions - all original and specific enough to know what town you were in - by the set of the stage, the sound on the speakers, the rhetoric of the counter-person, the posters and pictures on the wall. The corporate reduction of natural calories down into Frankenfood, processed just as these microchips process "data"......has as much to do with the change in public demand as anything else. These are personal observations, beyond whatever the processor has to do with it. A cheez doodle has as much to do with cheese, as a butterfly sneeze has to do with rocket propulsion. A Starbuck has as much to do with coffeehouse tradition as capitalism has to do with democracy. Had I never known the coffeehouses of the 1960's and '70's - I might not mind so much the franchised world of today. What I recall is what used to be the natural environment of the hipster. (which is kind of where and how the term evolved in the first place.) These are our roots. Cut them - and the tree dies.
whenever i drink a starbucks frappucino i feel deeply, deeply ashamed. i feel like i'm indulging some sickening inner yuppie, or something. i try not to go there, because it's horribly expensive and such a waste of money. i make excellent coffee at home, with caramel, whipped cream, etc... that said, i try to go when my friends are working (free!) but sometimes i break down and buy something there or the bottled frapucinos at the gas station. i agree with the people who say that starbucks is just as bad as other chains, and that the world is starting to look like a strip mall. i'm starting to lose the desire to even travel anywhere on road trips, because all the places i have been just look like another corner of south florida (where i live.) there is no originality to these places, and yes it is sickening to see a line out the door in the morning of people who just HAVE to have their starbucks coffee. especially when there is an indie coffee shop RIGHT across the street with cheap, awesome cuban coffee. my ex boss was someone who would buy at least 2 lattes from starbucks daily, then when tax season came around, she wondered where all her money had gone, and was left closing her corporation every year cause she hadn't saved up for taxes. well, at least $2,500 went to starbucks!
on a related note, when i do order at starbucks, i make a point to never call the sizes by those dumb italian names they gave them. truly an act of rebellion, i know. :H
