Starschmucks and I are not friends. Yes, it is because I used to work there.
I was running out of my unemployment benefits and I took a job as a barista (ie-coffee monkey) to keep me out of the poor house until I found another proper office job. I ended up staying a year and a half.
This was not because I enjoyed it there. That company seemed to go out if its way to fail to endear itself to me from Day 1.
Day 1 being the morning after seeing Sir Paul McCartney in concert and having little time to sleep before having to rise at 6:00 AM in order to make it my Orientation session at Charfucks Head Office way the hell out in North York. Way the hell out in comparison to Port Credit, where I lived at the time.
The folks at Head Office sent me home because my shirt was cream coloured instead of white. All newbs were expected to show up “in uniform” (black or tan pants and black or white shirt) and the slight coffee-coloured tinge to my shirt got me sent the hell back to Port Credit. They would not let me into the mandatory Orientation session, where we would not even be seen by the public, because of the non-colour of my shirt.
And the tone for the duration of my employment at Fivebucks was set.
I worked under three different managers in my time there. The first was trying to quit smoking and took his shakes and nicotine withdrawl out on his employees. Especially us coffee monkeys in-training who hadn’t learned all the barista secrets yet. The second was just out-right incompetent and caused the already sagging store morale to sag even more. Then the last, an ambitious lad more than a few years my junior. Along with the new assistant manager, they were a pair of young go-getters eager to put their stamp on this store. I can’t stand young go-getters in the least.
And there was lots of coffee politics and store-induced dramatic moments in between those managers. All those things combined made the decision to leave not very hard at all. Even though my move to another coffee shop (except this one was downtown) was only a lateral one, I’ve never regretted not sticking around trying to be promoted to Shift Supervisor.
It was not long after that when Starbucks started to experience its “problems.” The timing makes me think karma was at work there.
Starbucks was getting serious competition from other vendors who had quality beans to offer their patrons for peanuts in comparison. Where once it was considered sophisticated to frequent Dumbfucks, it now just made one look stupid to keep paying those outrageous prices for java. And on second thought, the giving the cup sizes questionable Italian names was more pretentious than sophisticated. Also, the whole economic meltdown.
Whole stores actually closed, where once there were two on every block and three in every non-white elephant mall.
And then they made this dumb move:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34925407/?GT1=43001
They’re raising the prices of their “bar drinks” (ie- the Frappucinos, caramel machiatos etc.) while drip coffee drinkers are getting a break on prices. Those whipped cream-topped blender coffee drinks are the only things that force most people to Shlubbucks anymore since quality drip coffee can be found even in crappy fast food joints now. And those are the items these clowns are raising the prices on.
I have absolutely no business training at all, but that sounds like kind of a bad decision.
I wouldn’t go back there if the sold the best Schadenfreude cake in the world.
Unless it was vegan, of course.
