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When you think of adjectives like pompous, expensive, arrogant, and abominable, synapses in your brain automatically jump to the National Hockey League. It never dawned on me that those same descriptors can be applied to another wretched institution in Starbucks.
Full disclosure: there's little I enjoy less than a cup of coffee. I've never understood the appeal behind drinking something that tastes like it has an octane rating, so naturally, it's tough to remove a shield of internal bias. But, having recently stepped foot into a Starbucks, I can assure you that amongst all of the coffee shops in North America, this place ranks Columbus Blue Jackets-last.
Whether you're a fan of their coffee or not, you must admit that the facts and findings outlined below are (a) undeniable; (b) incontrovertible; and (c) both (a) and (b) again, for emphasis.
To the rest of you unfamiliar with Starbucks and their lifeless blood-sucking of the North American consumer, consider this a helpful reminder the next time you're looking to dial-up the heart rate.
The problems with Starbucks can be addressed on two specific fronts: (1) corporate; and (2) consumer. Let's start with the employees first.
I have to show a bit of love to Starbucks corporate offices before tearing it all down. They've somehow managed to propagandize an entire population into paying a premium for allegedly quality coffee, which is equal parts terrifying and unnerving. The prices at these places are unfathomably insane,
be it coffee or
specialty drinks. Consider
what it costs to make these drinks, and you realize that there's an absurdity of overhead charge that you're punting away.
Compare Starbucks to a competitor, and you basically now understand what fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Rangers feel forty-one times a year -- a-ha, I kid; zero times this year -- when they purchase tickets in the second or third-tiers. They're paying for seats on the glass, seats you're supposed to sit in and watch as
Carlo Colaiacavo breaks his beak inches from your loved ones. All the cost, half the glory.
Starbucks isn't the first corporation to upcharge those with purchasing power, so it's important to only use price as the foundation or framework for this North American con-job.
Let's consider everything but the actual cost when buying a drink. First, you step into a small place buzzing with classic jazz music (good) and a lot of hipsters who have cut their way from Brooklyn or Portland into your general area (bad). There's not a chance in absolute hell you're making it through the run of cattle in five minutes, because there's
always a wait. I give the employees credit: sometimes, they come out of the back to take orders on the fly, but most of the time its a futile effort. You can only pump so much average coffee in a minute.
As you're waiting to spend half of your paycheck on a brew, you look around and notice the troglodytes filling in. There are conveniently placed chairs, tables, and sofas around the Starbucks to give it a homely vibe. Unfortunately, all it does is attract two groups of people, neither of which you're likely to find anything but deplorable. The first are your pack of wild college kids who don't want to give anyone the time of day -- their only reason for being in the Starbucks with laptop, iPod, and Beats by Dre headphones is so everyone else notices how hard they're working on their first-year undergrad assignment. The whole college-kid-magnet thing Starbucks has going on I never particularly understood, because it doesn't appear to be a place where one can work effectively due to the noise, nor does it seem to be a place of comfort, with hordes of people coming in and out of the doors like Penn Station.
This group has a sub-group -- the evolving of students to the working class, most of which became freelance writers, poets, bloggers, web designers, artists, musicians, and in all likelihood, noble laureates. From my estimation, the above industries are the kind of ones you need to put an absurd amount of work into to ever gain financial stability, and as such, maximum efficiency -- combined with inane talent -- is what can push someone into the limelight. Now, speaking a bit anecdotal here, I'd imagine that precisely 0.0% of people who burn off every afternoon at Starbucks listening to Pandora on their Apple Mac aren't redefining the capability of human output.
The second group of people you'll notice are senior citizens. They're not as numerable because they're usually miserly in their old age, and more than anything else, you kind of appreciate their measurable boredom with life in general, killing an hour or seven at the local Starbucks, people-watching until the sixteen year-old in the back shuffles 'em out. Harmless, but unremarkable.
I'm guessing it took me ten or so minutes to type the few paragraphs above, which should put you fairly close to the menu and register. Now, you can browse an assortment of drinks. I'll give Starbucks a bit of credit for variety here, even if most of it tastes the same, and by the same, I mean similarly terrible.
If you're a first time frequenter of this institution, or simply not of the culturally elite crowd that can't survive a day without Starbucks, prepare for the anxiety attack to end all others. See, some of the names of drinks are foreign, and compounding the issue, the sizes don't work in the medium-large-fat person system North Americans are accustomed to.
For whatever reason, Starbucks decided to transcend civilization in the Western Hemisphere, opting for a bizarre size run of "short, tall, grande, venti, and trente," in growing order. Starbucks isn't just sidestepping your civil rights -- they're trampling them. And, before you ask, I've tried -- and continue to try -- asking for a 'size medium', and am instantaneously shot a glare from across the counter as if I committed treason.
When the drink is made, don't even think about touching it until two hours after serve-time. Starbucks has this idea that serving coffee at the maximum temperature prior to evaporating into thin-air is what the consumer wants.
At this moment, if you have an ounce of respectability as a human being, you'll immediately head to your car and book it out of there before anyone else notices what you're doing. Stick around, and you'll turn into Starbucks Guy -- and no one, no one likes Starbucks Guy.
By now, you're probably getting ready to jump into the comments section and ask why the hell I'm writing about coffee. Allow me to expand. One, there's this thing called a lockout where two sides cannot agree to terms on a collective bargaining agreement, which dictates the terms and conditions of employment. Two, I just saw the Seinfeld episode where
Kramer accepts a settlement deal of free coffee for a lifetime after an ugly burn/spill, rather than pursue potentially life-changing damages rewarded by a jury.
Also, the two places really do have a lot in common. They solidified as much when the NHL reached out to Starbucks as the first retailer for their Midtown West store in Manhattan. Hell, Starbucks even
had a work stoppage in Nebraska.
Day 94 of the NHL lockout. Send help.
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Thanks for reading!
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