I too am very much against Starbucks, especially being from Vancouver where there is a Starbucks every ten meters on some blocks (no joke). I must say that I agree with a lot that is written in this discussion group, but what really bothers me the MOST is how completely unoriginal and boring and plain depressing it is to see so many God Damned Starbucks in one city. I hated private school because we all had to wear the same uniforms…no self-expression allowed. That’s what having this pretentious coffee shop every where reminds me of…some unoriginal corporate conservatives messed-up idea of making sure all shops look the same, serve the same stuff and hire the same employees (contrary to their claim of having a hiring practice that doesn’t discriminate, more on THAT later). Maybe I best not compare this coffee shop to staunchly stuffy uniforms (those at least have a small element of sex appeal, Starbucks is ANYTHING but sexy), A better comparison would be to clones. Living in a city full of walking talking clones would be enough to want to hang myself (especially if they were clones of myself) so why would I want to walk a city where there are store duplicates after store duplicated and nothing else (that’s what a lot of cities are turning into).

But to get to the part where I say something good about Starbucks (I know, I know it’s hard to believe our enemy has something redeemable about it) I’ll start by telling you that I used to work at Starbucks (please forgive me Lord) so I am speaking from experience. I also used to work at Bean Around the World, Blenz and Torrefatzione Italia (which incidentally is now owned by Starbucks too).

Out of all these coffee shops Starbucks is the only place that offered me full benefits as a part-time worker (less then 20 hours a week even) after a few months working there, and offered me stock options. I also got a raise in pay regularly enough that working there for a long time was rewarded AND I could pick up hours working at any of the other Starbucks in the city anytime I wanted if I wasn’t getting enough shifts at my location. In other words I was respected as an employee (partner they called us) and was rewarded for my hard work and was given more work if I needed it. Starbucks also donated money to the organizations I was involved in if I submitted formal request or took part in that organization’s march or protest.

As a starving student in my late teens early twenties this kind of job was unheard of, as a matter of fact after I left Starbucks I couldn’t afford to get my teeth cleaned for a good two years (don’t look so grossed out, I still brushed!) A lot of cool “grass roots” organic local coffee shops pay their employees next to nothing and don’t get enough regular customers to fill the tip jar. Another bonus to working at Starbucks—tips. Because there are always so many customers (ones that tip well too) we got a tip pay out every off-week (the one where we didn’t get a pay check) and the tips were good, not like “food server” good, but good enough to buy my groceries or weekend of partying. This was a lifesaver for me.

The drawback to working there though was the “cult” like feeling of the work environment. Or the “clickiness”, to be gentler. Everyone has a certain “lingo” and style…it might be too rude or politically incorrect to say that they mostly hire gay guys, fat chicks and artsy-fartsy types but what the hell I’ll say that it mostly holds true. There is nothing wrong with this practice per-say (In my opinion those are the coolest most “with-it” people I know) but it still is a form of discrimination to only hire certain types of people. It goes back to the whole I don’t like clones point I made earlier. I hate “clicks” and I hate groups of people who think that they are better and more knowledge then everyone else. The majority of Starbucks employees think that they are more knowledgeable then you “oh lowly customer who knows nothing about coffee” are. There is always this super “I am so cool” vibe at Starbucks and the staff get that way because they are totally brainwashed in the training part of the hiring. I know, I went through it first hand.

You go through this week of intense Starbucks classes that include coffee tasting; this is where you sit (and I am not joking here) swish coffee around on the palette of your tongue and spit it in a cup (like wine tasting) and describe to your fellow new hires what room of the house the taste reminds you of, or what colour you think of when you taste it. This is also where you are told respectively by the managers that human beings cannot taste “bitter” that there is no such thing as “bitter” and anyone (customer) who says that the coffee is bitter is actually uninformed and wrong.

You are also told respectively that the coffee is not “burnt” and anyone who thinks it tastes like that doesn’t understand the roasting process of the beans and is also uneducated and not as informed as YOU are, because in other words-- “you are a partner at Starbucks therefore you are in fact smarter then the customer”.

Needless to say I got sick of being around pretentious know-it-alls who “take it in their corporate slave asses everyday by management, and “give-it” in the asses to every customer who has a different preference for coffee that may not be the All mighty Godly perfect cup of coffee “Starbucks Coffee”. I got in Doggy-Style position for the Starbucks routine brainwashing sessions myself when I worked there (hey we all get desperate for a pay check at some point). The best of these sessions was the “Yayy frapacchino” hoop-la where all of us “Partners” got to miss a shift of work to celebrate Frappecchino beverages together with fun and games and “quickest drink maker” competitions.

We were made to wear Hawaiian flower chains and my store manager even put an inner tube on her head to fit in with the summer theme. This all sounds harmless, but trust me it’s not it’s just one of the many examples of Starbuck’s weird employee “bonding” and team building strategies all in the name of making a HUGE profit. I mean huge! Each and every cup of coffee you buy is only worth 3 or 4 cents (they told us that too) and most drinks sell between 3 and 6 dollars there, so really paying your staff well is nothing to pat them on the backs too much for…but this day in age it’s really hard to find a job that pays more then minimum wage and gives you enough hours to survive on, especially coffee shops.

My long winded ranty-ness is just to say that Yes Starbucks Sucks, for all the reasons I listed and more…but there is intelligence behind their domination of the market, they do truly respect their employees (especially if you are a gay guy, fat chick, or artsy-fartsy type) and I would recommend working there over Blenz to young student types ANYDAY but that my friends is a story for another blog day.

Until then keep up the good anti-Starbucks work, but remember to be more understanding of the people that are working there too, just because they are arrogant and self-righteous preachy little coffee snobs who will resort to wearing inner-tubes on their heads all in the name of a product launching campaign doesn’t mean that they don’t have feelings or financial needs for survival too.Hey, I was there once, and I must say I have A LOT more respect for the Barista (at any coffee shop) then I did before I worked at one.