There are many things I dislike about the evil coffee empire. I will make a list:
The Top 10 Reasons I Hate Starbucks
10. Too expensive for coffee that isn't even fresh ground. I can make fresher coffee myself.
9. Their regular coffee often tastes bitter to me, like it has been burnt. Maybe I just have idiots working at my local Starbucks. But it seems like if you are a coffee place, you should be able to make coffee without fucking it up. They should know not to boil the coffee. Tsk tsk.
8. Have you ever been at a Starbucks found yourself looking out the window at another Starbucks? I have. I've been to more than one Starbucks that was in view of a second Starbucks. Starbucks Starbucks, everywhere a Starbucks. Enough already. Sheesh.
7. The pseudo-chill atmosphere. A coffee place with couches and comfy chairs to sit in... this sounds fabulous to me. I love to go get coffee and laze there on a couch reading or talking to people in a relaxing place. At Starbucks, it's like they tried to recreate that scene, but failed. It comes across as terribly corporate to me. I don't find the place relaxing at all. Or comfy.
6. Lame trendy music. I don't really care if John Maher has a new CD. I also don't care if someone from American Idol does either. If I did care, I would go to a music store to buy it. I don't think I would go to Starbucks. Same applies to any other crap they are trying to shovel down my throat in that place.
5. Iced Caramel Macchiato. This is a drink that should not exist. This is terrible. I Did not know what a Macchiato was. I just thought to myself, "Mmmm Caramel!" It was so bad I had to go back and ask them what the fuck happened to my coffee. My understanding now is that a cafe macchiato is espresso with a small amount of milk in it. Like a latte but with a lot less milk. But it seems that according to Starbucks, it means "upside down drink with almost no espresso." Their concept of the macchiato is that you have a cup of milk, then you pour espresso into it. For some reason, you don't stir it. And if it's a caramel macchiato, you then pour in caramel syrup. Again, no stirring. A hot macchiato sounds slightly ok, but still not really. But Iced? You take cold milk, pour in a barely detectable amount of espresso, and then glob in some caramel syrup that hardens in the cold milk and sinks to the bottom. They shouldn't let people order that. Also, I think someone should let them know that they got it backwards. The real idea of the macchiato (at a real coffee place) is to have espresso, with a touch of milk. Who wants milk with a touch of espresso?
4. The customers are douchebags. NOT ALL OF THEM. OK, don't all get in a huff. We all go to Starbucks, it's impossible to never go there if you are a coffee drinker. We are not all douchebags. But honestly, how many people can you stand to see in one place who are ordering a coffee while checking an email on their blackberry, and/or talking on their cell phone with one of those ear piece things? I'm sorry, but if you are out in a public place interacting with live human beings who are THERE in FRONT of you, and at the SAME TIME you are also talking to someone else on a ridiculous looking cyborg-esque bluetooth thing, you are a douchebag. If I am not at work and I hear you saying things like "at the end of the day," "think outside the box," or "win-win situation," then you are a douchebag. It seems that every time I go to Starbucks, there is at least one of these idiots near me. And as much as I dislike the staff at Starbucks (see below), I feel sorry for them when they are trying desperately to move the line along, but you are too busy "troubleshooting" with your team to FUCKING ORDER YOUR COFFEE ALREADY!
3. The cups are leaky. OK, I've only had this happen twice, but I can't think of another Starbucks grievance to air, and a 'top 10 list' is just more snappy than a 'top 9 list'...
2. The Blatantly Insincerely Super Friendly Staff. "HI THERE! (**GRIN**) HOW IS YOUR DAY GOING? IS IT GREAT? ARE YOU SUPER EXCITED?" This was literally how I was greeted last week when I went to get a coffee. Um, no, I am not SUPER excited. I am normal excited. Which, since I am standing in a Starbucks means I am not even a little bit excited actually... And I know you aren't Super Excited either. You are at work. Your job is to feed people caffeine all day. Let's be honest. It's not SUPER exciting. I don't mean to imply that they should be cranky assholes. No. They have a service job, so some friendliness is required. But there is a limit to how friendly people should be. When everyone at every Starbucks on earth is so over the top exuberantly thrilled to see you, every time you go in there, it's obvious that their corporate employer has made it a policy that they have to be that way. If I needed someone to act "SUPER" excited and wear a pasted on smile, I would go see clowns at the circus.
1. THE SIZES OF THE DRINKS. What the fuck? Can't we just have small, medium and large? Tall. Grande. Venti. I have to feel like an asshole when I order my coffee? Since I live in an English speaking country, I feel retarded asking for a Grande or Venti drink. I don't even know if Venti means anything relating to coffee or a size. It is apparently the Italian word for Twenty. "I'll have a twenty iced mocha!" No. That's nonsense. The smallest drink on the menu is "Tall." WHAT THE FUCK? Anyone with a shred of sanity can't put up with this. I heard once that they also have a secret size, the "Short." But it's a secret, so it is not on the menu. If they would put it on the menu I could maybe get on board with the Tall coffee. If they have short, why don't they tell us about it? Again, WHAT THE FUCK? I just want coffee. I don't want a dictionary and secret insider knowledge in order to be able to order the right size, for fucks sake. One of my general pet peeves is places that have drinks sized "Medium, "Large," and "Extra Large." NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. If it is the smallest drink you have, it is NOT A MEDIUM. it's a SMALL you fucking fucktards! I feel like Starbucks executives must not share my aggravation with this idiocy. Rather than seeing that it is illogical, they were inspired, embraced the concept, and then made it their own. Since it wasn't quite irrational enough for them, they took it to a level no one ever imagined possible. Or wanted to.
I feel better having vented about that. Now I feel like I should take a minute to mention two awesome Starbucks employees. These two guys both made my days better. I want to be fare, and so I reluctantly admit they do not ALL suck:
a. Teenager with cracking voice at Starbucks in Safeway- I was grocery shopping early in the morning, started to have caffeine withdrawal, and so I got a coffee. The boy at the counter was, again, a little too nice for my taste. He asked how my day was going, all loud and smiling. I explained that I was at a grocery store at 9am on my day off only because I had been woken up by my JOB calling me and ruining my late sleep. I was cranky. He then caught my cue to tone it down about 50 notches and was just sympathetic and thankfully stopped talking to me so damn loud. The other really cool thing was that 15 minutes later when I was at the register paying for my groceries, I spilled my coffee drink ALL OVER the place. My pants and shoes were soaked in iced coffee and it was splattered all over the ground. He saw this and felt bad, and he just came over and gave me a replacement coffee for free. Thanks Guy.
b. So funny... I was in Prague. Yes, one time I actually went to a Starbucks in Europe. The thing was that any time I tried to get extra shots of espresso in my coffee in Prague, the people seemed really pissed off at me for that. Oddly upset. So one exhausted day, I saw that green sign and decided to just get a big triple mocha and avoid having to go to three different cafes throughout the afternoon. This place was mobbed. There was about 20 people in the line. They were by default conducting business in English, because most of the customers were tourists. The line was going terribly slow. I almost left, several times. But when I finally got to the counter, this Czech guy was taking orders:
"Hello, how are you doing today and how may I please help you today?" he said in his slow eastern European drawling accent. He had that company mandated smile on his face. He kept chatting a little while he was passing my cup with the order written on it to the next person in the production line. Then he informs me "Yes. Please. This will be (some amount of money I can't remember now) for your coffee today!" I paid. Then, "Thank you very much for your business today. I hope you will be enjoying your wonderful afternoon in the city of Prague." Smiling. He repeated all of this with all of the customers.
No wonder the line was so long! There is no reason for all of that when there are so many people waiting. No way. Smile maybe, say thank you, but otherwise you just move the people along and get them out of there. And I was not at all mad at this kid. I really believe he was doing exactly what his manager told him he needed to do. And I'm sure there is an employee handbook about this too. I think he was scared to not say all this crap to us because he'd get into trouble. That poor boy. The situation was ridiculous. And there were all these other really impatient people barking orders for their skinny half-caf lattes no whip at him. He kept on with his slow deliberate script of pleasantries, with a slightly frightened smile on his face. Struggling to maintain his calm friendly demeanor in the middle of a maelstrom of noise and chaos.
That poor boy.
