Starbucks Visa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At the risk of being banished by all the people who think Starbucks is the ultimate thing I have to laugh. Nowonder some folks get into dire straights. They are having to finance their cup of coffee. Not that you don't have reason to at Starbucks. A person can easily have a $5-15+ a day Starbucks habit. extreme case about $100 a week. $5200 a year.Add 10-17+% APR. Hahah.. can you imagine some paying their Visa card payment in January 2014 and recalling that this is in part for that cup of coffee I drank 11 years ago! LOL.
I am originally from the midwest. I lived in WA state for a few years (1999-2002), and laughed at the "coffee subculture". I do admit though that I have gone into a Starbucks on occasion. We had to go with relatives who were part of that set. I was amused with the fact folks would shell out $5 or more for a coffee. So when I was in there I'd always make it a point to make my order in a reasonably loud voice so all could pretty much hear me. Id specifically order something like "A cuppacino. but don't add all those shots of coffee. I want one shot. And I want French vanilla, but do you have that flavoring they use down at the gas station in those automatic cappacino machines, because those taste better. Can you make it like the gas stations do??" Hahaha. That always makes the people around you cringe wish disdain and horror! The person usually making it just looks stunned. So what can I say.. I go for effect. I think there are those who like their drinks and thats fine. There are way too many that go in there to try to fit some psuedo-intellectual image though. As if hanging out in a franchised coffee shop reading isn't too transparent. Keep in mind I am speaking of a select group of patrons who clearly make it a status thing. There are many more who like and can afford to go grab half a dozen to go on the weekend then what the hey, drop buy and grab a dozen Cinnabons and grab a paper and go home. But call me a silly midwesterner, but $50+ for cinnamon roles and coffee for the morning? Adding insult to injury the thought of actually financing it scares the Hell out of me. Just a humble opinion, and yes I am a little challenged for things to do this afternoon. Sorry if anyone was offended by my personal observation of the Starbucks monopoly.

 

I dont go to Starbucks:


My family owns an ambulance service in Brooklyn NY. Midwood Ambulance if anyone knows it.

Anyway, my uncles were at "Ground Zero" during the attack to help the victims. They donated their time to help with this crisis as many New Yorkers did. A great deal of people were in shock from the devastation. As many of you know, shock victims are supposed to drink a lot of water. My uncle went to the Starbucks down the street to get bottles of water for the victims he was treating. Can you believe they actually charged him for it!! He paid the $130 for 3 cases of bottled water out of his own pocket. Now, I would think that in a crisis such as this, vendors in the area would be more than happy to lend a little help by donating water. Well, not Starbucks! As if this country hasn't given them enough money! Anyway, the point of this story wasn't to glorify my uncle's actions but to suggest a boycott on Starbucks. Now, I love Frappaccinos as much as anyone, but any company that would try to make a profit off of a crisis like this doesn't deserve the American public's hard earned money. Please forward this e-mail to any one you know and encourage them to do the same. Thank you!

 

That is terrible!! Water of all things! they should have offered water and any other thing they had in the face of that tragic event.
I used to live in Brooklyn also and must say I enjoyed going to any number of personal owned coffee shops in my neighborhood that all had more ambiance and all out kindness than you'd find at the Starbucks.
I am amazed that Starbucks refused water!! And I'd bet that any number of Korean mini markets (not a racial point I am making but in most areas of NYC, manhatten especially, the little convienance stores are owned mainly by Koreans. And they often have atrocious prices on their goods ($32 for a can off coffee.. they must buy theirs from the same distributor as Starbucks,,lol). In any event Id bet any number of these mini marts were gladly helping out in the crisis. But that is awful to hear! Water!!! geeesh!

 

You're going to blame the entire company for the actions of a 20-year old part time employee who is doing what he or she is told and is having a hard time getting through tech school? The actions of one employee are not necessarily indicitive of the entire company or what the manager or Corporate offices of the shop would have wanted.

Buckets

 

If he/she was doing what she was told, then she was doing what management or corporate offices had told them to do.

Yes, I blame the company.

 

Thats a true story..here's snopes take on it

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/starbuck.htm

 

According to the article posted above, Starbucks' Corporate offices took care of the problem, provided free coffee to rescue workers and gave $1 million to the September 11th Fund (a national relief endeavor to help victims of the tragedy). Did they respond immediately to the situation? No. Was it perfect handling of the situation? No. Do employees make mistakes? Yes. But it doesn't mean the whole company and all of its workers are to blame.

Buckets

 

Hmm, $130. thats like 6 Starbucks drinks in NYC, hehe. $1,000,000 hmm, thats about 5 days recipts for that store. And considering that 1M was a corporate donation that means that they gave up about a nickel of revenue for one day if you average it out over All stores. Yep, they are generous. And they probably only felt compelled to do that because every other corporation was giving $1m or More.
I'm not abut to pat them on the shoulder for caving into corporate peer pressure.
Even a boneheaded 20 year old underpaid worker should have noticed the big airplanes flying into a couple of the largest buildings in the city and got a clue there was some urgent need to help. Ive lived in NYC for about 5 years and know that most things dramatic aren't that dramatic There, but considering the enormous impact this made in just a few short moments, even the clueless should have 'got it', and acted accordingly.
But as long as folks continue to pay for rediculously overpriced coffee drinks, Starbucks will continue to be the greedy monopoly that they are. The only parody I can recall at the moment was once seeing an episode of the Simpsons (take that for what it is.. Id rather my kids watched that than Barney!) and at the mall every little business was a Starbucks.
Can we say America is over saturated with them? Especially certain areas. When I lived in WA I couldnt stand seeing them. So I lived on Whidbey Island where I think there was only one on the whole Island and a good 25 miles from where I lived.
I will give a break to the little coffee/espresso stands that are on every corner of the state because at lease those are small businesses and not a huge corporation making the killing. And the truth is, I really like the junk that comes out of the gas station cuppacino machines. So I laugh even more. I do in all honesty have a weakness for the Cinnabons. But considering they are like $15+ for 6 cinnamon roles even those have their limit.
Hmm ya think Starbucks and Amex are in bed? They both represent overblown status symbols. These guys make the collection departments from Capital One and Providian and any other slimey CA look like humanitarians.

 

I agree that they are way way wway over priced and I rarely go to them because I'd rather pay for other over-priced places like fancy restuarants such as the Palm or Ruth's Chris. I also think that for 5 dollars I would rather get a scotch than a cup of coffee. But remember this is the free market and the object of a business owner is to get people to pay as much as they will before going somewhere else. Obviously a lot of people do enjoy the coffee habit. I never really thought of the Starbucks as a partiuclarly intellectual environment any more than 7eleven or Dunkin Donuts. If anything, the place seems very egalitarian in that people of all economic levels can waste their money. It is certainly nothing like the Beat-era coffee houses.

 

You ought to go to a coffee house in Amsterdam. Guess what you get.

(Hint-its not coffee)

 

In all fairness I will say that probably throughout most of the Starbuck through the majority of America there is likely little element of psuedo-intellectuals hanging out.. However when I lived in Washington, MANY locations were just that. Just kind of made me roll my eyes. I have a similar argument with the coffee shops they stick in the Barnes & Noble bookstores. Though that is more acceptable considering more actual literate people go there and trully just want a coffee at the time.
But some of the goofs that hang out at Starbucks litterally try to make it some big image to say "Hey, I can buy a $5 coffee. Look at me. Doesn't it match my new $400 coat from the mall." THAT is trying to keep up with the Jones. Not the desire to have a $15K car. just my opinion.

 

Is the ability to show that you can spend 5 on coffee kind of like the people who keep their windows in their cars down in the summer so that you can hear that they can afford to keep the air conditioner on?

 

ROFL!! You almost made me spill my coffee (instant) on my keyboard! What is that? Air on, but the window rolled down...*ahem* I've noticed that it's mostly men doing that, at least where I live.