So I walked into my local Starbucks recently (actually
that is like saying I met a Japanese guy in Tokyo, you can’t swing a dead cat
without hitting a Starbucks in this city) near my office in downtown Seattle.
Truth be told, I went to the one that is actually in my building but I could
have easily walked across the street out any door of the building and gone to
one as well.
I ordered a Venti Decaf Caramel Macchiato, triple shot,
double pump vanilla, soy milk extra hot, extra caramel with room and paid for
it with my Starbucks preloaded gold card. Actually that wasn’t me at all, that
was the woman in front of me. I just sat there and gawked, eyes glazing over,
as confused as if she had just casually explained the theory of relativity to
the bright eyed and bushy tailed 18 year old barista. For those of you that are
unaware, people that work in coffee shops in Seattle are not waiters and
waitresses, they are baristas, and don’t tell them otherwise, and they expect
tips.
I ordered a large decaf. I tried to order a large
decaf. The same barista who was smiling and happy and got the previous order
exactly right was now looking at me as if I had summarized Immanuel Kant’s The
Critique of Pure Reason and was asking for her take on the western hierarchical
thought process. I now had a 10 minute conversation about what type of coffee I
wanted to drink. She asked me:
- Do you want room? I answered that I have plenty of rooms at home, confused.
- Hot or cold? I said, it’s coffee, not a beer.
- Americano or drip? My jaw slacked. She explained, at least I think she did, I had tuned out completely at this point.
This is not exactly the deep thought process that I
need to delve into before even hitting my office. If I wanted this level of
difficulty first thing in the morning, an 8:00 a.m. calculus course at the
local university would be more appropriate. I did not have a Starbucks gold
card and was summarily frowned upon by everyone in sight. There was genuine
disappointment among the throng of office workers waiting for me to finish my
order. The people directly behind me were visibly alarmed at my inability to
get this right. I felt the same level of discomfort that occurs when
accidentally passing gas in an empty elevator only for it to stop halfway up to
my floor to allow 4 more people to get on. I then forgot to tip the barista.
Since that day, I have ventured into many coffee shops
in and around this city and have had the same experience. Tully’s, Seattle’s
Best (owned by Starbucks, but with no market differentiation – it is still $4
for a latte, $2.50 for a drip, just slightly different coffee), Top Pot (unreal
heavenly donuts that sit in your stomach for a week), Vittoria, etc. There are
hundreds. My personal favorite is Vittoria on Capitol Hill and Top Pot, also on
Capitol Hill. Top Pot is truly jet fuel, but tastes great. I don’t like
Starbucks house as it is too bitter for me and is probably at least half of the
cause of my ulcers. What I find interesting is that most of these places have
their own lingo as well so when ordering, it is an entirely new learning
process.
Tips on tipping: I personally don’t think that someone
that pours me a decaf cup of coffee or takes 30 seconds to make me a latte
should be tipped after they charge me $4.00 for it. Call me cheap, but in
general the tipping in this country is out of control. They don’t have to wait
on us, they just have to move less than 3 feet and operate the machine. Now I
am sure that I will get a lot of flak from some people when reading this and
you know who you are, but that is my humble opinion. Asking the people that
serve me my morning joe this very question; they said that since 75% of the
people that get coffee pay with their Starbucks card the tips end up being
immaterial. Some may disagree and I only surveyed one place and one person so
this is by no means a good statistical sampling.
So next time you are in downtown Seattle and see
someone ordering a Venti Decaf Caramel Macchiato, triple shot, double pump
vanilla, soy milk extra hot, extra caramel with room and paying for it with a
Starbucks preloaded gold card, stop and say “hello” to me. Oh wait, that won’t
be me, I will be the confused looking guy holding up the line ordering the
large decaf.
Gary R. Beebe Jr., Seattle, WA (January 15th, 2011)
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