NEWS: Look for the Union Latte

I have plenty of reasons why, though none of them are really of the "Starbucks is teh ebil!" variety. Besides just having a distaste for their coffee, my local coffee house is one of the places I really expect to have a personality. I realize that some people are just looking for a cup to get the day started or an air-conditioned room, but I spend a lot of time working and reading at my cafe and I like it to have some sort of individuality to it. Identical uniforms and cookie-cutter decor at all locations worldwide don't say vibrancy or personality to me.

I prefer to support local independent businesses when I can, ESPECIALLY coffee houses, because it's precisely these local shops that give help give every unique neighborhood its own particular feel. Abbot's Habit could only exist on Venice Beach on Abbot Kinney Blvd; Cafe Vesuvius could only exist in San Francisco in North Beach; Cafe Deux Magots could only exist in Paris on the Left Bank. A Starbucks could be anywhere and are designed to make a customer feel like they're nowhere in particular.

I'm not a Nazi about it - if you or anyone else prefers Starbucks I have no problem with it at all. And it's not as if drinking a venti latte there means you're singlehandedly bringing about the genericization of America. But in a certain capacity I feel like having my coffee at Starbucks means I'll be contributing to building a bland indistinctiveness of whatever avenue, neighborhood or city I'm in.

Here's a little secret: servers hate people who spend a lot of time working and reading at tables that could have people actually ordering more than that one bottomless cup of coffee.

But that's what SG "news" is based on!

You don't hate news...do you?

Here's a not so secret secret: If you want to turn tables, work at a diner, or McDonald's. If you take a job at a place that has newspapers and board games and free WiFi people are going to hang out there. That's kind of the point.

As an ex-employee who was unceremoniously fired after 5 years, I can say that starbucks was a great corporation and is trying hard to continue to be one... but the corporate office consistently tries to find new ways to ruin the company. That job was honestly the best job I've ever had, and I don't think I will ever find a corporate job that was nearly as rewarding... but they do go out of their way to make good employees feel like shit... and it's only the fact that the managers are generally good people that keeps the board of directors from getting away with the sort of shit mentioned in this article.

But they still usually find a new way to fuck up their employees lives in the name of profit:
Whether it's doing something like the article suggests or claiming to be environmentally aware, while upgrading every location to have a drive through
They continually are looking for ways to take advantage of customers and drive stock prices into the gutter.

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA !!!! Listen to some of these people!! I work for companies with a way smaller profit margine than starbucks and I make at least three or four times as much as you do even with all your starbucks "benefits." and i'm one of the lesser paid people in my trade.

good corporation my ass. they're cheap bastards who are flooding the economy with shitty service jobs. quit sucking up to starbucks just because they pay you $10 an hour instead of $7.50 or whatever the minimum wage is now.

1) There's no such thing as a bottomless cup of coffee in Los Angeles
2) It's not a diner. "Servers" in the sense of providing table service is generally not included at a coffee house - you order at the counter and leave a tip while doing so, so how quickly tables turn over has nothing to do with how well they're compensated.
3) I appreciate how thin the profit margins are for a small coffee house, so at the very least I keep up a continued level of purchases if I am spending a long time at a shop, especially if it's crowded.
4) The classic French/Vienna model of a cafe includes a separate pricing tier for to-go (lowest), inside seating (medium), and outside seating (highest), the idea being that if you are staying there to drink your espresso at a table, you pay a bit higher premium as a kind of 'rent' on that piece of real estate and it's yours for as long as you wish. Certain American cafes have adopted this tiered system as well.
5) Independent coffee houses tend to be close-knit communities The workers and owners of several shops I frequent are some of my closest and oldest friends. I spend more than enough to justify taking up space and they wouldn't hesitate for a minute to inform me if that wasn't the case. I'm quite sure they don't "hate" me for the ghastly crime of reading and working at the tables they provide for customers to read and work at.

I just don't like them because I'm pretty sure they drove out another coffee house nearby and the competing branch hasn't even opened yet...I don't think they walked in and threatened the owner...I think he just saw the sign and shit himself...so it's as much is fault I would say.

Anyway...I have a weekness for their canned iced coffees in the convenience store coolers...even if they are way over priced.

Is your job corporate? Or are you just boasting "my apple is better than your orange!"

This is the one thing I've never heard come out of corporate. They'll boast about environmental awareness in places like Costa Rica or Ethiopia, but it's almost as if they've given up on North America, since we're fucked ecologically anyway

no I'm blue collar. i talked about my "trade." i'm a carpenter.

and i'm making fun of all the people with company loyalty for a company that really doesn't do too much for them.

.....i love these geniuses on the internet who you have to explain the obvious to.

Evidently, Mr. Nobody, you lost all right to weigh in on this matter because your job isn't corporate. You have my condolences for your loss.

Yeah, and I bet you made that much the first day in your field with no real training, right?

I'm still waiting for him to bother trying. By his own admission he only stopped by to make fun of people for being in a different employment structure than he is.

A. Starbucks has created its own economic cell. It competes with itself and its own employees.
B. Starbucks consumer majority has no idea what they are drinking.
C. Abused Marxism.

It's actually an average of 20 (twenty) hours a week, 240 in a quarter. it's been that way for a long time.