Starbucks "Customer Service" = Calling the Cops
 

English Professor refuses to use proper Starbucks corporate-speak while ordering. Starbucks employee refuses to respond to standard english. Starbucks manager calls the cops. Cops escort the customer from the premises.

http://www.popfi.com/2010/08/17/engl...ith-starbucks/
http://gothamist.com/2010/08/16/cops...omer_who_w.php
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/67327,...m-coffee-venti
http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/artic...my-plain-bagel

As UT recently noted, if Starbucks wants to hear about what you want, they will TELL YOU what you want.

What a twat. I bet it's not the first place she's been thrown out of.

I'm with Jinx - although the person behind the counter could have been more accommodating. I very rarely go into this kind of chain, and have always been treated politely when I say obvious things like, "Which of those is cold?" or simply ask for a small black coffee (my poison before the sleep-issue/ caffeine thing became a reality).

In a decent establishment, asking for a plain bagel should suffice. If asked further a "Just plain, please" should be adequate.
But she is an English Professor. Does she not understand that language changes and adapts? Does she not value the importance of communicating in a way other people understand? What we call English now would be incomprehensible to the Normans post 1066.

And in the end, if she wants personal service, and the right to be as pissy as she likes without complaint, then she needs to go to an independent shop, not a massive chain. When it comes down to it, Tiffany at Starbucks doesn't really give a shit if the whiny woman walks out. Whereas Isaac round the corner is happy to serve her bagel any way the shiksa wants it.

I occasionally get coffee from Starbucks. I have been corrected on more than one occasion by the order taker (actually, this is an interesting turn, who is ordering whom?) when I ask for a large drip coffee. "A venti drip coffee?" "No, just a large please." <insert condescending look here> "Venti it is then."

What hubris.

Last I checked, "butter" and "cheese" are words in the English language, not kitschy marketing slang. She was asked a direct question ("would you like butter or cheese on that?") and decided to be a bitch instead of answering. I hope the manager stands up for himself and reiterates that it is store policy not to allow customers to harass their employees.

I've never said venti and have never been corrected for saying large. I've never corrected them either. I don't care what they call it as long as we're both talking about the same thing, and somehow we know we are...

Did some people not get their "Happy Meal" this week ?

What direct question would require her to say either "butter" or "cheese"? The answer to your proposed question would be "no".

....instead of getting to the register and bitching that she didnt get her cream cheese and holding up the whole line. All she had to do was say "no" or "plain". Shouldn't be too hard for an english speaker of her impressive caliber.

Yes you do....

I asked for a coke. Was immediately corrected. "Pepsi". I did not use proper English.

Business transactions have become so difficult now that so many are angry and hateful. Good thing I did not have my burka on.

CHEESEBURGER! CHEESEBURGER! NO COKE! PESPI!

Belusi was not speaking good English. He looked like a Muslim. Back then it was humor. Today he must be evil.

How dare he serve Cheeseburgers near ground zero. Cheeseburgers in NYC that are not even Kosher? He must be evil.

Nothing destroys boredom more than intolerance. Hate, improper English, and the destruction of boredom. Life is good.

tw... you light up my life.

Right. Which she refused to say. If you walk around with a chip on your shoulder and then call store employees "assholes" for not understanding your brand of passive-aggression, don't be surprised when the cops escort you out.

Serves her right for going to Starbucks in the first place.

I have, on occasion, had to go to Starbucks.
When I order a "large regular coffee", I've never been corrected.
Then again, I look like I 'could' be a problem.

As per Coke/Pepsi, I order a Coke, no ice.
When I get "Pepsi ok?", it's "NO! Pepsi is not ok! It MUST be Coke! But if Pepsi's all you got, that's fine."
The confusion is worth it.

Starbucks sucks! Go to DD.

Large DD Ice Coffee, light and sweet.
My new gotta-have.

I'll add my opinion. The woman is a douchebag asshole, Lookout should have popped a cap in her ass. WTF is wrong with people hassling employees of places like Starbucks. They don't make the rules and they don't make much more than minimum wage. I'd have walked away and told my manager "Dude, I'm not getting paid enough to put up with touch-holes like her."

Post her fucking picture in every starbucks and ban her.

Fucking idiot.

Once I went to a Barnes and Noble coffee shop and thought it was all Starbucksie, so I ordered a "Viente Iced Chai" to which a surely teenager said "This isn't starbucks!"

Once I went into a store and asked for 3 pounds of Polish sausage and the store keeper asked me if I was Polish. I said, "Yeah, what of it? If I'd asked for Italian sausage, would you have asked me if I were Italian?"

"Probably not." He replied.
"What if I asked for German sausage, would you ask if I were German?"
"Probably not." He said again.
"Then why assume I'm Polish just because I asked for Polish sausage?"
"Because this is a hardware store, Jack."

Fuck Starbucks. And arthritis.

Oldie, but, a goodie!:D

I'm thoroughly convinced that there are people on earth whose soul purpose is to be an asshole to everyone, even someone just trying to make an honest buck.

Some bitch ass stopped in the gas station near me last week, and was acting like the obvious made-up prissy bitch she was because the employee asked another employee to help her get her receipt out of the pump. "Can't you print me one in here" "No ma'am, sorry I can't. He'll fix you up out there." "Well that's just GREAT."

Go back to Cuntville, is what I say.

:p:

All minimum wage employees should be allowed one audible pooch punt to cuntville per shift.

:lol:

Agree!

Me too! :)

Why the fuck didn't she just answer NEITHER when asked if she wanted butter or cream cheese. I'd say maybe it was that time of the month, but she's probably like that all the time. What a bitch.

:eyebrow:

Hahahahaha...you really didn't just say she must have been on the rag, did you?

Come, visit our century. You may find it welcoming and open.

Here, fixed that for myself. :D

Heheheee. I had to give you a jab. You're all right. :)

Argh.
My great ally over the last six (can it be that long?) years is that whenever a male colleague has suggested I am suffering from PMS - and yes they have, albeit in jest, to my face - I've explained ad nauseum why I don't get PMS. I've talked them through the whole process of having a contraceptive implant, what it is, what it does and how it regulates the menstrual cycle. And then I've made them feel it in my arm.

To be fair, the men who've been close enough to me to "joke" about these things have taken it quite well. But I know they've thought twice about making those "jokes" to other women afterwards.

Sadly, in the process I found I can be quite scary to men.
Not now of course. Now I just never see them or talk to them.
But back when I had male colleagues and friends I realised after being an easy adolescent I was destined to a hard future as a crazy cat-woman. Getting the cats was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What has science in "our century" shown? That a wild, roller-coaster fluctuation of hormones has NO EFFECT on a person's behavior? Or, that political correctness has trained us that certain things are "wrong" to say?

Or that maybe it's not a catch-all response and therefore denigrates the reaction of the person in question.

What if the catch-all for men was, "Oops, couldn't get it up last night then?"
For some men it might be true.
But for many it would be a way of invalidating their anger and frustration in a given situation.

That's deep SG. For a while, I feared that I had inadvertently turned this from a thread about Starbucks into one about periods. :eek:

I used to do it to show men that what they think is an off-the-cuff comment can actually be quite insulting (like calling people half-caste).

Most of them took it really well.
The others called me a fucking dyke, then impregnated me and chained me to the sink.

Okay, one of the above is untrue and completely unfair.

REEEOWR! Somebody needs to get their bagel buttered!

Flint, you are cracking me up today.

It's true!
Although it's not my hormones, it's the fact I am not sexually satisfied.

£300 would get me back to Amsterdam in October.
And a decent piece of American medicine, none of that foreign rubbish.

I'll ask UT for an additional tips jar.
"Will post for charnge!"

It's how you know she likes you.

/voice of considerable experience/

What we need is a barrista like this guy to put miss smarty pants in her place.

Oh that's the best! I'd forgotten how good that scene is. I love Casey Affleck at the end, too.

[Will]How ya like them apples?[/Will]