The World Ended, For Just A Little While There

Yes, for thousands of Americans last night (it could have been millions, but that sounds too dramatic) the world came to a screeching end for a couple of hours. Now, it wasn’t the power outage in Florida. It was the 3-hour closure of every Starbucks. Yep, beginning at 5:30 local time, which would be 5:30 your time and your time and their time, Starbucks closed to train employees on how to make a better cup of espresso.

While I never did take a business course, I have worked for a few corporations and even owned my own business for five years, so I feel safe going out on a limb here and making the statement that follows. Is it really that prudent to close all of your 7100 stores for 3 hours? I mean aren’t their employees taught how to make espresso when hired? Isn’t that their THING? You’d think they already know how to do that, right? OK, you’re right, those were more questions than a statements, but seriously, it makes me think of the same thing when I see a gas station closed. 3 hours with no profits? Ouch.

And then there are all of the people that this decision impacted. Where in the world to get my coffee fix? I mean other than oh, let’s see Dunkin Donuts (even if Rachael Ray hawks for them), 7-11, It’s A Grind, AM-PM, many book stores serving Seattle’s Best, The Coffee Bean, any restaurant and I don’t know, maybe MY OWN COFFEE MAKER? Granted it has become pretty easy to get used to running down to any corner or grocery store to pick up a cup of Starbucks, but I discovered that I actually own a coffee maker and it turns out that it works pretty well. Who knew? Truth be told, I usually go ANYWHERE else for coffee than Starbucks because I like to favor the underdog. It’s the same logic that makes me shop at the local gas station for groceries instead of those big chain grocery stores or why I take side streets instead of the highways that everyone else uses or why I root for the Clippers instead of the Lakers. It’s all about the underdog for me. And yes I am kidding about the grocery thing, they are seriously lacking in the fine cheeses department. But I am not kidding about the Clippers deal and that haunts me daily. Apparently, underdog is code for losing consistently by 25-30 points. But that really has nothing to do with coffee.

I wish my coworkers and I could be seen as needing to learn the fine art of doing our jobs better. We would all love to have 3 hours of ‘training,’ preferably at the local indoor go-cart track or the laser tag place across the street or maybe the bowling alley. We could be taught how to answer our phones, how to better share one networked printer, the things to say and not to say in corporate emails (trust me, I have many of the latter to share on that topic) and how to interpret 43 different reports that all contain the same data. A good cup o’espresso it ain’t, (wow that sentence played havoc with my spell checker), but we would all love to get paid for three hours of play, I mean ‘training.’

You know, you may find this hard to believe, but despite my daily serenading of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s 1970s hit ‘Alone Again, Naturally,’ our office morale is disturbingly low. Conventional wisdom would lead me to blame our jobs, but I am going to take a different approach and say it’s because of our cubicles…and then our jobs. Perhaps if we made cool cakes for a living like certain folks who frequent this blog (and you know who you are), we would be happy. Although I think management might not approve of us swapping an oven for a fax machine or fondant for paper. Wow, watching Ace of Cakes is really paying off. I thought I’d never be able to work ‘fondant’ into one of my posts…

But rest assured that Starbucks is open again and serving a better cup o’espresso than you’ve had in months. Yes, it probably hurt last night but the cold turkey withdrawals are a thing of the past. Your patience has been rewarded and your cup of Starbucks coffee should now taste better than ever, unless of course you forgo Starbucks like me and blow through a straw into your coffee to get it all frothy. Quick tip though, when your coworkers ask how you get your cup of office coffee so much frothier than theirs, don’t offer to froth it up for them. It seems certain business professionals take great issue with someone else blowing into their coffee. Gheesh, some people…