I will take one tonight.:D

Dex is home, sitting on my lap and purring. He had 2 teeth extracted! But, he's a good boy and just happy to be out of the cage, out of the car and on mommy's lap.

I'm going to take the few moments before I go headlong into a massive schoolwork session to say...

When I worked at Peet's everything was timed and on a computer screen, moving along as I finished drinks. I'll assume for the sake of assuming (and since it's a Starbucks) that they're a busy store, and little details like finishing drinks on time isn't a big deal. Even at my slower Peet's working behind the counter, I could have a full screen of drinks and deliver them on time because I always have a pre-plan in my mind. Given that making a drink is generally more time-consuming at Peet's (milk is rarely over a minute or two out of steaming before it's dumped, so we did small quantities), we always had to stay on our toes. I think the very longest it's took me to make a drink was three minutes, and that was usually because there was a long list in front of me. Most were under a minute.

Oh, so yeah, my point?

At most I'd maybe do a drink ahead if I could help more customers at a time by doing it that way, but not at the cost of pissing anyone off. He probably took your drink off the screen (because he was about to pass whatever imaginary line Starbucks corporate put out there), forgot about it for a while, then took care of you out of guilt. I've seen it happen before.

Sorry about the snafu... but then again, I pretty much can't stand Starbucks, and am surprised you didn't just hit up the Peet's for the much better Vanilla Freddo.

So, limited sympathy. ;)

Peet's is 3 miles out of my way. Starbucks was in the same parking lot as the gas station.

Doesn't the gas station have coffee?

My Starbucks generally does a good job for me. I'm there every weekday morning so I usually don't even have to tell them my order, they tell me.

But it's weird that they're pushing Egg McMuffinish sandwiches. And the McDonalds across the street wants to sell me fancy coffee drinks.

I don't drink straight coffee. I drink frozen coffee drinks. And when it's cold, I drink lattes.

There's actually been a bit of discussion about their marketing strategies as of late. McDonald's has began a franchise-wide international revamping of their image, in order to compete with the likes of Starbucks. Starbucks, instead of responding in the way I'd hope, has responded with the line of breakfast foods. The changes launched around the same time for both.

I'm always in favor of doing what you do well, and McDonald's, like the food or not, does fast, cheap and bland well (and there's a sizeable market for that). McD's, is failing (somewhat) in its familiar arena, so it needs to branch out and it's chosen to take on Starbucks. Famous vs. Famous.

Starbucks does middle-class to affluent coffee well (sales, not quality, IMO). To me, this is an example of Starbucks believing that they're above their competition (and financially and in terms of size, they certainly are) to the point that they're venturing into new markets. Or, they're insecure of their market position (given that a couple of blind-tests have shown that consumers have preferred McD's coffee over Starbucks), and this is a defensive response.

On both sides, anyone who pays attention to marketing strategy can see right through it, and it's pretty sad. Like I said, I'm of Jim Collins' "Hedgehog" school of thought. Do your thing and do it well.

I think both of their coffees suck. At least I don't get pretentious attitude over at McD's. ;)

P.S. I apologize, I haven't found a reason to even talk about the topics of two papers this semester and one paper from last. So... just ignore me. Please. :D

Niiiiice.

Congrats BTD!

Soooo, Chris got a new computer and, with it, comes a whole new set of odd and unfamiliar noises in the house. Most of the new sounds sond like we have had an elevator installed in the office. I'm glad I don't know all of the words to the theme song from that Brit show about a department store. I'd be singing it non-stop.