By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
Posted on 09/25/2001 8:02:00 AM PDT by toupsie
Starbucks dropped the ball in New York
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
For Starbucks coffee mogul Howard Schultz, the terrorist attacks in New York City hit home.
Schultz was born in Brooklyn. He lived in or near the Big Apple for more than two decades. He has opened more than 130 Starbucks stores in Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs, each one serving up java -- along with the company's hallmark customer service.
So how then to explain what happened to the Midwood Ambulance Service, a company based near Schultz's old Brooklyn stomping grounds?
On Sept. 11, after the horrific collapse of the World Trade Center, workers for the ambulance company rushed to get bottled water for patients.
They went to a Starbucks store near "Ground Zero" and got, well, let's allow the ambulance company to spill the beans:
"A great deal of people were in shock from the devastation," a representative of the family-owned ambulance company wrote in an e-mail to Starbucks. "Shock victims are supposed to drink a lot of water. When employees of Midwood Ambulance went to the Starbucks down the street to get bottles of water for the victims they were treating, can you believe Starbucks actually charged them for it!!!"
Wait, there's more...
"These men, heroes for what they were doing, paid the $130 for three cases of bottled water out of their own pockets. Now, I would think that in a crisis such as this, vendors in the area would be more than happy to lend a little help by donating water. Well, not Starbucks! As if this country hasn't given you people enough money already!"
The e-mail continued:
"I love Frappuccinos as much as anyone, but any company that would try to make a profit off of a crisis like this doesn't deserve the American public's hard-earned money."
Now, let's give Starbucks the benefit of the doubt.
Let's pretend for a moment that employees at the store in Battery Park were not motivated by callousness when they charged medical personnel for water in a time of need.
Still, the store's unwillingness to donate water -- when many other people in New York and elsewhere freely gave supplies and labor -- came at the very same time when its corporate parent was all too willing to do something else: pat itself publicly on the back.
In a press release, the Seattle-based coffee company publicized how it had temporarily closed its North American locations "so that our partners could return to be home with their families and friends."
Gee, what Starbucks did for its "partners" -- that's Starbucks-ese for employees -- was nice, but certainly not something worthy of tooting its own horn about.
Given the context of national suffering, such publicity came across as self-serving and something else: tasteless.
If the mistreatment of the ambulance company resulted from one ill-guided employee at one Starbucks store, then the coffee giant, which fancies itself a good business neighbor, failed to do the right thing when the issue first reached the corporate level.
Starbucks could have made nice when a representative from the ambulance company called up to complain about the H{-2}0 imbroglio. But that didn't happen.
The ambulance company employee told Starbucks, "When I called...to inquire about this at your 'contact us' phone number from your Web site, I was told in a rather rude way that this could not have happened and abruptly thanked for my call and dismissed."
Starbucks had the chance to turn this unfortunate incident into something positive and, it appears, shrugged it off.
So the ambulance company eventually went to a higher level, writing a Dear Orin letter -- as in Starbucks President and CEO Orin Smith. That correspondence, dated Sept. 17, began: "Dear Orin, I have been a good customer of Starbucks for a number of years..."
It went on to explain what had happened and expressed how the ambulance company felt: "I am completely and utterly disappointed in you and your company and would sooner have open heart surgery without anesthesia before I would give you another red cent of my hard-earned money."
Neither Schultz, who is Starbucks chairman and chief global strategist, nor Smith could be reached. Audrey Lincoff, a company spokeswoman, confirmed that Starbucks had talked to Midwood Ambulance Service and had received its correspondences.
Finally, last week, Smith spoke to the head of the ambulance company and expressed "his deep concern" over the incident, the coffee company said.
Starbucks is now looking into how the faux pas occurred.
But the coffee company has made amends, swallowing its pride and doing something to make up for the case of customer disservice: It reimbursed the ambulance company in Brooklyn.
P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. can be reached at 206-448-8125 or robertjamieson@seattlepi.com
Oh, puh-lease....
Get a grip, one clerk's bad decision is hardly evidence of "sleazy, selfish, anti-American, corporate culture".
Everyone, please forward this thread link to all your e-mail lists, now!
Everyone, please *don't*. There are enough legitimate causes in the world that there's no point in making conservatives look like knee-jerk fools by spreading hysteria over this sort of minor, inconsequential story.
A clerk made a bad call. The company's management did the right thing and fixed it. So why the crusade?
If you want to know the truth, their coffee was never really that good -- certainly not worth the prices they charge.
They have a lot of people believing that just because they dark-roast all their beans (you can't get anything else at a Starbuck's, or their imitators) they are giving you European grade coffee.
If you've ever tasted coffee in Europe, you's spit this stuff out -- extirpate it. (I just left lurking on the word-of-the-day thread.)
Reminds me of the story I once heard when Hills Bros was doing the "Picky buyer" ad campaign: it made them the laughing stock in the world market. American coffee producers get what's left over when the others have chosen. Starbucks hasn't improved on this any.
Scott Adams (creator of the "Dilbert" cartoon) tells a funny story about the time he felt really bad all week, and thought he had come down with some sort of chronic flu or something. Then he finally noticed that he had accidentally bought decaffeinated coffee at the grocery story the previous weekend.
Sipping decaffeinated coffee makes about as much sense as drinking deliquorized beer.
Best coffee I ever had was during an overnight boat trip across the Rio Platte from Montevideo to Buenos Aires. They served VERY STRONG coffee where they mixed each cup with about a third of warm milk. MAN that stuff was good!!!!!
I think that marked my beginnings as a coffee fanatic.
Is that name Irish? What nationality is he?
Is he an American by birth? If so, by how many generations?
Is greed good?
Decaf Sumatra Forever!
Nothing like waking up at 0300 to take the morning watch, and stopping by the messdecks on the way to the Quarterdeck to grab a cup of coffee that has been brewing since breakfast the previous morning. Now that's a real eye-opener!
He/she might have thought they would get fired for giving away $130 of water for free, or would have to pay for it out of his own pocket...
Admitedly not the brightest move ever made, but it is NOT a condemnation of the ENTIRE STARBUCKS company, as if this was company policy or something... SHEEESH... we have IMPORTANT things to worry about ladies and gents...If you get your panties in a bunch over this picayune stuff you will burn your brain out
I actually got to *expense* JBM in a former job-
I was responsible for OS and app upgrades on a minicomputer system-
We'd start up system backups about 6:30 PM on Friday and fire up a pot.
We'd work as late Saturday AM as we could stand, go home and crash (or stare at the ceiling, depending upon the amount consumed), and go back at it later that day.
Oh wow, so could I! My mother actually bought me half a pound of the stuff for Christmas once (from Gloria Jean's) and I made it last a year! I kept it in the freezer and measured out enough for one cup now and then made in a single serving french press. I actually thought I should tell my very liberal atheist sister-in-law about it so she could come get it in case of the Rapture! (But I didn't.)
Thanks for the biscotti recipe, Katze!
Good on you! I've always just paid for it and looked at it as part of the price of civilization, rather like the cost of decent wine and the difficulting of obtaining decent sourdough bread outside of San Francisco.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.