A response to those still complaining about Starbucks.

A buddy of mine from back home posted a note that contained the following:

"I am so happy about the movie "Role Models!" For years I have DETESTED the pretentious use of “grande” and “venti” by Starbucks and Paul Russ used the EXACT SAME LANGUAGE I have used to blast those bistro-masters (morons) who insist we use their boutique slang. So in the movie, Paul Rudd goes to town on some dipshit about it. Rent the movie. I AM EXONERATED BY HOLLYWOOD! (“Tall means large and grande is Spanish for large. Venti is Italian for 20 and is the only word that doesn’t mean large. Congratulations, you’re stupid in 3 languages.” --- love it!!!)."

Starbucks is neither a bistro nor a boutique. They have very specific, logical reasons for their cup size names.

As an ex-barista at Starbucks (a job I really enjoyed) one might suspect I would have loyalties to and bias for the company. As a critical thinker and devoted skeptic, however, I will gladly examine and acknowledge any evidence and/or logical arguments objectively. So while my understanding of the subject is a result of my working there, the rebuttal is due to my particular distaste for people distorting and/or misunderstanding the facts and making logically and culturally stupid comments about the easy-to-target Corporation for cheap laughs.

Starbucks' hot beverages come in four sizes: short, tall, grande, and venti.

When the company first started, they only had two - short and tall. The company grew, as did the demand for larger sizes, so they added 'grande' as their largest size, to distinguish it from the already well-established 'tall'. (By the time the company became large enough to care about these demands, they had such a regular, established customer base that they did not want to redo their entire system of cup sizing.)

Grande, by the way, is also Italian. Perhaps your buddy Paul didn't get the memo that Italian and Spanish are sister languages and share many of the same words/spellings.

Anyway, so then Starbucks exploded as a company and it became cool to run around with a cup of coffee in your hand all the time. So of course people wanted more coffee in one cup, and Starbucks had to respond with yet another, larger size. With no reasonable or efficient way to redo the size system, they couldn't just tack on another "large," so they created another distinctly-named size, venti (which is the number of ounces contained in that size.)

They have four very distinct words for their sizes for a specific reason. Among the most important of Starbucks' priorities is efficiency. They train the bejesus out of their baristas to make them fast and consistent , and a large part of that is cup calling. They have very specific words for all of the specifications of any given drink. If the person at the register is calling "large" "extra large" "small" to the barista, the barista would either make the wrong size often or would be constantly checking with the (already busy) register person, which slows things down significantly and gets the drinks out of order. "Tall," "short," "grande," and "venti" are completely different sounding words, so there is very rarely a misheard size.

By the way, we still call it "espresso" here in America; people seem to have no problem with that Italian word describing coffee. What's your issue with using other words from the culture of its origin?

And finally, I'd like to say that I don't think Starbucks is pretentious. There is very little pretense involved; they serve quality coffee, train their baristas well to execute and fully understand the drinks they sell, follow through on their volunteer/charity commitments, make/sell high quality coffee-related merchandise, and incorporate a huge variety of music that is generally culturally valuable into their atmosphere/merchandise.

Launching into a rant about why Starbucks is pretentious and then saying blaringly ignorant things like "grande means large in Spanish" to make your argument sound informed or clever - THAT is pretentious. Because it's empty; it's not clever and he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Though I do think Starbucks is one of the exceptions to the rule of corporations cutting corners, inflating their image with stupid lingo/advertising campaigns, and training their employees minimally, people should know it's an exception because they did their research, not just because it's fun to join the popular trend of bashing large corporations.

P.S. About the whole "I don't want to pay $5 for a cup of coffee" thing:

There is an ongoing (though quiet) feud between Dunkin' Donuts coffee drinkers and Starbucks customers. On the side of the Dunkin' Donuts "argument" is the claim that DD is less expensive than Starbucks (and thus, some say, less pretentious - "why pay $5 for a cup of coffee?"). I looked it all up, and the verdict is:

They are the same. At $2 for a Venti, Starbucks' brew is a few cents less than DD's brew, but Starbucks' specialty espresso drinks are a few cents more than DD's. So it evens out.

No one pays $5 for just a cup of coffee. That $5 is for a 20-oz espresso drink with soy milk, extra shots, extra syrups, and a barista who has spent weeks training to get it exactly right every time.

Don't.

Look, I know I come off as severe sometimes. I'm a very intense person. But believe it or not, I am making friends all the time on OkCupid. The positive stuff is too personal to blog about for me whereas the annoyances are shallow and easy to pick on. So I don't hate the website or the people on it. I have the baby, I just need to rant about the bathwater sometimes.

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THE BATHWATER

Don't inform me that my profile is too whatever you think is wrong with it.

Don't help perpetuate an argument with asinine statements and then after a few rounds of getting your ass handed to you blame me for "taking it too seriously." "Whoa whoa whoa, I was just joking around" is utter bullshit at that point. Wuss.

Don't tell me that I should "smile more." It's supposed to be a charming little gesture of encouragement, but it's canned and insulting and I hear it all the time. More importantly, how do you know I don't have a totally legitimate reason to not smile? It seems counter-productive to me for someone to criticize how I portray myself if it's the truth and I only want to attract people who will accept that.

Don't ask the question when I put "don't ask" next to something. I'm not flirting with you, asswit, I just want people to leave me alone about it.

Don't read "I like Bach" in my profile and decide to annoy me into dating you by telling me how much Bach sucks even though you have NO EFFING CLUE what you're talking about.

Don't start an argument with an asinine statement like "Bach sucks" and then get all weirded out when I give you a sincere rebuttal.

Don't get all nervous about making plans if I'm busy for a week. You didn't know I existed last week, one more week isn't going to kill you. (It sounds arrogant, I know, but people seriously get all jumpy if I can't meet up with them within a few days.)

Don't message me about music unless you know what you're talking about. Damn it.

Don't tell me to change my profile to suit the "normal" ideal rather than accurately representing myself.

Don't tell me you can't dance.

Don't insult other guys to make yourself seem somehow more self-aware than they are.

Don't tell me about the things you suck at, like dancing, playing an instrument, and spelling. It puts me in an awkward position as I have no way to respond to that politely and honestly.

Don't send me a message insulting something I mention liking in my profile as a clumsy attempt at flirting. It's like the guitarist that no one knows or cares about clamoring on stage and yelling into the microphone, "HOW Y'ALL DOIN'" as a cheap, unimaginative attempt to connect to the crowd. Awkward for everyone.

Don't just look at my pictures and send me garbage.

Stop freaking out if I can't get back to you within a couple of days. A girl's got shit to accomplish and rent to pay, holmes.

Don't send me dumb, snarky, vaguely rude copy+paste messages and then get all upset when I call you out on it.

Don't completely violate simple requests in my profile and then get all confused and upset, telling me you're "a good person," as if that is the only criterion I'm allowed to consider when deciding who I want to spend what little time I have talking to.

Don't tell me I'm too uptight about grammar. Just move on to the illiterate section of the dating pool where you belong and you won't have to worry about it.

Don't demand that I "read you."

Don't carefully proofread your messages on OKC and then turn into a linguistic slob when we talk on IM. Be honest with me from the beginning, people.

Don't tell me how many messages I'm "probably" getting every day from other guys, but that I should give yours special consideration because of whatever it is you say you have going for you. I'm not that special. You can talk to me like a normal human being. And have some pride, man.

Don't send me a message telling me how awesome you think you are. What are you hoping for here? What POSSIBLE outcome could you reasonably expect from this that would be considered beneficial? Apparently I'm supposed to read your message and conclude that I would be foolish to not go out with someone so thoroughly boss. You are at that point, by definition, anything but cool.

Don't tell me about women.

Don't tell me about guys.

Don't assume anything from internet silence.

And for god's sake stop telling me I'm "too negative." Fuck you, and I hope you perish slowly and unpoetically in a fiery, fiery crash.

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The end! I feel much better. Thanks, guys. *high fives all around*

More OkCupid bullshit

Just a little blurb I thought worth mentioning:

My profile on OkCupid.com starts off by explaining how important language is to me. Update: I've changed my profile a million times since this post. It used to say "If you're not something of a grammar Nazi, please don't message me." in addition to everything else that's there now, at the top. I changed it because I would love but do not require to talk only to self-proclaimed grammar Nazis, I just couldn't find a better way to phrase it. But I knew those who loved language would appreciate it.

Some dude decided it was his place to inform me of the explanation's egregious rhetorical misplacement. The following is his advice for remedying this grave problem and the bullshit that followed.

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Peteriscool says:

you should read your opening, "self-summary" in your profile again.

i would save what you detest about human language usage, for later reading in your profile. i am sure your a sweat person, but the nazi bit just stopped me from reading the rest. sometimes content and tone are more important that grammar. good luck out there - its a scary misspelled and improperly punctuated world.

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To which I reply:

Who are you to give advice on my personal profile? I stated the reason in my preface to the grammar Nazi statement; if I don't put it there, no one reads it and I get a million "HI NICE PIX" messages every single fucking day.

This proves my point. I told you not to message me because you're not the kind of person I want to talk to. It's not that I would dislike you, I just prefer to be around people who value the same things I do. I specifically put that at the beginning to weed people like you out. If we're not compatible because you're not a grammar nazi and you don't like the way my profile is set up, then DON'T MESSAGE ME.

Didn't your mother ever teach you that giving entirely unsolicited advice (to strangers no less) is presumptuous and rude? Or are you always this arrogant? You try to tell me what I should value (tone over grammar), deliberately and completely ignore my pleas for you (yes, You) to not message me, and offer bullshit advice before considering that there might actually be a legitimate, thought-out, well-reasoned purpose for the placement of that paragraph in my profile.

Look at my profile. Do I look like the kind of person who carelessly places words? I have scrutinized that profile so many times I can't remember, moving and removing sections, rephrasing things (that grammar paragraph used to be much harsher, by the way), and generally making sure the tone isn't too off-putting. Most of my edits have been to alter the tone and make it more inviting. The truth is that I'm kind of a severe person, and language is by far the most important thing to me. It's my craft, love, passion, and vice. It's everything. If you shit all over that by sending me a message (out of nowhere) that tells me I shouldn't care about it, you have missed the point entirely and you are part of the problem.

Most people move on when they find a profile they don't like. You chose to be a presumptuous prick and tell me how I can fix it to suit YOUR preferences.

I put it there for a reason. Keep your ill-informed, half-literate bullshit to yourself next time.

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Peteriscool says:

you should know i did not read your reply. because it follows the same angry pattern as your profile. just take what i said for what it is. and don't write me an essay of how fuck off. cuz i won't read that either. i was just trying to be nice.

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I reply:

You weren't trying to be nice. You were being a jerk. Learn some manners.

And you just told me yourself that you didn't read the rest of my profile, so how could you know there was an "angry pattern" in it? You're just another full-of-shit anti-intellectual and I sincerely hope you are unable to reproduce.

Good day.

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If he'd read even a little bit more of my profile he would have had some warning that this kind of thing might happen.

Perhaps I should include an "If you're an asshole to me here I'll probably blog about you and post a link in my profile. So don't be an asshole." clause in my profile.