In what will be a surprise only to those who are simply not paying attention, Starbucks is losing business. Bad. Not only do they face stiff competition from upstarts like McDonalds and Dunkin’ Donuts, the economy, a bad rep on the environment (and labor, and relations with impoverished countries, and…), strong arm business tactics, or the fact most of the customers are obnoxious prats, but as far as I am concerned their products are simply awful.

I never got back to sleep yesterday, so I got breakfast at a local diner and wasted time by thumbing through a copy of the local newspaper. As I was reading a story about Starbucks caught my eye:

Starbucks Tests $2.50 Premium Coffee to Boost Sales

Here is everything you need to know about the story:

Starbucks Corp. is experimenting with a $2.50 cup of coffee that would add a new, premium product to help fight the first drop in U.S. customer visits in its 37- year history.

That’s it? That’s the grand plan? Charge more? Brilliant!

It would by silly to suggest that this is all they are trying to do, but the reality is that I do not really care what they are trying to do because I simply do not care about the company. But I cannot contain the incredulous feeling I had when I read this story. Starbucks has been on an obnoxious run, overcharging for horrid beverages and finding new ways to torture people with unwanted and probably undesirable concoctions. And when things go bad, one of the options they turn to is .. charging more?

Okay, so I lied, there is a little more to this story. Apparently, this absurdly priced “cup” of coffee is supposed to taste better. I can not tell if this is an admission that their coffee is horrid, but this quote from some random financial analyst sure makes me think so:

“If they can create a better-tasting product and if they can get people to pay more for it, then you’d have the missing ingredient, which is pricing power,” said Larry Miller…

Perhaps the missing ingredient is a decent product at a reasonable price from a company with business practices that did not make you sick to think you are supporting? Or is the sheer weight of the monolithic pseudo-monopoly simply too much to sustain or produce something of true value?

Are you ready? This is big news…

Brittany Spears, who endorses Pepsi, was seen drinking Orange Sunkist!

OH. MY. GOD.

Can you believe her?!

Why, I never.

Or, wait…

SO WHAT?! There’s a lot of things I can say to this. I think most people might have one or two of them on their lips (or at least, somewhere in their mind). But, really, when it comes down to it, above and beyond the “so what” … this actually is a big deal. Because our lives are not run by the companies. Our lives are not run by those who give us our pay checks. That is part of living in our system. That is part of being rational.

You control yourself. I heard Pepsi was very upset with Brittany. This is, in fact, the second time she’s been taken picture of (yes, those inane media photographers died for a picture of this!) drinking a competitor’s product. And I say, bravo! Or, at the least, so what? Because, she’s human and she can make a choice. I mean, and I really do mean, if I gave her a paycheck to endorse my product, and she was seen with a competitor’s, I would be fine with it.

I bet you don’t believe me..

And you know what?

I don’t care.

I, for one, am sick of it. First of all, nobody talks like that. These people sound like idiots. Not sure what I mean? Take, for example, the recent ad for an overnight carrier (who shall remain anonymous, except to say that their name rhymes with FedSucks) in which two business guys at lunch are discussing the case of a company employee who recently saved their entire company from disaster by shipping everything on this overnight carrier’s website. All the other employees had food poisoning (from a cake? Come on!) but our protagonist is able to keep the company afloat single-handedly with his heroic efforts (point, click, and ship). The ad, obviously, is poorly conceived and executed, but to make things worse, our collective intelligence is insulted when one of the moronic idiots disguised as a businessman continues to obsess (in what is, apparently, a weak attempt at humor) over the lamentable fact that he does not have a PDA. Any company that allows cheesy idiots like this to work for them deserves to have its staff decimated by cholera, or at least, that’s what I got out of this ad. There are many other examples, just turn on the tube: they’re inescapable.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, why is it so hip to portray out nation’s working class as a bunch of boobs? It seems like it has become the observation du jour to re-imagine business to be an evil, heartless enterprise, largely incompetent, and staffed by intellectual midgets. Well, cut it out, you ingrates! This same business has propelled our nation through one of the greatest periods of prosperity known in history. This business is the result of our market economy, which is so successful that most civilized nations (by which I mean nations that don’t spend most of their time trying to figure out how to send weapon-grade Anthrax to public officials or hijack airplanes with boxcutters) have coped it. Business is our legacy, as Americans. This is what we give the world: a blueprint for successful enterprise. Why do you think people all over the world are lined up for a chance to live here? I’ll give you a hint: no matter what you see on the TV, it’s not the cheese.

This trend was probably started by those pansies in the internet start-up companies who mistakenly thought they were creating a “new economy”. Well, where’s that new e-conomy now? Trading for 1/32 a share and heading for the bankruptcy court, that’s where. After watching the ineptness of the “new way” (in which “profit” was considered an unimportant concept), I for one was very happy to see the “old way” rise back up and pop the “new way” right in the kisser.

In fact, I might even go so far as to declare the internet to be the source of many of the nation’s current problems. Sure, it’s nice to bump around and check out free sites (like Uncouth.net) where you may find people with similar interests, but as a vehicle for commerce, the inernet is a spectacular failure. Other than fleecing a few million dollars out of some investment capital brokers (and don’t think that bill isn’t going to come due someday real soon!), no internet company (porn and gambling aside) has shown that it can make money out of nothing. Yet these companies were the first to point the finger at the old economy as a blueprint for inefficiency. And where are they now? In the bread lines, ladies and gentlemen, trying to trade their worthless Webvan stock for some peanut butter and a sturdy cardboard box to sleep in. This would be a nice time to continue on and diagram out for you how this is all the fault of the materialistic, self-centered a-holes in the Northern California Bay Area, but I think I’ll summarize by suggesting that perhaps we can lay off the stereotyping of the working man. That includes you in the back, the tattooed freak with the nose rings and surly attitude working for Tower Records and living in your parent’s basement. After all, who do you think signs your paycheck?

This quote is taken from my real estate studies, and is essentially talking about the liability of someone who hires an agent to do a job.

I have a couple of different approaches and things to say on this. They are going to be fast and furious, but I want to get some responses, so I’m purposefully leaving them that way.

1) Since when does reason and logic (REALITY) not apply to business and society? And when did we let that happen? In doing some of my business classes, I have come across the theories of ethics being separate from business, and I must confess and I am disgusted and humored at the same time. Reality, is reality, no matter what context it is in.

2) The government is not this big massive entity that lives in it’s own realm with it’s own rules. It is a collection of individual representatives of the population (the individuals) of the United States of America. We elect them. They represent us. They act for us. By the context of that quote and, really, are not we, then, responsible for letting them get out of control? If the government is this big monster full of lies, deceit, and against the people… did not we let it get that way? And why do we not set it straight again? Why is it acceptable to complain, argue, and create disorder… but not to fix the problems?

3) If business and society are not based on reason and logic… what are they based on?

I must dearly apologize to the rest of the nation for producing such a notoriously insensitive, idiotic, hard headed senator from my own state, Senator Jesse Helms. Now many congressmen including Mr. Helms defend Boy Scouts by saying they are being discriminated and have a perfect right to decide their membership code through the 1st amendment. Well where was Mr. Helms and the rest of those senators when homosexuals were being discriminated while fulfilling their ‘persuit of happiness?’

Schools are not allowed to discriminate against anyone from a public education. Therefore, the school is open for all people. Well once public schools open doors to openly discriminating organizations such as the Boy Scouts, then that falls back on the schools’ reputations and looks bad for schools. However, it is a true statement that denying Boy Scouts access to meet in public schools would in itself be discrimination. Now that schools are open for meetings of discriminating organizations then the Ku Klux Klan could very well meet on school campuses. Equal access means open access.

Then one senator mentioned the time Boy Scouts were denied access to recruiting new members while on school campus. Well is the recruitment of children by homosexuals not the worst fear of conservatives today? Then if Boy Scouts can recruit on campus then access can not be denied by the ‘alternative lifestyle’ clubs of high schools to recruit on campuses either.

Another comment a New Hampshire senator made was the fact Boy Scouts produces law-abiding, crime free citizen. Crime is committed when one person looks at another and says, “You are different, and I don’t like you because of it.” How can you discriminate homosexuals now and expect these scouts to not discriminate against homosexuals later on in life? Homosexuals are not going to just die out, convert, or disappear. There has always been homosexuals and there always will be homosexuals. It’s attitudes like that that put towns like Laramie, Wyoming (Matthew Shepard’s murder) on the map.

In summary it is ironic to acclaim a discriminating organization as a victim of discrimination. Schools do not have to allow access to any uneducational organization on their campus by law. However, the law does say if access is allowed for one organization then it should be allowed for all organizations. Organizations that meet in school reflect the norms of the school. Teachers, students, and parents head up these organizations and meet on campus because it’s cheap and convenient. However, some of the norms that are shown through some organizations do not hold absolute norms or even the majority norms of all the staff, students, and parents of that school. When this happens then those who are offended by the organization shouldn’t try to destroy the organization indefinitely but speak out about their concerns and be proud of their own norms. A Human Rights Campaign organization is a great example of how the resistance can speak for themselves in this chaotic situation.

In further conclusion the victim is not the Boy Scout organization but the children who are apart of the organization. I saved this argument lastly because they are too often used by politicians like pawns on their political chess board. The children don’t care who their leaders date or marry. They don’t care if their is someone who is different in their troup. Children only want to have fun, be children, and grow up to be productive citizens.

Perhaps that is just me. Let’s look at the newspaper here and see what we have.

Hmm. Orange County Register. May 5th, 2001.

Top story:

“Tree Hurts 27 at Disneyland”

Yup, I am apparently one of the few who wants some real news.

I really wish I understood this. The front page story, one that takes up about 45% of the entire front page is on–a tree falling? Okay, some people got hurt (no deaths!). Okay, it was at Disneyland. But, what is going on here? I would bet that there are more worthwhile stories than this, even if they are “scrounging” for news.

I would like to be able to open the paper and get some real news. I would like to turn on the TV and see something worthwhile.

Perhaps, I am just asking too much.

Please, forgive me?

“Ah, you want to work for ME, eh? Well, I’ve got this series of really weird standards that you will have no idea about, and if you do something wrong, you are immediately disqualified.”

Yeah, that’s a way to get a winning team. Work on “disqualifying” people instead of trying to find people who will do the best job.

Allow me to share some of my experiences:

I’m driving, and I get a phone call from Joanne’s on my cell phone. I say “I’m driving right now, can I pull over and call you back in 5 minutes?” The caller responds with disdain, “Yeah, I hate that. I’ll call you back.” No call.

Bath and Body Works–SAME THING! Oh, all excited at the job. We’ll definitely call you! No call. When I call, of course voicemail (I never get a person; ALWAYS a voicemail!) I leave a message, no call back.

So, essentially, what I am saying is that make sure you look at how people treat you when you are trying to find a job. It’s a reflection of the company and it’s a reflection of how you will be treated. Yes, you are looking for employment. However, they are looking for employees. Without employees, that won’t have a company. Find out if that matters to them.