Hockey People.

Last night I had a couple from Toronto come through Starbucks. They were on their way home. When I found out they were from Toronto, I got really excited and asked if they were Leafs fans. They were (and probably still are). We chatted for a minute, and shook hands and wished each others' teams well for the season. I smiled a big smile.

About an hour later, a woman came in wearing a Predators jacket and t-shirt. We started chatting and I told her that my lovely wife and I are going to the Blackhawks game on Saturday in Chicago(!!) and that we're really excited and such. I told her about the Toronto folks an hour before and she gave me two big thumbs down. I said, "no, no, it was great. I love talking to hockey people, especially Canadian ones. You gotta' see it kinda' like denominations in Christianity, we root for different teams, but we're following the same sport, we're family." She understood.

I wished them well in their travels and they left. I smiled again. Hockey people are great. You got "family" all over the place. I mean, even if you come in wearing some devils or Penguins jersey, we can talk hockey. And that's what's important. We can connect right off the bat.

I love hockey people.

PS: Youtube some Coaches Corner. It's hilarious, ridiculous, and informative. Don Cherry is a complete madman and watching Ron MacLean react week after week is priceless.

Starbucks Via.

As you may or may not know, Starbucks recently released their version of instant coffee called "Via." In all honesty, it is not terrible. If you go by taste.

Starbucks prides itself on making the best coffee in possibly the whole world. I cannot verify this, as I am a rather inexperienced coffee drinker and also have not had coffee all over the world, but people who's coffee opinions I respect enjoy Starbucks coffee and regard it as high quality. Instant coffee is not revered for its quality. In fact, it is generally regarded as cheap (the bad kind) and pretty much anything EXCEPT high quality. The question must then be raised, "Why make a Starbucks instant coffee?"

The fundamental answer is very simple. Money.

This can't be denied. As we sat in the introductory meeting to this stuff - in which it was shown as this wonderful thing because you can put it in warm milk and make a "Via latte," or "Via whip" cream, perhaps a distraction from the basic idea that it is after all instant coffee - my store manager repeatedly mentioned that the instant coffee market is a $21 billion industry, and Starbucks has only 4% of that (which of course begs the question, if it owns 4% of it, don't they already make instant coffee?).

Towards the end of the meeting, during the questions part, I asked why this was happening. I said, the automobile industry is also a multi-billion dollar industry, so are we going to start making cars (the point being that instant coffee and Starbucks are not same product, if even related at all)? I was met with the same answer: The instant coffee market is a $21 billion industry, we only have a small piece of it. Our regional manager said that I need to look at it differently, that "15 years ago he would have had the same response." He went on saying that it opens so much room for growth and expansion.

He means and meant money. For the people up top. The ones with paid hour-long lunch breaks and sustainable pay. The ones that make the impossible-to-meet standards of keeping a clean store and potentially never had to. They're the ones that benefit.

Starbucks managed to at least try to cover it up for a while. But it caught up with them (rather, we're realizing it). They and Walmart, Nike, and any other corporation with a bad name, are all on the same team.  

Here's the commercial for it. Doesn't look or sound too terrible, does it? Come on. Dunkin Donuts sells pizza and flat-bread sandwiches now. Everybody pushes the envelope to inane degrees that people call "smart business" because it's an additional and "unique" way to make money.

"Fortified cares and modified principles. Convenience is the name of the game. Self-indulgence is the rule."

Ultimately I think it's degrading to both Starbucks and their customers.