English professor ejected from Starbucks over multigrain bagel order

I'm looking for Starbuck employees from the Columbus Ave. and 86th St. store in New York City to confirm or deny this customer's account of the dispute. Read "English professor says Starbucks booted her over a bagel order"

Comments

[UMPHreak]

you know after reading all the comments i just gotta say 1st screw that lady and her bagel....i work at the 2nd highest volume store in my very very large city and after working for sbux for 7 years with a totally clean record there has to be a line drawn for "just say yes" and standing up for yourself. sure, brush off almost all rude or crabby customers, it comes with the job, but once someone starts attacking you personally and putting you down, whether it be me or my baristas, youre out of my store, period.

[ABDULA]

To Betty
It's the ones that barely get out of High School that are screwing up this company, I've seen Graduate Students with Business degrees quit due to how much knowledge you need to run a store and work in it as well, watch your flap!

[Pierr F. Lherisson]

Paradox of the Starbucks bagel‘s professor.
Effective communication occurs when the transmission or exchange of information and idea occurs unbridled by narrow-minded attitudes, various forms of language barrier or unnecessary delays. Language is a dynamic thought conveyor. The vocabulary input and output of a language is constantly in a state of flux and reflux according to the requirement of the moment. The word by itself is a very incomplete bearer of meaning; its meaning may be clarified by using additional words. The role of communication specialist is to transcend or minimize those barriers rather than become the custodian.
Grammarians, linguists, logicians are among the well-known communication specialists.
Grammarians and language teachers focus on the structure of language on its writing form; they analyze its expression; linguists focus on spoken language as is whereas logicians analyze its meaning. Linguist and logicians don’t care how meanings are expressed. Although all of those communication specialists differ in scope, they overlap at certain points. Those communication specialists teach us how to communicate smoothly even with asymmetric interlocutors.
Concise and clear communication is usually done through the economy of words but redundancy sometime help clarify ideas, reduce mental fatigue and help reducing mistake. Redundancy basically means the parts of language that could be done away with while allowing the meaning of the language to remain the same. That is why novels and newspapers are easy to read because they are often highly redundant whereas textbooks in exact science and mathematics such as theoretical physics engineering are not redundant and are difficult to read. The barrister use this process of elimination by asking the English professor to rule out what should not be in the bagel.
There is no royal road to effective communication; the delivery of the message is what count not the medium used. There is no such thing as a pure language. A Russia linguistic congress held in Moscow in 1930 defined language purity as a mere fiction, reflecting at best a pedantic attitude, at worst an attitude either aristocratic or chauvinistic.
The English professor has an impeccable credential as a specialist in communication. I do not question the breadth and scope of her knowledge as a PhD English professor but her overall understanding of the ultimate aim and function of language appear tangential during her transactions at Starbucks. I think that she owes the Starbucks staff, the NYPD and the customers an apology for choosing a wrong platform to prove her point.
The US government should subsidize Starbucks for doing a healthy community service. Starbucks is acting as an extension of the libraries, schools and universities by allowing anyone to stay at the store for long period of time and able to use its Wi-Fi, chairs, table, electricity and bathroom free of charge in exchange for a cup of coffee it sell for a modicum amount of less than two dollars. Some don’t even buy anything there.

[Vex]

This is a great example of "holier-than-thou because I'm not working at Starbucks, unlike you" customers.

I'm pretty tired of customers treating baristas as though they are mindless, uncouth, and uneducated for working at Starbucks. I'm sorry that I make coffee for people like that in order to pay for my tuition while being spoken down to like it's all I'll ever be (while, of course, working on my bachelor's degree in biology).

I strive to be polite even in the most stressful situations with some of the most difficult customers. Both ends of this ordeal were handled in an incorrect fashion. I feel sorry for the barista for being so stubborn and I feel sorry for that woman for being so bitter. Maybe she needs some Urnex (before anyone takes that the wrong way -- no, not for consumption).

[CA Dave]

She does sound over the top, but Starbuck's corporate speak is absurd, and it's one of several reasons my coffee $$ is mostly spent elsewhere. I usually ask for a "small," and they translate this into their language.

[q]

"and no you cant have whats left over in the blender."

haha i need to post this next to my bar.

[kathy]

As an employee at Starbucks just over the bridge from where is happened it doesn't surprise me all that much. The cup size argument I hear about 10 times a day everyday, I just tell customers "If I made up the names I wouldn't be here right now, I would be on my private island drinking a beer" I don't really say all that but I suggest things like that.... And the whole bagel situation...ahhh...I can just picture what this woman was like and I'm happy the starbucks employee's called the cops on her. I'm 99.9% sure she is probably one of the "annoying regulars" who deserved it.

[whatwhat]

@Cream Cheese, Please
I was taught from day one that the default recipe for an order of Mocha, White Mocha, Hot Chocolate, etc, came with WC but if it was non-fat or soy it doesn't come with the WC.

Maybe I was just taught wrong

[SeattleSlurp]

Re: Java Joe on 8/18 - Are you insinuating that baristas at SBUX are "hourly retail workers who barely got out of high school"? Scr-w you! I ended up working as a barista in my 40's after my well paying job ended due to outsourcing. A SBUX barista was the only job out there that I could find at the time that offered medical. Was I happy about putting on a green apron and working behind the counter like I was 16 again? H-ll no! But I did it, at 5am every morning, with a smile, and put up with the same people who used to be my clients now treating me like garbage. Every person I worked with was intelligent, working on a college degree and working full time to pay for it. Kiss my a-s if you think Starbucks baristas barely got out of high school!

[Maria S. Mendoza]

I thought that the Linguistic field was highly abstract and rarefy. However, after I read Pierre's linguistic analysis about the incident, I decided to change my major from psychology to linguistic.His analysis is down to earth. I wish that I could get in touch with him.

[captain]

@ (former) FLA SM

Grande is actually italian for large, and quite a bit of the menu is italian. Venti - twenty, Caffe - coffee, latte - milk, macchiato - marked, con panna - with cream, cappuccino, americano - american, espresso - fast, you get the picture ;)

[captain]

I have asked a number of customers to leave my store over the years, and although I have threatened to call security, I have never had to follow through. Most recently I kicked a woman out for using a string of vile words to describe one of my baristas. I calmly said to her that this is a place of business and that language will not be tolerated, and please leave my store. Another day I had one of my baristas on the floor alone while I was working in the back. She is a muslim and wears a hijab. A customer told her that she would wait until someone else came to serve her because she didn't like "her kind". She came to get me from the back and told me this, and when I went out I told the customer that there was no one in this store who would serve her, and went back to continue my work. She left. I do what I can to protect my staff from dealing with these kinds of people, but they continue to exist, and to think baristas are a good target for thier hate.