i had occasion to come to my neighborhood starbucks today, and here are my thoughts and observations.
1. for context: this is a relatively heavily-traveled suburban shop. it's not a fast paced city shop but generally has a line of one or two patrons with a line building to six or eight in a rush.
2. my preferred seats are the two-tops near the wall, followed by corner chairs, followed by the large table across the back windows. according to this study of coffee shop culture, my seating prefs are exceedingly typical. most patrons in most coffee shops prefer "sheltered" seats - near walls, windows, in corners, or near virtual walls (edge of balcony).
3. this store plays its music too loud. by "too loud" i mean that the music volume causes patrons to increase their talk volume and pretty soon the whole place is just a raucous cacophony. as evidence of my not being alone in this, i offer: this random blog -- i recommend the comments as well. as for loud as fuck music, other starbucks don't do this, so i know it's not company policy. i don't know for sure who decides how loud music should be in a starbucks, but i am fairly certain it's the baristas, and...
4. the baristas here are literally the least friendly of anywhere on earth. it's not like it's the same set of unfriendly baristas, either. it's like this bux is designated people-hating-barista zone where all the PHBs come to band together and play music at a volume that's specifically calibrated to drive patrons out of the store. not that i can't get on board with the people-hating. i am a sophisticated and prideful hater. however. i am not trying to earn a customer-facing living.
5. there is a way to wear athletic tights and with dressy sweater + boots is NOT IT. this town is athletic crazy and, as a result, athletic wear crazy. i've been to other towns, so i know people don't dress this way everywhere, but around here, it's like high fashion to look like you just stepped out of a gym. this is convenient for me because i have a lot of gym clothes, but painful for me because there's a prevalence of mixed use -- athletic tights with dress boots, etc. i get trying to multi-task your clothing - having a lot of clothing is a struggle - and there are some legit gym tights that can legit be sweater-n-boots tights as well. but, ladies. c'mon. the tights with mesh venting and reflective piping are classified fitness only. let's try to stop mucking this up.
6. one of the baristas just announced an unclaimed chocolate chip cookie was up for grabs, first come and whatnot, and the guy who grabbed it is wearing a jacket emblazoned with the logo of a local physical therapy outfit. i think this is somehow ironic but i can't really place how/why.
7. i hate slashes. just say how or why. are you too lazy to type the conjunction? there's this guy at my work who is excessively slash-happy. he even speaks slashily. like, "i can't really... actually... place how... why... how that's ironic." you know what i mean? always pausing to shuffle through some synonyms. it's like he's got to cover all the verbal bases, all the time. reading through a bunch of slashed up paragraphs is like having brain hiccups -- no flow.
8. the kid next to me is playing videos on his phone, and since the music in here is so freaking loud, his videos have to be more freakingly louder. sheeze.
9. netbooks were a grand invention. i know tablets are all the rage, but this little machine with its generously-sized keyboard is totes the bomb. the rigidity of the connection between the screen and the keyboard means the device is self-supporting at any angle and on any surface. as previously stated somewhere buried in this bloggish morass of words, i abandoned windows(TM) and installed a slim linux OS on the underpowered system, and it works spectacularly. the OS is called peppermint and it's just as "lightweight, stable, and super fast" as it's billed to be.
10. the word "morass" always makes me think of molasses and mules.
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