Ok, a new day has dawned on IHateStarbucks.com.
I no longer want to keep hacking the old, tired php on the site, so this is what I propose. These messages will remain up for all eternity. In addition, there is a new Guest book. So if you want to share your opinons, i.e. post to the site, go here. As always, if wish to rant or rave, send me an email:
| Name: | Bex 01686 |
| Date: | Nov 07 2003 03:50 PM |
| I can't believe how many people seem to like starbucks coffee?!??! What is wrong with your taste buds - it is foul. That's why they cover it up with frothy milk and other weird flavourings. Apart from the flavour, it has that nasty undertone of, what's it called?... GUILT. |
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| Name: | Bob 01685 |
| Date: | Nov 06 2003 03:04 PM |
| Starbucks sells coffee. |
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| Name: | brooke 01684 |
| Date: | Nov 06 2003 11:31 AM |
| a luce,
i want to sign up with you!which airport are you at? |
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| Name: | a luce 01683 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 11:17 PM |
| All you guys sound more bitter than SB french roast. What do you all expect? The love of money is the root of all evil. People do whatever it takes to get it, and if you dont know that then you will just keep getting stung. Look at it as a means to pay the bills, not as some governing body that controls your lives. When you know what and who to live for all of this will seem so trivial. |
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| Name: | CoffeeGirl 01682 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 11:17 PM |
| SBux is so full of it. Their stupid tantics, wanna-be idealism that somehow just because of that stupid green emblem they are perfect. The company is a front on what really goes on behind the scenes. Which in logic is a bunch of shhhh......... I use to work for them and they have you study in books, watch video's with Howard sampling coffee from a spoon, their factory, and customers praising their coffee, but yet in all with 6 years of experience that I had they wanted to pay me only $6.70 an hour. Experience or no experience. |
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| Name: | Barista 01681 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 11:17 PM |
| We had a cd recalled at my store. The cd in question contained on it Contemporary Grind Vol. 28. This album contained a track that, after approximately 3 and a half minutes into the song, went silent for roughly thirty seconds and then resumed with the sound of a whip cracking and "sexual moaning" with no music playing behind it. This track is obviously missing from the replacement CD. |
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| Name: | Casandra 01680 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 11:17 PM |
| Diane,
Your points are *all* valid. It is as simple and as frustrating as that they do not disclose the information. The children’s tumblers were the first I've seen with a detailed email. But that was instructional FAQs for response to consumers - no outright reasons. A posted recall at the counter with that is the first I have seen. We are doing the best we can with the information they give us. Please appreciate that management signs a confidentiality agreement and anything we do for the consumer outside of the guidelines provided, results in immediate termination. Some of us do it as much as we can without officially speaking on behalf of Starbucks. |
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| Name: | corporate whore 01679 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 11:16 PM |
| While I do not agree with all Starbucks policy, and I certainly wouldn't say I love my job, I have to say out of all they shitty jobs out there, it certainly is one of the better ones. I get paid decent, and the health benefits are good. But I can't wait to get out. |
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| Name: | Don't Let the Coffee Down 01678 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 11:16 PM |
| Hey Partners- I pulled the Starbucks proxy yesterday. Here are the salaries of the top 5 (based on 2002):
Orin Smith
Base pay $1.8 million, Bonus $1.4 million, number of options 715,000, company matching contribution to 401(k) $300 - guess he doesn't believe in the 401 (k) plan! What does that tell you?
Howard Shultz
Base pay $1.2 million, Bonus $1.2 million, number of options 790,000, company matching contribution to 401 (K) $1,700 and matching company matching contribution to deferred compensation plan - $60,200 (for 2001/2002)
Howard Behar (President, North America)
Base pay $750,000, Bonus 0, number of options 250,000 (this guy is taking a highly leveraged pay mix and is taking a greater share of options instead of the cash bonus - might be why he's whipping the horses for quarterly profits - that explains some of your recent P&L pushes - trying to drive the stock value up!) and no 401(k) match ( he doesn't appear to participate in the program)
Peter Maslen (President, Starbucks Coffee)
Base pay $450,575, Bonus $310,000, number of stock options 150,000 and no 401(k) match ( he doesn't appear to participate in the program - last contributions were in 2000)
Michael Casey (Executive Vice President)
Base pay $510,600, Bonus 318,301, number of stock options 165,000, matching 401(k) contribution 1,700
And Partners, if you are with the company in 2011 - that's when most of these guys are vested to be able to sell huge amounts of this stock at fair market value. That's when the horses will really begin to get whipped. Gotta drive that stock price up, up, up. The proxy also calculates the stock price appreciation annually based on current market value and an annual market increase of 5%. That means that Mr. Smith and Mr. Schultz make an additional $6 million a year on their options on top of base and bonus.
Keep brewing that java!!! |
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| Name: | Soon to be Ex-Barista 01677 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 11:16 PM |
| I\'ve been within the same store on the east coast for almost four years now, and I must admit, they\'ve treated me pretty nicely. I\'m still just a lowly barista, but its been a nice ride over-all. Our store is very well run, we sell an unbelievable amount of beans (no one on this half of the continent can come close) and our fiscal profits, or whatever you wanna call it, have gotten us plenty of trophies to hang in the back room, which again, no one comes close to meeting.
Like I\'ve said, they took pretty good care of me, though any barista will have they\'re complaints. Mine, for the most part, was the snoody customers who didn\'t appreciate the INSANE amount of effort we put out every day. I\'m proud to say we do everything right, mark out everything on time, no flies, the cleanest store I\'ve ever visited.
BUT, it has come time for me to move on to the next stepping stone in retail. I found another company that will pay better. That is my other cheif complaint. The raises at sb downright SUCK. The new-found company has a *starting rate* that is higher than what I\'m making after working at starbucks for four years.
I\'ll probly miss the comradaire (sp) I had at my local store, but as a poor college student, Starbucks needs to learn to give a little more as far as their partner\'s are concerned. It\'s been a fun ride, but its time to go...
Boy, I\'ll miss that free pound of coffee.... |
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| Name: | kris 01676 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 11:15 PM |
| I worked for *$ for 4 years. Enjoyed it very much. Good coffee can almost be like good wine. What I hated was all the inept baristas, managers, DMs. Does this company know that for 8 bucks(Cdn)/ hour the job IS NOT worth the hassle is has become.
I body build, so drank 2 litres + a day in free milk.
But hell! My shift basically did her groceries at Starbucks!
My manager,110 Bloor, used to check my transactions after a regular had been in. 'Did you charge her?' 'Did you give him a discount?' Where's the effin trust? This was after 3 years working for the company. Also, I've been woken from many well earned hangovers to come in and cover for some slacker that didn't open. After my two years my manager threatened to fire me 'caus I missed a 4 hour mid-day. The first ever shift I ever missed.
HELLO!! Loyalty works both ways, that was after two years.
But there were fun times.
ie: getting the newest barista to interview someone applying for a job. |
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| Name: | to barista 01674 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 09:21 AM |
| the cd's that get yanked aren't because of lyrics. they're because of contract agreements with hear music and starbucks. jack johnson was the first one i was told to pull and destroy. i listen to my one of six that i was "deployed" to pull every day. :-) |
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| Name: | Diane Wimmer 01675 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 09:21 AM |
| Casandra and everyone else:
Where I work, we are regulated 100% by the FDA. They oversee our work from manufacture to distribution and beyond. I am bothered by the way in which this company asks its staff to destroy products. In my employ, any products recalled are sent to Corporate Home Office in specific regions of the world. From there, each product is fully accounted for and our paperwork is then forwarded to the FDA for verification. How this company is handling destruction of unwanted products is clearly illegal. Do all of you store owners and staff post any information in your stores about the recall - if not then you should be doing this for the consumer. Is this recall a public notice or a private recall that no one but Starbucks knows about? If I were in any of your positions, I would pack the stuff up in a huge box and send it back to the Corporate Office, take 2 pictures of your send backs before you close the box, keep a detailed record of the product inventory and account for every product, do a separate list for the products that you cannot account for. You send one copy inside the box to the Corporate Office and the store should keep the original paperwork and 1 picture. All of you should let Corporate Office deal with the destruction - that is not your responsibility.
Casandra - again thank you for your kind response. |
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| Name: | Hmm. 01673 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 02:27 AM |
| It is still just bean soup, right? |
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| Name: | Competitor 01671 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 02:26 AM |
| As a shop owner, it's always important to me to know what the competition is up to or just a refresher of what their drinks taste like compared to mine. I felt this comparison was appropriate for this site because I believe that this was Howard's partner at one time. I went to Peet's Coffee today and ordered their Caffe Mocha. I know Peet's is known to be a dark roaster, but wow!! Their espresso had almost like a charcoal aftertaste and the mocha flavor was almost non-existent. Where did these guys get their acquired tastes? Their palates are way off and then have the nerve to pitch their high gourmet quality. At least Peet's practices fair trade, unlike Starbuck's |
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| Name: | Aaron Simpson 01672 |
| Date: | Nov 05 2003 02:25 AM |
| My store sounds the same.. From the managers to the barista's ... All the same. . Does anyone realize that this is a 7.00$ an hour job.. these guys are asking us to write essays and do all this nonsense training books; that honestly don't help unless you want specific information on general policies. I’m upset with SB currently because as hard as I work. As many list I complete, tasks I fill, DEPLOYMENT Sheets I follow every single DAY! I’m still put down. What happened to the mission statement? When did respect for “partners” come into play? I mean if no one was going to follow these procedures then why have them? Come on…
7 dollars. Professionals. They want us to be professionals and pay us 7 dollars an hour.
Honestly I would rather work for a laid-back coffee house then a corporate coffee speed way.
Yours truly
MR. Simpson. |
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| Name: | barista 01670 |
| Date: | Nov 04 2003 10:03 PM |
| Something that really bothered me happened at work today. Apparently, the "Nothing But the Blues" CD is being recalled because of the lyrics or something. Anyway, we couldn't take any home or donate them. Corporate policy is that they must be destroyed, and so the GM and a DM broke the CDs in half. It's ridiculous. If this happened at your store, employees, please post here. |
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| Name: | what else is new? 01669 |
| Date: | Nov 04 2003 06:36 PM |
| That's how the slavebucks system works. They don't need to give information to the employees. They don't expect employees to have a mind and ask why they are asked to pull out merchandise from the shelves... |
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| Name: | Casandra 01668 |
| Date: | Nov 04 2003 03:09 PM |
| Diane,
As Neanderthal as the process sounds it is not word or mouth. The instructions on alerted products come to the SMs via email from the DMs. Most recently were the Barista Bear Tumblers for children. We were instructed to dissemble the tumblers, cut the straws from the lids, cut up the straws and put them in the trash in their own trash bags. Each Monday we were required to email our DMs the affidavit of how many returns there were from customers. The company did this so that the recall could be as accurate as possible and that no more children were harmed. It is not a good system. My view is that after product is collected, it should be sent back to Seattle. There was a similar situation last year with a Holiday item. We were instructed to remove Tazo tea gift sets from the shelves and put them in the trash but were not given a reason. If this product was a hazard once ingested, they failed to let us know as well as to instruct us destroy it so that no one could possibly ingest it once it was out of the store. This product was never recalled. I have seen this item still in stores when I tour. The cost of labor and shipping is one that is a factor in alerted products. It is a reckless system. |
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| Name: | Diane Wimmer 01667 |
| Date: | Nov 04 2003 09:07 AM |
| Casandra: Hello. Can you share with me how you came by the original information that you E-mailed me about on the demise of the Barista Utopia pots? I would like to know as much as you can possibly share. Specifically: what is or was your role in this organization, when were these pots discontinued. I have some difficulty believing that stores would just cut the cords and dispose of these pots on word of mouth - needless to say, my attorney is questioning this as well. Reading some of the reviews of this Utopia pot is bothersome but people who write these reviews only write in generalities. Please, if you don't wish to communicate through this site, you can E-mail me privately at
diane53713@yahoo.com. Thanks. Diane Wimmer |
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| Name: | dataSYNC2 Aka Hoox 01665 |
| Date: | Nov 03 2003 07:02 PM |
| To I am a Jerk: Blame it on spell check. thanks for the lesson. |
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| Name: | Arabian_Princess 01666 |
| Date: | Nov 03 2003 07:01 PM |
| im from the uk n i wud like to point out dat starbucks sucks!!! |
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| Name: | to dataSYNC2 Aka Hoox 01664 |
| Date: | Nov 02 2003 04:14 PM |
| You and I were in the same situation. I had the same problem. They treated me as a trouble maker. They were looking for excuses to fire me, so I left before they did. Don't you ever call the hotline. They will persuade you to give your name. You will be cornered at work and they will fire you. They usually lie about you doing something really bad such as stealing money, in order to mess up your employment history. It will take you a while to get over the stress, but for that you have to quit. This situation not only takes place at sb. It happens everywhere: you hardly ever find people who value your efforts. The difference is in the people. In other companies people hate your guts but at least they are politically correct. Not at SB. My former coworkers seem to be missng more than couple thousand years of evolution. They are some undomesticable animals...I tell you... |
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| Name: | Competitor 01663 |
| Date: | Nov 02 2003 04:13 PM |
| I have an idea! Like out here in California with the food workers strike causing people to shop at other places. I think Starbucks employess should strike for better conditions which would cause people to go to other shops. Do you think people would come back to Starbucks after finding much better beverages elsewhere? |
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| Name: | I am a jerk. 01662 |
| Date: | Nov 02 2003 03:25 AM |
| To dataSYNC2: When you say "barrister", I assume you don't mean attorney? What do mean by "barrister"? And forgive me, if you are now pleading cases in English superior court, then congratultaions! That is indeed a big step up of from slinging bean soup at people in funny cups. |
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