As is often the case, we get a lot of customers who come into our cafe asking for a "tall" latte or a "grande" mocha or whatever. Each time this happens I simply ask the customer "what size?" just to make them specify if they want small, medium or large.
Most of the time, customers goofily recognize their error and correct themselves. Today, however, there was this old coot who ordered a "grande" coffee. I asked him again which size and he harrumphed back, "grande means medium." I thanked him for specifiying (in normal English) which size he wanted.
What really ticked me off is that he seemed to insistant on using that dreaded Starbuck-ese in MY freakin' cafe, like we were the ones who are wrong and not him. Look, Starbucks is Starbucks. If you want a "tall" then go there. If you want a small then you go to most other cafes.
I guess I have a problem with the way some of these brand names have become so embedded in our society that it has affected our lexicon. How many times have you gone to a fast food place other than McDonald's and asked for "McNuggets?" How many people refer to non Apple mp3 players as iPods?
This ain't a new phenomenon by any stretch of the imagination, I'm just mad at that old fart for acting like we were wrong for NOT adopting Starbucks terminology. I was tempted to spit in his coffee but that wouldn't have been the managerial thing to do.
ed [email] said at 5:51 AM 04-12-2006: Sadly, I've fallen prey to band-aid and scotch tape, but I pretty much use tissues when overnighting sticky notes.
woody [email] said at 10:37 PM 04-11-2006: Hell, the 1 or 2 times in my life I've gone into a Starbucks I refused to order by those stupid names. Luckily, the coffee server (no, I won't say that word either!!!) spoke normal English.
NathanK said at 12:05 AM 04-12-2006: I don't order in their terms either where every size could be translated to large. When language is taken over by marketers, words' meanings fall into the void.
rick [email] said at 9:47 PM 04-12-2006: I have read (though I do not know for sure) that no Italian would order a coffee with the term venti ("20"). If this is so, I guess it is a bit like the Germans who call their mobile telephones Handies which confused me when I first heard the term.
mary [email] said at 10:51 AM 04-12-2006: No one in Starbucks has ever explained the "size system" to me when I've ordered. When I've said "small," they've just turned to the barista and said "tall," and so on. If they're lecturing you about sizes, that's shitty customer service and it's wasting people's time.
craig [email] said at 12:17 PM 04-12-2006: I agree with you on this. I have also been in Starbucks, and I usually just ask for a medium or large if I ever go in there. No one gives me any fuss over it. I think most of the people who work there realize that the jargon is stupid. And it is.
Bob said at 2:45 AM 04-13-2006: Last time I went into a Starbucks (only convenient bathroom in the area) I asked for a solo espresso.
"dolce espresso?"
"solo espresso."
"tall, grande or venti?"
"... solo."
five minutes later I received something that tasted like a charcoal briquette dissolved in hot water.
In the meantime I got to hear people coming in and rattling off their grandes and ventis as if they had ordered their breastmilk in these sizes, and I was sore afraid.
meredith [email] said at 12:28 AM 04-12-2006: Reggie, the next time you ask for a Band-aid or a Kleenex, I am going to make you specify 'adhesive bandage' and 'facial tissue' unless I actually have those brands on hand.
I'm kidding. But it just goes to show how much a popular brand does eventually effect the lexicon of general society.
craig [email] said at 1:35 AM 04-12-2006: what is a shame, though is that in this situation it is not Starbuck's product, it is their SIZES for their drinks, which I have thought of as pretty lame since day one.
Perhaps it is the opposite. I suppose it is marketing genius. By asking for a "Venti" god-knows-what in a cup with whipped cream on top you feel as if you are getting an exotic treat. Starbucks, the gift of the gods.
In other news, now that I am hooked on Battlestar Galactica, in which one of the main characters is named "Starbuck", I have new connotations for that name, another salvation wrought by BSG.
karaatwork said at 10:10 AM 04-12-2006: exactly - the difference between most examples cited and the situation is that those items are products - in most cases products originated or popularized by the brand name in question.
Starbucks is inflicting on us words for things we already had words for.
Last I saw, companies would often take out ads in Writers Digest to encourage writers to use their brand name properly (ie "White-Out" is a no-no)
They can actually lose their trademark or brand name if it is overused.. this happened to aspirin.
mary [email] said at 10:49 AM 04-12-2006: I think you're overthinking this. I worked in a couple of non-Starbucks coffee shops and when people would order in the Starbucks sizes, I would just give them what I knew they wanted. It required no thought or effort on my part to make that translation. My job was to take their money in exchange for some coffee, not make them feel shitty for having absorbed damn-near ubiquitous coffee lingo.
Whatever pleasure would have come from calling them out on the sizing thing was more than offset by the handsome tips I got from being consistently cheerful, efficient and non-condescending.
mr. pibb said at 11:48 AM 04-12-2006: Whatever pleasure would have come from calling them out on the sizing thing was more than offset by the handsome tips I got from being consistently cheerful, efficient and naked.
abby [email] said at 3:26 PM 04-12-2006: oh, mary, you have the right idea. this happens to me a couple of times a day. also, the caramel macchiato phenomenon, thats fun to explain, i'm making you a vanilla latte with caramel sauce." then they feel in the know! its so cute!
carla [email] said at 3:56 PM 04-12-2006: Basically what Mary said. I mean, it kind of annoyed me but I just made the process more smooth by keeping it to myself and giving them what I knew they wanted.
It was only when I would hand them the correct size and they'd be like "I said TALL! THE BIG ONE!!" and obviously had no fucking clue what they were talking about.
reggie [email] said at 9:31 PM 04-12-2006: @#$% that. I take pleasure out of correcting them and I usually do it in the friendliest way, making a joke out of their programmed behavior and I still get a nice tip.
The point is this guy got so grumpy when I corrected him. The fact of the matter is, I don't go to Starbucks so I don't really know what Tall, Grande or Venti means. PLUS the employee who rang him up was still in training so I shouldn't have to translate to him the Starbuckese equivalents of Small, Medium and Large is.
You don't go to McDonald's and ask for a "Grande" French fries do you?
Bob said at 2:32 AM 04-13-2006: See, if somebody orders a "grande" or "venti" I know they mean large. That rarely happens, however. Usually the problem is that people come in and order a "tall" and half the time they mean small (Starbonics) and the other half they mean large (common-sense-ese). I have to ask if they mean small or large, not to embarrass anyone but just to eliminate the ambiguity.
There's also that we have no medium, or that "regular" doesn't count as a size (are you from New England, in which case you mean with cream and sugar? do you want Metamucil in your coffee?). On my cheekier days I've been known to ask "small medium or large medium?"
One guy insisted on a medium medium, so I offered to give him a small and charge him for a large, which would average out to medium. Slap my wrist, but he was asking for it.
ed [email] said at 12:49 PM 04-12-2006: Huh. They used to have mild, medium, hot and fire. Which one did they get rid of? If they just started putting hot into fire packets, that would be sad. I liked the fire sauce.
joe [email] said at 12:29 AM 04-13-2006: if I ever go to Starbucks, I get so flustered over "Starbuck-ese" that I'm like, "ARGH... god... just gimme a half-decaf in whatever you call small!!!"
woody [email] said at 10:56 AM 04-13-2006: Ok, what the hell is that? I've heard of half-caf or half-decaf. Is it just a 50-50 mix of decaf and regular coffee?
craig [email] said at 11:22 AM 04-13-2006: I usually just go into any coffee shop and order what I want. Large mocha with no whip cream. No one has ever questioned it. Except to ask me what kind of milk I want.
