Oh Dear God Free Coffee Day

So as I recently found out, April 15 is going to be free coffee day. I found this out not at work but on a blog called StarbucksMelody, which is an awesome blog for anyone who wants real Starbucks news instead of some news way too late with extra whine thrown in.

According to the post, which yes, does depress me that I'm finding it out online instead of at work, on April 15, if you bring in your own tumbler, you get free coffee. I'm not too concerned, like I would have been for free pastry day. I think maybe 3 of our customers bring in their own tumblers, despite the fact that our store sells about 4 times that per week.

It is a little sad how unconcerned most of our customers are about going green. Starbucks has made several attempts to get there, as I've mentioned before, by eliminating the spoon jacuzzi, cutting back on sleeves (grumble, grumble), using less plastic in their cups, recycling in the downtown stores, and offering incentives to those that use their own cups (10 cents off, people! How can you ignore that?!)

But despite that, the company (and, in turn, its baristas) takes so much crap for not being green enough. It's not just the company, it's the community and the customers that can help too. You can whine about us all you want, but if you're hoping that we'll do enough "green" things to make up for the fact that you just pounded back 24 ounces of iced tea and tossed the cup, with a sleeve on it, directly into the trash...well, try again. And even if you do recycle that cup, it's not going to make up for the fact that we have a customer who regularly comes through and gets 4 venti mocha frappuccino lights, with extra ice and whipped cream, all of them double cupped and in a cardboard carrier.

(Actually, one of my favorite stories involves that woman's husband and my coworker, Matt, who isn't afraid to tell our customers exactly how he feels. The man had ordered that ridiculous order one night, and he and Matt had gotten into a discussion/argument about why she orders it that way and why she shouldn't. After they'd paid and the drinks had been finished, Matt abruptly ended the conversation, handed them their drinks, and said happily, "Oh, ok. Well, Happy Earth Day!")

Of course, our customers that do bring in their own cups are more poster children for crazy than for going green. One woman, who really is a nice person despite this, orders an extra extra dry nonfat cappuccino through the drive-thru. Personal cup drinks in the drive thru make me want to curse. It makes no sense to run the gas needed to sit in a drive thru lane just to either save 10 cents or to be green, and we can't start anything but the milk for your drink until you get to the window. The cappuccino is the worst, since there is nothing, at all, that we can start until she gets there.

Another woman brings in 5! Tumblers! at least twice a week. Four of them filled with drinks for herself, one for her daughter, and until we gently scolded her she used to come through the drive thru to order them, where she would inevitably cause a line.

Ah, then there was another favorite of ours who would bring in his many-weeks unwashed tumbler, still half full of the remnants of his last drink and ask us for a "wash job" before we filled it with a peppermint white mocha. He had us steam it to 200 degrees and served to him in a paper cup anyways, and he'd have us fill his milk-chunk tumbler with scalding hot water until the drink was finished, when we would pour out the water, pour in the white mocha, and give him the paper cup for him to drain the dregs. We haven't seen him for awhile; we think he crazied himself into an old folk's home. No one is upset.

So go out, buy a tumbler, get a WHOLE! FREE! COFFEE! for April 15, 10 cents off every other time, and maybe I'll get to meet a lot more people who use a tumbler and aren't crazy. Sounds like fun for everyone, right?