Right Now Recovery

At Starbucks, like at most other big corporate businesses in this day and age, we have ass-kissing down to an art form. At the first sign of disgruntlement on the faces of our customers, we are ready and prepared to begin Puckerfest '10, starting with full-on apologies, a drink remake, a refund and, as the Holy of all Holies, our Recovery Certificates, good for a free drink of any size and any modification at any time in the future.

The winning ticket in the Starbucks lotto

Usually these are handed out when something terrible occurs after you order, whether a normally competent barista has erred beyond reason on your drink, if your wait has been unusually long for some reason, if something outside of our control is ruining your visit, like terrible odors or line holdups, or if something that should not be in your drink has somehow made it into your drink, like strings from the rags or the cap rings from the milk jugs. We know when is reasonable to hand one out, and unless our judgment is particularly clouded at that moment, we will give you one.

That being said, if you ask us for one, you're a jerk and we're all hoping that you use it somewhere else. And give yourself a paper cut on the edges.

As goes pretty much without saying, people can be kind of dicks about it. Sometimes it's what the recipients do with the coupon, like this guy who decided to test the boundaries (though I have to admit that that would have been hilariously awesome if he was cool about it and if we weren't too busy at the time. Sir Shultz, of course, might disagree; that $13 of free coffee means a store in Iowa just got closed down.)

Other times it's what people to do try to obtain one, or anything free from us. Like, for instance:

• At the mall, about once a month, we would have a heavy set older gentleman come in and tell us this long story about how he had been to another Starbucks and ordered his drink and they screwed up something awful and he got sick from it and etc etc and we'd better make him free ones. Twice, I think, he walked away with two free Venti Caramel Frappuccinos, with two shots apiece and extra caramel and whipped cream. Every other time we told him, as politely as possible, that he could find his free drinks in hell and could get them easily if he f@#&ed himself. Just kidding. We just said no.
  
• We had a woman once who demanded free drinks because we didn't tell her at the register that we had run out of the raspberry drizzle and, because of it, her drink was completely ruined. To death. When her son insisted that he was ok with it the way it was, she said, "Well, I hope you're happy wasting my money."
  
• We had a young man once spill his beverage all over himself and his apparently expensive jumpsuit and try to tell our manager that she owed him a new outfit because our coffee ruined him. This would make sense if it had been a lid application error on behalf of the barista, but he'd gotten a bottled drink, which officially means not our fault.
  
• We had a woman file a complaint and demand a coupon because the way I put her sleeve on her coffee made her spill it. The cardboard ring. On her coffee. Make her drop it. Because of how I put it on the cup. I have spent entire nights laying awake in bed trying to figure out a way that is possible for that to happen. It tortures my soul.

And then, of course, we have people do this: