You are lost

I am now officially a paid employee of Safeway.  However, I will not be working in the meat department to start with.  I went in at 6 a.m. to finish my paperwork and begin training and was informed I will be starting in the Starbucks kiosk thingy.  I need a job, I need income and I said I would work whatever department they needed me in, I was not aware that this meant working for the demonic destroyer of drinkable coffee.

Now some of you understand my hatred for Starbucks, and some of you might think I’m being a little harsh; after all, Starbucks started off small and through good marketing (read that as saturating the market of our mass consumer culture with images depicting itself as a desirable icon of cool and successfully herding the daft youth subcultures to devote themselves to their brand) became the corporate power whore that has homogenized the american coffee house into the drab hipster-yuppie cesspool it currently is today.  It’s aggressive territorial campaign has been wildly successful as well, shutting out locally owned (although usually overpriced, crappy, poorly run and generally incompetent) competitors across the country.  That’s fine.  My problem is their coffee.  It’s not that good.  That’s the source of my problem; this frenzy of brand loyalty should at least be justified by a quality product.  Yes, the quality of your coffee is dependent on the barista who prepared it, it also depends on the quality of the bean and how recently the beans were roasted.

Hate, hate, hate.  More than Wal-Mart, slightly less than Hot Topic, I hate Starbucks.  And as of today, I will be stationed there.  I take a little comfort that I’m technically a Safeway employee and simply being utilized in a Starbucks, but I guarantee that the first opportunity I get to transfer to any other position I will.

At least I’m getting a paycheck.