For the record, I work at Starbucks part-time to cover my bills and also to get out of my basement home office for a little while. I’ve learned a lot about coffee and people, but I’ve also learned a little more about language.

There are a number of conventions that Starbucks’ uses to ensure consistency from store to store. I’m going to discuss calling beverages (i.e., once made, the barista calls the drink for the customer to pick up) :

• Iced Double Tall Vanilla Non-fat Latte
• Grande Sugar-free Vanilla Caramel Macchiato
• Venti Non-fat One Splenda Dry Cappuccino
• Tall Caramel No Whip White Mocha

I may be revealing some corporate secrets here and Starbucks will perhaps ask me to cease-and-desist, but there is a consistent order for calling beverages:

1. Number of beverages (e.g., customer ordered two of the same drink)
2. Type of cup (e.g., personal; hot or cold)
3. Decaffeinated
4. Shot quantity (i.e., the number of espresso shots)
5. Size (i.e., Short, Tall, Grande, Venti)
6. Flavouring
7. Milk
8. Customization
9. Beverage name

There are default options to each of the nine items that the barista doesn’t need to call, making the calling significantly easier. However, there also beverage names and brand names that need to be called that duplicate other items being called:

• Iced Tall Iced Coffee
• Grande Coffee Frappuccino Blended Coffee
• Venti Chai Crème Frappuccino Blended Crème

I happened to pop over to the McDonalds for a quick snack while working last night and came to an interesting realization about my double cheeseburger: at Starbucks it would probably need to be a double cheese double burger. The bacon double cheeseburger would be a double cheese with bacon double burger. A quarter pounder with cheese with no pickles would be a cheese no pickle quarter pounder.

One would hope that reason would be a factor in calling beverages, reducing the redundancy:

• Tall Iced Coffee
• Grande Blended Coffee Frappuccino
• Venti Chai Blended Crème Frappuccino

Just my opinion. Thanks for listening.

Image © Serghei Starus | Dreamstime.com

Twitter is an interesting phenomenon. I generally (but not always) have TweetDeck running in the background while I’m working on my desktop. And while I don’t read every single tweet that shows up, I look at a lot of them. By following some of the links that seem interesting, I come across some interesting people with interesting blogs. I will usually follow them and subscribe to the RSS feed of their blog. It may give me that many more blogs to read (that I don’t have time for) and that many more tweets to read (that I don’t have time for), but it often results in some interesting new insights that I otherwise wouldn’t have found.

Like this great post, and in general this great blog, about getting a second set of eyes to review your work, or decisions, or whatever:

[W]hy wouldn‘t you ask someone to look at all of your stuff? Business plans, new boyfriend, marketing strategies, new suit, tagline, dinner party menu, web copy, first home, logo…

A new set of eyes is likely to find the flaws. You know, when you’ve looked at something so many times, they just seem natural and right to you.

The post talks about closing your eyes and assuming a specific yoga pose, then opening your eyes and reviewing your actual pose or posture. The writer is confident that you will find yourself well out of alignment and probably looking a little odd, but it will feel correct to you.

As with anything that you do, what feels or looks or otherwise seems correct or comfortable, may not be. It’s always worthwhile to get a second opinion.

Image by Free-StockPhotos.com