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A close friend of mine pointed me to an article on CBS New York’s webpage.
It was an article that was close to my heart about Starbucks closing down their outlets because there are people who sit there all day and hog up their WIFI, seats and electricity. They’re called Starbucks Squatters better yet, Laptop Hobos. This is a business decision made by Starbucks to no doubt increase revenue and has nothing to do with their customers, because if they cared so much about their customers they would serve better shit and more of it for less money. As it is, they are an emporium for the rich to show off that they have money, and the rich wannabes who really view coffee as a social statement.
But it seems to me that Starbucks has turned into a microcosm for a much bigger issue in this country between the classes. The upper class, the middle class and the lower class. I look at the comments following the article and I’m amazed. I don’t know, maybe I miss the point or see things differently, but I’m done reading the comments at the end of articles. Why should I? The first thing that strikes me funny is the fact that these poor saps can’t even write a paragraph without glaring errors. A paragraph? Yes. Some fail to be able to write three sentences without an error. I can see if they were writing an article, but a paragraph? I kid you not….I submit for your perusal:
That’s what killed Dean and DeLuca / Boarders @ Columbus Circle. People sit for hours with an empty coffee cut pretending to be a customer. Real customers walk out. I’v done is hundreads of times. Killed Boarders business and they didn’t even know it, I’ll bet. GO STARBUCKS ! Didn’t think you noticed either ! Go find free WiFI somewhere else, mutchers. Just what Obama is pushing for those living off others !
I understand that ‘cut’ instead of cup might be a typo. But ‘I’v’, ‘hun- dreads’, ‘Boarders’ and ‘mutchers’ instead of moochers makes me wonder just how long this person slept through High School. People with such writing skills prove ignorance and a lack of education. Something that free education was supposed to root out. Goes to show you that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. And if someone didn’t care enough to drink from free education, what in the world would I want to sit around and read their comments for? This numbskull also, early on, takes the conversation to a political bent, so that others with their political views chime into the comments. Obama this, Tea Party that, Republican this, and Democratic liberals that.
And with that, the brain fart of a moron, and a great discussion about highbrow Starbux and their so called patron friendly business decision goes out the window, or just becomes a sidebar and marginalized. If I wanted to read the political comments of people that don’t vote I would have went to an article that discussed such. I love people who can’t even generate the time to get off their asses, ESPECIALLY in New York, wait on a long assed line, and cast their vote for congressman, senator, and the like, but will bitch and moan over the Internet on the end of a comment page. If you’ve got a fucking gripe about the economy or where this country is going….VOTE. Stop bending my fucking ear!
People forget that voting is the only way to control your govern- ment, and if your vote doesn’t make the country go your way, then maybe there are more enlightened people in the country than you that outnumber your ignorant thinking Betzyross. Thank god for majority rule. All you crybabies out there, I feel bad for you. Continue crying. But now, Betzy’s comment is infecting my blog. I really want to address Starbucks new policy and another comment….I submit:
Kingfish
Must be a blogging hero, no home, no car, no brains, have to have moral support from your dependency on twitts, sad lonely life, loser.
Kingfish…. you can suck my dick. Another High School napper. Twit is spelled with one T. Lost points on that one, buddy. You are definitely a Blogging Hero Hater. I would be too if I had no imagination, no English skills, poor Grammar, pimples and never probably even touched a pussy. Who's the loser? Yeah, I was a Laptop Hobo at Starbucks, read my posts from 2006. I was the worst of the worst, but I was also the lowest of the low. Starbucks was my salvation, my last fucking link to the outside world. I paid for their nasty, overpriced coffee, and I watched the wannabes in New York line up for their expensive pastries and drink, and I did it from opening to closing, rarely getting up and moving from one store to the next. I should have, but I didn’t because there were other squatters like me, dressed and employed like you (‘you’ in the sense of Starbucks general patrons. I am no longer talking to that ignorant doorstop, Kingfish. He is beneath my comments).
I could go into a recap of my life and living in Starbucks, but why? I’ve chronicled it already. Go back and read my posts in 2006-7 and you’ll get my mindset on the matter. You’ll get exactly how I felt about dealing with the owners of Starbucks who wanted me out. I’ll tell you exactly what went on. But here? All I will say is that it’s a bad business decision. It will cost Starbucks dearly for their short sightedness. Here’s the thing. I used to be an all day squatter in Starbucks. I know what is going on.
These people doing all the com- plaining are five minute customers. They buy a coffee, walk around, find no seats and leave. They see people on their laptops and they say to themselves…."these people must have been here all day." They have to. Either that, or they stood there all day and watched them. I doubt seriously the latter. They are the ‘high volume customer’. They most likely, from my all day, every day, seven day a week examination of differing Starbucks, make up 70% of Starbucks customers. These people will always come in and go out, buying their shitty coffee at bloated prices because it makes them feel as if they are part of the elite.
Then there are the business people, the workers that come into Starbucks, needing to download files, get in touch with clients, literally hold business meetings at the tables, and the so forth. They come in anywhere from ten minutes to two hours conducting business, getting in touch with friends overseas, searching for nearby tourist traps, or just bullshitting with friends. This is another revenue client base for Starbucks. They make up approximately 29% of Starbucks customers.
Then there are the Laptop Hobos. The real homeless of New York, with laptops. People like me, who are a low percentage in society to begin with who frequent Starbucks. We sit there all day long, soak up electricity and WIFI and don’t give a shit because Starbucks can afford it with the price of their coffee. A five dollar cup of coffee and an eight dollar pastry should afford one the luxury of luxury expenses. A person who goes into the Porche Dealer and buy a Porche should not feel bad because they drink an urn of their free coffee.
Here’s the problem. Starbucks has, as a whole, been hem- orrhaging money. They have been closing down stores worldwide. Shit, the Starbucks just under my SRO has closed a year ago. This is because of explosive growth and greed, poor business decisions and not judging their market. They believed that overpriced coffee would support their booming franchise because there is an endless supply of people with money. But as the economy dipped, people wised up and realized that they are not part of the millionaire elite that can afford five dollar coffees. They started going to the corner deli for their java instead to save on money at the end of the month. When they saw just how much they were spending on just coffee, they decided to pay their cable bill with it instead.
Starbucks owners began losing revenue, and they struck upon the first thing that they believed to be the problem… people like me…the lowly 1%. Because of me they are going out of business. They are following the dinosaurs into extinction and not because of their flawed business model that needs a prosperous economy to grow. So they shut down their outlets. But in doing so, they cut off their business clients, their 29% of customers. This means a 30% customer drop immediately. If Starbucks cannot function with the tiny decline of their 70% customer base, how will they survive after calling their 30% Squatters and Hobos?
These people will just leave for a McDonalds, or have business meetings elsewhere like other smaller, upscale coffee houses that don’t intend of changing their business model but with a much lower overhead. With a loss of 30% or more of its customer base, I don’t see Starbucks in New York as lasting too much longer, and they will dissolve. The real losers in this? The lower class workers eking out a living at these labor dungeons. They’ll drop into unemployment, not find jobs, then fall into Welfare and all of the bleeding heart program slashers will bemoan the fact that even after cutting off all of these entitlements, they can’t go to the cities because of the high crime. The lower class, finding easy access to dangerous weapons, will finally begin robbing the shrinking middle class and the rich for what they can’t get from social programs. All of their entitlement bluster will turn into hospitalization costs from muggings, or higher insurance premiums from car and house theft and burglaries.
Everything is connected in this economy. With every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. People, especially the stressed middle class, need to know this. Everything can disappear in an instant. I know… I was there. I still am to some extent. That’s why I vote for everything now. I don’t want to be bothered with people griping who don’t. And I don’t care if Starbucks goes down the drain. Like I said, they are hurting, not because of the Squatters, but because of a flawed business model. Such things need to die in the hostile environment of the Market Realities. That’s the evolution of business…survival of the fittest.
That’s the evolution of society too. When the poor and disen- franchised outnumber the rich, there is always revolution. That’s where this country is going. With thousands losing their jobs weekly, smell the trend. They’ll all be like me. And when the poor have nothing, they’ll soon gather together and prey of those with ‘something’. Happy hunting all you poor people. Go vote.
Hobobob
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