The Hills are Alive...with the sounds of Archie comics!

There are several things about Starbucks that I love. One of the main reasons that I enjoy the company is because I am proud of the environment that we create. I’ll talk more about this in a second, but first, since I am sitting in the café, listening to some killer bluegrass tunes over the Starbucks stereo (that’s code for good music), I want to bring up a topic that I haven’t talked much about in my blog- the Starbucks Music…

Ahhhhh, sweet music …it’s like the peanut to my butter…aka, I love music. It’s also a HUGE part of the Starbucks culture…we practically INVENTED coffeehouse music (which is now a setting on such things as Sirus and XM Radio…they call it coffeehouse music because it’s music inspired by Starbucks). Music has an entire link from the website AND furthermore, Starbucks has it’s own tab in ITUNES which is a branch of Apple (being recognized as a music inspiration by Apple is a pretty big deal).

All this to say, I don’t like ALL the music we play in our store, but I understand the importance of harmonic diversity. Who am I to change the playlist every time a song comes on that I don’t like…? Good music is like a relationship. It can brighten a mood, lift a spirit, and offer condolences in the gentlest and the most tender of ways. Music is like a voice that touches the inmost parts of our soul.
Okay, so I am being melodramatic…but music MOVES me, and BAD music moves me in a negative way. Sometimes I wish I could tell people that walk into the store, “Hey, I didn’t CHOOSE this song to be playing…” (especially if it sounds like elevator music) and other times, when Johnny Cash is on, people are lucky enough to hear me belting out lines from “I fell innnnto a BURNIN’ Ring of Firrrrrrre! I went down, down, down, as the flames went higher…..!!!!!!” And then I like to follow it up with, “And I’ll be here all week, people…allllll week! And I do take requests and dedications…”

The other thing about Starbucks culture- the donations. Starbucks GIVES BACK! I knew, working for a company like this, if I presented a good idea, it would be approved and supported by the higher ups.

So, after some coordinating and emailing back and forth with a marketing director, today was the first of what will be monthly visits to an assisted living center in our neighborhood. And let me just say, it was an ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC experience!!
My GM and I were off today, so we prepped the pastries that we were bringing, and the morning barista crew prepared our coffee and off we went! We were going to serve Starbucks VERONA blend coffee in to-go Starbucks coffee cups and hand out pastries and talk about the company and even give out some door prizes to people who could answer some trivia about Starbucks.

We had about 35 senior citizens (and center workers) attend our little get-together. A couple of them had gone online and done research about the company and EVERY SINGLE one of them had either heard of Starbucks or tried it before. And several of them had been to a Starbucks shop with their families.
We let them tell us stories, and we tried to keep the focus on the company and what we try to do to help the community and how we set ourselves apart from other companies.

There were a couple instances that made me laugh from the bottom of my soul! One occurred when we were quizzing them. I was standing over towards the back as the GM was asking some questions, and when we asked them to tell us what kind of coffee we had served today (I had discussed the coffee, Verona, earlier to them, about the region from which it came and what it tastes good with) and one of the ladies raised her hand, and shouted out- “Veronica!” and then one of the guys next to her said, “That’s not it! It’s VERONA! VeroniCA, that’s a character from the ARCHIE comics, you stupid old lady!” I started laughing so hard! Some of the side conversations going on were so funny, I wish I had recorded them all!

The last thing, right before we left- a couple walked in as we were cleaning up the mess. The man was kind of looking me up and down, not even trying to hide that he was checking me out. I kind of laughed because my GM noticed it, too. The woman was oblivious to his staring, she just wanted me to get him his coffee and pastry. He finally said to me, “Just beautiful you are….just beautiful…but why do you dress like a boy??” We started laughing so hard as he continued to stare at me, waiting on an answer.

I told him, “well, sir, I’m in dress code…we have to wear shirts like this…” I really wasn’t dressed very tomboyish today, I sure thought my necklaces and bracelets lent me a perception of girlishness. It was classic because he just shook his head when I handed him his coffee and said, “What a waste…” and walked away…
The things kids say… haha. All in all, it was a great day! A lot of fun and I can’t wait to do it again!