Korean Job Discussion Forums

[drkalbi]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - One coffee drinker's bad news is another coffee drinker's good news, it seems.

Financial woes at Starbucks Corp., which is planning to close 600 underperforming U.S. stores, is evoking glee and little sympathy from aficionados who say they resent the coffee shop giant and favor small independent cafes.

"I'm so happy. I'm so not a Starbucks person," said Melinda Vigliotti, sipping iced coffee at the Irving Farm Coffee House in New York. "I believe in supporting small businesses. Starbucks, bye-bye."

"Amen," chimed in Keith DiLauro, a local caterer. "They went too big, too fast."

Seattle-based Starbucks burst onto the national scene in the 1990s and grew to more than 6,000 locations around the world. But with cups of coffee that can cost several dollars, it faces a slowing economy and slowed consumer spending.

"Starbucks has really created a coffee culture, raising awareness of good coffee, which is good for independents," said Carol Watson, owner of the Milk and Honey coffee shop in Chicago. "But on the other hand, they're on practically every corner, and that makes it tough on the little guy too."

In Birmingham, Alabama, retiree Peggy Bonfield, drinking coffee at the Crestwood Coffee Shop, said: "When a Starbucks closes, it makes room for a local business to start.

"I consider that good news," she said.

The schadenfreude of coffee drinkers drawing satisfaction from another's misfortune is part of the popular culture that enjoys the downfall of companies or celebrities, said Jim Carroll, a Canadian-based trends and innovation expert.

"There are a lot of people out there who take delight in seeing an icon torn down by the masses," he said.

Starbucks fell victim to a rapid change in attitude, fueled by Internet bloggers complaining endlessly about everything from layoffs to its breakfast sandwiches, he said.

"Starbucks was a cool brand, and then all of a sudden it's not a cool brand," he said. "There's this new global consciousness that is out there that can suddenly shift."

CAFE CULTURE

Indeed, said Pye Parson, who hails from Seattle and works at Birmingham's Crestwood, "Once it went corporate, it wasn't Starbucks anymore."

New York Web designer Zachary Thacher, who favors Greenwich Village's cafes, said he avoids Starbucks. "They've commoditized cafe culture, which is why I don't go," he said.

The environmental movement toward buying and appreciating locally grown products has helped neighborhood cafes and hurt the myriad look-a-like Starbucks stores, said Judy Ramberg, a consumer strategist at Iconoculture, a Minneapolis-based trend research company.

The company that began as innovative is now known for consistency and convenience, she said. "To me, that's a huge step down," she said. "You've built your franchise on people who are coming in because they know exactly what they want."

Precisely, said Justin Sergi, explaining why he preferred Lux, a cafe in Phoenix serving lattes with a fern-like pattern teased from steamed milk in ceramic cups, over Starbucks.

"The people that work there are very pleasant, but the stores are devoid of any kind of real charm or personality," he said. "They push a button, and a machine does everything from grinding the beans to brewing the drink."

It's not as though Starbucks doesn't have defenders,

"It's convenient," said Anthony Castro, sitting in a Starbucks near his job at New York's Museum of Modern Art. "I know what to expect."

In Birmingham, Crestwood regular Gary Adkins said he felt Starbucks gave employees good salaries and benefits. But now Starbucks' plans call for cutting up to 12,000 full- and part-time positions.

Not everyone felt strongly. "It's just coffee," said Marc Poulin, a systems administrator at Zibetto Espresso Bar in New York. "If I was an investor, I'd care."

[Gollywog]

That's good reporting. The reporter got a variety of viewpoints into the story.

How come the press can do that with a story like Starbucks, but not with the Mad Cow insanity in Korea?

How about reporting the American side of the Korean protests, Reuters?


BTW, real coffee drinkers often refer to the chain as Charbucks, because of their often excessively dark roasts.

[cdninkorea]

I do like smaller coffee shops for their unique atmosphere and menu options, but especially when travelling, seeing a Starbucks is important: a taste of the familiar in a foreign land, and with clean bathrooms too!

Also, check this out:

Don't Fear Starbucks
Why the franchise actually helps mom and pop coffeehouses.
http://www.slate.com/id/2180301/pagenum/all/

[Lekker]

Good. Now do away with Wal Mart and we're all set.

[Grab the Chickens Levi]

Starbucks is the McDonalds of Coffee shops.

Bland tasting overpriced dishwater.

[sojourner1]

I like buying the bags of Sumatra coffee from Starbucks and making my coffee at home. It might look expensive at $8 for 12 ounces, but it's not when you consider it's 20 cups of fresh brewed strong coffee (about $60 to $80 in a Stargeeks store) and beats the pants off of Folgers, Nescafe, and that junk they sell at Emart. Raise your cups up to real coffee at 7AM.

With the rising hyper inflation of gas prices and everything else as gas is the leading indicator, people have less discretionary income for luxuries and other non-essentials. In my case, coffee is an essential as mornings are painful and good coffee is a beautiful thing. I tend to make it stronger than they do in a store and it only costs me 80 cents to have 2 cups each morning.

[mindmetoo]

I have no issues at all with Starbucks. They provide fair jobs, they provide nice stores, good bathrooms, and a consistent cuppa joe. That starbucks has reached one of the highest position in terms of brand recognition with very, very little advertising is testimony to quality of what they provide.

[uberscheisse]

as far as corporations go, they've led by example as far as ethical trading, employee remuneration and quality control go... but it's still a corporation and i'd prefer vancouver's caffe abbruzzese anyday over the green mermaid.

however, in korea, it's the easiest way to get a consistent dose of freedom of espresso.

[socrates flitcraft]

so price fixing is ethical is it?

Maybe that's the blurb they are selling but it's not the reality for the producers on the ground in Colombia and elsewhere.

Starbucks: We will pay x dollars per kilo.

Farmer: Gasp, but that means I make absolutely nothing!
Surely we can negotiate a fair price.

Starbucks: Sounds nice, but no. We are the only player who can take all your coffee. If we paid you a fair price , well you might get uppity and start trying to alter this fine situation. Best thing for you is to continue with subsistence farming, making my fat backstard shareholders rich.
Be a good chico and go work your balls off and hope the crop never fails because then then you'll be proper fooked.

Farmer: Cool . capitalism rocks. Sorry for being a dumbass.

technically it's not price fixing, but how can the farmers escape?
If their own government tries to help them , they face retaliation from Washington/ EU etc.

This scenario plays itself out again and again all over the world.
So screw starbucks, I'll stick with real fair trade coffee.

'Freedom means more than the freedom to starve' (poor paraphrasing here). For people like us, mostly from and of privilege, it's a small but real gesture to try and make ethical purchases when we can and it usually doesn't even hurt our pockets.

My toughest problem here is with the tokenism and indignity of the teaching. The korean system puts so many stupid obstacles in the way of me doing an effective or progressive job.

I often long for previous incarnations of myself where I did some real back-breaking work which left me with a feeling of pride and achievement at the end of the day. But soon I remember the reality and my appetite for manual labour rapidly dwindles.

So many people do brutal jobs in the primary sector. They don't deserve to be robbed by these white collar gypsies.

Fair pay for real work.

[mindmetoo]

[MollyBloom]

I like the "Tom n Tom's" in Seoul. And the 7 monkeys. yum.

[socrates flitcraft]

I wouldn't totally agree that people escaped from farms.
Technological advances, moving from labour intensive crops and the end of share cropping...

My general problem with contemporary monetary and political systems is ( by which i mean capitalism and democracy US style) the lack of real theoretical discourse in the public realm.

I wonder have people given up. The passionate debates about strains of communism/ marxism/ capitalism that took place everywhere not too many decades ago have all but died.

We don't accepts that technologies are ever good enough, we expect that we will see a new improved/ more efficient model of every product every 6 months into eternity. Why not expect the same from our political systems?

I fear shortcuts when it comes to food and healthcare being mixed with pure unchecked capitalism. Shortcuts leading to pain and suffering for patients and they're families in healthcare. Unsafe food and poor longterm use of resources in agriculture.

Granted, I'm all over the place here but the way things are headed everywhere will be like korea and that's a complete nightmare in my eyes. No social mobility and 3 viciously stratified levels of people.
The rise of this ajumma mentality, this blind wanton individualism is costing us in humanity.

The whole world can't work in the service industry. Somebody has to do the real work and that should be valued. When the garbage trucks stop showing up you tend to notice pretty quickly.


You have made a load of perfectly valid points. My worry is they all hinge on one overriding objective, 'let's get rich/ how do I get rich?'.
I'm not stupid , I would be quite keen to retire early myself. I am concerned, however, that it is usually at someone elses expense.

What a load of melodramatic twaddle, my mind's a rag and bone shop.
I'm off for a run. I haven't left this country in 6 months and it's showing here in stagnant frustration and incoherency.

[cdninkorea]

I'm not old enough to know about the kind of debates in public places decades ago, but it seems to me there are passionate debates about political issues today. In cafes, bars, university campuses, think tanks, family dinner tables, and other places one can find such debates. Maybe there were more in the 70s; again, I wouldn't know.

Not that I would call the US system capitalism- it's a mixed system of free market and socialist principles at best. I'm not happy with it either and I argue for a fully capitalist system with anyone willing to engage in conversation about it.

Part of what keeps technology improving and political structures the same is something you seem to dislike though: the free market. When technology is taken out of the private sphere and into the political, we see stagnation there too (observe command economies)

Semi-capitalist systems have lots of social mobility- way more than under any other system. There's ample evidence and I can dig it up if you like (I'd do it now but I'm on a short break between classes).

I do agree with you on one thing though: staying in this country does tend to lead to insanity- time for a vacation!

[mindmetoo]

[mindmetoo]