(I am Rob)
For some customers, Starbucks’ very particular lexicon is a source of anxiety and possibly even anger. But it wasn’t having to order a “venti” or a “tall” that drove a NYC college professor into an argument at a Manhattan Starbucks over the weekend. Instead, it was her refusal to tell an employee what she didn’t want on her bagel.
“I just wanted a multigrain bagel,” the woman told The NY Post. “I refused to say ‘without butter or cheese.’ When you go to Burger King, you don’t have to list the six things you don’t want… Linguistically, it’s stupid, and I’m a stickler for correct English.”
According to the professor, she was then told she wouldn’t get anything at all unless she specified that she wanted neither butter nor cheese on her bagel.
“I yelled, ‘I want my multigrain bagel!’” she said. “The barista said, ‘You’re not going to get anything unless you say butter or cheese!’”
The debate escalated to the point where the manager contacted the police. The professor says the officers told her they would have to arrest her if she refused to leave.
The Post also spoke to a Starbucks employee who witnessed the incident. “She would not answer. It was a reasonable question,” the worker said. “She called [the barista] an a–hole.”
Could this situation have been resolved better by the employee and manager? Was the professor just causing a scene? Would you like butter or cheese on that?
Venti-size fury [NY Post]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wtfNE4z6a8
Frankly, this professor sounds like a d-bag. I’m sure her classes are a joy.
I hope her students put “I WANT A MULTIGRAIN BAGEL” on all of her class evaluations.
This is what happens when you spend too much time in academia. You wind up getting into a shouting match with a Barista over linguistics, and then all of a sudden you’re found in a ditch somewhere, naked and covered in pages from “The Catcher in the Rye”.
Very accurate description of ALL Starbucks employees.
They both sound absolutely pathetic. The “professor” for actually screaming about a fucking bagel. And the barista for not just giving in to the demands of a selfish person with a Peggy Hill level self image, and proceeding to make a huge ordeal out of nothing.
They’re both just awful.
I go to Starbucks very regularly and I’ve never had a rude interaction. They usually do something approaching backflips to please people. I’ve gotten free replacement drinks for ones I spilled, free drink coupons when they screw up drinks, even free drinks for ones they didn’t hear me say over the drive-thru speaker. They get really apologetic if they screw anything up (like putting five shots in a quad venti because they’re new and got the standard vs. extra math wrong).
Likely this has something to do with being in Starbucks’ back yard. I’ve noticed that generally, the further you get from a chain’s headquarters and core region, the worse quality of goods and service you get. But I always figured Starbucks strove for consistency.
The baristas at my neighbourhood Starbucks have given me a venti frappuccino instead of a grande (for the grande price) because I ordered a grande but they were out of grande cups. They’re usually cheerful and friendly to customers and if you regularly go there and order the same thing, they remember and ask if you’re having “your usual” as soon as you come in, which saves time.
From the article: “If you don’t use their language, they refuse to serve you. They don’t understand what a plain multigrain bagel is.”
I respectfully submit that Ms. Rosenthal does not know how to order a plain bagel. She quoted herself as asking for a ‘multi-grain bagel’, not a ‘plain multi-grain bagel’. I’m sure they would have understood had she ordered correctly.
Customer: I would like a multigrain bagel.
Employee: no problem, would you like cheese or butter on it?
Customer: no thank you
WTF starbucks, thats a proper conversation, not “I would like a bagel without cheese or butter”. Who the hell talks like that? The professor is right, i dont go to burger king and say i want a burger without onions lettuce tomato but add ketchup and mustard.
Your synopsis of the conversation was exactly how it happened until the end, according to the article. When asked if she wanted cheese or butter, she responded ‘Multi-grain bagel’. RTFA.
Also, when you order any burger from any establishment, they make it for you with all of the assumed condiments and toppings unless told otherwise. Example: A whopper comes with lettuce, tomato, onion etc. If you do not want these things, you advise them of this. Otherwise you’re getting it.
Fail on your part.
slang and work-specific “jargon” might not be lexiconically correct, but she made a big deal out of it. she is the “linguistically” definition of “attention whore” it seems.
i’ve gotten my bagels from DD, tim hortons, and startbucks w/o anything
that being said, the barista might not have known she wanted it w/o anything
her “neither” reply was still ambiguous, and she could have just said, “w/o anything”
either way, i’m sure a lawsuit would come of this *rolls eyes
or perhaps, if she is so inclined, could write a paper on the vernacular of starbucks terminology
Somebody needs to tell this stuck-up language professor she doesn’t know what she is talking about.
This is not a language issue. This is an information science issue. Each term represents a idea. Since she insists on using one representation and the store insists on using another representation, without a mapping (or translation), her requests can’t be met.
Her request for a bagel does not preclude the inclusion of a shmear. Even though she did not ask for it, the clerk is obligated to provide it, none the less. Without her providing an explicit, rather than implicit, answer, the clerk can’t move forward.
i’m not endorsing what the prof. did, but anyone who has attempted to order a coffee or coffee-related item in NY will understand one’s frustration with the attitude of many of those who pour the coffee. often called ‘baristas’, which i believe is hipster for ‘coffee a-hole with bad attitude and no social skills’, these people are expert in judging you based on your coffee order and wonderfully skilled in dishing out snarky disapproval if your refreshment order does not pass some sort of test in their freshly-roasted brains.
trying to get a cop of joe in NYC has become extremely annoying.
Next time, ask for it ‘naked’ and wink at the barista.
This woman is crazy; her own account of the story makes it sound like she’s in the wrong. The barista asked if she’d like butter or cream cheese with her bagel; a standard follow-up question. She was not being “forced” to order “bagel, no cream cheese and no butter,” but was being asked a question of clarification in order for the barista to ensure the customer was satisfied from the start (and wouldn’t return ranting about not being given cream cheese).
And now this is all giving me flashbacks to the nasty customers I remember from my days at SBUX. Loved those customers who would order tea, then when asked which type of tea they’d like (I’d even make it simple and just say black, green, or herbal), would shout, “PLAIN TEA! Geez, how hard is that?” They’d get English breakfast. That appeased about 80% of them. Then there were the ones who would indignantly return a few minutes later, saying I made their tea wrong – that it’s supposed to be spicy, sweet, and milky. Oh, so they wanted a chai latte, but insisted on “PLAIN TEA” when asked for clarification. God, five years have passed, yet I remember those asshole customers as clearly as ever.
Now, those times when I’m in a Starbucks, I get to shoot nasty looks to the rude customers, and it feels great.
Wow, what a Lit decent nut…
As someone who used to go around correcting the grammar on the graffitied desks at my college, I resent this woman for using “being a stickler for correct English” as an excuse for ridiculous and rude behavior. Get a grip, madam.
Quit being a bitch to the service worker and understand that for the very much smaller salary than a professor, they have to deal with people like you all damn day. They also have to deal with corporate policies that may force them to have particular answers due to cirucumstances that have arisen from other a-hole customers. I can see it now “Wheres the butter on this damn bagel? What idiot gets a bagel without butter, you people are idiots. What, no cream cheese either?”
This is an anal retentive person picking on someone because they can. The prof is a bully.
Unless it says on the “menu” that a bagel comes WITH butter and cheese, when one orders a “bagel” one should get a “bagel.”
Same with ordering an Iced Coffee, in my opinion.
First time I ordered an “iced brewed coffee” at a Starbucks I wanted brewed coffee, cold, with ice.
What I got instead was brewed coffee, served cold with ice and enough “sweetener” to gag a maggot.
NOWHERE on the posted menuboard did it say ANYTHING about them loading a customer’s coffee with sugar or corn syrup or whatever it was. (Yes, I immediately returned that sweetener laden concoction and insisted that when I ordered Iced coffee I expected just iced coffee. I was told that I’d have to specify “no sweetener” then. I said that the menu did NOT say they loaded their iced brewed coffee with “sweetener”, so I should not have to say “no sweetener.” Needless to say, it’s a lost battle.)
I agree with the professor on this: Serve what is advertised and ordered, don’t just add random crap to it and demand the customer tell you not to.
Bah!
I love the comment below the original article about Gloria Allred smelling easy money
First, don’t yell at the barista… Second, the barista should try being not a jack-ass.
I would have thrown both of them out!
“She called [the barista] an a–hole.”
This from a “stickler for correct English”? Methinks she was just pissed and wanted someone to vent against. Kudos to the barista for standing firm.
Do these bagels come with cream cheese or butter as a default topping? If so, this “professor” may have “mastered” grammar, but she failed “comprehension”.
If someone asks you a question, and you do not answer it, but that question dictates how your food is prepared, I am pretty sure the person asking for food is being the dumb one.
I am also pretty sure there is an unwritten rule that your food is allowed (by the unwritten law of course) to be shoved up your ass. With a $2 ‘suya’ fee added of course.
I don’t see the problem. A simple answer, butter or cheese? Too hard to say plain please? Seems she just kept saying I want a multi-grain bagel over and over again. If you cant be correct in any other way, be grammatically correct.
she’s pretty dumb for a PhD
dumb and dumb make dumberer i guess
*excuse the vernacular or lexicon, or just take the sarcasm
again, you would think being the professor, she could have just added “…without any spread…” or “…as is…”
by her own admittance, if she went to an establishment that operates on their own definition of sizing , she could go to any other regular place that had the typical “small, medium, large” sizes
i’m surprised she didn’t have a fit because it was a single franchise, yet the name was plural
I’m glad they kicked her to the curb. It’s not cool to treat the people behind the counter badly just because one feels like being an asshat that day.
The professor should pay as much attention to correct behavior as she does to using correct English.
I’m not a business owner. But I keep wondering why people behave like this. And I see lots of comments that agrees with the moronic professor. What’s wrong with you people? Didn’t your mama teach you manners?
work a retail job for a couple months. you’ll quickly realize why pedantic and annoying customers like these will infuriate you. the barista doesn’t care if venti sounds stupid or the way you order bagels isn’t correct. they make minimum wage and berating them doesn’t really help anybody.
If someone is willing to take the time to make a simple order into something more difficult than it should be then THEY are the ones causing the problem, in this case the woman could’ve just simply said “I’d like a multigrain bagle with only (insert items or lack there of).” and that would’ve been the end of that. And I can say for having experienced it myself at work there are customers who actually make a problem. A time when a woman said “Give me a medium popcorn with no butter on it” i simply said (and with no sort of attitude or a tone that would give that impression) “Our popcorn doesn’t come with butter, the salt and butter is self-served”. You would think that would be the end of that part of the conversation and she would continue on with her order. Instead she then said (with a hint of attitude) “Well I don’t want any butter on it”. I can pick up quickly when someone’s intentionally trying to cause a scene. I again told her about that there’s no butter on the popcorn, that it’s self-served if she would want it. Of course a manager was called over, in the end it was the typical task of giving the customer their bottle and let it be that. Point is a lot of customers will find a reason to cause a scene, not all, but some. I’m not saying that employees are prize pigs.
First let me say I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Starbucks. Their whole holier-than-thou attitude with titles and such just rubs me the wrong way.
Second, ANY place that can’t stick to a variant of Small/Medium/Large won’t get my business. If I go into 7-11, I know that a Super Big Gulp has more than a Big Gulp. I don’t need a dictionary or a picture to know what’s bigger: a Grande or a Venti. Shouldn’t Grande mean Large? No, it’s medium. and WTF is a Trenta? (and yes, I had to look this up)
If someone corrected me when I used normal English language terms in an English speaking establishement, I’d tell them where to stick it. It’s one thing if you try to order a Big Mac at Burger King, but “give me a large” pretty much means the same thing anywhere you go… except Starbucks. Skip the language lessons, give me my coffee.
Next, “Barista.” No. Counter person. Waiter/waitress. Server. Clerk. Cashier. I don’t say in other stores “Can I get a Team Member to help me?” or ‘Cast Member’ or ‘associate’ or whatever. They’re employees. Just like Sanitation Engineer = garbage man and “customer relations specialist” = cashier.
Finally, if the bagel comes with a choice of cheese or butter and you want plain, you need to say plain. If it costs extra, then just saying “bagel” should get you a plain. If you ask for a Whopper, it comes with mayo. If you don’t want the mayo you have to say so. If you want to add cheese, you have to say “Whopper with cheese.”
In short:
Both parties were wrong and Starbucks is evil.
The waitress may be a bitch, but the professor is an elitist douche-bag.
So, their bagel comes with cheese or butter by default, the waitress way over escalated by giving the customer directive. The customer also was being overly difficult by getting persnickety. She could have just said “neither,” or “I’d like it plain.”
I know people like the alleged professor. They often are inflexible, not understanding that language is flexible and ever evolving. This is especially true with English.
If she wants a static and heavily (government) regulated language then she should endorse French or something.
Generally I hate people with PhDs. They spend their time teaching people to live in the real world when they can’t do it themselves. How about this: You’re in the minority. Stay out of jail and ask for the damn thing plain. NEXT?!
When you go to Burger King, you don’t have to list the six things you don’t want…
Um, yes, you do, at least if the default order comes with XYZ that you don’t want. If I order a Whopper Jr. and don’t want pickles on it, or mustard, or ketchup, I have to tell the guy behind the counter. If I order chicken nuggets, and he asks me, “Do you want barbecue or buffalo sauce with that?” and I don’t want either, I also have to tell him. Which isn’t all that hard, incidentally. You just say, “Neither, actually- just plain is fine, thanks!” I would think an English professor could handle it- the longest word in that sentence is only a few syllables.
this woman fits the bill for an uppity NYU professor. Oh its too much for you to say you would like neither butter or cheese or your bagel? So much so that you would rather yell at some poor chump who makes $7.50/hr?
This is why people shouldnt pay $40k/yr for tuition at schools like NYU. Youre just paying for people like this.
My first trip to New York, I ordered a “coffee, regular” (which I’ve always assumed meant “black.”) Instead, it had cream and sugar, so I learned the second time to order “coffee, black.”
Never once had a problem again. (Now I live in NY.)
This professor was acting like a complete asshole. Its a reasonable question?
“I would like my bagel plain.”
Is it really that difficult?
Teachers College apparently doesn’t teach politeness.
This professor is just a nutcase. I haven’t ordered a bagel from Starbucks before (they sell bagels?) so I wouldn’t know they come with butter or cream cheese, free of charge. If the barista asked me butter or cream cheese, I would answer.
I work with professors and some of them are pains. Some are nice, but there are some that are just so particular (about whatever they think is super important – most of the time which is not at all important).
As for having to specify “no whip”, when I order frappucinos, they usually ask if I want whip cream. I think the frappucinos usually come with whip, but they ask anyway. If you order a drink that usually comes with whip, and you don’t want whip, then yes – you will have to say so. I can just imagine the prof ordering a frappucino and when the barista asks her if she wants whip, she says “I want a frappucino!”.
Why does she even shop there if she’s so outraged over their “stupid” menu?
Once you call the police on a customer for not following a stupid rule you have got to understand you have missed the point entirely.
I could see calling the police for not following the “No punching people in the eye” rule. But the “Not following the corporate script” rule.
My reaction if I were the owner/regional manger would be “Why did you call the police?” and then after any possible answer, “Sorry but A you’re fired and B don’t expect a final paycheck in exchange for my not suing your ass for damaging this location’s reputation.”
“I could see calling the police for not following the “No punching people in the eye” rule. But the “Not following the corporate script” rule.”
She didn’t not follow some script. She refused to tell them what she wanted.
pretentious English professor vs pretentious coffee jockey. as much as it is the professor’s fault for not saying no butter and no cream cheese, it is just moronic to force your customers to have to say it in the first place. When I order a bagel anywhere I ask for the bagel to be buttered, toasted or smeared with cream cheese because that how it works.
A-holes all around – the manager has to call the cops? Why not just give the woman the damn bagel and tell her to shop some place else.
What a bunch of jerks.
It’s funny that you never really get the whole story a lot of time. It sounds to me like the OP went off and probably used a good amount of profanity.
I would imagine the situation being something like this:
OP: I would like a Multi Grain Bagel
Barista: Would you like butter or cheese?
OP: Did I effin ask for butter or cheese a-hole??
Barista: (getting pissed at this point) Well you won’t get anything unless you tell me if you want butter or cheese.
OP: YELLING to cause a scene… Cops called. Asked to leave.
All you had to say here when they asked “butter or cheese” was NO THANKS! Problem solved and you would have gotten your food.
Clearing up something. The bagels at Starbucks do not automatically come with cream cheese, hence asking whether someone wants it or not. The cream cheese is a separate line item on the POS and has an additional cost. Butter is free however.
lets have an example,
customer: Id like a multigrain bagel please
Barista: would you like butter or cream cheese on that
Customer: just a multigrain bagel please
barista: oh ok, no problem
thats how it should’ve went
A tech just called, ostensibly at the urging of Ms.Charles—after four hours of supervisors saying “we can’t”, he says he’ll be here today. We’ll see.
I put just as much fault on starbucks as the stubborn professor.
Yes, the professor was being an ass. However, in any service industry, you do tend to run into obstinate, stubborn people acting like idiots. So the onus is really on the business to accommodate these weirdo’s… within reason. Why? Because if you don’t they make a scene, and its a lot easier to just give someone a bagel than push some stupid rule to its limit. As a cashier your job is to ring people up and keep the line moving. She won’t answer the question? Just make a decision, ring it up and move along.
If the lady wont say what she wants on the bagel, just put whatever it normally comes with on the side. Or give it to her plain and put it on if she complains. Or just listen to what she is repeatedly saying: “I want a multi-grain bagel.”
Would it have been so hard for the
professor” to say simply, “Neither, I want it plain”?
It ain’t news until the barista goes Steven Slater on said customer’s ass.
Hold The Pickle, Ho;d The Lettuces, Special Orders Don’t Upset US, All We ask is that You Let Us – Serve It Your Way – Serve It Your Way – At Burger King
It’s amazing what qualifies as news. Doesn’t she remember that oh….. about…… let’s say…… 9 years ago a certain set of buildings blew up in her back yard? What happened to the “all New Yorkers are one big happy family” attitude? Humans disgust me sometimes, especially dried up, opinionated, self-centered, judgmental, elitist, berating, inflexible, narrow-minded, wrinkle-sacks like her. She should be ashamed of her temper tantrum and someone should make her mop the floors in there for a few days so she knows what it’s like to actually work for a living.
Please pass the humility, but hold the butter and cheese.