Want a worse number? Back in 2019, the price of commodity was at less than a $1. Starbucks, at the time made up 3% of the world’s production. They decided to give $20m to their farmers. Did it help? Well based on available financial data at the time, $20m was approximately single afternoon’s profit for the company. A SINGLE FUCKING AFTERNOON! https://sprudge.com/starbucks-would-prefer-you-dont-think-too-hard-about-that-20m-relief-fund-151839.html
Just so people are aware, Starbucks was caught buying from farms in Brazil multiple times that used slave labor. In Guatemala, along with Nestle, were caught buying from farm(s?) that used child labor.
EDIT: On top of this the company partnered with Conservation International to certify the farms met the company’s standards. The incident in Brazil saw CI trying to coverup the certification of that farm. Also CI is involved with arms dealing.
EDIT 2: Their retail products have the claim “100% Ethically Sourced”. That is a lie.
EDIT: I got the slogan wrong. It is “Committed to 100% Ethical Coffee Sourcing”.
Is this the same nestle slave labor case that went to the Supreme Court where nestle was successfully defended by former Obama solicitor Neal Katyal, or have they done this more than once?
Their retail products have the claim “100% Ethically Sourced”. That is a lie.
That all depends on which ethical code you're referencing for your statement. I 100% believe that Starbucks sources according to their corporate ethical standards.
I am unable to find a news report now, but I am certain I read one back in 2018 or 2019. I believe that Conservation International (an organization that helped develop the C.A.F.E. standard the company uses) was discovered covering up the certification of one of the farms in Brazil. As I remember reading, that a farm was at the time listed somewhere as being certified but after slave labor was discovered, CI uncertified the farm and attempted to claim it failed to meet the C.A.F.E. standards, thus never was awarded certification. They weren't saying the certification was revoked; it never had any.
Remember when Ford had an amazing performance growth, made record profits, then laid off a huge amount of people and moved more business overseas. Nothing like capitalism to fire you when you're down and fire you when you're up!
Or sharing profits among the leeches when it's going great, but when shit goes down they are begging for help from government and firing people. How about you not instantly take out profits but you build resillience through reserves and preparation? Lol, who am I kidding, milk the cow till it's dry and then make beef patties when it stops giving milk.
That was just the 400 FTEs. There were also lost of contractors that were affected as well! Most people don't count them since they could have been let go for any reason.
Of course that wasn't the official reason he gave. He hired a management consultant group to do a study of where all the top restaurant talent was in the country. Surprise, surprise, all the criteria they were given led them to narrow down the ideal location for the corporate headquarters to be right next to his house in Newport Beach.
I'm theory, the board of directors is supposed to keep a CEO in check if they do something that is against the best interest of the shareholders. But the share price actually went up after he made this move.
Same reason share prices often go up when a company announces layoffs. The market isn't always tied to how well a business is run.
Iirc he flies up Monday, stays in the corporate penthouse during the week, then flies back Thursday or Friday. I'll be honest I haven't kept up on it as I really don't care lol, I just remember the article from a few months or whatever back.
Was it baristas that were laid off or office workers? Minimum wage for their corporate headquarters is a bit over $20/hour, and I'd suspect very few corporate employees are making only minimum wage.
That might be fair, but "laid off" has the sort of vibe to it that they didn't get to choose between minimum wage and no job. Also, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 and the minimum wage in Washington state, where starbucks HQ is located is $16.66 so yeah definitely would have to rework the math based on location of the layoffs.
Agreed, just trying to point out that if the laid off employees were corporate, not retail, the $15/hr assumption is probably pretty low. If retail, those could be spread across the country, and $15/hr is probably pretty generous. Starbucks HQ is in the city of Seattle, which has an even higher minimum wage than the state (I think $20.76/hour now?).
They could have paid every one of those employees nearly 6 figures instead. If the company is doing so badly that they feel they need to lay off a thousand people, they should not be handing out CEO bonuses, period.
This is the same douche canoe that was the CEO of Chipotle and denied that the serving sizes were getting smaller and told people to just harass the worker making the food if they thought their serving size was to small.
Also the same guy trying to green wash plastic waste to be customer responsibility while commuting on a private jet from Southern California to Seattle.
Shop local. It's just coffee. Don't let the marketers tell you any different. For sweet creamy syrupy treats go to the ice cream store. Let's not support the current system of the bigwig at the top who does very little and reaps most of the rewards.
Plus ordering there takes 3x longer than if I just made a coffee at home. They are not convenient unless you are traveling and have no access to a coffee maker.
But the local shops are often treating employees in ways that starbucks couldn't possibly get away with. Source: ex who worked 14 hr shifts without weekends at 4 different places for a couple months each and came out at net negative.
There are some nice places though, where barista is the owner, and not just some stupid rich kid trying his hand at entrepreneurship.
That's what I'm trying to do understand as well. What's the explanation for these kinds of things? What's the actual sequence of events and how conditions that lead to these things? Why would the board approve of this kind of compensation?
"Good billionaire" is an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. You can be good, or a billionaire but not both. If you were good, you wouldn't have a billion dollars.
You have to be willing to exploit your fellow humans to get where he is. Either you don’t have a soul to start with or it gets torn to bits every step you take up the ladder.
I’ve known people like that. I’ve been very close to people like that. It’s crazy, everywhere they look they’re looking for some win/something they can take. They never feel guilty. Honestly, the only thing they feel is betrayal when someone won’t bend the knee.
That’s my little observation.
Sad thing is, they still have people who love them but they aren’t truly capable of reciprocating. Everything is transactional and they always expect it to be profitable for them. The only thing that truly hurts them is when it isn’t profitable. It sucks being caught in their orbit too. Believe me.
I have spent most of my life dealing with a successful sociopath. Thing is, at times it really looks like he means well.
It’s a constant battle in my head. Is it just his belief system? Is it just that he views everyone else as incompetent?
I constantly find myself making excuses for him because I love him. I get angry and I’m able to really look at everything sometimes, or he does something really shitty to someone else. Like recently, he wanted to buy tires for his son. Great, right? But he had to find a way to make it a tax write off or he didn’t want to do it. He got his daughter a car, but with the condition that her mother couldn’t drive it under any circumstances. And it had to be a flood damaged car. Good deals with the salvage titles and all.
He finally caved and sent his son money when I guilt tripped him, but he was mad for weeks about it. He’s probably still fuming. Mom ended up buying his daughter a car she couldn’t afford on credit and he gave the one he bought her to his girlfriend.
He ended up buying his son used tires because he couldn’t work it out to get the write off without sending a check and he didn’t trust him with it (with no reason to feel that way).
He built a cabin with his step brother in the 80s. They both poured blood, sweat, and tears into it. He had the money so he technically owned it, but it was understood that it was theirs with no strings attached.
When it was completed he informed him that he was welcome to use it any time he wanted, so long as his mother never stepped foot through the door. Naturally his step brother said “fuck that”, took the L and never went back.
I don’t know I’m doing dealing with it. Emotions are weird.
I understand, my brother only ever fucked over everyone else except me (probably because he knew what would happen) and it was an ever frustrating thing. I miss him but I think it's for the best that he isn't around to do more damage.
I trust you know this person well and that your experience is accurate.
However, you might find it useful to look up coping mechanisms in dealing with someone with OCPD. OCPD is extremely common and people with this personality disorder usually are extremely miserly and controlling. I’m not saying your person has this disorder. But from your story, the issues with money align closely enough that the tools people use in dealing with OCPD miserliness might help you. Or at the very least it might help you feel less alone in that experience.
I’m really sorry you are having to manage that and deal with this person. You sound like a very reasonable and empathetic person yourself. Please do something small and kind for yourself tomorrow. ❤️
I did some reading. It would be spot on if he wasn’t convinced that he was perfect and everyone else wasn’t.
No one is smarter than him. No one does it better than him. No one could even come close to comprehending his work. When he dies he feels sorry for anyone who has to work behind him and it will take teams of people to understand the genius of his work. Anyone who has a slightly different worldview than him is “thinking wrong”.
He isn’t obsessed with perfection. He is perfection. No lover could please a woman like him. No one is stronger or more capable. He has done the work of 500 men in one lifetime.
He prides himself on being the best, but not because he has anything to prove to anyone. He knows he’s the best. No one is better.
His father’s dying words were, “Please God. Let my son find some humility. Please. He’ll have no peace until he finds it.”
His father was a great man. An activist. A man who actually worked to change the world.
He wasn’t always that guy though. He had to learn some hard lessons to get there and his son suffered while he learned those lessons. He knew that. He took accountability for it.
I don’t know. I wouldn’t have made it without him in this life, but it was always a transaction. He doesn’t know how to do anything without it being a transaction. I’ve been trying to show him that it isn’t always about that. Every job we do, he tells me to keep track of my hours so he can pay me. I don’t want him to pay me. I want him to see that life can be something we experience and enjoy without it being a transaction.
I’m probably wasting my time, but I love my uncle irrationally and I don’t know why.
My body aches right now as I type this from driving a pick into slate to find some wires for him. It’s probably stupid, but a year from now when I still haven’t asked for a dime, maybe he’ll think about it. Or maybe he is who he is and he’ll think I’m an idiot.
I worked there back in the early aughts. It actually was a cool retail job that paid reasonably well, a few dollars above minimum, and you got company stock, benefits, a free pound of coffee a week or box of tea, you were invited to company meetings, free drinks on shift, and we did all sorts of cool volunteer stuff, like with the food bank and habitat for humanity, and we would do coffee tastings at events, all sorts of things. It honestly was a fun job lots of the time. It's so sad it's turned into trash.
Fair warning, if you're brewing coffee at home it's still possible to buy Starbucks.
Most of the coffee at Costco is just rebranded Starbucks beans. A lot of dark roast coffee is secretly shitty Starbucks beans. If it smells like cigarettes at any point, you've probably got Starbucks coffee.
The only reason i would go to a Starbucks is to look at the people working and buying coffee there. Or to meet a cute person behind the counter, but i have never nore will i spend money in that
Why do the Italians need to keep fighting? Let some others get into the action, like Yoshi or Peaches. We can always branch out and have other Nintendo properties get these guys. How about Zelda or Link?
Cap the maximum compensation gap (including bonuses and stocks) between the highest paid and lowest paid person in a company at 1000:1. Any overpay goes into a UBI account that pays out equally to all.
Then they'll just hire Task Rabbits or otherwise divide companies by pay.
Starbucks needs more union stores. Unions can address loopholes more quickly and effectively than government legislators can. Deunionization is half the reason why inequality has skyrocketed since the 1970s.
We need to fix the root causes of inequality by building infrastructure that can't just be destroyed by executive order.
I work at a bakery (we’ve got snacks, coffee, cake, and danishes in addition to bread), and every once in a while I see two people come in and it’s not clear if they’re on a date until they disagree about whether it’s for here or to go. Then I realize that only one of them thought it was a date. It’s especially awkward if the one who did has already offered to pay for everything.
I volunteer at food shelters, and every now and then we get something we can't really hand out, like unground coffee beans, so I ended up with a large bag of some Starbucks ultra dark roast of some kind. Had a leopard? on the bag. It smelled like boiled cat shit the instant I opened the bag, went in the compost bin immediately.
Shifting "blame" on these white-collar police dogs (megacorp CEOs) instead of shareholders (and the system demanding growth) only needs to happen when everyone understands that even 96m is 2.6% of 3.760m of net income (2024).
So if 1k people were let go all of them could have gotten 1m of bonus and still the company would have made almost 3bn.
But they were let go bcs yoy income (but not revenue) was lower last year, and the financial markets demand a sacrifice (literally any action, even if not actually needed, just to send a signal they are 'on it').
Coffee nuts don't drink starbucks and those of us who just drink coffee can't tell the difference...starbucks is a shit company with overpriced drinks.
I mean he has been rewarded for making the line go up. Part of making the line go up is reducing overheads. So he is being directly rewarded for actions like firing 1000+ employees. So is it a surprise?
I don't know why people think large companies aren't allowed to get rid of people when they want to? And especially Starbucks, it's shit-work, not a 20y long career maker.
Do you keep a list of workers or jobs who you feel are beneath you and don't deserve enough money to support themselves with basic essentials like food, water, or shelter?
Let me translate that rhetorical question for you:
Why do you believe society should allow certain businesses to remain in existence, when those businesses utilize human labor, yet do not pay enough for human laborers to subsist?
By shit work i mean unskilled labour basically. It's not worth much for a reason. I dont see why you would ask me that.
Some business operate on unskilled labour, it shouldnt be a surprise that its not paid well, just because something doesnt pay well doesnt mean the company shouldnt exist, and since when did anyone expect that a part time job at startbucks could or should be able to fully support a person? That's fucking ludicrous. And before you start with people have to take what they can get, yes thats true and starbucks isnt responsible for that shortfall, in a real socialist democracy, that should be taken up by welfare if needed.
I understand the gut reaction to go after the CEO or board for making decisions that affect so many people, but it doesnt help, its misdirected energy that should go to the government.
We cant expect any company to do what in the interest of the workers, unless its financially beneficial. The best way to handle this is to use government to reign in corps to limits we can be happy with.
I stand by all I've said, but I respect your position, i just think it's misguided.
By shit work i mean unskilled labour basically. It's not worth much for a reason. I dont see why you would ask me that.
The question wasn't about the labor. The question was about the employer. The question was about the mindset you demonstrated in your first comment, that you later clarified:
since when did anyone expect that a part time job at startbucks could or should be able to fully support a person? That's fucking ludicrous.
The question is about how you decided that this idea is "fucking ludicrous".
You lied to me when you said you didn't hold this belief. It may have been an unintentional lie at the time, probably because you didn't understand what I was asking. But, I was talking about what you describe as "fucking ludicrous". Those two words are a vociferous acknowledgement of the beliefs I was talking about; beliefs that you clearly hold. I want to know how you came to believe this idea to be "fucking ludicrous".
We cant expect any company to do what in the interest of the workers, unless its financially beneficial
Why not? I think we most certainly can. I think we can absolutely demand that they fulfill an obligation greater than just their own financial interests. I think we can certainly demand that their business operations benefit their workers, and society in general. When their business is demonstrably exploitative "shit-work", we are not obligated to allow them to continue to do business. We can prohibit them from continuing to engage in that harmful business.
Some business operate on unskilled labour
Unskilled human labor.
They require the labor of a human for their business to function, but they pay less than subsistence wages to that human. That is "shit-work".
The net effect of their business practices is harmful. Those workers are also consumers, and those consumers have less to spend. These "shit-work" companies are strangling the economy and damaging society in general.
Again: we do not have to allow this. We do not have to allow "shit-work" companies to compete in our markets, where they drive reasonable, responsible employers out of business.
Who said these were part time jobs? No one. A lot of Baristas work full the jobs actually, because they can't get any other jobs. Should they die of starvation or exposure or buried in medical debt just because you think they're beneath you? What if you lose your job and the market is shit and all you can find for a year or more is some "shitty unskilled labor" job? Should you be forced from your home to live on the streets just because you can't find a job in your career field through no fault of your own?
Let's do some quick, back of the napkin math. I'm going to round for simplicity.
This asshole took a bonus of 96 million dollars. Let's assume that all 1,000 employees have an average salary of $45,000, which was the US average salary last time I checked. Employee benefits, which include health insurance and retirement contributions, typically cost an employer 1.5x the salary but I'm being lazy so let's 2x it. So each of the 1,000 employees costs the company $90,000.
$$96,000,000 / $90,000 = 1,066
Or in other words: At $90,000 per employee, the $96 million bonus could fund these employees at full time schedules with full benefits for an entire year. This asshole stole their salaries for themselves.
Just because the government lets them do it doesn't make it moral or OK. If he didn't take the bonus he'd still be a gazzilionaire and one of the highest paid employees in the company, but he elected to steal 1000 salaries instead.
No one is in this thread calling for Starbucks specifically to change their ways, they're outraged that this is allowed to happen at all. And yes, the only organization that can stand up to corporate power is the government, but that has been completely sucked up corporate Americas asshole, so all we can do is point out the injustice and hypocrisy of the system and hope enough other people get as angry as we are so we can all overthrow this bullshit system of oppression, and your "well what did you expect working a shit job, sucks to suck lmao" attitude does absolutely nothing to help, and only reinforces the idea that this is all somehow normal or OK.
To the company it is "an adjustment." To those people, it can be a devastating loss of healthcare, of the money they use to pay for food and shelter, and even an identity crisis. Starbucks has all sorts of positions, ranging from seasonal part time employees, to store management that gets paid pretty well, to corporate employees that presumed they were in 20y career trajectories. Every single one of them deserves better than losing their job just to pay for a big bonus for one guy.
It's not about whether they are allowed or not. It's that actions should have consequences but the modern corporate structure has so divorced leadership from the consequence of their actions that this is normal. Let me rephrase: Hurting people to pump your personal wealth is not just normal, it's expected. That's sick.
Lol, okay, blame starbucks all you want, it's a faceless entity. You could be mad at the politicians who set you up to instantly fall into desperation the moment you lose a minimum wage job, but if you want to be mad and ineffectual at the same time, be my guest.
I don't understand why you think it's either/or? I didn't say, "Starbucks is solely to blame" or anything of the sort. It's incredibly stupid that living requires an employer, and that's something we need to fix, but as long as it does they should act and be treated like they have the ethical responsibility they've been given.
Maybe you should stop giving people free passes for psychopathy just because it's within the law.
Likely to get him to stay in the position because the board or whatever thinks he is worth that much to keep on. I'm not saying they got their moneys worth but they obviously thought so. They arent handing him a bonus as big as that as a pat on the back.
It's not like individual locations determined they're overstaffed or something. The CEO is just blanket firing people because it makes some numbers look more gooder on some spreadsheet.
Oh so that's their reason is it, make number look good, company be strong.
It wouldnt be because of your idiot president causing a recession where more people wont be able to afford to buy coffee as often? You dont think that could be a contributing factor?
Just some fun basic math for everyone...
$96 million / 1000 (workers) = $96,000
Want a worse number? Back in 2019, the price of commodity was at less than a $1. Starbucks, at the time made up 3% of the world’s production. They decided to give $20m to their farmers. Did it help? Well based on available financial data at the time, $20m was approximately single afternoon’s profit for the company. A SINGLE FUCKING AFTERNOON! https://sprudge.com/starbucks-would-prefer-you-dont-think-too-hard-about-that-20m-relief-fund-151839.html
Yes, but that's irrelevant, just an accidental "post-" fact.
I think more relevant basic math is that he got a 2.6% bonus in terms of annual net income of the group.
The other 97.4% of labour just goes to shareholders ("landlords" of the financial system).
🍽️🤑
Just so people are aware, Starbucks was caught buying from farms in Brazil multiple times that used slave labor. In Guatemala, along with Nestle, were caught buying from farm(s?) that used child labor.
EDIT: On top of this the company partnered with Conservation International to certify the farms met the company’s standards. The incident in Brazil saw CI trying to coverup the certification of that farm. Also CI is involved with arms dealing.
EDIT 2: Their retail products have the claim “100% Ethically Sourced”. That is a lie.
EDIT: I got the slogan wrong. It is “Committed to 100% Ethical Coffee Sourcing”.
Is this the same nestle slave labor case that went to the Supreme Court where nestle was successfully defended by former Obama solicitor Neal Katyal, or have they done this more than once?
That all depends on which ethical code you're referencing for your statement. I 100% believe that Starbucks sources according to their corporate ethical standards.
That's not how words work. Don't give them an inch, even as a joke.
I am unable to find a news report now, but I am certain I read one back in 2018 or 2019. I believe that Conservation International (an organization that helped develop the C.A.F.E. standard the company uses) was discovered covering up the certification of one of the farms in Brazil. As I remember reading, that a farm was at the time listed somewhere as being certified but after slave labor was discovered, CI uncertified the farm and attempted to claim it failed to meet the C.A.F.E. standards, thus never was awarded certification. They weren't saying the certification was revoked; it never had any.
Do you have a source for that? I want to read more about it.
Here are three different reports regarding three different instances in Brazil. https://news.mongabay.com/2019/05/slave-labor-found-at-second-starbucks-certified-brazilian-coffee-farm/
https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/slave-labor-found-at-starbucks-certified-brazil-coffee-plantation/
https://reporterbrasil.org.br/2023/11/starbucks-slave-and-child-labour-found-at-certified-coffee-farms-in-minas-gerais/
Here is one on the Guatemala incident. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/01/children-work-for-pittance-to-pick-coffee-beans-used-by-starbucks-and-nespresso
Awesome, thank you! Support local coffee shops, people!!!
Remember when Ford had an amazing performance growth, made record profits, then laid off a huge amount of people and moved more business overseas. Nothing like capitalism to fire you when you're down and fire you when you're up!
Or sharing profits among the leeches when it's going great, but when shit goes down they are begging for help from government and firing people. How about you not instantly take out profits but you build resillience through reserves and preparation? Lol, who am I kidding, milk the cow till it's dry and then make beef patties when it stops giving milk.
So he literally stole their salaries. We can't put up with millionair ceos anymore, it needs to be outlawed..
This is the guy that commutes from LA to Seattle on a private jet?
Yeah, same guy who fired nearly everyone at the Chipotle corporate office in Denver so he didn't have to commute.
I'm just amazed no one goes Luigi when shit like that happens...
That's.....man I hope you're wrong as that's awful.
In 2018 Niccole laid off 400 at the Denver and New York locations so that HQ could be relocated to Newport Beach, where he lived at the time.
That was just the 400 FTEs. There were also lost of contractors that were affected as well! Most people don't count them since they could have been let go for any reason.
Of course that wasn't the official reason he gave. He hired a management consultant group to do a study of where all the top restaurant talent was in the country. Surprise, surprise, all the criteria they were given led them to narrow down the ideal location for the corporate headquarters to be right next to his house in Newport Beach.
How the fuck isn’t this stuff against business laws. How does this not break the fiduciary duty by self-dealing?
If what you’re saying is accurate then he’s a pro at creating parallel evidence.
Who am I kidding? Anyone who could bring a suit against the CEO probably doesn’t care.
wasteful hubristic meatballs
I'm theory, the board of directors is supposed to keep a CEO in check if they do something that is against the best interest of the shareholders. But the share price actually went up after he made this move.
Same reason share prices often go up when a company announces layoffs. The market isn't always tied to how well a business is run.
OC to Seattle, but yes. The guy didn't want to relocate from Newport Beach, so they bought him a jet to make his weekly "commute."
Wasn't it daily commute?
Iirc he flies up Monday, stays in the corporate penthouse during the week, then flies back Thursday or Friday. I'll be honest I haven't kept up on it as I really don't care lol, I just remember the article from a few months or whatever back.
Makes more sense.
Just for perspective here,
They could afford to keep those employees on for another 3 Years with that amount.
Was it baristas that were laid off or office workers? Minimum wage for their corporate headquarters is a bit over $20/hour, and I'd suspect very few corporate employees are making only minimum wage.
That might be fair, but "laid off" has the sort of vibe to it that they didn't get to choose between minimum wage and no job. Also, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 and the minimum wage in Washington state, where starbucks HQ is located is $16.66 so yeah definitely would have to rework the math based on location of the layoffs.
Agreed, just trying to point out that if the laid off employees were corporate, not retail, the $15/hr assumption is probably pretty low. If retail, those could be spread across the country, and $15/hr is probably pretty generous. Starbucks HQ is in the city of Seattle, which has an even higher minimum wage than the state (I think $20.76/hour now?).
I don't get it. We did not let kings and lords and counts keep their belongings. Why are we treating this scum any different?
In the time of kings and lords, it got way, way worse than this.
Not saying we should wait that long now, just saying.
Capitalism has no face to punch
It has many!
Target rich environment
They could have paid every one of those employees nearly 6 figures instead. If the company is doing so badly that they feel they need to lay off a thousand people, they should not be handing out CEO bonuses, period.
Pretty sure a good portion of that was union busting, but that's what we're all about now.
This would not shock me in the slightest
Don't use Starbucks anymore. It's American
Don't use Charbucks anymore. It's shit coffee
This is the same douche canoe that was the CEO of Chipotle and denied that the serving sizes were getting smaller and told people to just harass the worker making the food if they thought their serving size was to small.
Also the same guy trying to green wash plastic waste to be customer responsibility while commuting on a private jet from Southern California to Seattle.
Wait we had permission to do that? I thought I was just being a dick and telling them to "keep going". What a relief, too bad I won't go back.
That's $96,000 per layed off worker
96 million could pay the salaries of basically 2000 baristas
Probably how they determined the amount of the bonus. His idea, he got a cut.
Shop local. It's just coffee. Don't let the marketers tell you any different. For sweet creamy syrupy treats go to the ice cream store. Let's not support the current system of the bigwig at the top who does very little and reaps most of the rewards.
Plus ordering there takes 3x longer than if I just made a coffee at home. They are not convenient unless you are traveling and have no access to a coffee maker.
Hell even my regular coffee shop does most of the
milkshakesfancy coffees that Starbucks does.I drink black coffee but they do look really good
But the local shops are often treating employees in ways that starbucks couldn't possibly get away with. Source: ex who worked 14 hr shifts without weekends at 4 different places for a couple months each and came out at net negative.
There are some nice places though, where barista is the owner, and not just some stupid rich kid trying his hand at entrepreneurship.
There's absolutely no way he's adding enough value compared to Joe MBA to justify that compensation.
That's what I'm trying to do understand as well. What's the explanation for these kinds of things? What's the actual sequence of events and how conditions that lead to these things? Why would the board approve of this kind of compensation?
"It's a big club, and you ain't in it."
So who will be the next Luigi?
I'm hedging my bets on a Mario. Let's a go! 🎲🎲
What's the second worst industry in America after health care?
Friendly reminder, comrades: There is no such thing as a good billionaire. From the East to the West, they are humanity's enemy.
"Good billionaire" is an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. You can be good, or a billionaire but not both. If you were good, you wouldn't have a billion dollars.
Happy Cake Day!
There ain't no smile in those eyes. Creepy AF.
You have to be willing to exploit your fellow humans to get where he is. Either you don’t have a soul to start with or it gets torn to bits every step you take up the ladder.
I’ve known people like that. I’ve been very close to people like that. It’s crazy, everywhere they look they’re looking for some win/something they can take. They never feel guilty. Honestly, the only thing they feel is betrayal when someone won’t bend the knee.
That’s my little observation.
Sad thing is, they still have people who love them but they aren’t truly capable of reciprocating. Everything is transactional and they always expect it to be profitable for them. The only thing that truly hurts them is when it isn’t profitable. It sucks being caught in their orbit too. Believe me.
My brother was a sociopath, unsuccessful in business but a user and abuser.
I have spent most of my life dealing with a successful sociopath. Thing is, at times it really looks like he means well.
It’s a constant battle in my head. Is it just his belief system? Is it just that he views everyone else as incompetent?
I constantly find myself making excuses for him because I love him. I get angry and I’m able to really look at everything sometimes, or he does something really shitty to someone else. Like recently, he wanted to buy tires for his son. Great, right? But he had to find a way to make it a tax write off or he didn’t want to do it. He got his daughter a car, but with the condition that her mother couldn’t drive it under any circumstances. And it had to be a flood damaged car. Good deals with the salvage titles and all.
He finally caved and sent his son money when I guilt tripped him, but he was mad for weeks about it. He’s probably still fuming. Mom ended up buying his daughter a car she couldn’t afford on credit and he gave the one he bought her to his girlfriend.
He ended up buying his son used tires because he couldn’t work it out to get the write off without sending a check and he didn’t trust him with it (with no reason to feel that way).
He built a cabin with his step brother in the 80s. They both poured blood, sweat, and tears into it. He had the money so he technically owned it, but it was understood that it was theirs with no strings attached.
When it was completed he informed him that he was welcome to use it any time he wanted, so long as his mother never stepped foot through the door. Naturally his step brother said “fuck that”, took the L and never went back.
I don’t know I’m doing dealing with it. Emotions are weird.
I understand, my brother only ever fucked over everyone else except me (probably because he knew what would happen) and it was an ever frustrating thing. I miss him but I think it's for the best that he isn't around to do more damage.
What ended up happening to him? Was it drugs that stopped him from being successful enough to really hurt people?
Sorry to say it like that. That’s just been my experience.
He got hopped up on coke and booze and tried to kill a random driver with one of his beloved guns and they ran him down.
I trust you know this person well and that your experience is accurate.
However, you might find it useful to look up coping mechanisms in dealing with someone with OCPD. OCPD is extremely common and people with this personality disorder usually are extremely miserly and controlling. I’m not saying your person has this disorder. But from your story, the issues with money align closely enough that the tools people use in dealing with OCPD miserliness might help you. Or at the very least it might help you feel less alone in that experience.
I’m really sorry you are having to manage that and deal with this person. You sound like a very reasonable and empathetic person yourself. Please do something small and kind for yourself tomorrow. ❤️
I did some reading. It would be spot on if he wasn’t convinced that he was perfect and everyone else wasn’t.
No one is smarter than him. No one does it better than him. No one could even come close to comprehending his work. When he dies he feels sorry for anyone who has to work behind him and it will take teams of people to understand the genius of his work. Anyone who has a slightly different worldview than him is “thinking wrong”.
He isn’t obsessed with perfection. He is perfection. No lover could please a woman like him. No one is stronger or more capable. He has done the work of 500 men in one lifetime.
He prides himself on being the best, but not because he has anything to prove to anyone. He knows he’s the best. No one is better.
His father’s dying words were, “Please God. Let my son find some humility. Please. He’ll have no peace until he finds it.”
His father was a great man. An activist. A man who actually worked to change the world.
He wasn’t always that guy though. He had to learn some hard lessons to get there and his son suffered while he learned those lessons. He knew that. He took accountability for it.
I don’t know. I wouldn’t have made it without him in this life, but it was always a transaction. He doesn’t know how to do anything without it being a transaction. I’ve been trying to show him that it isn’t always about that. Every job we do, he tells me to keep track of my hours so he can pay me. I don’t want him to pay me. I want him to see that life can be something we experience and enjoy without it being a transaction.
I’m probably wasting my time, but I love my uncle irrationally and I don’t know why.
My body aches right now as I type this from driving a pick into slate to find some wires for him. It’s probably stupid, but a year from now when I still haven’t asked for a dime, maybe he’ll think about it. Or maybe he is who he is and he’ll think I’m an idiot.
Mr. Beast smile
Boycott what you don't like. Vote with your money.
Haven't spent money in a Starbucks for over a decade...nor fast food chains, nor Walmart.
Did do a few Amazon purchases a few years ago and I still feel guilty about it.
Thank you for defeating starbucks for us. It's wonderful to know that this news story didn't happen thanks to your valiant efforts!
I worked there back in the early aughts. It actually was a cool retail job that paid reasonably well, a few dollars above minimum, and you got company stock, benefits, a free pound of coffee a week or box of tea, you were invited to company meetings, free drinks on shift, and we did all sorts of cool volunteer stuff, like with the food bank and habitat for humanity, and we would do coffee tastings at events, all sorts of things. It honestly was a fun job lots of the time. It's so sad it's turned into trash.
I have never gone to a Starbucks and I never will. It's not that hard to do that. They will never get even a penny out of me.
Fair warning, if you're brewing coffee at home it's still possible to buy Starbucks.
Most of the coffee at Costco is just rebranded Starbucks beans. A lot of dark roast coffee is secretly shitty Starbucks beans. If it smells like cigarettes at any point, you've probably got Starbucks coffee.
What if I told you, I don't drink coffee.
THAT'S NOT TRUE
THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE
I have to give this another try.
Shouldn't Costco warn people if they're gonna sell burnt ass coffee beans though?
The only reason i would go to a Starbucks is to look at the people working and buying coffee there. Or to meet a cute person behind the counter, but i have never nore will i spend money in that
I already have dirty toilet water at home, I don't see why I would pay Starbucks for it.
FTFY.
We wish
Looks like Luigi got another flag to reach
Luigi did his part
Maybe we need Mario now?
Why do the Italians need to keep fighting? Let some others get into the action, like Yoshi or Peaches. We can always branch out and have other Nintendo properties get these guys. How about Zelda or Link?
So weird to pay someone that much.
They are hired assasins. Like how they had special officers in WWII to commit the massacres
Cap the maximum compensation gap (including bonuses and stocks) between the highest paid and lowest paid person in a company at 1000:1. Any overpay goes into a UBI account that pays out equally to all.
Should be 30 :1 on whichever is lower average or median salary and contractors count if they perform core business functions/work on location.
Then they'll just hire Task Rabbits or otherwise divide companies by pay.
Starbucks needs more union stores. Unions can address loopholes more quickly and effectively than government legislators can. Deunionization is half the reason why inequality has skyrocketed since the 1970s.
We need to fix the root causes of inequality by building infrastructure that can't just be destroyed by executive order.
How is a CEO supposed to survive on only $15,000/hr? He’ll never get to join the three comma club making LOW 8 figures!
/s
If someone Luigi's him, they better spell his name wrong on the bullets.
that's very witty, well done
Gets invited to meeting with manager. Employee orders coffee for the meeting Manager says, his coffee will be "To Go"
I work at a bakery (we’ve got snacks, coffee, cake, and danishes in addition to bread), and every once in a while I see two people come in and it’s not clear if they’re on a date until they disagree about whether it’s for here or to go. Then I realize that only one of them thought it was a date. It’s especially awkward if the one who did has already offered to pay for everything.
Doing that for a job instead of a date is brutal
That's fucking cold
I volunteer at food shelters, and every now and then we get something we can't really hand out, like unground coffee beans, so I ended up with a large bag of some Starbucks ultra dark roast of some kind. Had a leopard? on the bag. It smelled like boiled cat shit the instant I opened the bag, went in the compost bin immediately.
It really is. I like dark roast coffee, but I want flavor besides burnt.
Shifting "blame" on these white-collar police dogs (megacorp CEOs) instead of shareholders (and the system demanding growth) only needs to happen when everyone understands that even 96m is 2.6% of 3.760m of net income (2024).
So if 1k people were let go all of them could have gotten 1m of bonus and still the company would have made almost 3bn.
But they were let go bcs yoy income (but not revenue) was lower last year, and the financial markets demand a sacrifice (literally any action, even if not actually needed, just to send a signal they are 'on it').
The usual "efficient" meat grinder stuff.
That fullstop is confusing matters.
I haven't seen someone with so punchable face
Had to get the money from somewhere. Just like Trump. Fire a bunch of workers for the tax cut payments to billionaires. Like clockwork.
Continue to boycott starbucks. There are many alternatives just as good and even better.
And if you really want to take things to the next step, making your own coffee at home from freshly roasted beans is soooo worth it.
Coffee nuts don't drink starbucks and those of us who just drink coffee can't tell the difference...starbucks is a shit company with overpriced drinks.
Sure, but look at this smile!
Starbucks is a company that sells sugar for a lot of money. Who cares what happens to them.
I mean he has been rewarded for making the line go up. Part of making the line go up is reducing overheads. So he is being directly rewarded for actions like firing 1000+ employees. So is it a surprise?
Since I'm sitting negative I should clarify that I do not think the actions are moral. Only that he is incentivized to do things like this.
Just because there's a financial incentive doesn't mean you should do something. This is a step or two below murber for proflt.
I'm never said he should. I'm saying I understand why he did. I would not do the same thing in his position.
Remember most CEO's are psychopaths so they are not very concerned with the impact on the people they fire.
I don't know why people think large companies aren't allowed to get rid of people when they want to? And especially Starbucks, it's shit-work, not a 20y long career maker.
Do you keep a list of workers or jobs who you feel are beneath you and don't deserve enough money to support themselves with basic essentials like food, water, or shelter?
Why would I do that.
Let me translate that rhetorical question for you:
Why do you believe society should allow certain businesses to remain in existence, when those businesses utilize human labor, yet do not pay enough for human laborers to subsist?
I don't believe that, you've just attached that to my argument because you either can't understand my point or don't want to.
I see. Maybe we have had a failure to communicate. What I was referring to was this:
Whatever you meant by "shit-work" is what I was trying to ask you about.
Why do you believe companies offering "shit-work" should be allowed to remain in business?
By shit work i mean unskilled labour basically. It's not worth much for a reason. I dont see why you would ask me that.
Some business operate on unskilled labour, it shouldnt be a surprise that its not paid well, just because something doesnt pay well doesnt mean the company shouldnt exist, and since when did anyone expect that a part time job at startbucks could or should be able to fully support a person? That's fucking ludicrous. And before you start with people have to take what they can get, yes thats true and starbucks isnt responsible for that shortfall, in a real socialist democracy, that should be taken up by welfare if needed.
I understand the gut reaction to go after the CEO or board for making decisions that affect so many people, but it doesnt help, its misdirected energy that should go to the government.
We cant expect any company to do what in the interest of the workers, unless its financially beneficial. The best way to handle this is to use government to reign in corps to limits we can be happy with.
I stand by all I've said, but I respect your position, i just think it's misguided.
The question wasn't about the labor. The question was about the employer. The question was about the mindset you demonstrated in your first comment, that you later clarified:
The question is about how you decided that this idea is "fucking ludicrous".
You lied to me when you said you didn't hold this belief. It may have been an unintentional lie at the time, probably because you didn't understand what I was asking. But, I was talking about what you describe as "fucking ludicrous". Those two words are a vociferous acknowledgement of the beliefs I was talking about; beliefs that you clearly hold. I want to know how you came to believe this idea to be "fucking ludicrous".
Why not? I think we most certainly can. I think we can absolutely demand that they fulfill an obligation greater than just their own financial interests. I think we can certainly demand that their business operations benefit their workers, and society in general. When their business is demonstrably exploitative "shit-work", we are not obligated to allow them to continue to do business. We can prohibit them from continuing to engage in that harmful business.
Unskilled human labor.
They require the labor of a human for their business to function, but they pay less than subsistence wages to that human. That is "shit-work".
The net effect of their business practices is harmful. Those workers are also consumers, and those consumers have less to spend. These "shit-work" companies are strangling the economy and damaging society in general.
Again: we do not have to allow this. We do not have to allow "shit-work" companies to compete in our markets, where they drive reasonable, responsible employers out of business.
Who said these were part time jobs? No one. A lot of Baristas work full the jobs actually, because they can't get any other jobs. Should they die of starvation or exposure or buried in medical debt just because you think they're beneath you? What if you lose your job and the market is shit and all you can find for a year or more is some "shitty unskilled labor" job? Should you be forced from your home to live on the streets just because you can't find a job in your career field through no fault of your own?
Let's do some quick, back of the napkin math. I'm going to round for simplicity.
This asshole took a bonus of 96 million dollars. Let's assume that all 1,000 employees have an average salary of $45,000, which was the US average salary last time I checked. Employee benefits, which include health insurance and retirement contributions, typically cost an employer 1.5x the salary but I'm being lazy so let's 2x it. So each of the 1,000 employees costs the company $90,000.
$$96,000,000 / $90,000 = 1,066
Or in other words: At $90,000 per employee, the $96 million bonus could fund these employees at full time schedules with full benefits for an entire year. This asshole stole their salaries for themselves.
Just because the government lets them do it doesn't make it moral or OK. If he didn't take the bonus he'd still be a gazzilionaire and one of the highest paid employees in the company, but he elected to steal 1000 salaries instead.
No one is in this thread calling for Starbucks specifically to change their ways, they're outraged that this is allowed to happen at all. And yes, the only organization that can stand up to corporate power is the government, but that has been completely sucked up corporate Americas asshole, so all we can do is point out the injustice and hypocrisy of the system and hope enough other people get as angry as we are so we can all overthrow this bullshit system of oppression, and your "well what did you expect working a shit job, sucks to suck lmao" attitude does absolutely nothing to help, and only reinforces the idea that this is all somehow normal or OK.
To the company it is "an adjustment." To those people, it can be a devastating loss of healthcare, of the money they use to pay for food and shelter, and even an identity crisis. Starbucks has all sorts of positions, ranging from seasonal part time employees, to store management that gets paid pretty well, to corporate employees that presumed they were in 20y career trajectories. Every single one of them deserves better than losing their job just to pay for a big bonus for one guy.
It's not about whether they are allowed or not. It's that actions should have consequences but the modern corporate structure has so divorced leadership from the consequence of their actions that this is normal. Let me rephrase: Hurting people to pump your personal wealth is not just normal, it's expected. That's sick.
Lol, okay, blame starbucks all you want, it's a faceless entity. You could be mad at the politicians who set you up to instantly fall into desperation the moment you lose a minimum wage job, but if you want to be mad and ineffectual at the same time, be my guest.
I don't understand why you think it's either/or? I didn't say, "Starbucks is solely to blame" or anything of the sort. It's incredibly stupid that living requires an employer, and that's something we need to fix, but as long as it does they should act and be treated like they have the ethical responsibility they've been given.
Maybe you should stop giving people free passes for psychopathy just because it's within the law.
There's a fucking recession coming you dolt, ofcourse large companies are going to dump people, and it doesnt take a psychopath to do it.
Your hearts in the right place, but if you cant be realistic about the why and how of running a business, i dont want your opinions.
It’s a self made recession by the corporations themselves. A thousand employees don’t matter to their bottom line.
If preparing for a recession is to blame here, then why at the same time are the Starbucks board giving the CEO $96 million buckadoos?
Likely to get him to stay in the position because the board or whatever thinks he is worth that much to keep on. I'm not saying they got their moneys worth but they obviously thought so. They arent handing him a bonus as big as that as a pat on the back.
Not only does it have a face...
... It's a perfectly punchable face.
Okay, you go do whatever you can to that face and come back and tell me what changed. The answer will be nothing.
It's not like individual locations determined they're overstaffed or something. The CEO is just blanket firing people because it makes some numbers look more gooder on some spreadsheet.
Oh so that's their reason is it, make number look good, company be strong.
It wouldnt be because of your idiot president causing a recession where more people wont be able to afford to buy coffee as often? You dont think that could be a contributing factor?
I'm European.
Sorry, I just assumed because you seemed to be at about that level.