Starbucks doesn’t want all your $$$$

It is 8am and I need to be work at by 8:30. I am also in need of some “good” Starcracks coffee and maybe a Starcrack pastry. I know Starbucks is made of crack (how else do you explain the number of junkies lined up in the AM for their morning cup of crack?), but what wasn’t clear was that some of their policies are also borderline crack head.

For the most part, most us are immune to corporate policy that manages the stores we visit, that is until that policy interferes with either getting your money back, or in this case you are trying to pay.

In the 20th century, we essentially did away with paper currency and moved to a plastic currency. In our new world marketplace, people more frequently use plastic than paper. Because of all this plastic spending, fraud has reached a new high, since the information required to use the card isn’t always kept secret.

You may be asking, what does this have to do with me getting my daily Starcracks?

Consider this, you wait in line for 20 minutes behind a bunch of bratty kids and you need to get to work. You order only a drip coffee, so you don’t have to wait in the other line of espresso based crackhead drinks. When you go to pay, you give them your card and it doesn’t swipe? Ever had this happen? The simple and most common solution is to type the card number in. This is the way it should go. This is not how it will go if it happens to you at Starcrack’s.

In order to combat fraud, Starcracks has decided to no longer manually input card numbers. When I asked why the cashier could not input the number manually he said it was a new corporate policy. Loosing time, I decided not to debate the cashier and asked for my card back.

Later, at lunch, I did have time and decided to go talk to the local Starcrack’s manager. He said Starcracks is doing this to prevent fraud. I indicated my card had a picture and I also had photo ID that he could have used to verify that the $4 transaction was indeed legit. Where is MC hammer when you need him?

I argued that their policy was flawed, actually the exact words I used were “what kind of crackhead policy is this?” Can’t this guy use the tissue matter between his ears? I have to assume that he did not come out into this world as an automaton completely devoid of critical thinking and decision making. Its not hard for him to ask for photo ID verification before inputing the number, or is it? By pulling out a photo ID he has to use his judgment to determine if the guy in the picture is me. This could be hard for employees to do with all of the other thought congesting activities they might be doing at a Starcracks register.

After my argument, the manager indicated that if I had asked to see him this morning, he would have comp’t. my order. Really? Let me go through this logic, Starcracks put a bad policy in place to prevent people from stealing, but at the same time your giving away orders because of the inconvenience of the policy. What am I missing here? What did this policy exactly solve? We would rather give our crack away than have someone steal it? At the end of the day it will still cost Starcracks no matter which way they go on their fine policy.

Learn from other’s mistakes:

a. Avoid Starcracks when there are a ton of underage Starcracks fiends present. If they have braces and are screaming, odds are its not a good time to buy Starcracks.

b. Bring cash to Starcracks. Better yet, bring gold just in case they make a policy against paying with currency due to the rising numbers of counterfeiting.

c. If your piece of crap plastic currency card craps out after 4 months, get a new one. You don’t want to get assed out at Starcracks when your running late.

d. Never assume anything.

And now for the secret recipe that keeps every customer coming back everyday. I think they stole part of this business model from the CIA.

But Will Her Supporters Feel Better?

As I turned on CNN this morning, they had a newscaster talking about Hillary’s meeting with Barack last night. That was the only fact in the entire 10 minute piece. The rest of the time focused on: “What if Hillary was the VP? Would it make her supporters feel better?” Really?

Why focus on “what ifs”? As my youth hockey coach once said responding to a kid who asked a “what if”: “What if my aunt sally had balls? Would she be my aunt Sally?” Maybe it was his delivery, maybe it was the way it made me laugh, but that statement has really stuck with me .

What if? This question appears to be at the heart of all major media news, especially the 24/7 cable networks. Very little time is spent talking about a “news” piece, where as a signifigant portion of air time is spent editorializing or blasting their personal opinions. Think of all the time spent wondering about “what ifs?”: What if John McCain is too old? What if Barrack doesn’t wear a flag pin? What if Hillary is VP? What if we don’t monitor our phone lines for terrorists? What if global warming isn’t real? What if Brittany has another baby? What if? What if? What if?

It appears that this suggestive thought permeates peoples mind and prevents them from using their own brain to draw their own conclusions based on facts. See if the news folks actually gave us facts most of the time, we could draw our own conclusions based on what is reported. Instead, they report very little news fact and provide you with their conclusions based on the facts they did not tell you. This gray area between news story and personal editorial is constantly blurred. Just look at any of the big cable network news: CNN, FOX, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, etc., and try to find a period of time where they don’t have a “specialist guest” giving an opinion.

Arriving at a decision requires information. The more information you have the better the decision you can make. Withholding information and distracting people with what appears to be information is counter productive towards an individual’s ability to think critically and make a good descision. The sublte delivery of opinion within a news story, puposefully and intentionally suggests thoughts to the viewer. This erodes the viewers ability to think on their own, enabling an information environment condusive to manipulation and disinformation.

Next time you watch the news, count all the “what ifs?” and wonder: What they are trying to get you to think?

And then there was WTF????

I am John Klose and I am a blog virgin. It has been rather difficult to figure out how am I going to start. The easiest way I guess is to just type and see where it goes.

In the last 100 years our world has changed dramatically. At the beginning of the 20th century, the most common mode of transportation was the horse, and by the end of the century we travel in cars, trains, planes, and space vehicles.

So many changes have occured globally, that sometimes it is hard to see siginifigant events lost in the noise. Sometimes what appears to be a completely mundane event, is actually an extrodinary event given the context.

That being said, the title of this page is “What The F$%! ????”, which is a question I ask everyday. Sometimes I ask it while watching the news, sometimes I say it while I am stuck in some BS meeting with managers whose heads are stuck up their arse, sometimes I say it while I am driving down the freeway, and most frequently I say it when a politician opens their pie hole.  Our society is in dire need of a global colon clense, we need to shed the crap inside us before we can go on living a free, healthy life.

I am not a cynic, but I do ooze sarcasm mixed with a blend of logic and critical thought. Use your brain, become aware of your surroundings, and you might be surprised that there are lot more things going on out there than you originally thought. The question is, what are the real problems that we face in the 21st century, and is there a solution to them (see there is a bit of optimism here)?     

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