This is the third instalment in the Urban Times ‘Logic Rules’ Series – examining the many logical behaviours we eschew for illogical reasons.
My local Starbucks in Cyprus is something of a mixed bag. I go there because it makes sense…
I went to my local Starbucks the other day to meet a friend. I like Starbucks. It may be the epitome of corporatism, but it’s one of the few places in Cyprus where smoking is strictly prohibited. To be more precise, it’s one of the few places in Cyprus where the smoking ban is enforced.
It’s one of the few places in Cyprus where the smoking ban is enforced
There are more upsides. Starbucks has free wifi with no password. Just find the network and shazam, you’re in. It also has high ceilings and plays soft music. No dingy, converted building with a hobbit ceiling to crack your head on, no pop extravaganzas blaring through the speakers all the time, or, worse yet, traditional tunes that make you think you’re at a wedding in the countryside. Just good, chillout music in a climate-controlled environment.
But there are drawbacks. One of them are the loud kids, dozens of them, coming in all shapes and sizes, ages and decibel levels. I’m not a troll – I like kids, they make any venue come alive – but when assembled in a cafe like that, where their parents have come to meet friends – with more kids – who haven’t met for a while, and whose inclination is to let their rugrats roam around while they enjoy some quality adult time, these kids turn into a small army of goblins. Screams, cries, yelling, things smashing, toys clunking, items tossed everywhere, and people glancing around, trying to keep their drinks safe from the staggering little people… it can be very un-chill-out.
So I choose my time carefully and make sure I go there before the armies of mischief arrive.
Then, of course, there’s the marketeers. A cadre of online travel agents whose main mission is to recruit more salespeople, who recruit more salespeople in turn etc. They’ve turned the place into their professional hangout, hogging the electrical-socket area in order to power their laptops and make their pitches to prospective recruits, whom they bring over in droves. They’re not loud – they’re in fact very respectful – but they seem to have driven away the students that used to hang out there.
A euro a day keeps the Troika away
They have also driven me away, to the other side of the cafe, where things are less regimented and more relaxed.
Then there’s the bill. Cyprus Starbucks prices are high by comparison. Our tiny island nation is in a deep economic crisis, trudging on via a combination of EU-sanctioned bailout and bail-in (see theft) policies, but the specialty drinks – Latte, Caramel Macchiato, Frapuccino etc – remain well north of the 3-euro mark. Ouch!
Not that it matters to me. I rarely go out for coffee. People who frequent cafes every day (there is a serious coffee culture on the island) may prefer to save up because a euro a day keeps the Troika away, but my scant coffee intake barely makes a difference to my expenses.
Plus, I price my health above the small savings. A euro extra for each drink, plus the screaming kids and the ladder-scheming traveler agents, ALL of them are worth the smoke-free environment.
But there’s something more to the bill than just high prices. Take a look at the picture to the right. See that? It’s the receipt for a large, freshly squeezed orange juice. A mile of paper for a single item! 35 odd lines of information, including the address, the HQ adress, VAT info, the Tax ID, the employee’s name, the time of order, wifi info, an outdated password scheme, various codes, the price of the item, the total sum, a Facebook page, more codes…
Let’s put this in context. The lines dedicated to the item in question are six i.e. roughly 16% of the paper area. The rest of the information are technicalities and trivia.
In other words, more than 80% of the receipt is devoted to bureaucracy and marketing.
Now isn’t that a waste of paper?
In An Arabica Venti Nutshell
My local Starbucks in Cyprus has its pros and cons. It’s a wifi-friendly, smoke-free environment in an EU country where the smoking ban in enclosed public spaces is barely enforced. A thousand thumbs up for its strict, common-sense policy against tobacco.
Unfortunately this also attracts parents with out-of-control children, as well as mysterious travel agents who make the venue a little harder to handle. But they’re a small price to pay for clean air.
As for the item prices, they could go down a notch or two, at least until the crisis abates.
And regarding the receipts, they could be trimmed down in size. Starbucks pride themselves for their environmentally-friendly policies. They can make their case stronger by reducing their bill paper use by at least 50%. Surely an orange juice doesn’t need a receipt the size of a manifesto. Think about it. It’s a helluva lot of trees wasted, enough to keep you up at night.
That’s a Venti we could all do without.