As I satisfy my craving for early morning coffee today I am surprised by the lack of focus in the local Starbucks drive through and wonder how may other businesses has similar confused priorities.
It’s Halloween, another ‘event’ in the calendar which I’m sad to say has been commercialised and branded in order to entice us into spending money. There seem to be twice as many staff on duty as normal, six instead of three, most of whom are dressed in ‘themed outfits’ befitting the day: devil with short red plastic horns on their head, another person is covered by a white sheet with two jagged holes to look through. We have a Batman and Captain America as well as a female count Dracula complete with white face and darkened eyes, I’m glad I wasn’t drinking last night!
The restaurant area is a mess, chairs stacked on top of each other, armchairs covered with crumbs and torn sugar sachets, possibly from the night before. One section has been given over to a ‘display’ this includes an upside down Christmas tree, Starbucks merchandise (presumably for customers to buy) and sweets.Three employees are ‘dressing’ the store, putting up paper pumpkins and sticking plastic bats to the walls, I wonder if the accountants crunching the numbers back at HQ would see this as a worthwhile return on investment.
I have no problem with staff engaging in promotional activity, it can serve to boost employee morale and more importantly, the commercial appeal of the venue when it is done appropriately. Sales promotions are the icing on the cake and are worthless when you can’t even get the basics right.
Come on guys, it’s the coffee we come for not the theatrics.