Sometimes the ethics and actions of some companies scare me, they really do.  Right now though im seething at Starbucks, and sadly not for the first time.

I stopped drinking at Starbucks 7 years ago, out of moral objection to their actions on September 11th.  Now don’t get me wrong here, I hate the whole ‘this is a post 911 world’ crap that you hear as justification for everything from a delayed flight to why you can only get this particular T-Shirt in this particular shade of teal, and everything in between.  Yes, I realise a lot of people died that day and a lot of families were changed forever, but I don’t feel the need to continuously bring it up.  That said though I still feel strongly enough about the actions of one particular Starbucks on the day to boycott the brand forever.  For those who are not aware of the incident I’m referring to, it essentially boils down to an ambulance worker asking a Starbucks store for bottled water for the victims of the tragedy and him being charged $130 out of his own pocket for that water.  Granted Starbucks did go on to donate coffee and a substantial amount of money to the operations following the attack, but I see that more as trying to make up for and cover the initial snafu than anything else. For that reason i have refused to step foot in one ever since, and have actively encouraged everyone I know to do the same should the conversation of coffee houses ever arise.  I would urge you now to look for alternative vendors, especially the little places that often serve far superior coffee anyway.  In Newcastle you cant go far wrong with the Coffee Trader. If you want to read more about the water incident there is a good write up over on Snopes.

Anyway, back to the point in hand about Starbucks and the recent elections.  Whilst I think its great they were giving away free coffee and actively encouraging people to vote such as these two tweets:

We hope there is a record turnout on Tuesday and look forward to celebrating with our customers over a great cup of coffee.

I’m glad everyone got their cup of free coffee today! Happy voting day. It feels a little surreal after watching this for the last 18 months

Then to have all of that good feeling be sharply taken away by the next tweet:

btw, don’t want this to be lost in the chatter today … Gold Cards are available today in all US stores! Register at starbucksgold.com

They don’t want something as trivial as a loyalty card for a coffee chain to be lost ‘in the chatter’ of what is arguably one of the most seminal and pivotal elections in living memory.  I can barely find words to express how crass and inappropriate I find that statement.

Coffee isnt the only thing that Starbucks is boiling today, my blood is doing much the same right now.

Their twitter feed is here is you want to go and take a look for yourself.

~Shepy