Close your eyes and picture it: You’re at the condiment bar of your local gourmet coffee retailer (is it really called a condiment bar? Are Splenda packets and half and half really considered Condiments? Joe says that it’s more of “a tuner shop- you know, where you go to get all of your after market stuff”). As you’re pouring a moderate amount of sugar and cream into your coffee, you look over at the guy next to you and notice that he has more “room” in his venti drip coffee than you’ve ever seen before. Seriously, this guy’s enormous paper cup is less than half-way full. And to top that, he’s pouring a little more coffee out into the garbage can, which is fairly standard practice when the barista doesn’t give you quite enough room for cream as you’ve requested. You mutter to him in tone conveying coffee-addict fellowship:
“Wow. Now THAT’S room!”
“That’s Rude??”
“No- that’s room”
“Yeah, well, it’s all the carbs I get in a day” he smiles, filling the empty space with whole-milk.
“Yeah, and after all, you’ve gotta get your calcium somewhere,” you reply as you walk away, ending the politely brief condiment bar encounter.
You get back to your office and try to get the day started. You know deep down that your brain is going to be stuck on this for a good hour or so. You just can’t let it go. The question is clamoring to jump out of your head: Does this guy seriously pay for a venti drip coffee everyday and pour out half the cup? The price differential between a short and a venti is actually pretty small compared to the fluid ounce differential. But even if the difference in cost is only 10 or 20 cents, it’s the principle behind it. And let’s just say 15 cents, times 5 days a week, times a career’s worth of coffee drinking? These numbers start to become significant!
Okay. You can open your eyes now…. Oh, hi!
So I was stewing on this topic and decided to ask a barista: Could a customer ask for a short or tall drip coffee in a Venti cup and only be charged for the short/tall?
Answer: Yes, but no one ever does.
So my question of the day to all of you out there is this: If coffee is a symbol of life (and that’s a big “if”), how much of life are we missing out on, or wasting every day, from major to minor, simply because we haven’t thought to ask the right questions?
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4 comments:
At first reading I'm wondering... "Why is she still obsessing over the coffee incident at work." She is too analytical. Then she makes a correlation to man's existence and also an astute challenge to us all and I feel like I'm on a Himalayan mountaintop talking to the Dalai Lama. I'm impressed with this girls mind! Ah, the wonders of the human mind... :)
Are you even remotely wondering how I would answer this question/these questions? I think you know....welcome to the World of Enjoying Coffee!
Gina,
Now I understand what you do at your desk. And I always thought you were having these deep thoughts about investment theory...
Now I know it's all about coffee.
Esteban (who can never remember his blogger id or password).
P.S. BTW in answer to your question - Most people never make requests for what they want. It's part of the "people don't really communicate" problem. I paid a lump in psycotherapy to find that out. Now I ask. There, I just saved you a bunch of money. A great way to start the week.
and I didn't even need to switch to Geiko.
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