Emails between City Hippy and I from a week ago, discussing the absence of Cindy:

Me: (petulantly) it’s shitty of her to just disappear like that…

City Hippy: (optimistically, sort of) maybe she was too cool and has been fired or moved to a new job…maybe she is ill.

Apparently, none of the above. Cindy’s just been “busy,” as she told me today when I ran into her in the halls of the University of Denver. UD’s where we’re having the United Students for Fair Trade conference — to which Starbucks sent a 3-person delegation. One of them: Cindy.

Cindy’s last comminque was on Xmas eve, when she emailed us a response to the Starbucks Challenge letter. Since then, no responses to emails or calls — Even to one left around mid-January, with me pleadingly asking her if she could at least drop me a line and let me know if she’s just not interested in communicating with Starbucks Challengers (or me individually), for any reason.

I actually wondered if something bad had happened to the gal, so I called Major of Starbucks, who said he’d seen her in the halls that day. And I also talked to Pat, a Starbucks district manager in LA, who said he’d briefly discussed the challenge failures with her during the first week of January.

So maybe Cindy really has been too busy to respond to activists. Too busy for 2 months. But let that not make you think she doesn’t care about fair trade activists’ concerns — since, ostensibly, that’s why she’s attending this USFT conference.

Okay, okay. I’ll quit my whining — Just to be clear — I just let the whole 2-month-absence thing go after Cindy’s “busy” statement, saving that for the rant here :P Meaning — My convo with her, as well as the 2 other Starbucks reps, was not at all acrimonious. They were all v. nice people, and I got answers to A LOT of questions I had.

More pertinent details about fair trade, youth movements, and Starbucks’ commitment to come –

Update: Here’s the Certification Challenges series, which came out of the USFT convergence.

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