SoCal Starbucks have been dragging their feet, but the ones in Singapore quickly, efficiently stepped up to the Starbucks Challenge — showing that following corporate policy is not an impossibility, even for the mermaid.
It all started with the media slut’s first challenge at Capital Towers, Singapore. The slut got her fair trade coffee — it was already brewing — but also reported that the baristas were dumbfounded and that no posters or flyers about fair trade could be seen.
Which set the Singapore Starbucks in motion. One Starbucks employee, ShiDah IshDah, even cited the slut’s blog and posted about Starbucks’ fair trade training efforts (see Oct. 30th entry): “they have send out an email to all the stores and my partners and i actually noe wat to do.. i hope!”
What’s cool is that at least ShiDah IshDah welcomes this new training — “itz really fun and we can actually learnt from it… so go on partners, do Singapore SB proud!” In fact, ShiDah IshDah even encourages people to join in! “pls do try the challenge out then let me noe wat you get.”
What’s scary is that the Starbucks in Singapore look exactly the same as a Starbucks in LA. See the pic below, nabbed from the media slut’s site. It looks like any one of the 12 or so Starbucks in LAX.
But I digress.
Two weeks later, when the media slut visited a second Starbucks in Singapore, there was signage, and there were fair trade savvy baristas. “Ohh.. themediaslut was impressed,” she writes.
I asked Cindy of Starbucks about this — Why did Singapore hop to while SoCal Starbucks are still saying they don’t carry fair trade, they don’t French press, they wanna charge extra, etc. etc.? Cindy said it depends on who’s leading the region: “We sit in Seattle and we don’t actually know what’s going on around the world,” she said apologetically.
Which makes me wonder what kind of bums they have leading the LA County region. I mean, do the baristas really have to rely on 8th graders (see comment #2) to train them on Starbucks’ policies?
Filed in: starbuckschallenge coffee csr fair-trade fairtrade starbucks singapore losangeles california
LAGIRL – Please feel free to hotlink the photos.
Comment by themediaslut — November 7, 2005 @ 8:19 pm
Singapore’s coffee joints arn’t just made up of Starbucks though.
So themediaslut have posted an entry and would like to show LA GIRL how the other coffee joint in Singapore looked like.
Although this coffee joint may not have fair trade coffee, but they serve on of the best at prices a third of those from Starbucks.
Heres for you LA Girl –>
http://themediaslut.com/2005/11/108
Comment by themediaslut — November 8, 2005 @ 9:38 pm
Good to see that Singapore has not been overrun by Starbucks. Although I’m not a big fan of soft boiled eggs, I do love peanut butter :)
green LA girl also sincerely appreciates the media slut’s influence that encourages green LA girl to write in the third person more often. It gives writing a fun, devious, and slightly alienating feel, kind of like living in a city –
green LA girl’s been getting a lot of random hits from Singapore. Has the media slut been getting random hits from LA?
Comment by Siel — November 8, 2005 @ 10:15 pm
themediaslut saw a surge in hits today but hit reported will be generated tomorrow morning.
The reason for writing in their person is to take away the feel of the blog being as a diary and make it feel more like a reporting medium.
But themediaslut likes LA Girl’s third person explaination.
Btw, its spelt themediaslut.. not The Media Slut.. themediaslut’s initial mistake.
Comment by themediaslut — November 9, 2005 @ 2:22 am
green LA girl hearts that she’s been able to meet bloggers from all over the world, like themediaslut, via the Starbucks Challenge :)
Comment by Siel — November 11, 2005 @ 11:13 pm