Check-check-check it out, ya'all

Some of you know me as a writer of scathing diatribes, paranoid delusions of grandeus and the occasional heartfelt plea for people to stop being stupid, but do you also know i have delusions of authorship? i do, and here is where you can find out all about it:

The Prime Time

Son of a Bitch! (long ass post)

Alas, alack, dear reader, for I have been chewed up and shat out by the mighty corporate Nazi-engine that is known as starbucks. no longer will i be able to spy from the inside, quietly making my way through the ranks and causing mayhem where and when i can like Archibald 'Harry' Tuttle (See if you can figure that one out!). No, now i lay, gently steaming in the wake of the mighty Engines of Destruction, forgotten, a pale fugtive cast out. I am become a Pariah, unclean and unwahsed, and horribly, horribly addicted to coffee.

My crime? Affecting the status quo, preventing greedy fatcat backroom managers from claiming their even fatter bonuses, cash rewards, i might add, that are written on the skin flayed from the backs of underpaid employees and signed with their blood stained tears. i fell prey to draconian cash handling procedures. i was demolished by stringent policies that would make even the most rightest-right-wing ultra-conservative wince like they'd sucked a lemon, inhaling that sharp gasp of air that is usually reserved for when a guy gets royally sacked in a nasty game of Rochambaux.

not to put too fine a point on it, i'm a numerical retard. it's kind of funny, if you find pointing at the less intelligent and making chimpanzee noises at them. lord knows i find that kind of shit hilarious. but there it is, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

much like california, starbucks believes in the three strikes and you're out policy. it helps rotate the bright, sharp minded and ultimately cynical employees out and bring the easily molded, clay-minded yesman and yaywomen in.

first warning is basically, hey, spaz, knock it the fuck off. learn your numbers, and don't give me any lip, bitchass, or it's garbage run time for you. (sidebar: there is a term for the liquid detritus that sits, stewing under pounds of garbage in the heat, assisted by the warm, smothering warminess of expired coffee grind. it is called dumpster juice. it is some foul, fucked up, truly repellant and repugnant shit. for the first time in a long time, i discovered that yes, eyeballs can actually taste things, but only if nose and mouth have been cauterized shut by a furnace of heated goo steam kept under pressure for hours on end)

second warning is a little more serious. out comes the paperwork, and boy howdy, does them people at starbucks love them some paperwork. it gives them something to do, i expect. the official party line on phase two is that it's a 'recorded coaching conversation designed to affect a change in a person's behaviour and/or learning curve'. more of a swat on the hand, really, but there you have it. at this point, there is much in the way of serious eye contact, heartfelt 'you're a good member of the team', and 'i will keep my penis in my pants when working'. it's all very soft, touchy feely and not at all intimidating.

don't fall for it. this is a ploy designed to lull even the most hard-hearted rational mind into a sense of soporific bliss. Ah! you think to yourself, walking away with a fistful of pink-for-partner carbon copy papers in your left hand, they truly need me! all is well, i shall simply avoid doing the things (or not doing, whatever the case) that got me into the position in the first place. this shall be easy peasy, much like making ice cubes or that thing were you don't stare into the sun for too long. the Dr Phil-esque avuncular or Oprah-esque avauntular semi-praise is a prelude to step 3.

step 3 is officially classified as 'final coaching conversation'. don't let the innocuous term fool you. this is ultra-level enigma classified crypto-speak for MAn, you done fucked it up good now. you are on the bench, fuckface. gone are the encouraging words (you can do it, evil! you can enter the numbers so they come up the right way ... i am so fucked on a debit machine i'm somehow entering cyrllic in there. four dollars squiggly squiggly pi? what kind of price is that for a mocha??). gone are the gentle tones, and the low-level sense that it ain't that serious.

you get to step three at starbucks, you need to be looking over your shoulder and counting your hands and toes when you get off work, because man, there ain't no such thing as a time limit at this point; you fuck up after level 3, you get your shit fixed for you so fast that, if you listen closely, you can hear a sonic boom. that is you, losing your job, faster than the speed of sound. you drop the ball at this point, it's like flubbing the winning field goal for the team that has never ever ever been to Superbowl, and, thanks to your suckitude, never will again.

now, if you're lucky, you're like me: big, mildly intimidating and utterly, utterly unashamed to use a voice loud enough to cut through concrete to your advantage, you get two people for your 'exit interview'. this is to presumably ensure that, should i decide to go ted bundy, someone will be able to shout for help.

my 'exit' interview was hilarious, at least to me, because my fourth and final mistake on cash happened just prior to a weekend off. i spent the weekend considering the pros and cons of working at starbucks for any reasonable length of time and discovered that, beyond an inordinate number of beautiful women, there was very little there worth putting the effort of staying forward. i made my peace with the decision, because as anyone knows whose worked for a large American company, once the paper trail has started, nothing, not even a promissory note to behave, signed and ratified by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and notarized by the Pope himself, can stop the Juggernaut of Beauracracy.

so. two people, both of them looking profoundly ... well, embarassed is a good word to use. they think i don't know what's coming, which makes me smug like charlie sheen for not getting AIDs after banging all those hookers. they tell me, in quiet, whispered tones, unable to really look me in the face, that today is my last today, but i'll have until the end of the day to get my coffee of the week. it went a little like this:

them: this is your last day.

me: uhuh. yeah, i kind of figured, on account of, you know, i'm a retard when it comes to cash.

them: this has nothing to do with who you are as a person, you know. if it wasn't for your cash handling, you'd be perfect.

me: yes, well, clearly i belong with that tribe in new guinea who lacks the necessary gene to even comprehend numbers, so if you could just stop being condescending and give me my walking papers, i'll mosey on out of here and spend the next six months poking merciless fun at you behind your back and inciting your fellow dissatisifed parnters into riots.

them: ??

me: separation papers? those forms you fill out when you heedlessly hack and slash a man's only source of income from him? yet another thick sheaf of carbon copy pages that are the main ingredient on going on EI? without them, i am likely to become an enraged and penniless beast.

them: this is news to us. what are these ... separation papers ... you speak of?

me: it is a part of the termination process. it is the culmination of the legally binding decision on your behalf to end my employment with the company for failure to adhere to the strict, neo-Nazi protocols for selling legalized crack cocaine to twelve year olds and mentally deficient wannabes. it lists, in no particular order, when i sold my soul, when my soul was returned to me, the number of unshelled peanuts i received per hour, and the amount of skin stripped from my bare back for things like a pension i will never see.

them: this is the first we have ever heard of this. all we do is send an email. it's taken care of on the other end.

me: yes, well, without these papers i can't apply for ei, so unless you want a man dousing himself in gasoline and setting himself alight in your storefront, i advise you to actually pick up the phone and discover for yourself just what it is you should know.

them: we shall do this. we cannot even comprehend you now that your soul has been returned to you. the light is so bright, the shadows even darker, and we want to walk into it ...

me: of course you do. it is the natural way of things, but unfortunately for you, i'm a selfish prick who won't let you touch me, now that i am bright and shiny once more.

we exchanged a few pleasantries, i bade those few working who i genuinely liked farewell, and made my way home, where i ate an entire pizza, spent four hours playing Empire Earth 2 and surfing the internet for a way to hack into a secure starbucks server.

i suppose my next post will chronicle the starting stages of finding a new job.

until then, this is evilmister, not down, not out, and certainly unstoppable.

Is i t Really Only 'Just Coffee'

No. It really isn't. And for a number of reasons, some of which make us look like money hungry capitalist oil barrons trying to squeeze blood from a stone, and some of which that make our customers look like hopped up junkie addicts trying to get something for nothing. The irony of this, is, of course, that on both sides of the fence is a shared mantra, repeated over and over again as the day draws long or the need for caffeine pressures us into acting like retards ...

'It's only coffee'

Oh, how I wish that were true.

If it were only just coffee ... or cream based blended beverages ... or iced teas ... or the soul-blood of high priestesses ... customers wouldn't stand in line for upwards of fifteen minutes. they wouldn't suffer the indignity of going through Soup Nazi-esque ordering procedures, nor would they willing choke down our super-fat-saturated snacks or sign over the fifteenth mortgage on their two bedroom bungaloo that overlooks the Pitt River. They wouldn't put up with our strenuous adherence to a completely made up lingo, that, as far as i can tell from my lofty perch on the fence, is designed to do nothing more or less than make the customer feel stupid. they wouldn't, if it was just coffee. but it's not. we're a meme plague, a social and cultural icon now, and one that has invaded the lives and minds of millions of people -and all without the need for advertising. seriously. our advertising budget is slim to none, and i bet you'd be hard pressed to find even one print ad, let alone radio or television. but i digress, as is my usual wont, because it's not about the cultural or social aspects of being a part of the Starbucks Hive Mind that I'm addressing today, but the Junkie Effect. People need our coffee. they tell me every day. they can't function without, and they've tried, like heroin users switching to that sub-classic replacement methadone, to switch to Tim Hortons or McDonald's or whatever else is out there. Tried, and failed, miserably slouching back to my front door with a fistful of dollars for an overpriced drink, the bulk of said proceeds coming nowhere near my pocket, or the pockets of the slave labor camps on the other side of the world. they pony up their hard earned money to get their fix and, because like beer, you really only rent coffee, there's a damned good chance they'll be back before the end of the day, haggard, withdrawn, irritable. God forbid that you should give them one sip less than they ask for, because then they become the other side of the junkie, slipping from the amiable jitterbug shuffling from one foot to the other like they have to pee into the raving lunatic, shouting incoherent threats against everyone in your family. All ... for ... one ... more ... sip.

Oh yeah, it's just coffee to our customers.

And for us, the few, the proud, the stylistically termed 'partners'? Is it really just coffee to us as well?

Not by a fucking longshot. For us, it's about the dollar dollar bills ya'all. Oh sure, we chant the mantra like any good puppets, reminding ourselves not to take our jobs too seriously -wait, how can that be when i live hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, penny to penny- and when the line gets gritty and rough and we are beseiged on all sides, we actually mean it for awhile, safe and secure in the knowledge that unlike Enron, our stock portfolios are strong enough to see us through the dark hours. But like i said, it ain't. Might have been once upon a time when a pot smoking, hash-brownie eating hippie started the company up in the seventies, but that Starbucks is a far hue and cry from what it is now. Now we are run by Capitalists born and bred with dollar signs for eyes and when you prick them, they do not bleed the good old red stuff, but an endless tickertape parade of critical stock watches. their dreams are the dreams of variance, labor percentages, customer counts per diem, waste management, and salary caps. they, too, say it's only coffee, but they can afford to say that, and truly mean it. for us, though, the ones serving on the front lines of Junkie Central, it's a whole different story. if we fall behind budget, our labor hours are affected, so we're forced to work harder to provide a level of service that the fiends demand and the SS-esque customer snapshot droids ensure. if we don't meet projected sales goals, the manager's crack-tastique bonus is affected, so he or she or it -depending on how far along the Bean Path this person is- will come down like Thor's mighty hammer. i remember the day our mission statement added the capstone to the mighty monument of Starbucks, and while i'm legally prevented from line-for-line iteration, it bascially says we need to realize we gotta make money if we gonna stick around.

Yeah, it's just coffee all right, at least until someone starts fucking with the bottom line or the urge to fix.

Evilmister, from the fence, from on high, passing judgment ... out.

Hitler-Jugend? Try Starbucks-Jugend!

Since the last post, i have been labeled as 'Legendary' on the till. essentially this means i have the unending capacity to stand in one spot for hours on end regurgitating an endless spew of crap while maintaining the semblance of giving a shit what goes on around me. I've got it down to a motherfucking science. i can take your order, make eye contact, smile, laugh, and give you the feeling that not only is the eighty-three dollars you just dropped on your coffee well spent, but that i am a genuinely nice guy who cares about you, the consumer.

i don't.

I know, i know, it's shocking. but i don't. what i see when you come to the counter -and this isn't all the time, really, but it's more often than not- i see someone who thinks they should go to starbucks because everyone else goes there. honestly, it's like fucking high school ... you know, you gotta have the new Nike Hi-Tops because your buddy Steve does, that kind of thing. if everyone in the line up confessed that our coffee really did taste burnt, that our prices were outrageous (if we were the pentagon, we'd be selling eighty-thousand dollar toilet seats) and that our zealous committment to phony jargonistic jibber-jabber was the most annoying thing in the universe, we'd be out of business by the end of the week. no fooling. and i don't even wanna get started on our supposed 'Green' business practices. the shit i throw out every fucking day would make PETA have a heart attack, and they ain't even interested in garbage.

but none of this happens. the siren's eye has you, and her song is culturally pervasive. we, the baristas (checkit, read coffee mongerer), are more resilient than cockroaches. when the end times come, it'll be us, hawking our wares through deserted streets, waiting for the mutated roaches to scuttle up out of their underground cities in search of fine coffee and tasty snacks.

but i digress.

if children are the future, then we are truly fucking doomed, because they come to starbucks. the other day, i served three tween girls. ordinarly not that shocking, but they had Farrah's hair, Cassie's clothes, Jordache jeans and those ultra-fancy sunglasses that whatserfuckname ... the one with the big mouth from The Mask ... anyways, big fucked up sunglasses. it was like looking at a goddamned Sex In the City pre-trainer school. i swear i heard a voice over discussing how awful it was to be dateless in coquitlam.

the point i'm trying to make here, and i think somewhere around glow-in-the-dark cockroaches eagerly waiting for coffee and the episode of Family Guy I'm watching through the corner of my eye i forgot where i was headed, is that children shouldn't be drinking coffee. of any kind. hell, they shouldn't even be allowed out of the house until they can prove that they can have an intelligent conversation with words longer than 'like' and 'uh' and 'y'know'. they shouldn't have bank cards, cell phones, or body piercings. they should be fucking kids, watching Power Rangers and Stawberry Fucking Shortcake.

and most especially, they shouldn't be looking over the rim of their faux-designer sunglasses like they're my fucking granny to ask me if we have non-fat milk. when i was a kid, i didn't even know there was such a thing as non-fat. the scary thing is, these ultra-glam tweenies in their haute coteur will eventually transmogrify into jackbooted Ilsa-clones of the far-flung future, spouting mealy-mouthed condescendions to brain-dead peons.

if children are the future, then Lord forgive me. i'll be sitting on my porch forty years from now, shotgun loaded, waiting for them to come for me.

BIG SMILE! BIG SMILE! BIIIIG SMILE!

Direct and Live from Ingelwood ... Coquitlam

So it turns out that I've still got one single fan out there who just happens to run his own site, and I just got through this whole Skype (sounds like some kind of grifting term if you ask me) interview dealie with him, and he mentioned in passing that he misses dear old me and my caustic sense of bloody wit, so here I am, posting live and direct from Ingelwood, Coquitlam.

First off, earlier this year I rejoined the Company (Starbucks). Now, you might think that I'm being needlessly pessimistic and overly dramatic about referring to an American Corporation as 'The Company' in an attempt to draw a comparison to the ubiqutious 'Company' in many of Stephen King's earlier novels, but you mofo's don't whatchu talking about. Let me explain it for you. Starbucks will control the world by 2020. We will be in charge of everything. you will wipe your asses with company approved toilet paper, you will drive to work in cars powered by coffee grinds, and you for sure as hell will march to the relentlessly crappy blues music that I'm forced to listen to on a daily basis. Why do i know this? because by 2020, i will be the guy in the funny hat and the armor plated Coffee Car shouting libellous statements at non-Company affiliated scrubs. it will be me dictating policy change and forcing Timmy Ho employees to walk through a gauntlet of perpetually buzzed 'partners' in green aprons, balancing a sample tray of the new Mocha Delight Ultra-Uber Shot Caffe-Maccha-Latto on their motherfucking heads.

where do i get off saying this? how dare i slam my own alma mater of business? well, firstly, i'm a thinking rational human being, and i am inherently skeptical of anything that seems remotely like positive reinforcement or fucking Skinner-box type environments.

Part of my employment requires that i go to things called 'Rallys', wherein new drinks and pastries are unveiled for my delight, as well as new procedures, etc. imagine a hot, sweaty room filled with the shiny, eager faces of young twenty-somethings all kneeling in front of the mighty coffee altar, receiving benefactions from the font of all coffee wisdom. then put me in that room, balls full of skepticism and a mouth full of acid. we are divided into teams, and these teams are expected to go around the room to various stations where we learn things that we did not know, and that we are blessedly divine to be introduced to. (i will point out that most starbucks chicks are super-sexy, so i had lots to do while the conditioning was going on). the shiny eager beavers cavort and twist for treats, prizes, and the nominal affection of their superiors, who are all themselves withered carcasses, freeze dried and perpetually ageless thanks to hundreds of cups of coffee.

i want to go home, but i can't, because i am being paid.

towards the end of the Rally, during which we were expected to repeatedly chant different mantras so that our minds will echo with their magic-making powers well into the next day, the Grand Poobah of the event shows us a video. it's a video of how unbearably kind and sweet we are, how helpful and awesome we are to the third and fourth world countries we get our coffee beans from. we put up schools, and medical facilities and give these poor people all they could ever want in life except the opportunity to make decisions for themselves. i am touched, but only in my left pocket, where i keep my bullshit monitor.

i don't tell my thoughts to my partners, though i do ask that one or more of them kill me dead on the spot lest i turn into my avatar, Evilmister. the poobah is crying slightly, overcome by the glorious sight of a world where We is All There Is.

When the rally ends, we hear a statistic. it is this:

By 2017, 1 in every 750 people in america will have worked or will work for starbucks. one in every 750. that's not an employee pool.

that's a motherfucking militia. And we serve you addictive coffee, sell you pastries that are packed with four hundred percent your daily allowance of calories so that when the war does come, more than eighty percent of our customers will be too fat and slow to run away. we do it with a shit-eating grin, a hearty sense of radicalized bonhomie and fearlessness. we do it because we can, and the whole thing is wrapped up in a nice, neat Environmentally friendly package.

i ain't saying don't go to Starbucks. Quite the opposite. Join the Company, be one of the few, the bold, the brave.

But for fuck's sake, don't drink the coffee. they put something in that, for sure.

Peace out!!