I'd never really thought about it before, but considering I live in a very ethnicly diverse neighborhood, plus the fact that I'm a few hundred feet from the edge of Chinatown, the coffee shop I frequent has a shockingly white clientelle and staff. Today I went in and wasn't able to get a coffee there because a plumber hooked things up wrong for them and they had no water.
There's another Second Cup that just opened about three blocks down the street so I just went to that one. To my surprise (and this is when I realized what a segregated shop I'd been going to), it was a fully Chinese shop — both staff and clientelle — and suddenly I was the minority. It was dramatically cleaner than the shop I was used to, but it was also very sterile and there wasn't really much “vibe” between anyone like you see in most cafes. When I ordered I found another difference… For some reason every item cost about 25% more, and my drink came in a distinctly more flimsy cup (I have my cup from yesterday here on my desk so I could compare).
I don't really know what the reason for these differences is — I'm certainly not suggesting that the Chinese make a flimsy product and charge more for it. More likely, because the second shop is newer (it only opened quite recently, whereas this other one has a much longer history), they are doing what they can to maximize profits to pay off their initial investment. And, their tables seemed as full as anyone's, so I guess it hasn't been a bad decision.
But it did get me thinking that each of the Second Cups around town is very different (whereas the Starbucks are much more uniform) — there's also the Ethiopian-owened 24-hour one that gets frequented in the summers by the Asian bike gangs late at night… (And by weird stay-up-late-working people like me obviously).
Well, enough blabbing, I have work to do. I realized today as well that I haven't backed up my code for a long time. It sure would suck to have a drive failure…
Post a Comment