grande nonfat latte

I went to Starbucks this morning to use a gift card I still had from before moving to Singapore. The Starbucks here seem to take themselves a little more seriously they in Singapore. A manager was training a new employee (the manager looked to be in her mid 40’s and the new employee looked to be in her mid 50’s). She was quizzing the employee on how to enter drinks into the register: “what if they want a grande nonfat latte?”, “what about a skinny vanilla?” “stop pressing the ‘grande’ button- it defaults to grande size, you’re wasting time”. Where could I start. I would die if I had to be trained to enter coffee orders like that when I’m 50 years old, it’s kind of sad. Plus, the size defaults to grande. Grand means medium size actually, and it’s like the large size in Singapore. The sizes of everything are so much larger here.

Starbuck's has really done a great job in creating this entire market for expensive coffee drinks that no one would have been ordering 10 years ago. They've created a culture that makes people feel special for they short time they're in the store and placing their order which is why the must come back and pay so much. People seem to take pride in the custom drinks they order, but I tend to cringe whenever I order and refuse to specify the size as 'tall', 'grande', or 'vente'. I just say medium or small... and they still know what I mean. I think they must think it's kind of a joke too...