edward fox's reality

I couldn’t help but flip back through the hundreds of comments on My Starbucks Ideas, a great site for customers who want to share their ideas with the world. I’ve run across a lot of great ideas (and voted for them once I registered on starbucks.com), such as rewarding frequent (“VIP) patrons with a discount, receiving a free drink on your birthday, and Starbucks‘ version of the Speedpass – a card you swipe with all the custom preparation requests you like for your morning kick. These ideas all satisfied me. One idea upset me a bit — making Starbucks ‘kid-friendly.’ One mother quipped with the notion that the only places with playgrounds that are kid-friendly are fast-food places. Gee. Go figure. A place where manners don’t matter. Who cares if your gut is hanging out? Amazing. These places were so generous to put ugly, bacteria-ridden play things to separate noisy children and their irresponsible parents. Go Mickey D’s.

So what’s the thing that triggered this blog? Simple: A penny.

From the ‘suggestion’ directly [direct link - do use caution; this page has over 475 comments, and some computers will be a-hurtin' for up to thirty seconds on this page]:

On March 11, 2008 an amazing Starbucks Barista named Sandra Andersen donated one of her kidneys to a regular customer named Annamarie Ausnes. Annamarie had Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), which is shared my 600,000 Americans and which causes your kidneys, over time, to fail. Either you need dialysis, where you are attached to a dialysis machine for 3 times a week for approximately 4 hours a session (resulting in huge blocks of time away from work or family), or you need to obtain a kidney donation (which are very hard to come by) or you die. The story of this remarkable gesture is available on www.cnn.com (search “Barista donates kidney to save customer’s life”.)

The PKD Foundation (www.pkdcure.org) is a 4-star not-for-profit (check them out on www.charitynavigator.com) dedicated to finding a cure for this deadly and common genetic disease. There are several clinical trials underway to try to find a cure for PKD but funding (most of which comes from the NIH) is difficult because many Federal programs are paying the price of a costly war. The PKD Foundation needs to find private funding sources to help fight this dreadful disease.

My program proposal is simply to create “A Penny to Fight PKD” Campaign at Starbucks. Every cup of coffee or tea at any Starbucks in the world would have a penny going to the PKD Foundation to help pay for research to cure PKD. That way, the noble gesture of someone like Barista Sandra Anderson won’t be needed to keep PKD-afflicted customers alive.

Thank you for reading my proposal and lending your voice in support.

Aww. This moved me so deeply… until I realized what a crock of shit this is. But–but Frederick! Edward! Whatever the hell your name is this year! How can you be so insensitive to a disease that almost no one has heard of, yet so many people seem to be aware of it on My S-bux Ideas?!

Oh. Well, here’s my comment:

Wow.

I think I scrolled through about 400+ comments and didn’t really find anything that outright disagreed.

This idea sucks.

@matmater: thank you for being honest. [He said that Starbucks shouldn't focus on just one cause and I agree.]

There are so many more illnesses out there. Why are we (a) doing just 1 cent, (b) limiting the donation to one disease, and (c) not mentioning all the other ‘silent killers’ like Alzheimer’s? Goodness.

I guess none of you have any family that have been affected by anything and that everyone you know is in perfect health, with exception to PKD, whatever that means.

Honestly, there are so many better causes. After donating hundreds of hours at Parkland Hospital (the Dallas county hospital here in Texas), I know that there are many other problems out there. All problems are equally important when they affect you, but this isn’t just you… there are so many sick people, and it’s so sad. Unfortunately, I think it’s better to say that we should focus on the greater good. CONGRATULATIONS. A Starbucks employee did something generous. How rewarding. How nice to turn it into a MARKETING PLOY so that Starbucks can, again, appear oh so never-ending generous, to infinite causes. Instead of buying a cup of coffee, why don’t you people try this..

YOU ARE NOW ALL GOING TO HATE ME…

How about you donate $3.00 to PKD for a year, and be done with it?

That’s essentially what you would be doing if you visited Starbucks every working day of every week, including (paid) holidays (and sorry- no vacation for you, you 5-cent donor!). Did anyone else not see this?

How about all the ladies who pop in once a week, perhaps on Saturday? Thank you, your generous donation of 52 cents a year will cure the grave illness which I still know nothing about. [I'm not saying it's not unimportant.]

I think this is a good way to publicize good deeds so that Starbucks can again try and lower prices through free advertising while saying that the economy is just too darned bad to lower the prices on their 92%+ profit margin drinks.

Seriously?

How about this. One day out of the year, the first day of the year, you can choose whether you want to take a penny away from each drink you order, or give your whole heart out (pun intended) and pay $6 for a drink instead of $3? Oh, you’re not a regular? Come in twice a week? Very well, sir, your coffee will be $2.50 instead of $1.

PLEASE PEOPLE– Do NOT say it’s small differences making a big difference.

How about this– donate an hour’s worth of your salary one day a year, and if you have a nice low-but-average salary, you will donate for over 6 years of your otherwise ‘generous’ donation.

Just ask people, “Would you like to donate $1 this week to the good cause [of the week/month]? Ask it on Mondays only. Ta-da… I’ve just increased your donations by 5,000%. Was that hard?

Seriously, people. You saw one lovely little idea, and didn’t even want to consider being generous on your own.

For everyone who goes 5x a week, go ahead and donate over 10-year’s worth of patronage to Starbucks in 5 minutes: [link to donate directly]

The minimum amount you can donate is 10 years… for those who venture in 1-2 times a week, it’s about 25-50 years, depending on how loyal you are to such a giving organization.

Thanks for reading this. I appreciate you all, and hope that this opened your eyes to see (a) what a crude, blunt, and honest person I am, and (b) how I have seen what goes on in hospitals, and (c) that there are so many more things wrong with the world that plague us as well. Please be generous. Small things can have big results, but something so insignificant will make that big result take 5,000% longer.

It sucks being so logical sometimes. You shake up everyone’s little snow globe and I don’t think they like that very much. To hell with them. They’ll get shaken, too, and I think that’s my point.

Randy and Dillon are the new couple, after Randy decided to say he loved me, then charged up ~$107 on my Speedpass account, and only returned my phone without a charger. Perhaps others out there can learn from people who accept those who have acted this immaturely, and can make those who have wronged others financially and emotionally to stop and think at least a few more seconds before they fuck over someone else’s life without any consideration for the consequences to them, or your own ethics, morals, and way of life.

Make Note: I would have written this directly to Randy if he had not immediately deleted me from his friends list and blocked me, and disabled messages from users who are not your friend on your account. Dillon was considerate enough to make an initial attempt to work with me and I am appreciative. Back to the letter…

~~~

I’d appreciate it if you forwarded this on to Randy. I would also appreciate it if you would tell him that it would seem like a decent thing to do to at least give me back my charger since it was mine anyway. The other part was me being trusting of someone and being gullible, and that’s on me. But the other part isn’t… so if you could forward it, I’d be grateful.

I know I might seem like I’m pathetic and have no life to be writing something like this, but I just know that Randy will continue to take advantage of anyone who’s dumb enough like me to be generous enough…

I just called him and he was with his friend, and it sucks because when I asked him about it, he just hung up. I just think that’s a shitty way of dealing with things… to just ignore them… especially when you know you did something wrong, whether the other person was willing at the time or not. I was willing but unknowing of what he was going to do to me.

I called back and his friend answered the phone. It sucks when people are immature enough to stand up for their friends, even when they know they did something wrong.

When did you change your mind about helping me? It’s sad because if Randy had gotten rid of you for me, I would have pushed through to it until he did give you the money, or I would have given you at least some of the money myself, in which case he probably would have screwed me over as well… Hrm.

Anyway. I wish you wouldn’t have changed your mind… there’s a laundry list of people that owe me money… it’s really sad. You think I’d learn, right? I’m not trying to tell you what you did was wrong. It’s just that so many people say they’ll help me but they don’t. They just stop caring. It’s unfortunate. I understand if you still don’t want to help me. If you still think he’s all kinds of great and amazing, congratulations. I’m sorry, but I’ve dated quite a few people and heard a lot of stories, and I just want you to know what’s going on at all times with him, okay? Yeah sure, I don’t really know you, which is lame because if he didn’t act interested in me then I’m sure we could’ve been decent friends. Don’t be dumb like me and trust him. He’s honestly messed up me wanting to be in a relationship with any other guy. I’m not going to be. I’m just waiting until my ex James moves over here in a year or two. I’m in no hurry. I won’t be screwed over again and again. Poor me, right? I’m content, knowing I’ll be with someone who has no heartbreaking acts in the past. I’m not talking about me- my heart was hardly damaged. I just care more about the money and the charger. I’m glad he finally has a job. Now he can finally stop asking everyone for gas. Does he ask you for gas? You’re only 16- I seriously hope he doesn’t.

I look out for other people too much. It makes me look insecure and ruins my social abilities, despite what I try to do. That’s okay, though. I do give amazing advice, and I’m not biased. If he did this to anyone else besides me, I would tell you the same thing. I am sure he can’t really take advantage of you much since you most likely don’t have a job. You don’t have a car and you can’t drive, so he can’t use you there. It’s okay, though, because I know I will make more money soon. I just got a $3 raise at work per hour, and that will offset the actions of people like Randy, and how they have taken advantage of me so many times.

I always write a lot, so don’t think this is some immensely important issue to me.

If you just ignore me, that’s fine, but I discourage you from doing so. People never change, okay? If you’re a better person than me, and if you always stop him from doing what he did to me, more power than you, but is it really right to be with someone like that? I don’t think so. Just be careful.

If you could just ask him to perhaps send me at least part of it, I would be greatly appreciative. I am having to find my own apartment pretty soon and I know shit’s not going to be cheap. We all have bills to pay. It sucks that his friend said, “Why did you give him your Speedpass anyway?”… she knows what kind of person he is, and I hope you do, too. They asked if Adrian had paid me back and they laughed, saying that he just used me for my money, as if Randy did anything different. It sucks that people think they are better than other people who pull the exact same sad crime on someone. It really is sad…

[And since you are forwarding this...]

Randy, if you don’t decide to give me my money, I’ll be unhappy. Do you care? I hope you do. I’m another human being. If we didn’t have any other humans, our life would be pretty dull. We also don’t know how it will come back at us in the future. Are you a fan of karma? It doesn’t seem like you are. I would have rather been beat up and forced to fuck a guy than have my money silently stolen from me. What you did was essentially slip 5 20′s out of my wallet while I was asleep, and while you were saying you were ‘too tired’ to hang out and ‘sick’ you were finding another boy to fall in love with. Is that the kind of person you want to be? I hope not. You are extremely dishonest. I am, too, but I will not ruin other people’s ability to be happy with their own lives as you do. Just think about it.

The message you sent me about how you left my “shit” in my “fucking mailbox”… as if I did something wrong was uncalled for. Seriously, dude.

You are over twenty years old. See that? 2-0. Not 1-6. Not even 1-9. 2-0.

You are officially no longer a teenager (since that goes up to age 19). You are an adult, and you can’t support yourself. You take advantage of people like you’re a poor woman who wants to leech off a rich man. Is that honestly how you want to be represented to yourself and other people? Is that honestly who you are? Seriously — please ignore what your brain is telling you about how you should hate me, and just ask your heart if that’s the kind of person you want to be. I hope you have goals about making a lot of money so that you don’t have the desire (or have) to do this again. It is really unbecoming. Please be very appreciative of Dillon. He is very generous to overlook your past mistakes, and I admire him for that. Whatever he does as far as not helping me is on his part, but I understand that views change and he has his own right to that. There’s no crime against changing an opinion.

I’m sure it will seem insignificant now, but things can always escalate quickly… believe me, I know. I’ve done what you did. It wasn’t to any people individually, but rather to large banks and credit card companies. I won’t go there, though. Just be appreciative of who you are with, because if I knew that the person I was dating…

…well, this isn’t about me. I’m not here to preach my opinions about how you should do things. I am simply here to offer a resolution of sorts.

If Randy is still more immature than you (Dillon) and is unwilling to respond like an adult, then just don’t bother. I would appreciate it, though, if you acted your age and attempted to work with me on this. We could be great friends, honestly. I am extremely forgiving.

Just be careful- both of you. You never know what will happen if you continue with the actions you’ve taken before.