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Thursday, April 20, 2006

Lazy caffei-nation

Disclaimer: I have not had my second doze of caffiene since morning. Read this posting at your own risk.

I worked in San Francisco for about a year and I was required to be at work early (no fun). Travelling from South Bay to the city I used to stumble and crawl upon astronomical number of empty disposable cups of coffee before I would reach my desk. Considering I am not at all a morning person I never noticed the coffee addiction of this nation till two incidents recently.

1. Lazy: Now Starbucks offers drive-thru if you have not noticed already. One day I was in a rush and quickly wanted to drive through one of these stores. Seeing a long line of cars waiting to be served by this "park-thru" I decided I will walk inside and get my shot. And guess what, it took me less than five minutes and two cars before I had my cups of coffee. Hmmm.... I thought the idea of drive-thru was to make things move faster. And how lazy are we getting?

2. This morning, I bumped into more people waiting in line for their morning coffee at Starbucks than the number of people in the crowded elevator.

Warning: Thinking aloud without caffeine.

On an average people spend about $4 something on coffee at Starbucks. Let me round it off to $4 for calculation purposes and some of these people are monotheist about their coffee - i.e. Coffee is Starbucks or there is no coffee.

Agreement: These are total assumptions and I have no finance background. By reading further you agree that you are solely responsible for all consequences drawn upon you and the author in no way is liable for any consequence(s). Though if you profit anything from this you will owe 10% to the author.

In a month, if people buy at least 20 cups of coffee. $80.
In a year, about 240 cups. $960.
Investing this $960 in something that gives about 10% compounded anually, in 5 years this will return $1,582.66.
Not paying for kids college tuition and taking a payday loan - PRICELESS.

Do you know how Starbucks also translates into F*** OFF? Click here.

In this blog:
First Starbucks
Coffee's chemical formula

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree, this nation is addicted to coffee and not only that, it's a monster and it reproduces. You can easily see how masaala chai drinkers actually become "hep, only starbuck or nothing" coffee addicts once their boat throws anchor on this shore.

On the financial end, don't discount the fact that most starbucklers are professionals whose time, on an average, is worth $50-$80 an hour. They spend, say half hour to get coffee - from the time to park/drive thru mix cream and sugar, pick a bagel/donut (and spend 1 hr on the treadmill to burn it off). You do the Math ***

An interesting read is this article from BusinessWeek.
Love this country.