I
met an American couple over coffee, and the wife asked if I knew the story
of Starbucks. I had to admit that I did not, and she gave me a brief
heads-up on the owner of the coffee chain who had come from nothing and
today was a huge success.
The following day I was wandering around the Bookazine
shelves and How Starbucks Saved My Life caught my eye. Was this
Jung’s Theory of Synchronicity, or just plain old-fashioned serendipity?
Whatever, I presumed it was an omen and I selected it for this week’s book
review.
The Starbucks story as related to me by the charming
American lady was one of those rags to riches tales, but this book “How
Starbucks Saved My Life” (ISBN 978-0-00-726886-3, Harper and Collins, 2007)
was quite the reverse, a true riches to rags tale, written by Michael Gill,
once a high flyer in the advertising world who came back down to earth with
a thump.
Whilst at the bottom of his slump, author Gill finds
himself offered a job at Starbucks. Not to be a high flying executive, but
to be a barista. He takes it when he finds that health insurance is part of
the package, something he could not afford before. (Perhaps President Obama
has a point here?)
Michael Gill exudes an honesty in his description of
himself, his upbringing, his rise through the advertising world, which he
realizes later was done at the expense of his children, his collapsed
marriage and his new dependant child. Perhaps a catharsis, but you can feel
for this man, who outwardly embodied success, but inwardly embraced failure.
So much was new for this man, a reject from big business
in his 60’s, with still a raft of responsibilities. Even the rush of
commuting to be at work on time. He had never been a simple employee. It was
all new. “And I had to face the brutal yet everyday fact that I was here
(Starbucks) because of my own financial mismanagement, my sexual needs that
had led me to stray. I was not some special person singled out for justice
by God. It was hard, terribly hard, for me to give up my sense of a special
place in the universe.”
As he progresses as an employee, author Gill uses the
flash-back technique, to explain the difficulties he has in adjusting to his
new situation, in fact, his new life as an employee and not a member of the
upper echelon, looking down as he once did, upon the lowly worker. For this
man, this was a completely new experience, having come from a privileged
family in the first place.
Not only does Michael Gill learn what it is like to be an
‘ordinary’ worker, but he also learns about racial discrimination making the
jump from white upper class majority, to becoming a member of a racial
minority group in his almost all African-American Starbucks store.
At B. 395, this represents excellent value for an excellent book. It
makes you want to visit your local Starbucks and enquire after Mike.
