4 Quotes by Taylor Clark

Where else but a coffee-house could you pay a couple dollars for a drink, then fritter away four hours splayed across a couch, reading a book?

Terrified executives saw that they had a simple choice: convince consumers that your brand stands for Something Important - and thus that buying your merchandise is not just crass materialism, but something closer to an artistic statement - or fall into a price-cutting bloodbath with the generics.

Let us now take a moment to reflect on the plight of the Starbucks barista, that patient indulger of obsessive-compulsive customer requests, that tireless dispenser of forced smiles, that hapless victim of a never-ending parade of indignities. Any brave soul who dons the green apron must endure annoyances that would crush the rest of us - or at least send us into a cup-throwing, syrup-spraying rage.

But the raw sex appeal of the star coffee-fixers notwithstanding, it's hard to imagine a less entertaining spectator sport than a barista competition.