Just Checking in, but Nothing Significant

Oh, I do hope I find a way to make the time for a decent blog post tomorrow! It is Tuesday, however, and I'll be preparing for my Wednesday classes, but still. Reading, and blogging, are important!

Tomorrow I hope to list a few of the memoirs my group of 18-year-olds are reading. I just finished listening to How Starbucks Saved My Life, a memoir by Michael Gates Gill. This is a book I listened to on my long commute to and from school. Although I dislike books that are repetitive (which this book surely was), I find this unfortunate characteristic acceptable in an audiobook. I can still drive conscientiously and not lose track of where the author is going.

Not too long ago, I applied for a job as a barista at Starbucks. My application did not go far, just as my application four years ago did not. I suspect age discrimination might have been a factor, so, for this reason, I was fascinated to read about a much older, 64-year-old former Madison Avenue advertising executive taking the plunge. His story revealed how his job changed his outlook, his personal life, and about Starbucks's whole gestalt; i.e. its modus operandi, if you will. Why it functions the way it does, from the very bottom to the top. In this memoir, the top was the manager of the store where Gill worked as well as her immediate management.

As an advertising exec who worked in a cut-throat, highly competitive and MEAN business (think AMC's television show Mad Men), it was revealing how his life as a barista was anything but that. Interesting.