Brian’s Blog

Every so often, Jennifer and I stop at AJ’s fine foods to get sushi, or pizza, or coffee. One trip in particular, we stopped for coffee. I went to the counter and ordered a “grande white mocha.” The lady behind the counter said “I’m sorry, I don’t know what grande means.” and glared at me with a fake looking blank stare. I assumed she was joking, until she remained there with a pissed off look waiting for me to reword my order. I said I would like a medium white mocha. As she prepared my delicious beverage, I began wondering how she could possibly not know what grande means. First of all, AJ’s Fine Foods is definitely an “uppety” grocery store. they don’t call their bakery a BAKERY, they call it a “boulangerie.” How’s that for uppety? Secondly, this type of store, and in particular, the boulangerie is frequented (I rightly assume) by people who also get their coffee fixes at Starbucks from time to time. This woman must have heard the word “grande” used for “medium” many times. I have no idea if she has ever been to Starbucks, so I cannot speculate that she knows the word from there. Regardless, as I stood there waiting, I got more and more curious about her self-proclaimed lack of knowledge about the word “grande.” I have not yet mentioned that on this particular day, I was under the influence of a heavy-duty flu medicine and was not my usual self. Under normal conditions, I am not prone to talk to strangers any more than is necessary to conduct business. Anyway, when the woman came back with my drink, I asked her if she really hadn’t ever heard the word “grande” used to mean medium. She responded (quite irritated) with “I don’t work at Starbucks.” Ah-ha! She had known the word and was just being snippy about it. It occurred to me that she could not work at Starbucks, because if I went into a Starbucks and ordered a “meduim” white mocha, the cashier would smile, take out a grande cup, write my name on it, and continue with my order. She would not turn into a bitch and act like I was speaking a foreign language.

Now before you comment, I realize:

1. Starbucks uses proprietary language. They OWN certain words and other companies cannot use them. For example, the word “Frappuccino” is owned by Starbucks. So is “venti” which meant 20 in french–interesting since the iced venti is 24 ounces. Starbucks claims that the extra four ounces is for the ice, yet they make no such adjustment for iced grande or tall beverages. I don’t claim that Starbucks is my favorite company in the world, but I sure like their product. I digress…
2. The lady at AJ’s may just be adhering to some policy not to use the words “tall, grande, or venti” when referring to drink sizes. The point here is that she wasn’t using the word, I was, and hearing “grande” and fixing a medium is not a crime. A simple way to respond is “one medium white mocha coming up.”
3. I am sure that there are plenty of Starbucks that employ people who would correct you in a much more rude manner than I stated in item 2 above. Those people are no better than this AJ’s grump. the people at the Starbucks I frequent couldn’t possibly be nicer if they tried.
4. I definitely got way too worked up about this. Some people are just abrasive and this was one of those people.