Coffee, Hold The Monopoly

I'd like to thank Katie at Starbucks. I sought help for a nagging fatigue condition, and she served me coffee without assaulting or robbing me or shooting my dog. I don’t really get all this negativity aimed at our selfless Starbucks associates. They sacrifice so much to serve us hot, fresh coffee. Sure, there are some bad apples, but nobody should criticize them without walking a mile in their aprons. I support our Thin Green Line!

Then again, if the service is less than optimal at Starbucks, I can always seek service from another of the myriad coffee providers made available by a highly competitive market. I’m not forced to pay for a crappy product packaged as beneficial to me and served by surly sociopaths. I get a choice. Imagine if Starbucks was the only coffee provider available; a forced monopoly funded by mandatory confiscation serving a menu dictated by an executive board also funded by confiscatory fiat -- and emboldened by delusions of their own selfless public service. That would suck, and I’d probably give up drinking coffee and lose all respect for people who would work for such an organization. Borderline personalities would be attracted to the employ of this arrangement, knowing there would be little incentive to not be a surly, short-tempered asshole at work. And little anecdotes like my Katie story would indeed seem newsworthy to the victims of the coffee monopoly.