Bob Peale
angeli ribelli
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Urban Legends Relating To 9/11/01
- Thread starter Bob Peale
- Start date
Wizard
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Dec 30, 1999
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Claim: A New York City Starbucks charged rescue workers $130 for three cases of water.
Status: True.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001]
My family owns an ambulance service in Brooklyn NY. Midwood Ambulance if anyone knows it. Anyway, my uncles were at "Ground Zero" during the attack to help the victims. They donated their time to help with this crisis as many New Yorkers did. A great deal of people were in shock from the devastation. As many of you know, shock victims are supposed to drink a lot of water. My uncle went to the Starbucks down the street to get bottles of water for the victims he was treating. Can you believe they actually charged him for it!! He paid the $130 for 3 cases of bottled water out of his own pocket. Now, I would think that in a crisis such as this, vendors in the area would be more than happy to lend a little help by donating water. Well, not Starbucks! As if this country hasn't given them enough money! Anyway, the point of this story wasn't to glorify my uncle's actions but to suggest a boycott on Starbucks. Now, I love Frappaccinos as much as anyone, but any company that would try to make a profit off of a crisis like this doesn't deserve the American public's hard earned money. Please forward this e-mail to any one you know and encourage them to do the same.
Thank you!
Origins: Times of crisis bring out the best and the worst in people and, it appears, in businesses.
On 11 September 2001, employees of the Midwood Ambulance Service were on hand at what has come to be known as "Ground Zero," the rubble that once was the World Trade Center. They approached a Starbucks near the disaster site because they needed water to treat the victims of the terrorist attack. Starbucks was willing to help . . . for a price. It sold the rescue workers three cases for $130 cash on the barrelhead, with the money needed to complete the transaction coming out of the workers' pockets.
Later, suspecting the workers had been overcharged, ambulance company officials called Starbucks and sent e-mail to the company but said their queries were ignored. One described his call to Starbucks thus: "When I called . . . to inquire about this at your 'contact us' phone number from your Web site, I was told in a rather rude way that this could not have happened and abruptly thanked for my call and dismissed."
Only after the text quoted above became circulated on the Internet did Starbucks address this matter. It has since delivered a $130 check (via messenger) to the ambulance company, and its president, Orin Smith, has called to apologize personally.
Apology and check notwithstanding, lingering and disquieting doubts remain. True, an employee of any firm can act in an unthinking manner that will bring embarrassment upon his employer, but that is not the real shame here; it's the non-actions of Starbucks management in the face of such an incident.
Invoking my "some idiot" rule (which asserts that no matter what the situation or the gravity of it, some idiot somewhere will always manage to do something idiotic), that a muddle-headed coffee shop worker would think to charge those aiding the wounded for what they needed falls well within the expected parameters of potential mayhem. An employee messed up, but his error was the act of a lone individual. All it would have taken to set things right at that point would have been for someone a bit higher in the company to pony up with a prompt apology and reimbursement of the money paid for the water.
The measure of a business is often found not in what it does right, but in how well and how quickly it handles matters when things have gone wrong.
It was Starbucks' customer relations and management that committed the real offense in that no one at any of these higher levels did anything to address the wrong until the incident became public. When the ambulance workers called the company to inquire about the possibility of having been overcharged, they were told what they had described couldn't have happened, so thank you and good-bye. Their letter to the president of Starbucks detailing the event went unanswered. Calls from a Seattle journalist to Howard Schultz (Starbucks chairman and chief global strategist) and Orin Smith (president and CEO) weren't returned. (Only after that journalist's piece about the $130 water ran on 25 September 2001 did Smith meet with that newsman.)
At each point where a correction could have been made, the ambulance workers were brushed off. It took the attraction of cyberspace and media attention to prompt an offer of redress that should have been made the moment Starbucks was made aware of the incident. The ambulance workers did eventually get their $130 back, but they had to jump through hoops for what should have been freely and promptly tendered.
Starbucks isn't heartless -- it did provide free coffee to rescue workers, gave $1 million to the September 11th Fund (a national relief endeavor to help victims of the tragedy), and collects further contributions for the fund from its customers and friends. (Other companies have made similar contributions, including $10 million each from Microsoft and Lilly Endowment, $5 million from IBM, and $4 million from UPS.) It's thus not an unfeeling company, merely one that fell down badly on problem resolution.
Yet the question still begs to be asked: Had the story about the ambulance workers not gotten out and had it not given Starbucks a black eye, is there reason to suppose that check would have been written or that apology made?
Barbara "starbuckled" Mikkelson
Last updated: 29 September 2001
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/rumors/starbuck.htm
Click here to e-mail this page to a friend
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2001
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
This material may not be reproduced without permission
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:
Jamieson, Robert. "Starbucks Dropped the Ball in New York."
Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 25 September 2001.
Jamieson, Robert. "Another Side to the Starbucks Story."
Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 27 September 2001.
Linn, Allison. "Starbucks Apologizes for Charging NYC Rescue Workers for Water."
The Associated Press. 25 September 2001.
Now thats bullshit............................I'll think twice before I go back..................................................
Status: True.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001]
My family owns an ambulance service in Brooklyn NY. Midwood Ambulance if anyone knows it. Anyway, my uncles were at "Ground Zero" during the attack to help the victims. They donated their time to help with this crisis as many New Yorkers did. A great deal of people were in shock from the devastation. As many of you know, shock victims are supposed to drink a lot of water. My uncle went to the Starbucks down the street to get bottles of water for the victims he was treating. Can you believe they actually charged him for it!! He paid the $130 for 3 cases of bottled water out of his own pocket. Now, I would think that in a crisis such as this, vendors in the area would be more than happy to lend a little help by donating water. Well, not Starbucks! As if this country hasn't given them enough money! Anyway, the point of this story wasn't to glorify my uncle's actions but to suggest a boycott on Starbucks. Now, I love Frappaccinos as much as anyone, but any company that would try to make a profit off of a crisis like this doesn't deserve the American public's hard earned money. Please forward this e-mail to any one you know and encourage them to do the same.
Thank you!
Origins: Times of crisis bring out the best and the worst in people and, it appears, in businesses.
On 11 September 2001, employees of the Midwood Ambulance Service were on hand at what has come to be known as "Ground Zero," the rubble that once was the World Trade Center. They approached a Starbucks near the disaster site because they needed water to treat the victims of the terrorist attack. Starbucks was willing to help . . . for a price. It sold the rescue workers three cases for $130 cash on the barrelhead, with the money needed to complete the transaction coming out of the workers' pockets.
Later, suspecting the workers had been overcharged, ambulance company officials called Starbucks and sent e-mail to the company but said their queries were ignored. One described his call to Starbucks thus: "When I called . . . to inquire about this at your 'contact us' phone number from your Web site, I was told in a rather rude way that this could not have happened and abruptly thanked for my call and dismissed."
Only after the text quoted above became circulated on the Internet did Starbucks address this matter. It has since delivered a $130 check (via messenger) to the ambulance company, and its president, Orin Smith, has called to apologize personally.
Apology and check notwithstanding, lingering and disquieting doubts remain. True, an employee of any firm can act in an unthinking manner that will bring embarrassment upon his employer, but that is not the real shame here; it's the non-actions of Starbucks management in the face of such an incident.
Invoking my "some idiot" rule (which asserts that no matter what the situation or the gravity of it, some idiot somewhere will always manage to do something idiotic), that a muddle-headed coffee shop worker would think to charge those aiding the wounded for what they needed falls well within the expected parameters of potential mayhem. An employee messed up, but his error was the act of a lone individual. All it would have taken to set things right at that point would have been for someone a bit higher in the company to pony up with a prompt apology and reimbursement of the money paid for the water.
The measure of a business is often found not in what it does right, but in how well and how quickly it handles matters when things have gone wrong.
It was Starbucks' customer relations and management that committed the real offense in that no one at any of these higher levels did anything to address the wrong until the incident became public. When the ambulance workers called the company to inquire about the possibility of having been overcharged, they were told what they had described couldn't have happened, so thank you and good-bye. Their letter to the president of Starbucks detailing the event went unanswered. Calls from a Seattle journalist to Howard Schultz (Starbucks chairman and chief global strategist) and Orin Smith (president and CEO) weren't returned. (Only after that journalist's piece about the $130 water ran on 25 September 2001 did Smith meet with that newsman.)
At each point where a correction could have been made, the ambulance workers were brushed off. It took the attraction of cyberspace and media attention to prompt an offer of redress that should have been made the moment Starbucks was made aware of the incident. The ambulance workers did eventually get their $130 back, but they had to jump through hoops for what should have been freely and promptly tendered.
Starbucks isn't heartless -- it did provide free coffee to rescue workers, gave $1 million to the September 11th Fund (a national relief endeavor to help victims of the tragedy), and collects further contributions for the fund from its customers and friends. (Other companies have made similar contributions, including $10 million each from Microsoft and Lilly Endowment, $5 million from IBM, and $4 million from UPS.) It's thus not an unfeeling company, merely one that fell down badly on problem resolution.
Yet the question still begs to be asked: Had the story about the ambulance workers not gotten out and had it not given Starbucks a black eye, is there reason to suppose that check would have been written or that apology made?
Barbara "starbuckled" Mikkelson
Last updated: 29 September 2001
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/rumors/starbuck.htm
Click here to e-mail this page to a friend
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2001
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
This material may not be reproduced without permission
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:
Jamieson, Robert. "Starbucks Dropped the Ball in New York."
Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 25 September 2001.
Jamieson, Robert. "Another Side to the Starbucks Story."
Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 27 September 2001.
Linn, Allison. "Starbucks Apologizes for Charging NYC Rescue Workers for Water."
The Associated Press. 25 September 2001.
Now thats bullshit............................I'll think twice before I go back..................................................
OUTSIDER
Devil's in the detail
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2000
- Posts
- 5,298
Although I'm not really a coffee drinker anyway I do think that starbuck's overcharge for their coffee and I never go in there of my own accord, only when friends have wanted to.
I put starbucks in the file "if they all burned down tomorrow would I miss them.......no", and before you start to think it's just me being a European and hateing anything American I can assure you it's not that at all, I just believe that starbucks are another company that's all style and no substance.
I put starbucks in the file "if they all burned down tomorrow would I miss them.......no", and before you start to think it's just me being a European and hateing anything American I can assure you it's not that at all, I just believe that starbucks are another company that's all style and no substance.
Weird Harold
Opinionated Old Fart
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2000
- Posts
- 23,768
Wizard said:
If the story ahad not become public, how would management of Starbucks know who that water was sold to? -- Especially in the confusion of Sept 11, 2001.
