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My Secret Fear
My secret fear is that one day I will find myself working in Starbucks; the cashier will call out orders - double latte frappuccino, no whip, extra hot, tall; iced caramel macchiato grande; pumpkin spice crème with soy... I will become confused and disoriented, was that extra whip or no whip? Tall or grande? Soy or no soy? What am I doing? People will shuffle their feet impatiently, check their watch and stare at me with disdain as I struggle to keep up. I will start to sweat - now people are frowning. Aaarrgghh - take me back to my quiet office!
I try to remember my secret fear when the conversation at lunch turns to IQ and yes I tipped extra today.
What's your secret fear?
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on October 11, 2007 at 08:02 AM in Education, Food and Drink | Permalink
Comments
I do not see (in an economics' sense), why you tipped extra, due to the fear.
Posted by: at Oct 11, 2007 8:09:14 AM
My secret fear is that someday I start going to Starbucks as a customer.
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Oct 11, 2007 8:21:56 AM
Regrettably, I was a barista (their word not mine) at Starbucks. It's not as bad as you think. The way that the cashier calls out the request has a strict order (caf or decaf first, number of shots (if not standard) next, size of cup third, etc.). Cashiers get trained in calling this out and it's actually rather fun to take a customer's mangled order and put all the pieces together in the right way. This makes it easy for the person making the drink to write it all down on the cup as the words flow out of the cashier's mouth.
Posted by: Perry Garvin at Oct 11, 2007 8:22:11 AM
...wouldn't be secret if I went blabbing it on MR, would it? It's now your (former) secret fear.
Posted by: shawn at Oct 11, 2007 8:22:15 AM
Well, if recurrent dreams are any indication, I'm afraid (thirty years after graduation) of having to take the final exam in a college course without ever having been to any of the classes.
Posted by: MattF at Oct 11, 2007 8:25:59 AM
my secret fear is that alex tabarrok is making my coffee...
Posted by: jeff at Oct 11, 2007 8:41:27 AM
My department will realize what a mistake that they made in hiring me.
Posted by: jason voorhees at Oct 11, 2007 8:43:03 AM
Clowns.
Just clowns.
Posted by: al at Oct 11, 2007 8:43:46 AM
"I do not see (in an economics' sense), why you tipped extra, due to the fear."
Not due to fear, just to help the barista pay for his liberal arts degree.
Posted by: Tom at Oct 11, 2007 8:46:31 AM
falling
Posted by: josh at Oct 11, 2007 8:59:48 AM
The sound of a jackhammer always gives me a "there but for the grace of God go I" moment.
Posted by: Bob Lawson at Oct 11, 2007 9:07:45 AM
The sound of a jackhammer always gives me a "there but for the grace of God go I" moment.
Posted by: Bob Lawson at Oct 11, 2007 9:08:42 AM
The sound of a jackhammer always gives me a "there but for the grace of God go I" moment.
Posted by: Bob Lawson at Oct 11, 2007 9:08:47 AM
1. carnival rides
2. boston terriers
3. social security means testing
Posted by: John Dewey at Oct 11, 2007 9:12:44 AM
That a woman I've slept with got pregnant and had an abortion without telling me.
Posted by: A. Nonymous at Oct 11, 2007 9:25:21 AM
That women stop sleeping with me
Posted by: anon at Oct 11, 2007 9:33:06 AM
As Wittgenstein said, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Perry Gavin explained perfectly why capitalism works and politics/ ideology/ philosophy doesn't. Some random person with a media outlet has a nightmare about a subject he knows nothing about, and wakes up to tell the whole world how bad it was, whereas someone who is a member of the fully-functioning wildly successful capitalist machine, a membership that is typically too busy actually doing their job to worry about philosophy, explains that, indeed, things work because they are workable. As if Starbucks became a multi-billion-dollar enterprise because working there was a nightmare.
Posted by: Henrik Mintis at Oct 11, 2007 9:34:02 AM
Not knowing how much to tip while traveling (finally got around to dealing with it!)
Now its going to Starbucks and finding out the barista is an economist. Let's just say that any incentive scheme I might have had for them to get my order right has just been tossed out the window.
Posted by: Ironman at Oct 11, 2007 9:37:34 AM
My fear is that they revoke my PhD because there were some pages in my dissertation which had slightly less than the required margin. As a result, I have to correct these pages AND GO THROUGH ANOTHER DEFENSE.
Posted by: ZBicyclist at Oct 11, 2007 9:38:06 AM
My secret fear is that a bug in a program that I wrote will cause some real harm to someone.
Posted by: Floccina at Oct 11, 2007 9:39:39 AM
That after going through the upcoming job market, I wind up conducting my research and teaching at a community college.
Posted by: Justin Ross at Oct 11, 2007 9:52:01 AM
Height
Posted by: Yan Li at Oct 11, 2007 10:21:26 AM
The sound of a jackhammer always gives me a "there but for the grace of God go I" moment.
Well then you should really hate going into a Starbucks. Working as a jackhammer operator is probably 10X better a job that working as a "barista." It pays a lot more, you get to work outdoors, no dealing with annoying customers, etc.
Posted by: Peter at Oct 11, 2007 10:21:28 AM
My secret fear: In 25 years, my careful attention to fiscal responsibility and delayed gratification will blow up in my face - all my friends, who are horribly spendthrift today, will find themselves poor and struggling in 2032, and instead of accepting the fact that they made really bad choices in 2007 and throughout their lives, will instead demand that the government take a huge chunk of my carefully built nest-egg, and redistribute it to them, because it's "not fair" that I have so much money in the bank.
And all my protestations that I earned that money the hard way will fall on deaf ears, because a certain very wide swath of the electorate doesn't think that there should be consequences for stupid economic choices.
Posted by: jb at Oct 11, 2007 10:26:30 AM
Lighten up and read: "How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns To Live Like Everyone Else"
by Michael Gates Gill. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks (really, I am not making
this up).
Maybe your life will improve working at Starbucks.
And you can learn about price discrimination, brand-name capital, fixed costs, productivity
with random demand shifts, corporate governance, and queuing theory. When Naomi Klein comes in for
her triple-decaf-latte made with fair-trade coffee, you can discuss Disaster Capitalism over the bar.
Posted by: B.H. at Oct 11, 2007 10:34:08 AM
