Overthrowing the Tall Short Mafia
As human beings, we have needs that we need to fill in order to survive. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need states that in order to survive, a person needs physical needs, safety, love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. Out of those five needs, the main one that nobody can survive without is the physical needs. Physical needs include food, water, shelter, and etcetera. Water is basically being hydrated. Most drinks can keep a person hydrated but with the new sizing charts at Starbucks’ everywhere, people would rather die than have to deal with all the confusion. With death comes less people. With less people comes less business. With less business, Starbucks coffee shops all over will close down leaving all the typical white girls in a panicky mood. All this is caused from the sizing being changed. Don’t let typical white girls be panicky.
Starbucks and other coffee shops have recently started changing the names of their sizes and even incorporating some foreign language skills. The large became a grande, the medium became a tall, the small became a short, and sometimes, people can buy an extra large called vente (Italian for HUMONGOUS). Not only did this change in size names bring uniqueness to the companies but it also taught coffee drinkers a little Spanish and Italian. Chances are, a coffee drinker will buy a medium or a large. So if a coffee drinker orders a large, they will have say something along the lines of, “I will have one grande mocha frapaccino mixed with a little coffee to kick start my day.” With that one sentence, the buyer incorporated a little Spanish by using the word grande thus making him or her seem intelligent and bilingual.
Granted this little piece of Spanish and Italian class makes someone seem intelligent and bilingual, it causes confusion for the majority of other coffee drinkers. Drink sizes started out small, medium, large, and extra large. There are some places that still use these sizes. Bless their souls. Somewhere along the line, those four simple sizes changed to short, tall, grande, and vente. Although those are unique, there was no set time for the public to hear about the size name change throwing the public into utter confusion. Nowadays, people will go into a coffee shop and say they want a large. The guy at the counter then asks, “You mean a tall right?” No. That person definitely wanted a large and a large is what they should get. Not one of these fancy un-American sizes.
Now all-in-all, it is the coffee shop’s decision on if they want to change the name of the size. If coffee shops want to look intelligent and appealing to the foreign eyes, changing the size names could benefit their business and bring in new customers. Those customers could bring in their friends. From my experience, people don’t like to drink coffee (or hot chocolate) alone so bringing friends is a very common occurrence. Those new customers and their friends could make up for all the customers that left due to the confusion. As people in the business industry always say, new is always better.
Coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the entire world. People on all six major continents, and more than likely that one permanent resident on Antarctica, drink a cup or more of coffee a day. With the changing of size names, some people have started buying coffee and making it at home causing coffee shops to lose business. All this can be settled if said coffee shop put something up on the chalkboard menu that translated the new sizes into the normal sizes would benefit the business. Coffee shops can change their business and the world by doing this, one grande mocha frapaccino mixed with a little coffee to kick start the day at a time.
Matt Larsen's Blog 