A Latte to Learn

To know me is to know that I love my occasional Starbucks coffee. I keep within a budget in order to fulfill my love for it. With every sip, I revisit a talk with a friend, the change in weather, the current season, or the memories of coffee brewing at home while I was growing up.
Yes, my Starbucks has gotten me through some really difficult and very happy times in my life.
So, you can see why I was fascinated when I came across this book:
‘How Starbucks Saved My Life” by Michael Gates Gill.
I thought for sure it must be either a love story…two people who met and fell in love at Starbucks or better yet always crossed paths at Starbucks but never met…until they did.
Yeah, this title can mean many different things and my mind was wandering but, I was not expecting what the real story of the book was.
Michael Gill learned mostly about himself during his employment at Starbucks, and his lessons (not about coffee) are very translatable to all of us.
At one time in his life, Mr. Gill was the epitome of success. He was raised in the high society of New York, living in fancy apartments and going to private schools. In his own career as a senior advertising executive, he traveled widely, rubbing shoulders with the creme De La creme, including, quite literally, the Queen of England.
Then everything came crashing down around him. Without warning, he was fired. It turns out, neither past performance, experience nor contacts meant anything. Mr. Gill was expendable because of age and his own poor choices left him without his family or future job prospects. Most tragically, he lost all of his self-worth.
His story is an inspirational one based on how he came to be hired by the world’s largest coffee chain, the chain associated with competence and customer satisfaction, is instructive — but not as much as what he learned his first year on the job. These days, however, he's traded his thousand dollar suits for khakis and a green apron for a job as a Batista at Starbucks. But Gill says he couldn't be happier.
Losing his job turned out to be a gift in disguise.
It was within the world of Starbucks that he began really to see other people for who they are. He saw how people overcame obstacles that would have defeated him and saw how hard “simple” jobs can be. Just showing up on time, when you have no car and need to live in a decent place. He learned that this took a lot of effort.
This book reminds me of the kitchen and housekeeping staffs of large hospitals, the aides that are repeatedly late, or nurses whose need to leave on time is obvious. Their lives are ruled by time.

Mr. Gill didn’t change much — except his attitude. But that made all the difference. Instead of contributing to a stressful workplace, he found himself in an environment where appreciation of customers and fellow employees was important. He came to take pride in his accomplishments, even becoming the store’s best bathroom cleaner. His past snobbishness had accomplished nothing except to defeat other people.

The individual store in this book has much in common with an individual nursing unit or clinic. What does a book about Starbucks have to do with nursing? If you say, not much, you would be wrong. In each case, if everyone does not pull together, much can be lost: customers, patients and employees. Some managers have great gifts, bringing out the best in everyone. Some employees are the same. They pull their weight, help others and always look out for the general good.Others don’t. They create a hostile environment in which no one thrives. Mr. Gill shows how people of completely different backgrounds, abilities and motivations can come together and create something worthwhile.
With all this said, I think that everyone should read this book. It could open your mind to things that you never knew existed.