- The Town Crier
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- #166
#166
Sunday, April 27th
#166
Sunday, April 27th
Crier Quotes
“I’ll, like, tip 10% or whatever, even when I don’t really feel like it.”
⁃ Kylie Jenner on being the change you want to see in the world
Trending News
In a new Instagram video, Jessica Simpson promoted drinking snake sperm to improve vocal performance. Simpson said drinking snake sperm will completely change the way your voice sounds when saying, “dear god, what happened to my life?”
According to Allure, the “tramp stamp” tattoo is making a come back among Gen Z women. Even more surprising, Allure reports, is that 98% of new “tramp stamps” are images of Steve Buscemi winking.
George Santos, whose surprise political ascent to winning a New York congressional seat ended in what prosecutors called “a mountain of lies, theft, and fraud,” was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison. As we originally reported at the time charges were first brought against him, here’s a recap of lesser-known lies Santos told that our investigative team debunked:
He was not the jockey who rode Seabiscuit
He did not play harp at Bon Jovi’s wedding
He does not know the recipe for the Everlasting Gobstopper
None of his pet turtles are sewer ninjas.
Feature
Greeting Baristas Costs Millions, Starbucks CEO Says
Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol said on social media this week that saying “hello,” “please,” and “thank you” to its baristas has cost the company more than you might think. Responding to a user on X, who wondered how much was being spent on the pleasantries, Niccol said, “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Niccol explained the seconds lost in the pleasantry exchanges accounted for quintillions of valuable brew-optimizing time wasted. “Think about it. The average employee greets customers for fifteen, maybe twenty seconds during an order. That accounts for $0.08 of their hourly wage.” Said Niccol. "All it takes is 180 customers daily for these wasteful ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’ to cost us the full $15 for the hour. When you’re doing the volume we’re doing, it adds up quickly.” As it stands, the figure is somewhere in the low $200 million: an amount which Niccol says ultimately “comes out of my ass.”
A 2024 survey found that 73% of Americans say they’re polite because manners matter, even with baristas. Of those, 58% said it’s just “the right thing to do,” while 15% confessed they’re hedging their bets in the event a barista uprising actually happens. “There are more than them than there are of us,” said one respondent, “If they ever realize it, I want to be on their good side.”
Dr. Jessica Elsby, a clinical psychologist and professor at the Gonzaga University, says barista greetings are likely due to how they look, sound, and move like humans. Over time, Elsby says those who frequently interact with baristas, in some cases multiple times per day, may even feel as if they know them personally, which can cause us to project humanness onto them. However, Niccol dispels these notions, arguing that being polite may feel good, it is completely unnecessary. He urges customers to remember that while the interactions they have with them may feel human, they aren’t actually human, and customers should see baristas the way the company does, as simply “coffee and pastry pushing meat sacks.”
At the suggestion of how much the company might lose to unnecessary “hello” and “thank you” pleasantries if the company paid a livable wage and provided adequate health insurance, Niccol shuddered, “Could you imagine? We’d close our doors tomorrow.”
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