I Love Starbucks! Lessons Learned from Starbucks Headquarters

It's been a while since my last post but I have been travelling for work with little time to sleep let alone write. For my work, I travelled to Starbucks Support Center (aka Headquarters) in Seattle. Here's a little entry about my experience.

A little caveat here, I LOVE STARBUCKS! Surprisingly, I'm not even a coffee drinker; I'm a tea drinker. So you may ask why do you LOVE Starbucks? Before, this week I really wouldn't have been able to answer the question but after visiting the Support Center, I realized it's because of the sense of community and belonging I feel when I walk into a store. The same sense of belonging and community is within the headquarters.

Here are some lessons learned from being at Headquarters

1. Respect- creating community is challenging and I realized that why I love Starbucks because they foster community through respect of people, environment, time, and place. Everyone was so nice. At the headquarters everyone took so much care for each other, recycling bins clearly labeled were everywhere, almost everyone was gone at 5pm, people took pride in making sure their spaces and personal places were clear.
2. Aroma and fragrance is everything.Walking into the building and it smells like freshly roasted coffee is so intoxicating. Imagine working in a Starbucks commercial...where the best part of working is the smell of Starbucks in the air.
3. Ambience is key. Set the mood for work and at Starbucks that includes collaborative work spaces set up like coffee shops and living rooms. Also imagine walking through the halls of your office hearing cafe music playing all day.

I plan to take these lessons and apply them to my own work space. Maybe my attitude will be more pleasant and productivity will increase; it's worth a shot.

Original Starbucks Logo

Love Survives: A Tribute to Katris Roberts Tolliver

This week my best of best friends, Vivien or Yolanda as I call her, lost her sister, Katris- "Kay" in a car accident. It's difficult to comprehend and extremely hard to acknowledge but I write this entry as a tribute to acknowledge and celebrate her life.

Kay is (I am using the present tense because to me she still is) a mother, sister, daughter, wife, friend who brought joy and light to so many people's lives. Today, at her celebration of life service so many people spoke of her being a good person, as someone you would want in your life. As a mother, her son clings to her. As a sister, the bond is closely tied. As a daughter, her parents are proud. As a wife, she loves. As a co-worker, they could depend on her.

What I know is that Kay loves them and they love her. Even though, the flesh may not be present; love still survives today and forever more.