How Starbucks Saved My Life

A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else

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Last edited by ImportBot
October 24, 2011 | History

How Starbucks Saved My Life

A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else

  • 19 Want to read

In his fifties, Michael Gates Gill had it all: a big house in the suburbs, a loving family, and a top job at an ad agency with a six-figure salary. By the time he turned sixty, he had lost everything except his Ivy League education and his sense of entitlement. First, he was downsized at work. Next, an affair ended his twenty-year marriage. Then, he was diagnosed with a slow-growing brain tumor, prognosis undetermined. Around the same time, his girlfriend gave birth to a son. Gill had no money, no health insurance, and no prospects.One day as Gill sat in a Manhattan Starbucks with his last affordable luxury—a latte—brooding about his misfortune and quickly dwindling list of options, a 28-year-old Starbucks manager named Crystal Thompson approached him, half joking, to offer him a job. With nothing to lose, he took it, and went from drinking coffee in a Brooks Brothers suit to serving it in a green uniform. For the first time in his life, Gill was a minority--the only older white guy working with a team of young African-Americans. He was forced to acknowledge his ingrained prejudices and admit to himself that, far from being beneath him, his new job was hard. And his younger coworkers, despite having half the education and twice the personal difficulties he'd ever faced, were running circles around him.The other baristas treated Gill with respect and kindness despite his differences, and he began to feel a new emotion: gratitude. Crossing over the Starbucks bar was the beginning of a dramatic transformation that cracked his world wide open. When all of his defenses and the armor of entitlement had been stripped away, a humbler, happier and gentler man remained. One that everyone, especially Michael's kids, liked a lot better.The backdrop to Gill's story is a nearly universal cultural phenomenon: the Starbucks experience. In How Starbucks Saved My Life, we step behind the counter of one of the world's best-known companies and discover how it all really works, who the baristas are and what they love (and hate) about their jobs. Inside Starbucks, as Crystal and Mike's friendship grows, we see what wonders can happen when we reach out across race, class, and age divisions to help a fellow human being

Publish Date
Publisher
Gotham
Language
English
Pages
272

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: How Starbucks Saved My Life
How Starbucks Saved My Life
2008, Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Electronic resource in English
Cover of: How Starbucks Saved My Life
How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
September, 2008, Gotham Books
Trade Paperback
Cover of: How Starbucks Saved My Life
How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else (Thorndike Press Large Print Biography Series)
January 9, 2008, Thorndike Press
Hardcover in English - Lrg edition
Cover of: How Starbucks saved my life
Cover of: How Starbucks Saved My Life
How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
September 20, 2007, Penguin Audio
Audio CD in English - Unabridged edition
Cover of: How Starbucks saved my life
Cover of: How Starbucks Saved My Life
How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
September 20, 2007, Gotham
Hardcover in English

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Book Details


The Physical Object

Format
Hardcover
Number of pages
272
Dimensions
7.6 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
Weight
12.6 ounces

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL8866449M
ISBN 10
1592402860
ISBN 13
9781592402861
OCLC/WorldCat
85783305
Library Thing
2639125
Goodreads
427475

Source records

Internet Archive item record

Links outside Open Library

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
October 24, 2011 Edited by ImportBot import new book
April 28, 2011 Edited by OCLC Bot Added OCLC numbers.
August 10, 2010 Edited by IdentifierBot added LibraryThing ID
April 24, 2010 Edited by Open Library Bot Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs.
April 30, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from amazon.com record