Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
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
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Previews available in: English
Subjects
Advertising executives, Starbucks Coffee Company, Employees, Acoustic Neuroma, Marketing consultants, Patients, Biography & Autobiography, Coffeehouses, Biography, Nonfiction, Large type books, New York Times reviewed, Acoustic neuroma, Advertising, Marketing, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, Acoustic nerve, Executives, New york (state), biography, Business consultants, New york (n.y.), biography, Advertising, biography, Consultants, Cancer, patients, biographyPeople
Frank Sinatra, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), Jacqueline Kennedy, Brendan Gill, James Thurber, Walter Mondale, Justice Potter Stewart, Michael GillPlaces
New York, New York (State), United StatesShowing 7 featured editions. View all 7 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1
How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
September, 2008, Gotham Books
Trade Paperback
1592404049 9781592404049
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
2
How Starbucks saved my life: a son of privilege learns to live like everyone else
2008, Gotham Books
1592404049 9781592404049
|
eeee
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
3
How Starbucks Saved My Life
2008, Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Electronic resource
in English
1429580186 9781429580182
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
4
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
1410403602 9781410403605
|
eeee
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
5
How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
September 20, 2007, Gotham
Hardcover
in English
1592402860 9781592402861
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
6
How Starbucks saved my life: a son of privilege learns to live like everyone else
2007, Gotham Books
in English
1592402860 9781592402861
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
7
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
0143142402 9780143142409
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Edition Notes
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Source records
Library of Congress MARC recordLibrary of Congress MARC record
Internet Archive item record
marc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC record
Library of Congress MARC record
Better World Books record
marc_columbia MARC record
marc_nuls MARC record
Links outside Open Library
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?December 17, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
January 27, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
August 16, 2021 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
August 6, 2021 | Edited by New York Times Bestsellers Bot | Add NYT review links |
December 10, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |