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At CIA Starbucks, Even the Baristas Are Covert
An anonymous reader writes with this interesting story about what it's like to work at “Store Number 1,” the CIA's Starbucks. The new supervisor thought his idea was innocent enough. He wanted the baristas to write the names of customers on their cups to speed up lines and ease confusion, just like other Starbucks do around the world. But these aren't just any customers. They are regulars at the CIA Starbucks. "They could use the alias 'Polly-O string cheese' for all I care," said a food services supervisor at the Central Intelligence Agency, asking that his identity remain unpublished for security reasons. "But giving any name at all was making people — you know, the undercover agents — feel very uncomfortable. It just didn't work for this location."
... tradition of ticket numbers?!
When you live in a sick society, just about everything you do is wrong.
Yet the government (FBI) objects to our desires for privacy (Apple & Google on-phone encryption).
Okay, and what? Is that it? Starbucks at the CIA doesn't use names for customers, just like any other coffee shop in the world, or any shop for that matter.
News for nerds = Nope.
Stuff that matter: = Negatory.
my local SB even if they know you by name (I have long histories with a lot of coffee shops around here, most of them know me by name and how I like my coffee), none of them write names on cups. They all, for large orders (more than 4 cups) write what's actually in the cups.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I thought that was a Pike's Place in Seattle?
Use Pike or Howard :-)
I can actually understand this - suppose I was an agent and I made up a random name, like 'Polly-O string cheese'. If I used it consistently, a spy for the other side could do traffic analysis - things like " 'Polly-O string cheese' always gets a coffee, except for 2 recent periods of about a week each. Suspected agent X was reported as being in country Y, an ally of ours, during those 2 periods, and at no other time. Next time 'Polly-O string cheese' doesn't get a coffee, if X is in country Y, get the Y state security to arrest him.
If I were agent X, I would be very nervous at having to give any name, even if I could make one up each time. Humans are not very good at making up random things...
James Bond. And I'll take that shaken, not stirred.
What was I thinking? I'll just send Moneypenny down to fetch the coffee.
Have gnu, will travel.
My defence against Americans criticising British coffee always used to be that the worst coffee I ever had was in a cafe in St. Petes, FLA. Then I had a coffee in a Starbucks at London Heathrow, and I was forced to concede to Americans that the worst coffee I ever had was indeed in Britain. :(
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
but they all use their loyalty program cards tied to their personal credit cards....
-- Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui
"Because the campus is a highly secured island, few people leave for coffee, and the lines, both in the morning and mid-afternoon, can stretch down the hallway."
What a waste of time and resources!
For a group of people who likes to give the impression they are all super geniuses (and by extension deserve X 100 billion a year in funding), I would expect at least one person could have done some capacity planning and figured out how big the Starbucks need to be for that location. How about some accountability? Fire the person who planned this coffee shop. His/her mistakes cost the country the hourly rate of each person in line * the time they waste standing around.
Not to interfere with your nascent flame-war or anything but "self-funding" is not inconsistent with "getting more taxpayer money". First, they may get larger appropriations while at the same time running side businesses. Second, even if their appropriation were cut to zero, any money they make on the side becomes "taxpayer money."
One of the most fundamental principles of our form of government is that no executive branch agency can spend money without Congressional approval, no matter where that money came from. The reasons for this go back to the English Civil War. Charles I attempted to rule without calling Parliament, but since the Magna Carta English kings did not have the power of taxation; the House of Commons did. So Charles attempted an end-run by exploiting a fee that had been traditionally levied on coastal towns to pay for maritime protection in time of war. Charles's attempt to use "Ship Money" as a revenue source independent of Parliament was one of the key events leading to the Civil War, and was familiar history to the framers of the US Constitution.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Until Starbucks came along, though, we really didn't even pretend very hard to have good coffee.
That's not strictly true, at least not in some big cities and college towns that had decent coffee shops pre-Starbucks. It was really quite sad where I was living at the time when Starbucks came to town and basically started taking over spots that used to be indy coffee shops. Sure, not all of them were great, but they were generally better than Starbucks... Which frankly is terrible. Even if they had decent coffee, I wouldn't prefer to go there because of the pretentious BS of it all. No, I don't find it sophisticated or even cute to call sizes by some bizarre names, no I don't want to be asked 20 questions including my name just to order a plain standard drink. In Italy, you can find better coffee on any block at the local bar, and they don't need any of this crap "grande white chocolate mocha 1% with whip" to serve up something decent. You don't need white chocolate syrup and whipped cream to make a decent espresso taste good. I'd personally rather get a coffee from Dunkin Donuts than Captain Ahab's mate's joint.