A chronological–yet not exhaustive–history of how Starbucks stays failing me

I’m not the first person to lament Starbucks’ spelling of her name. We’ve all laughed at the memes:
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But I am consistently impressed—and equally perplexed—by the myriad ways Starbucks baristas manage to *&%$ up this simple four-letter word. E-R-I-N. My name is so basic. In fact, I was always jealous of my friends with prettier, cooler, longer names. To this day, my bestie, Michelle still rocks her high school-era nameplate necklace. And it still looks awesome, eight beautiful letters to balance out the chain. My name always looked like crap on jewelry. Too short to anchor a necklace, I’d catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and the name part would be somewhere up around my shoulder…

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I tried different types of chains, different lengths. I can’t tell you how much cheap, gold-plated “jewelry” I copped at U.S. 1 back in the day trying to be fly. I probably spent like a whole $30 total. Shout to my Franklin/Brunswick fam! Also, the 90’s.

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A friend gifted me this necklace for my birthday in 2014 after I told him of my nameplate struggle. He could have spent a million dollars on it and it still would have looked this sad. Thanks anyway, boo. xo

But back to Starbucks. As the majority of the baristas I encounter are white, I often wonder 1) whether they’re not familiar with the name Erin (which I’ve always found difficult to believe), 2) if they figured they misheard me because: black, or 3) if they heard me correctly and just expect that my Erin is spelled more creatively??? Over the past 30+ years of life, I’ve grown accustomed to people spelling my name A-A-R-O-N. I rarely, if ever, roll my eyes anymore when I receive letter addressed to “Mr. Aaron Jackson.” And if that is how these baristas were spelling it, fine. It’s still ridiculous, but it’s a ridiculous I’ve come to accept. But alas, here are a few of the variations I’ve gotten:

May 14, 2015

November 2, 2013

This one is super Key & Peele-esque. A-Aron…?

April 25, 2015

April 25, 2015

This one was was actually spelled correctly, but my friend Kelly and I were at a Starbucks in Boston, where misspelling our names is akin to blasphemy.

July 3, 2015

July 3, 2015

I am almost positive no one in the history of Erins has ever spelled it this way.

September 16, 2016

September 16, 2016

Heron. Like the bird. Or Gil Scott. Or the drug.

September 18, 2016

September 18, 2016

The hell??? Arren? I give up.

I could never have imagined there were this many ways to get it wrong. Do you have any crazy Starbucks fails you can share? Fellow Erins out there–have you felt my pain? Please leave me a message below.

More fun facts

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So I was at a Starbucks in Indianapolis where the staff decided to do these little profiles and give “fun facts” on all the baristas so customers could get to know them better. One was a graphic designer headed to the Savannah College of Art and Design. Another is a former sailboat racer. And then there was Katie.

Check out Katie’s fun fact…

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Yup. Diabetes. Woo-hoo!!!

Who wrote this? Was it a joke by one of the baristas to see if we were paying attention? If so, that’s hilarious. But if Katie did this herself, well that’s just sad. But what’s even sadder is that Katie’s favorite drink is a “trenta Very Berry Hibiscus Refresher with lemonade instead of water.” Ummm, did Katie forget about her fun fact? She should probably go with the water. And maybe make it a tall. Whoever is making this drink for Katie must hate her.

I might hate her.

 

From the Blog to the Stage: The Dairy Aisle

Thank God people are hilarious.! Or else my job would be way harder… I posted this status update on Facebook yesterday after a visit to my local grocery store:

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FYI, there was plenty o’ skim in the dairy aisle. Please check out Exhibit A:

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I had a show last nite in Baltimore and I pretty much told the story as-is, and the folks there laughed… I came up with a few more punches/tags on the way home. And I’m thinking that with a little tweaking, this story could be a good candidate for the “I hope you don’t make it to the future” section of my act.

We shall see ;)

What do you think?