Dwight’s Fragrant Crap

Squatter setup his office in Starbucks. Image from gizmodo.com

I’m pretty sure if you owned a restaurant and saw this guy setup his PC on your table while there’s a large waiting line of people willing to shower you with cash, you’d immediately ask your waiters to kindly escort him out of your store’s premises for taking up space, abusing his privileges and draining your establishment of valuable electricity. Of course, as you see, Starbucks won’t do that.

If you haven’t heard of it, the concept of a third space is one of Starbucks’ primary marketing strategies. A third space is basically where you go to or hang-out after home (first space) or school/work (second space.) Starbucks actually wants their stores to be your home away from home; and because of this, they allow people (not sources of profit, but people) to practically turn Starbucks into their own offices and living rooms. Because of this setup, Starbucks may have lost some profit in the short-run for some people who wanted to abuse their privileges in Starbucks; but in the years that came, their general visitors became consistently and extremely happy with the whole Starbucks experience that they were willing to shell out exorbitant amounts of their hard-earned cash for a venti latte, daily!

People will try to cheat you and you’ll lose money today; but they’ll be happy that they can get one over you that they’ll bring it back tomorrow at ten times the amount through bringing friends, being a loyal customer, and spreading the word for you.

Maybe it’s time to look at our lives and see where we can actually be “cheated” for much larger returns five, ten, or twenty years from now.