Day 163

Dear Mr. President,

Several Januaries ago, I was living in Washington DC, and I'd just begun training as a barista in my bookstore's cafe. Sometime during the week-long training process, the dress code's exclusion of pinstripe pants, the same actions and combinations of ingredients repeated drink after drink after drink, even the words we were taught to say started to bother me. I sat outside the store on my lunch break, ignoring the light snow, and cried with despair. I was 21, and convinced that, because I was not in school for the first time in my life, I was doomed to amount to nothing, that my life was broken beyond repair. My boss sat outside with me and asked me what it was in life that I wanted. He told me (perhaps in an attempt to boost my self-esteem and perhaps because he meant it) that I was too smart to be serving coffee, that I wasn't allowed to give up on my potential yet.

I'm 24 now, and I still serve coffee. I'm going back to school this fall, and, while I'm terrified that I'm no longer smart enough or somehow too old to be back in a University, I would not be doing it if it weren't for this belief that I have the potential to be more. That serving coffee is not my destiny. I want to be useful to people, to Do Good and to matter in ways I can't really articulate but I know can never be realized if I don't finish my education. I'm afraid that this is arrogant, that I might do a lot worse than to serve coffee and that I should not imagine myself to be better than any job, no matter how awful the hours or silly the dress code or mindless the work. I'm afraid that I will only disappoint myself if I try for more. Maybe my destiny is just as ordinary as I am now, and I should make the most of it.

I could not do this without the legislation you've passed to make higher education more accessible to people like me, and for that I cannot tell you how grateful I am. I think that the importance of education cannot be overstated, and I am so glad that my government recognizes this. You can't give me the answers, you can't give me direction or purpose or self satisfaction, but you can and have given me the assurance of knowing that the education I need to escape is possible, even for some one of my limited economic means.

I look back on the person I was, years ago, and I see that I have grown up enough to believe in second chances; that I am not so young as to think that 24 is too old to start over. I'm still plagued by the same fears and the same arrogance and the same self-doubt, but at least I have enough hope to try and improve my situation. I have had too much help from too many teachers and mentors and friends along the way to ever imagine I am doing this alone, and I know that it is their faith, more than anything, which has given me the audacity to try again. I hope that, when I am much older and, hopefully, wiser, I can look back at this summer and my restlessness and see that it was all for the best, that my growing out of my situation in life will lead to greater happiness for me and greater usefulness to our society. I dare to imagine that is exactly what you had in mind.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 144- Green, Pink and (Red)

Dear Mr. President,

Twice in the last two days I've encountered the term "greenwashing," a concept with which I was previously unfamiliar. Greenwashing, the practice of a company promoting false or exaggerated environmental claims in order to increase profits, can also be applied to other causes exploited for corporate game; KFC has recently been accused of pinkwashing, while (Red)washing charges have been leveled at Gap and Apple. My own employer is often accused of such practices, which is the context in which I first learned this term.

I'm struggling with this. I don't like the idea of exploiting consumer idealism for profit; my last employer did this on a regular basis, on a much smaller scale. We'd often be told to organize book drives for local charities, in order to increase the number of books (or toys) our customers purchased. However, we would not accept donations that customers brought in or purchased elsewhere. Every time I'd head complaints about this, however, I'd have to ask, do the children receiving these donations care if the company sending them had ulterior motives? Also, a struggling company is always going to try to convince customers to spend more; if they can't appeal to anything but a customer's charitable instincts, doesn't that do more good than finding a way to convince them to spend more on themselves?

When it comes to campaigns like product (Red), detractors claim that marketing the trendiness or sex appeal of social causes does more to increase the profits for the corporations, than it does for the charities they partner with. This criticism seems foolish; Bono's entire pitch for corporations participating in (Red) is based on the idea that participating in the fight against AIDS can help businesses. If these companies aren't donating enough of their profits for the satisfaction of some critics, boycotting these products isn't likely to encourage them to donate more. I think that any money generated by such campaigns is better than no money at all; it's impossible to gauge how much awareness this creates, as well. Will a consumer who has spent a little more for a product that donates to a social cause feel that they've done enough, and stop donating, or feel good, and donate more in order to continue feeling good? What is the harm in encouraging our consumption to be directed in ways that are, even marginally, mitigating to the damage our way of life does to the earth and the developing world?

Of course, there are other examples of harmful practices that are cloaked in claims of corporate responsibility. KFC's partnership to help breast cancer research, for example, encourages behavior that probably leads to breast cancer, (and is, inarguably, unhealthy.) BP's "Beyond Petroleum" ad campaign was deceitful, at best, even before the oil spill. And corporations aren't the only ones guilty of this; Israel's 60-year anniversary spawned an ad campaign to encourage tourism with the unconscionably insensitive slogan "No one belongs here more than you." When advertising is so disingenuous that it actively encourages purchases or behavior that is outright harmful to the buyer or to others, especially when it is done in the name of charity, conservation or any good cause, I think it crosses the line.

What would you say, Mr. President? Would you rather Americans bought fair-trade, shade-grown coffee from Starbucks and product (red) shirts from Gap, or that we saved our money, purchased less, and donated to these causes directly? Do we have to bring down corporations for their harmful practices, or pressure them, through our spending, to change their ways? Is a good deed less "good" if it is done for selfish reasons?

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 111- Why I'm a Barista and not POTUS

Dear Mr. President,

Today I was yelled at by a customer I was serving, rudely scolded before I'd even had the chance to do anything wrong. It wasn't a big deal, or even an interaction that far outside of the ordinary, but it's had me contemplating the type of person who gets that angry about coffee. You certainly get angry complaints all the time, you must hear it and read it and see it on a daily basis. Your job requires you to make unpopular, difficult decisions that affect people's lives; a certain amount of anger is just to be expected. I feel as though my relative lack of importance ought to keep people from every getting this angry at me, but then, I suppose every one needs a way to deal with their bad days.

I think this is a bit like appointing a Supreme Court Justice. You've barely begun the decision making process, and already some are angry that your nominee will be too partisan, too moderate, too traditional, too activist, or any number of other hypothetical superlatives. I understand a reasonable amount of concern with who the next Justice will be; the lifetime appointment affords so much power for so little accountability that it is important for citizens to be engaged in the process. However, like my customer today who had a very specific idea of what she wanted and was already convinced that I would not give it to her, many of the hysterics over your decision seem absurdly preemptive.

I hope that the wisdom you displayed in nominating Justice Sotomayor will see you through to making another excellent choice. I'm lucky, in that my conflicts with those I serve can almost always be quickly resolved; I'm empowered to just give them what they want, even when they don't think that's possible. You can only nominate one person, and they can't possibly hope to please every one. I suppose that's why you ran for office and I make coffee all day. Anyway, my workday will be starting in only a few more hours, so I'll leave more important issues for another day. I hope this letter finds you well, and not too overwhelmed with the impossible task of governing a country as difficult as this one. And please, be nice to whoever is serving your coffee.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 41- Small businesses

Dear Mr. President,

I'm not an economist. I don't know how small businesses are defined, or how they affect the economy or anything like that. I don't know what taxes hurt them or which policies help them. Today, I went to the cafe down the street from my house, which is owned by 3 sisters. They've been open for a year, but they've been making coffee in Seattle since before I was born. They love their customers, good beer, and loud music. The cafe has a bar, a ping-pong table, and video games; it's a local haunt for university kids and a friendly space for LGBTQ gatherings. It's one of my favorite places to go. One of the owners and I got into a conversation about the difference between working for yourself, as she does, and working for a large corporation, like I do. My job might be considered "safer" than hers, or at least, I have much less to lose than she does, but we agreed that her interactions with people are more genuine and more meaningful because of the sense of community created by a small business.

I know small business are important to you, and I'm grateful for that. I may not work for one, but when I shop, I always try to shop local, or to support small business, when I can. My favorite coffee shops, my grocery store, the best restaurants and bars are all small, locally-owned institutions. They are a source of pride. I'm glad you're willing to advocate for small business, to defend these last vestiges of local color in a world increasingly smeared with strip malls full of the the same corporate logos. I know you'll do your part, legislatively. I think people need to be reminded of their own responsibility, their own power as consumers. If we don't want every one in our community to work at Wal-Mart, then we shouldn't shop there just because it's more convenient than making many stops. We must sometimes be willing to forgo the cold efficiency and lower costs of the corporate model.

As the cafe owner and I were talking, she began to talk about the obstacles faced by small business owners. Her greatest concern wasn't the government, it wasn't taxes, it wasn't even corporations. It was consumers. People who would rather have the consistency of corporate coffee served by clean-cut youth in collard shirts. She may have found her niche, may have enough customers who love the informality, the out-of-this-world espresso and the smart-mouthed bar tenders, but she knows she's one of the lucky ones. It is, once again, proof that the quest for the cheapest, most convenient things in life has a hidden cost, a toll taken on all who forgo complexity and contradiction for thoughtless repetition. Thank you for advocating for small businesses, Mr. President, and I hope that you keep reminding Americans how important they are.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey