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Insidious or Inane?
Yesterday as I was preparing to fly out of Baltimore airport, I wandered past a coffee shop I hadn’t seen before: Green Beans Coffee Co. Since I imagined I must still be caffeine-deprived after two gigantic seder meals, delicious holiday lunches, and visiting with warm and generous people, I wanted just a simple cup of hot and tasty coffee.
As I approached the kiosk, I noticed that the person in front of me was filling out a form. I assumed she might be completing a job application.
She wasn’t.
When she finished writing on the form that was on a clipboard, I could see the cover sheet:
Valued Guests: Could you kindly fill out the Covid-19 Contact Tracing Sheet, Please.
Seriously? Yes.
Note that it wasn’t really a request or a question: it was a demand.
To be sure I was understanding their “request,” I asked the one person behind the counter whether I could still buy coffee if I didn’t complete the list.
She said no.
By the way, the first column asked for the “guests” name, the second column asked for phone number, and I couldn’t see the third. It could have been asking for an email address. Or perhaps it asked the time of day.
When she said I essentially had to sign it, I said that information is none of your business and walked away.
Just down the concourse was a Cinnabon that sold coffee. (And no, I didn’t buy any of their goodies.) There was no tracing sheet to complete and the coffee was half the price. I bought one and returned to Green Beans to capture a photo of the cover sheet. Afterward, I regretted not telling the other people in line that they could buy coffee at half the price at Cinnabon’s. I didn’t think of saying anything until long after I was home.
* * * * *
I am so tired of companies and organizations who think they can invade our private lives and there’s nothing wrong with it. After all, it’s for a greater cause. Right?
My foot.
I plan to call the headquarters which are in California later today to see if they can tell me how they plan to use that information to help deal with Covid; if the list appears in all their locations; and if staff are instructed not to serve a customer who won’t sign in. I’m going to guess that they have no clue about how they will use the information. I suspect it’s just virtue signaling since they are headquartered in CA.
The shame of it is that their cause is a good one. They are dedicated to serving members of the service and related organizations. A hint to their “woke” approach appears on their website:
In 2018 we rebranded Green Beans Coffee and re-dedicated ourselves to being a forward-thinking Millennial-relevant food & beverage concessionaire willing to take chances. That forward thinking shows in our striking, modern “Elevated Kiosk” under construction now in SFO’s Terminal 3, and our store in the International Terminal.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
A cup of coffee can be pretty darned expensive, in more ways than one.
Published in Culture
I don’t have a daughter.
For actual coconut, I especially dislike the texture. As kids, mom made a chocolate cake with some coconut mixed in, we called it “chocolate wormy cake.”
But coconut vinegar has no “wormy” texture and it does very nicely for tenderizing meats without just making them “sour” the way regular vinegar does.
Are you suuure? That’s okay, it works for everyone.
I for one do not want to deprive someone’s daughter of her cocoanut water. That would be a terrible thing to do. She can have mine.
Thank you. She’s feeling a little dehydrated.
Tried to find a gif of Justin Wilson saying “I gawrontee” but ran out of patience.
Totalitarianism is fun and low-cost moral superiority affirming while the Gulag is relatively empty, but they will get around to you eventually and your database of Covid-19 tracked customers will not be that impressive.
Trading your freedom for a cup of coffee doesn’t seem prudent.
Depends on whether or not it’s good coffee. Starbucks? No.
<3
One of The Who’s better songs.
From today’s Ace of Spades:
Not seeing anything, just a small square something.
Let me know if this works. Ace has has a major catastrophe with its servers and is running a different software I believe.
[Last try]
Still don’t see anything.
I’ve been, but one more time.
Nope, just a little square with some green and blue and a tiny cloud.
Not even #134? Odd. I used four or five different ways to transfer the image. Well, it was bacon ice cream. Very attractively garnished with a half strip of bacon, too.
Is that all?
Sorry.
I see all of them.
COL (do I still have to explain Chuckle Out Loud?). Good. I don’t know what was going wrong. A lot of work for a single Ba-DUM.
Probably a PEBCAK error at @kedavis‘ place.
But you still have to explain PEBCAK. It sounds like something Bronson Pinchot would have for dessert.
Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard.
But I’m just using Edge, so if someone screwed up programming Edge, it’s their fault, not mine.
Unless it’s because Max didn’t do something right for embedding that kind of stuff, FOR Edge…
I’m using “brave” web browser running under android, and and i, too, only saw a little squares with little squiggles of green in as well.
the Futurama clip did however render in the brave browser
Is there something you need to do to allow pictures on the site? (The Futurama clip is actually on another site, Youtube.)
Still, trying another way:
How’s that for you Brave and Edgy sorts?
I see that one.
Stuff like salted caramel works well for ice cream (and gelato), but I have no interest in adding bacon to ice cream.