Customer Reviews

How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else

5 star:		(55)
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3 star:		(21)
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1 star:		(25)

 

 

This is the story of a wealthy ad executive who is laid off (in a case of blatant ageism) and must then turn to finding an hourly job at Starbucks to make ends meet. He has the classic rich Manhattanite life trajectory: private school, Ivy League, corporate job with lots of income. He does spend a lot of time away from family though, which prefigures events to come later. He is, both through the reader's own instinct and his telling us so, one of those New Yorkers who has never really met middle class people. It's a sheltered life, but comfortable.

Gill tells his story well and doesn't hold back on the self-deprecation, not at all. His divorce came about for the understandable reason that he met a single, 40ish woman into the arts who lived alone. Mysterious enough for you? So, intrigued and feeling emotionally unmoored with no job, he has an affair and fathers a child. His family is understandably devastated, and the scenes in this memoir of them are wrenching.

Thrown out of the house, with no job, his money runs out and he must learn to be middle class from nearly scratch. He decides Starbucks would work when he reflects how he spends times there and when the local manager and him have one of those conversations blacks and whites have that sound mistrustful but are actually seeking closeness and racial harmony.

From there, Gill confronts all the things that he'd never learned to do; like the simple self-satisfaction of work, independent living, how to handle solitude, and getting to know people unlike himself. Time and again, Gill points out how his pre-fall opinion of someone and how wrong he was, and his post-fall new, more mature appreciation of them. He does it in a way that is tender and loving, and he allows for the sizable resentment some readers may feel at hearing someone used to limos talk about not wanting to walk on 96th Street. 96th Street for god's sake! My first day living here I went to 96th Street to people-watch! I once had a girlfriend who got fired from a publishing job and worked at Barnes and Noble for three weeks, until she couldn't deal with being 22 and being so "common." I thought of her as I read this book.

The PW editorial review is totally misleading, by the way. He talks about as much as you'd expect about the Starbucks job. For a book dealing with his new life, that is expected. Plus, for all the talk about how great Starbucks is, you never really hear about how the place works.

One thing - I didn't realize that the baristas are supposed to talk to you and make conversation. My whole lifetime of going to Starbucks, it's happened once, I see in retrospect.

Definitely get this book.

Michael Gates Gill's "How Starbucks Saved My Life" is a riches to rags, fish out of water story about a once privileged sixty-something guy who works as a lowly Barista and learns lots of lessons.

I got the feeling Gill wrote his memoir and then plugged Starbucks in as it fit. About 20% of the book happens at Starbucks. The rest is devoted to lambasting the advertising industry (they fired Gill), to family and personal tales (often about how clever Gill was as an advertising account manager), and to dozens of dropped names (e.g., tea with Queen Elizabeth, coffee klatch with Robert Frost, assisting Jackie Kennedy in a charitable endeavor, etc.)

The book is about life changes for Gill, but often his epiphanies are over the top. For instance, only after he loses his job, is divorced twice, goes broke and starts work as a Barista does he discover that subways are crowded, that a black woman can run a successful business, that advertising is different from retail, and that a workaholic doesn't spend enough time with his children.

His Starbucks experiences are also over the top. He cherry picks the good stuff, and leaves the impression he is designing an advertising campaign for Starbucks. Gill proclaims that Starbucks "taught" him the value of teamwork, respect for others, the value of hard labor, and how rewarding the simple life can be. Conveniently, the book is a perfect personal size that will fit cozily in a Starbucks product display.

Having worked at Starbucks for several years, I know that the good things Gill experienced resulted less because of Starbucks and more because of the special people he chanced to work with. When I worked with great people, the experience was good; when my partners were un-great the experience could be awful.

Crystal, Gill's boss, is a black woman who grew from an impoverished and horrible childhood to become an inspired, dedicated, and empathetic boss. Probably, the Starbucks environment facilitated Crystal's development as a manager, but I suspect she would have succeeded in any environment that gave her half a chance. Certainly, without her support and guidance, Starbucks would not have saved Gill's life.

Having said that, Gill's Digest-like writing is crisp, easy to read, and occasionally gripping when you suspend disbelief.

I really liked this book. I found it to be a light, entertaining read. I enjoyed the conversational tone and the glimpse at Starbucks behind the scenes. The more I read, the more I liked the characters and felt drawn into their world. You know a book is good when you're disappointed that it's over. It's a book you will definitely want to share with friends.

I was fortunate to meet the author during his current book tour. Like his writing, he is engaging, candid and fun. His message is refreshing in that he feels happier now with far less.

Though I'm not even a coffee drinker, much less a Starbucks frequenter, I've chosen to review this book for two reasons: (1) my strong sense of kinship with the author (though I've never met or spoken with him); (2) my desire to offset the cynically negative reviews here by reassuring readers of the book's essential genuineness (despite its recurrent sales-pitch-for-Starbucks tone).

As you'll read in more detail in other reviews here, Gill claims to have stepped "down" from his Yale and top-ad-exec background, to don a Starbucks apron, serving coffee and cleaning sinks and toilets. Could this have really happened? Could a sane man really be happy with such a swaperoo of lifestyles? I think so.

With my experience as an academic researcher, I've taken the time to check out Gill's background and general credibility. Why would I do that? Because this book's less-is-more message, and manual-work-is honorable message, are so important for our times. Many of the negative Amazon reviews here are cynical about Gill's alleged motives, snide about his professed new attitude toward African Americans with menial jobs, and dubious about his claimed contentment with manual labor following his ivy-league career.

But my somewhat similar experiences tell me that Gill's claims ring true. I've lived and taught in New York and know the neighborhoods he describes. I've researched his executive background, read Joyce Wadler's NY Times article with photos of the Bronxville mansion, etc. Is his professed happiness with far less money and prestige credible? I think so. First, everything about him consistently checks out. And then there's my own analogous experience. After my Ph.D. done at Stanford, Yale and Georgetown, my teaching at the US Naval Academy, etc., I accepted a huge drop in professional prestige by becoming a rookie distributor of a multi-level-marketed cosmetics company, working daily with relatively uneducated people. Years later, after earning a pile of money as a marketer, marketing researcher, author and consultant, I took another big social step downward by getting rid of my pristine Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and moving out of my 5,000 sq. ft. house, now driving daily in a faded and dented '86 Chevy pickup and wearing thrift-store jeans, sweatshirts and sneakers, and helping yardcare guys haul leaves and trash to the dump in my pickup. And I can't begin to tell you how much happier I am with so much less, including a $20 Casio plastic watch.

So when Gill describes how he enjoys his "menial" job and his small walk-up apartment, I have no problem relating to that and believing him. When he describes his newfound pleasure as an older white guy working daily with young African Americans behind a counter, I can relate and sense that what he says rings true. (I've also had two African American sons-in-law, and I'm an older white guy, so I also relate to these aspects of the book, not perceiving any racial-adjustment phoniness that some negative reviewers here allege.)

A couple of reviewers caustically pan Gill's writing style, describing it as of seventh-grade level. But though I have a doctorate in linguistics and have written a ton of sales material, I don't agree. I think the book's tone and style effectively communicate its simple message about -- simplicity.

A few reviewers here lament Gill's frequent name-dropping. But note that I too have done a little of the same. Why would Gill (or I) have done that? I think it's because reference to highly respected people or institutions helps build credibility of opinion. When I read that Gill has personally known and worked with celebrities, etc., I don't perceive it as bragging, but rather as Gill's means of emphasizing the "height" of the status he left behind, in order to better illustrate the point of being satisfied with so much less -- to better illustrate the point that even a person who has closely associated with the most famous can deeply appreciate the most common working person. Various world religions have long attempted to teach this very lesson. In the US, where adoration of celebrity has become a fixation tantamount to mental aberration, this lesson, too, is vital for our times.

In short, I recommend this book strongly on several levels. And if Gill as an ex-ad guy has additionally sensed that this book can get him back into the promo circuit (and even the subject of a movie starring perhaps Tom Hanks), I don't think that mars the book's main messages or core value. I think we as readers should just relax regarding the praising of Starbucks that so regularly pops up (after all, if it saved his life, why wouldn't he praise it), and accept the book for its underlying essential genuineness as a valid story of growth of the human spirit through new appreciation of diversity.

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While Michael Gates Gill couches this as a fall from grace by a man of privileged background, I think that this is a story common to many individuals who achieved success at one point their lives and then are forced to deal with more moderate circumstances. They could be former CEOs, developers, athletes, managers, rock musicians... All are faced with the same question: What's next for me? How can I replicate the lifestyle, work environment, sense of purpose or adulation that I once had? How do I get back on top? Or, how do I deal with the circumstances that life has presented me?

For most middle aged men, the loss of a job or title is very disorienting. It is a time when many must reexamine their lives. After his fall from Grace, Starbucks provided Gill with structure, an affirming environment, and the opportunity to serve others. He learns that happiness is not about money - though he is quick to illustrate that he knows the value of John Lobb shoes. What makes people happy is a lot deeper and more fundamental.

I picked up this book because myself, and many many others, have traveled along the same path as Gill. There were days following my own precipitous decline from law, entrepreneurship, and leadership of a small corporation that I just wanted to show up at any familiar desk, have my regular cup of coffee, let someone else tell me what to do for 8 hours a day, and hope for an occasional note of praise. It would have been very welcome. Except for income and the embarrassment of dealing with friends - the picture he paints of Starbucks (or more likely for me the local coffee shop) - would have sounded great.

Most of Gill's story is very entertaining, but it could have been much more - which is one reason why I have not rated it more highly. He is candid about his own shortcomings and does a good job of relating his experience and comparing the culture of his former ad agency to Starbucks, particularly noting the different emphasis on human dignity. I think where he stops short - and the reason I thought this this book was a little wooden or "two dimensional" - is in examining why the differences were important to him - and everyone else. I think that I intuitively understand a lot of what he must have experienced - but I did not learn as much from his book as I would have hoped.

A final note on a short passage at the end of the book that detracts significantly - the brief acknowledgement section. Whatever lessons he has learned from his experience at Starbucks appear forgotten, as in this section he steps out of character (like an actor after a performance) and resumes his corporate tone and name-dropping. Of course, I think it would be hard for most of us to have endured his experience, and then with the success of this book, not want to shout: "Screw you Life - you gave me lemons and I made lemonade!" Hopefully, this book enriches the lives of others who read it, and makes his experience more meaningful. I wish him well.

This is one of the worst books I've read. In in, Michael Gates Gill waxes poetic about how his life was "saved" by Starbucks and its "Partners" after losing everything. With little self-awareness, Gill's plot line (which includes exciting twists like...hosting a coffee tasting) is studded with flashbacks to his former life, and encounters with...I'm not making this up...Ernest Hemingway and the Queen of England. Name-dropping is always tedious; in this book, it's laughable.

Technically, the book is poorly-written. Gill's editor didn't do enough work in making the dialogue sound realistic. In Gill's world, no one -- including 20-year olds from New York -- uses contractions. Lines like "I am going to tell you...." or "You are doing well..." grate on the astute reader after a few pages; by the end of the book, you deserve a medal for continuing to read.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Gill's memoir is his alarming lack of irony. Ostensibly, working at Starbucks taught him to "live like everyone else." He comes to understand the harsh realities of the working class, and even describes -- haphazardly and unconvincingly -- about coming to see the value of programs like Affirmative Action. That rosy picture is shattered in the Acknowledgments, where he thanks his agent for "help[ing] choose Tom Hanks and Gus Van Sant" to buy the film rights to his story. Which part of "living like everyone else" includes selling rights to Tom Hank? Clearly, Gill's CEO networks and Rich Man contacts are firmly in place; he's got friends in very high places, which erases any likelihood that an hourly wage at Starbucks is his last salvation.

This, perhaps, is why my review is so fiercely negative: Gill had the opportunity to illustrate -- in clear, personal terms -- the difficulty of living on low wages, commuting 3 hours a day on aching feet, piecing together meals, and suffering the lack of decent medical care (much as Barbara Ehrenreich did in "Nickel and Dimed"). Instead of casting a gimlet eye on the injustices that surround him, however, he puts a rosy Starbucks spin on them. Whipped cream makes everything better.

If you really like Starbucks, save your money and buy some coffee...not this book.

This is not a great memoir. Gill's story is interesting, but he is selective in revealing his life story. This is a fairly short book and throughout most of it, Giles gets into too much excruiating detail about what it is like to work at a Starbucks - i.e., how to clean, how to use a register, how to make the coffee drinks. He skims over how and why he ended up in such a job after working in the corporate world for many years. This book leaves you with more questions than answers. Why doesn't he have any friends except for his new work "friends" at Starbucks? What led to his downfall - not just from the corporate advertising world but from his entire former life? Alcoholism? Mental health issues? Why doesn't he have shared custody of his young son? Who is paying his older children's college bills? Did he take the job so that he didn't have to pay much if any child support? Really, this is too simple of a book; it is not much of an insightful, self-searching memoir. It left me feeling that there was a lot more to the story that he chose not to share with the reader.

I'm not sure where to start with this review. I really, really wanted to like this book. I am a Creative Director (albeit not nearly as successful as the author was) and I recently spent 18 months out of work and had started to comtemplate a retail job when I was fortunate to find a job I wanted.

Having said that, this book was disappointing. I can't say exactly why, but as I read the book, I kept finding myself skeptical of the story. I don't doubt the truth of the story, more the how and why of it. I just keep finding myself suspecting that will Gill is telling this story of how he's come to love his new found humility, the Creative Director in him had planned all along to write a riches to rags story. He recalls minor details and what he was thinking at the time, which I seriously doubt he'd have recalled months later. He also has the annoying habit of shoehorning frequent name dropping into common stories. It seems every situation he would find himself in would cause him to think of the time he was hobnobbing with someone famous. From Ali to the Queen of England, Gill seems to have met them all.

Worst of all, it seems that even when he's telling us about his newfound humility, he's sounding awfully superior when he says it. He takes great pride in his embracing of the little people.

It was an OK book, and frankly I'm surprised at all the positive reviews. But, maybe I'm just a little too cynical.

This memoir is a lesson for us all...young and old. No one is immune to the corporate greed and downsizing dilemma. In an apparent ageism maneuver, Michael Gates Gills looses his fragile security when his career dissolves. He was unable to cope and things fall apart and unravel all around him. Untimately he finds peace and good people at Starbucks, where the experience is more about respect for fellow people that his old work environment. He was easily replaced by a younger cheeper worker and fired by someone he hired!. Gill is from my hometown, a place that bred affluence and snobery, but he managed to keep his feet on the ground. It was not a great place to grow up, and he was often lonely as a child...I can identify with that! The descriptions of his mother's New England aria of denial and happy interpretations is dead on correct. The author is not one to paint a pretty picture of his fall from the pinacle of the advertising world in Manhattan. He tells the truth and I'm glad he is having well deserved success now! A quick read!

This book has taken some deserved some shots---poor writing( mostly true) and suspect motivations(Tom Hanks picking up the movie rights), but there are take home lessons. First, corporate America does not care about you. How he got whacked by his employer because of his age rings true. The passage is riveting and has some of the book's better writing. Second, and a subtext that tends to get lost---the difference between being polite to those lower down the food chain(the well to do usually are) and showing respect for them and what they do(working in a Starbucks is just not hard but requires talent).Third is karma. How you treat others comes back to you. He tends to spread this a bit too thick---like strawberry jam on a muffin, a little goes a long way. Finally, and this is bothersome,he seems at points to replace mindless love of one corporate entity(the big ad firm that fired him) with mindless love of another, Starbucks. One is more humane than the other but they are both corporations which exist, well, to exist. But in the flnal pages where his colleagues take him out for dinner you come away with the hope that he understands that it is people who saved him, with their decency and private motivations, not anything else. Hope the movie does the same.