The 64-year-old big shot advertiser at JWT had it all and then lost everything when he was fired for being too old in Michael Gates Gill memoir, How Starbucks Saved My Life: A son of privilege learns to Live like everyone else.
Distressed and broke, Gates was drinking coffee at a Starbucks, thinking about his family life he had messed up, a brain tumor near his ear, which was making his hearing difficult and the financial crisis he was in when he was then offered job at Starbucks and everything changed.
Gates came across as a caricature of the Upper East Side aristocrat, raised in enough privilege to be completely divorced most of his life from feelings of economic insecurity. Peppered throughout the book are fascinating stories of his encounters with famous and powerful individuals. Gates went to Yale and got a job purely on connections through Skull & Bones, and then had a full, successful career without ever really learning math or how to handle money. These recollections are told as he masters his hour and a half commute each way by subway to his job in Starbucks, and during the hours he spends cleaning the stores toilets.
I enjoyed the basic epiphany of the journey – the realization that a supportive, friendly environment can in fact be a part of a great and successful company and workday. After reading how Starbucks offers health insurance, stock options, and a positive culture for its “partners,” I dreamed of working there myself.
Recognizing how he had previously ignored the poor, judged those in a class not his own, and confronted his own racism, Gates grows as an individual before the reader’s eyes.
“I promised myself that I would not get so pumped up with ambition or a crazy self-righteous pride in anything I did that I lost my perspective again.”
The author talks about “partners” and “guests” and “respect” to the point it got tedious and distracting at times. This book is mostly about his experience at Starbucks, and you could get jaded to it if you believe that this book is just company propaganda.
Sometimes it’s hard to feel sorry for Gill considering the majority of what happens to him he did to himself. He’s the one who alienated his children and cheated on his wife, but his words are not self-deprecating. He doesn’t spend page after page making the reader understand how miserable his life was. He spends page after page explaining how the corporate culture of Starbucks transformed his life and the lives of his New York co-workers.
I am happier than I have eve been…I could feel a kind of gentle, inner happiness I had never felt before…I was almost scared; still afraid to admit to myself how happy I was now with a job as a barista at Starbucks…I had to admit that I felt great relief in the different life I had now…even my little apartment.”
Tom Hanks has already grabbed the movie rights to the book. Readers looking for a short, quick, and heartfelt read will enjoy this book.
GENRE: Non-Fiction
