When I first moved here, I couldn’t find a Starbucks near my office. (Google Maps told me there was one there, but I literally couldn’t find it.)
Then I found locations one block west and two blocks east of my office. I drank an occasional cup, but they weren’t terribly convenient.
Eventually I discovered the location one block east, within easy walking distance, but tucked inconveniently inside a building. Then they built a fourth location two blocks west, from which I bought another two or three cups per year – no real volume at all.
And then they built the one on the same block as my office, and I’ve bought a cup of coffee every morning since.
We’re gonna need a whole team of psychology researchers to figure this one out.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Consider a team of economists instead. My take is the expenditure of exercise comes at a higher utility cost than the expenditure of money and only the former is sufficiently high to dissuade this purchase.
Don’t you have free coffee in the morning!?
September 5th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I do have free coffee in the morning. I can get free coffee when I leave my apartment, and I can get free coffee when I get to my office. But in between, there’s sweet, sweet mocha, and somehow that makes all the difference.
That’s why the psychologists are needed.
September 7th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Four Starbuck’s within two blocks of your office! They obviously aren’t trying hard enough.
September 7th, 2008 at 8:59 am
There WERE four Starbucks within two blocks, but they too knew they weren’t trying hard enough. Now there are FIVE.