Category: Big Business

I try not to bore you by writing about details from my workplace. There are plenty other subjects I can write about to bore you. That said, the Top Companies issue is all wrapped up, dear readers! I can get some rest! Or get back to writing these posts (Montaigne: here I come!) and bits and pieces of That Thing I’m Working On.

The really exhausting aspect of this annual issue is that I can’t really do anything else. I get up in the morning, have coffee and breakfast, read some papers, then get to work reading annual reports and analysts’ coverage, writing profiles, and revising pipeline spreadsheets as new clinical or regulatory announcements come out. It goes through the workday and into the evening, giving me palpitations when I look at the lists of “Profiles Written” and “Profiles To Write.”

As such, I can’t really get out and go anywhere in the evenings. In fact, it got so bad at one point that I ran out of my good coffee and had no opportunity to get out to Chef Central for a new supply.

It got so bad that I bought Starbucks beans at the local supermarket.

Somehow, Starbucks has become an international ubiquity. I have no idea how, because it seems to have the mission of “educating” people about high-end coffee, but serves up drinks brewed from beans that have been scorched and industrially demolished. It’s either a cruel joke or an attempt at making their standard coffee so unpalatable that consumers have no choice but to order those high-margin sugared-up confections. Or maybe it’s meant to parallel the middle stage of Evey’s education from V for Vendetta, but that would imply there’s some sorta payoff where we get to blow up the PM’s house or something.

Regardless, the downshot is that for several days I was stuck with a bag of Starbucks coffee for my mornings. Finally, last Saturday, my wife and I went on a short shopping trip, so I could hit Chef Central and restock. They were out of my #1 choice (Kenya AA). This happened once before, driving me to mention to the cashier, “I’m ready to kill everyone in this building.” Fortunately, he mentioned that the Jamaican Joe’s is a good second choice, so that’s become my #1A. I picked up two bags of it this time and headed home.

I’m still working though this morning’s mug, so my descriptive powers aren’t up to relating the euphoric rush I got from wafting the scent of those beans when I opened the first bag. If you come visit, I promise I’ll share some with you.

As I poured the bag into a coffee can, I marveled over the contrast with the Starbucks bag. Where the latter was shriveled, blackened, and cracked / chipped / filled with fragments and specks, the contents of the Jamaican Joe’s bags were whole, full-bodied, and, yeah, glistened a little with their oil. But not in a gay way.

Then I thought, “Why write about this stuff when I can just take some pictures?”

So here’s a little side-by-side slideshow of the good beans vs. the bad beans. Enjoy. I’m getting back to my mug. As the incomparable Dave Foley put it on an early episode of News Radio, “I don’t know what it is caffeine does for you, but I’m pretty sure that without it, your head caves in.”

. . . words, that is. There’s only one profile remaining for me to write for the Top Companies issue: Pfizer!

(I save the biggest for last; that’s just the sorta guy that I am.)

From another of my pharma profiles:

In the past year, Takeda made a splash in the U.S. with its surreal commercials for sleep treatment Rozerem. Featuring such elements as Abraham Lincoln and a talking beaver, the spots are supposed to evoke the incredibly embarrassing dream-symbols that insomniacs miss out on. Lucky them.