‘Diabetes Here I Come’: Starbucks Customer Appalled At Rude Note On Receipt, Shares It With Internet
“Diabetes Here I Come.”
That was the message printed on a Starbuck’s customer’s cup, and he is not amused. The unidentified man took his complaint to local media, and now the story of the rude comment has gone viral worldwide.
As MSN reports, the story began on Friday when a Saint Augustine, Florida, man, who has chosen to keep his identity a secret, ordered a Starbucks drink — a grande white chocolate mocha. He and several office mates all put in their own Starbucks orders and sent another employee to a nearby Starbucks location to go pick them up.
When the co-worker returned, the man discovered an unflattering note attached to his drink: a printed receipt with the words “Diabetes Here I Come.”
A @Starbucks customer tells me he’s hurt by the message he received on his coffee cup. Details on @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/hNMeC6ysRJ
— Kaitlyn Chana (@KaitlynANjax) April 8, 2016
The Starbucks customer didn’t think the joke was funny at all: he has two sisters with type I Diabetes.
“That first word just automatically brought the picture of both sisters in my head, and I was taken aback. Just the struggles they went through and all the doctor appointments they had.”
The customer wrote his own note to Starbucks, and gave it to WJAX (Jacksonville) reporter Kaitlyn Chana in order to send a message that diabetes isn’t funny.
This @Starbucks customer tells me he wants the #Starbucks employee to know his sisters suffer from Type 1 diabetes. pic.twitter.com/lzmeAwLLdm
— Kaitlyn Chana (@KaitlynANjax) April 8, 2016
Chana showed the offensive cup to the manager of the Saint Augustine Starbucks location, Kent Miller, and asked if Starbucks condones editorializing about diabetes on their customers’ drinks.
“No, we definitely don’t condone, but let me find more about this, and I will talk to my boss.”
Chana also sent an email to Starbucks corporate headquarters about the offensive message and got the following response.
“We strive to provide an inclusive and positive experience for our customers, and we’re disappointed to learn of this incident. We are working directly with the customer to apologize for his experience, and with our partners (employees) to ensure this does not happen again.”
It’s unclear how the offensive message about diabetes got printed on the Starbucks cup. Although Starbucks did confirm that the message originated in the store, some internet users pointed out that it could have been added by the person who made the order on-line.
The man who received the order doesn’t want an apology — he just wants to make sure something similar doesn’t happen again.
Despite the poorly-intentioned joke on the Starbucks cup, diabetes is no laughing matter. However, type I Diabetes — the type the man’s sisters have — is not necessarily caused by sugar, according to the American Diabetes Association.
“The myth that sugar causes diabetes is commonly accepted by many people. This is a complicated issue. Eating sugar has nothing to do with developing type 1 diabetes. Type 1 is caused by genetics and other unknown factors that trigger the disease.”
However, high-sugar diets can lead to other health complications, such as obesity, some forms of cancer, and type 2 Diabetes.
And Starbucks drinks have plenty of sugar; in fact, some Starbucks drinks can contain as much sugar as a milkshake or more.
A grande white chocolate mocha, like the man who got the offensive diabetes message ordered, contains 470 calories and a whopping 59 grams of sugar. By comparison, the American Heart Association recommends that adult men keep their daily sugar intake limited to 45 grams per day.
Do you believe Starbucks was wrong to write “Diabetes here I come” on a customer’s drink?
[Image via Shutterstock/weedezign]
