Dear Urban Diplomat: my barista’s first name offends me—what can I do about her?
Dear Urban Diplomat, A barista at my local Starbucks, near Yonge and Bloor, is a Persian woman named Nazi, and she wears a name tag. My parents died in the Holocaust, and I don’t need to revisit the memory every morning. Would it be reasonable to complain?
—Latte With Two Sugars and Some Emotional Trauma, Yorkville
It would be staggeringly unreasonable. Nazi is not playing some sadistic, 1940s-themed prank on you. Her name means “cute” in Farsi, and the pronunciation rhymes with “gauzy.” She simply wants to serve you your pumpkin-spiced concoction with a minimum of grief. She must face enough name-based difficulty without you complaining to her boss. So don’t. The good news for you is that Toronto harbours an utterly excessive 160 Starbuckses, 12 of them within a four-block radius of your local. If you’ve decided averting your eyes whilst ordering isn’t a viable solution, take your business to another Starbucks outpost. Better yet: try Crema Coffee at Yonge and Bloor, which is considerably better.
Send your questions to the Urban Diplomat at urbandiplomat@torontolife.com
