Starbucks Observation Essay

Going as far back in history as Mesopotamia, espionage has existed. For example, the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt “reveal the presence of court spies” (Espionage in the Ancient World). However, not everyone can be spy in the CIA or M1-6. As a result of that, “people watching” was born. People watching is the act of observing people, usually without their knowledge. For my assignment, I chose to observe (people watch) inside Starbucks. I chose Starbucks for a couple of reasons. The first reason being that since there is only one Starbucks in town, it is going to be heavily populated. Furthermore, with the temperature dropping at night (which was the time of my observation), Starbucks is packed to the walls with everyone wanting a hot

At the time of my observation, the people at Starbucks generally fell into two groups: racial and gender. More often than not, if one group did not classify as racially specific then they could be classified as gender specific and vice versa. However, there were a few exceptions to the two groupings observed, and in one of the cases, the people were all wearing the same school shirt. As a result of that, one could argue that school groups could be added as a grouping. In terms of ages within the groups, most of the people within the groups observed seemed to be roughly around the same age group. The only exception to that was two families that I observed, and within those two families there was a wide range between ages. During my observation period, I was able to notice distinct hierarchy within some groups. For example, during the observation of the familial groups, the father (I presume) seemed to be in control of the conversation and its direction. Furthermore, upon listening to their conversation, I noticed a difference in speaking tone when one member of the family was talking to another member versus a member talking to the father. For example, when the daughter was talking to her brother, their tone