James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » I've done some pretty degrading things in my working life - handing out tissues on the streets of Japan and screwing lids on to vinegar bottles in a factory in Leeds are two notable career low-points.
But neither of these harrowing experiences come close to the plight of Starbucks' embattled workforce.
Picture the scene. It's a freezing November afternoon, the streets of Newcastle are bustling with the lunch-hour rush and Christmas is weeks away.
Despite all of the above, your boss has slapped a cap on your head and forced you out into the cold to sing Christmas Carols to the hordes of shoppers.
As if that bad wasn't enough - your bosses at Starbucks have re-written the words of Carols to include humours jingles about the coffee powerhouse.
You can just imagine the conversation that must have transpired at Starbucks Newcastle in the early hours of this morning:
General manager: Lisa you're on tables, Sarah you're on juices and Lee - you're on carol duty.
Lee: Bugger!
Surely there's no more fitting symbol of how horribly commercial Christmas has become than a worker from one of the world's biggest corporation singing words written by their bosses to the tune of traditional carols.
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