The Disintigration of Western Civilization Part 2: U-Scan Must Die

The Disintigration of Western Civilization Part 2: U-Scan Must Die


I work at a Burrito Gong. I get payed a little over seven dollars an hour (the state minimum wage plus a tiny merit-based raise) to stand behind a cash register and deal with idiots.


When I'm off-duty and buying pita chips and hommus at a grocery store, it is my turn to be someone else's idiot, but the grocery stores want me to be my own idiot. They have gotten rid of express lanes manned by people. Instead, they install U-Scan express lanes.


This leaves me with two unpalatable options. I can do something that somebody should be getting paid around seven dollars an hour to do and do it for free. Or I can stand in line behind three housewives who are buying the month's groceries for their twelve kids.


I usually choose to stand in the long, slow-moving line. If I've got time to go to the grocery store for my pita chips and hommus, I've got time to stand in line.


That's another problem with the U-Scan concept: it doesn't just represent the death of good customer service at a grocery store, it's also yet another symptom of the constant hurry that Americans live in. I never hurry. There's no point. There is no on-time and no late, there is simply when something happens.

Tomorrow, I will go to the grocery store. I'll pick up something cheap like a pack of gum. Then, I'll stand in line to have my pack of gum checked out by a human being. When I reach the cashier I will thank her for being there to deal with idiots like me. I encourage all of you to do the same.

U-Scan must die.

The Disintegration of Western Civilization Part 1: Somewhere There's a Starbucks With a Starbucks In It

The Disintegration of Western Civilization Part 1: Somewhere There's a Starbucks With a Starbucks In It


Somewhere there's gotta be a Starbucks with a Starbucks in it. I mean like one of those Starbucks as its own place full-size restaurant things with one of those mini-Starbucks-in-an-alcove-things that they put in other stores in it.


Allow me to explain. I am writing this at the Jimmy John's in a strip mall. In the same strip mall at one end is a Meijer, a groceries and retail shopping in one place store not entirely unlike a Wal-Mart Supercenter; I don't think Meijer has spread much past its home in Michigan and some of the adjoining states. In this Meijer is one of those Starbucks alcoves.


At the other end of the strip mall is a Target. This target has replaced the normal Target snackbar area with a Starbucks alcove.


Two of them. In the same strip mall. There's only one place left to go.


Somewhere there's a Starbucks with a Starbucks in it.