In 2000 I changed jobs and it necessitated a lifestyle change. Well, not all that much of a lifestyle change, but a change in habits. Every Sunday morning in the newspaper there was an advertisement for K-Mart and every week there would be specials on items I used on a regular basis. There was sale pricing on things like deodorant, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, bars of soap, and Pepsi and Coke. Most of all there were occasional sales on coffee-- Folgers gourmet supreme, Jimbo’s favorite blend-- and a frugal shopper could shave a couple of dollars a week off his purchases, if one shopped wisely.
Prior to 2000, I worked in an affluent suburb and there was a K-Mart close to work and directly on the way home. After 2000, I worked in an older, industrial area of town, far from affluence and closer to the mean streets. There was another K-Mart close to work and almost directly on the way home, but it bordered an area where real estate agents fear to tread. As far as I was concerned, both stores were laid out similarly, the prices were the same and the selection was just as good. From the checkout lanes back, there was no discernable difference. The stores resided in different socio-economic strata, and were separate, but equal.
The notable difference, however, was from the checkout lanes forward.
In the southern suburb, when one reached the checkout lanes to finalize one’s purchases, there were rarely more than one or two people ahead of you in line. Usually there was no one and you could check out and breeze right through. If a line began to form, the manager would dispatch another clerk to open another lane and they would bust their ass to get there. Okay, I guess I never actually saw any asses broken, but they got there in a hurry. Frequently, there were more lanes open than there were people having their purchases rung up. When you reached the checkout area, often a clerk would invite you into an empty checkout lane, so there was no waiting.
On the edge of the industrial area, one could always plan to stand on line for at least a few minutes, but usually longer as it always seemed as if there were only one or two checkout lanes open any time one went there. Most of the time the lines stretched back into the store and waits of ten minutes or more were common. I remember I always felt uncomfortable waiting in these lines for long periods of time and I remember many times black, Hispanic and Asian people in line with me mumbled the same complaints I was thinking.
I’m sure many of you are now saying, “Oh, now the truth comes out. Jimbo, for all his progressive ideas is, in fact, uncomfortable around blacks and minorities. What’s the matter, Jimbo, are you only comfortable being in contact with minorities when you are on your horse and wearing that pointy white hood and carrying a torch and burning those crosses in their yards?”
No! No! It’s not that. I just hate wasting time in line, and I don’t think merchants should force anyone to do it. After all, we are the buyers and they are the sellers and the guy who puts up the bucks is the guy that calls the shots. So why is it okay to make customers stand in line in the city and not expose them to that inconvenience in the suburbs? Is it an economic issue? Does the merchant know that suburban customers won’t put up with long lines and they will go somewhere else? Or it is a social issue? Does the merchant think that the urban people will just have to put up with his crap because there is nowhere else to go, except the long drive to the suburbs, where everyone is treated as they should be?
I’ll grant you, my conclusion is derived from some pretty slim data-- just a visual comparison of two stores during visits of duration of only fifteen minutes to half an hour. It strikes me, though, as if something is wrong. If not with my conclusion, then with the merchant or with our society. Maybe we just have a situation where a store manager is trying to cut some labor costs. If so, he will be cutting his own throat, if capitalism works as it should. Or maybe we have a society that is in need of some repair. If so, we need to fix it. And not just so Jimbo won’t have to stand in line.
In Jimbo’s world if we see something is wrong, we try to make it right. Or, at least we tell everyone about it.
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