May 11, 2008.   Price Gougers

If I had it all to do over again, maybe I would skip college altogether and learn something such as electrical wiring or plumbing.  I am ceaselessly amazed at what people who can do these types of things charge people who can't.

Here's an example.  On a Friday evening, I did something stupid and blew a circuit breaker in our house, zapping all the power on the first floor, including the kitchen (and therefore the refrigerator). Although the circuit box was less than three years old and had been installed when we had the house rewired, I could not get the breaker to reset.  I know nothing about circuit boxes and am fearful of messing with wires when I don't know what I'm doing, so I tried to call the electrician who installed the box.

Since it was Friday night, I got only an answering machine. Concerned that it might be Monday before he got back to me and worried about losing all the food in the refrigerator, I called a listing in the Yellow Pages for "electrical emergency."  To make a long story short, a guy came out, determined that the circuit breaker was defective, and replaced it with another.  For this, he charged us $450.

What can I say?  I can understand – sort of – why lawyers and some other professionals charge hourly rates of hundreds of dollars, but this is ridiculous.  The young man who came out and did the job was not, of course, the proprietor of the company.  He probably got only a fraction of the $450.  Most of it, no doubt, went to his boss, who did nothing but take our call and then called this young guy, who then contacted us and did the work.

Needless to say, I watched what he did.  Next time a circuit breaker goes kaput, I'll know how to replace it.

May 12, 2008.  The Self-Service Myth

I live in New Jersey, one of two states without self-service pumps at gas stations (the other is Oregon).  Many years ago when self-service gas was gradually taking over, we were deluged with propaganda about how we would save money by pumping our own gas.  We in New Jersey were told that we would pay more because we were staying with full service.  (Okay, it isn't "full" anymore; they don't usually wipe your windshield or check your oil, as they did in the long-lost past, but at least they do the pumping.)

Now CBS News has published a comparative report of average prices for regular gas by states, as of May 9.  The national average was $3.671 per gallon, with Wyoming (at $3.475) the lowest.  Good old full-service New Jersey was near the bottom at $3.533.  Surrounding states and every state on the eastern seaboard (all self-serve, of course) were all higher, sometimes considerably more so.  On the West Coast, the only other full-serve state (Oregon) was above the national average, at $3.706 – but the West Coast is high-priced anyway:  the average price for gas in California was a whopping $3.929 per gallon.  Nevertheless, it's quite clear – and has been clear all along – that having self-service gas does not lower the price for the consumer.  In fact, all it does in the 48 self-service states is enable service station proprietors to charge a premium for full service, sometimes as much as 15%.

I am positive that the same is most likely true of other self-service situations.  We don't save a penny by becoming unpaid employees of the business by serving ourselves or checking ourselves out.  Any store claiming that self-service cuts prices for consumers is flat-out lying.  What it undoubtedly does, in the long run, is cut costs for the store because it doesn't have to train and hire as many clerks, but these savings are not reflected in what we pay.  They are reflected in the profits that the store makes.

People who think that self-service was designed to make shopping more convenient and to save us money (which is to say, most of us) are being played for suckers.  They are suckers.  In my own area, we have one supermarket that has no self-checkout lines and even has baggers (gasp!).  I have done diligent price comparisons between this store and others; its prices are about the same.  Because the full-service checkouts are run efficiently, it takes me half as long to check out at this store than it does at a similar store that has mostly self-checkout lines.  I buy 90% of my grocery purchases at the full-service store.

It's impossible to turn back the clock on self-service gas, but widespread refusal by customers to go through self-checkout lines at other stores might put a dent into this abuse.  As I said, why should you be an unpaid employee?  The only reason that self-checkout is (maybe) saving you time is that the store is badly managed.

When I shop, I keep one thought foremost in my mind:  I am the customer, and the store is responsible for serving me.  It doesn't produce or make what it sells.  Its job is to provide a service by selling goods, and I can and will buy those goods elsewhere if it does not do that job.

May 14, 2008.  On the Fast Track to Where . . . and Why?

A few people responded on the Message Board to my comments about self-service.  Here's a related subject to consider.

What drives us to be in such an infernal hurry?  It strikes me as ironic that we seem compelled to get everything done even faster when we have devoted a huge amount of effort to inventing machines that can do everything faster for us.  The crowning irony is that we have worked very hard to develop technology to do work for us, and now we're working harder than ever.

Turning over some of the drudgery to machines was supposed to give us more leisure time.  As far back as I can remember, we dreamed of the 30-hour work week – a plausible goal because, in theory, with the assistance of machines we could accomplish in 30 hours what used to take 40 hours.  It didn't happen.  We still work as many hours as ever, maybe more, and we are expected to be more productive.  Not only that – we are expected to get more done faster.

Perhaps we really do have more leisure time, but we are now rushing through it, going as fast as we can from one activity to the next.  Or we are attempting to do as many things as we can at the same time.  We call that multitasking.  We're like little kids, who rarely walk but know only three speeds – run, run faster, and dash.  Any adult who just moseys along is either infirm or very, very old; in fact, the word mosey has almost disappeared from the language.

Consider the typical road trip these days.  The goal is to hop on the nearest interstate and get from point A to point B as fast as possible.  Most of the "scenery" consists of other vehicles, going as fast as, and usually faster than, the law allows.  If it weren't for the necessity of going to the bathroom or eating, most of us wouldn't even bother with rest stops.  Anyway, hardly anyone at a "rest stop" is resting; everyone is dashing about and gobbling fast food as quickly as possible so as to get back on the road.  Once more, adults are like children:  "Are we there yet?"

No wonder we're exhausted and stressed much of the time.  The sheer drive of constantly "doing" wears out our bodies and minds.  We are not content with just "being."  Any given day is a blur of activity until, at the end, we may collapse into the easy chair and watch television, where, of course, any relaxation we might get is broken up by advertising in which we are supposed to absorb the messages in 30-second spurts.  We try to ignore them, but our minds are being subtly conditioned to race forward.  The "pause" button in our brain has been deactivated, and the "fast-forward" button is the only one we know how to use.

Another irony is that we're living longer, which should mean that we have more time overall to do whatever we want to do.  Yet I see retirees scrambling about with schedules that are almost as frantic as they had when they were working.  I think it's great that many old geezers like me can have active lifestyles, but perhaps we should modulate the pace, especially now that we can afford to do so.  Our so-called declining years should be a time for reflection, a time to savor the time we have left to us.  Unfortunately, many of us are so addicted to gulping down huge chunks of experience without holding on to them long enough to taste them fully.  Do we really want to have nothing to look back on but huge blur of frantic activity?

Perhaps I have a distorted view because I live in a part of the U.S. noted for fast-paced living or because I'm just getting old.  Yes, age inevitably slows us down, but we shouldn't wait for that to be forced upon us.  When we find ourselves running about like decapitated chickens, it's time to hit the pause button.