Assignments
Little morsels of personal fun.
10/31/2018 0 Comments A War on McDonaldization: How to Break the Flow of Commerce with 20 Quarters and a Smile Modern breakfast culture is defined by convenience. Whether you’re getting a coffee at your local Starbucks in preparation for a long day of board meetings, or you’re ordering a quick bite from a fast food drive through on the commute to work, the expectation is that these options will be both efficient and readily available. If you’ve ever been in such popular venues during the early morning rush, you’ve undoubtedly experienced long lines moving at a fast pace. Customers are terse, workers keep it simple, and everyone leaves with what they need to start their day. The process is almost mechanical; chances are, you’ve had an order or two in your life that’s become rehearsed down to the please-and-thank-yous. But what happens when we interrupt the system? How will the mechanics of the well-oiled morning machine compensate when a wrench is thrown in? The assignment is simple: find a food-based location wherein the customers and staff act on a regulated routine, and force them all to break it with you.
While in Ann Arbor for a brief academic responsibility, I visited a local Starbucks coffee. Now, I’ve never been a huge proponent of coffee myself, and the lines out the door you usually see at college towns do nothing to persuade the less-than-avid drinker. It was easy to see how busy these venues became while walking to my morning classes – they made for the perfect target for social sabotage. Unfortunately, Ann Arbor facilities tend to test first thing in the morning, so I had to drop in alongside the far less concentrated noontime coffee crowd. My plan was simple: I would provide the cashier with an extra $5, and loudly announce to the rest of the store that they could avoid paying change if they simply requested to use the leftover funds. My expectation was that the monotonous interactions between cashier and customer would become more involved, as both parties kept close track of the tempting resource. I was wrong; the cashier, more than anyone, avoided mentioning the presence of the extra money to anyone who didn’t ask. Even when customers showed interest, most gave up when it came to splitting the $5 into smaller amounts. To create a social change, I had to change my approach. Once foot traffic settled, I spoke to the cashier again, this time requesting another $5 in change (quarters, specifically). I laid the coins out evenly on the counter, in plain view of both the cashier and customers, and made my announcement. As new waves of groggy college students wandered in with laptops blazing, a new bustle began. People were asking about the quarters, wondering whether it was some kind of program, offering their own additional change. The cashier began pointing me out to customers who were curious, and I made sure to smile and wave from a clearly visible seat. There was about $1.50 left on the counter when I ultimately left. What did I change, ultimately? Well, customer/worker interactions were becoming involved. Before, and during, the initial $5 contribution, the most either party could muster was confusion before quickly receding back into memorized monotony. After the quarters were laid down, people began looking up, smiling. Predetermined patterns were thrown through a loop as the repetitive ordering process these customers were used to was altered by a new circumstance. The machine didn’t break – but it did bend. I would love to try this little experiment again, perhaps during a far busier time frame, at a far busier location. New rules can obvious shake up the highly mechanized transactions, but can they change the very nature of the convenience-oriented consumer?
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