Scribblings

Accountability

The fish in Texas won’t be depressed anymore! I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to read an article about blue gill fish on prozac of all things. Prozac never worked for me. I went into hyper-drive and couldn’t sleep while I was taking it. I don’t know how it’s affecting these fish. It’s definitely an eye opener to learn how the drug got into the lake water in the first place.

If people on prescriptions pee into the toilet and the water is then carried to a filtration plant that does not remove the drug byproducts then it’ll go right into the lake or … our drinking water too? Now there is a scary thought!

Every once in a while, I’ll remember the farmers feeding their cows and chickens high levels of antibiotics and other vitamins and what-have-you. I know it shows up in the meat. There is a concern about people becoming immune to some of the drugs that could save their lives because they are getting too much of it in the food.

A few years ago, I interpreted at a natural preservation park that had a day focusing on Rachel Carson. I’d heard of Silent Spring but had never read it. I saw a film about the author and about that book. It turns out that Rachel Carson did her best to warn us about the dangers of crop dusting with pesticides. My hair about stood on end watching clips of the planes dropping these poisons … right on the head tops of kids in a school yard! That wasn’t the only place pesticides were being dumped.

I was disgusted to see the big chemical companies attacking Carson, branding her as a hysteric and a troublemaker. She was discredited and mocked. And then … the government learned that hey, she’s right, we’re doing a lot of damage here! By then, well, it was just about too late.

When I left, I went right to the library and checked out Silent Spring. The title comes from a particularly horrifying scenario in which the earth is so damaged by these toxins there are no more birds to sing in the mornings. It hasn’t gotten to that point but it almost did. DDT got into the water and into the bodies of the fish. It got into the air and into the bodies of the birds. The most chilling fact I read in that book is everyone born in 1954 and after have some DDT in their livers.

For awhile, it looked as though we were trying to do the right thing. The Environmental Protection Agency was formed. Use of certain pesticides, fertilizers, drugs and so on became banned because they were harmful to the air, the soil, the water, to animals or to people.

Not too long ago, I read that President Bush might relax some of the restrictions placed on industries that have polluted our world in the past. Apparently these industries are whining about the burden of cost placed on them to clean up their acts. Please. Give me a break.

I have heard some people say something like, “Well, why should I care? I can’t do anything about it anyway and I won’t be here when the toxins choke the earth to death.”

I guess maybe they think their kids won’t have to deal with it … or their grandkids.
I’m not so sure. God gave us this world to care for and we are doing a pretty botched up job when we look the other way or when we don’t speak up when regulations are relaxed.

Scary thoughts.

Saturday-8 :: No Deposit, No Return!

Welcome to this week's Saturday 8. As the holidays approach and stores get ready for the onslaught of consumers, we propose a new kind of store. One where you can get in and out without annoying lines, where you don't have to stand behind a little old lady returning her toaster from the 60's because it finally stopped working or the guy returning his 20 year old turntable for credit towards a CD player. A store where unaccompanied/unwatched children are escorted outside to a holding pen. In short, a store where you can get in, find your item, get out and on with your life. In an effort to create such a store we've prepared a market survey to see how consumers such as yourselves would respond to having such a store in your community. Please be honest and elaborate on any answer you wish to share your opinions on. Hopefully we'll be coming to a city near you soon!

1. All products come with a manufacturer's warranty. Anything you buy that has a problem will be replaced by the manufacturer. Knowing this, would you shop at a store with no customer service desk? If no, what if they had a UPS Store or similar shipping counter that would send it to the manufacturer for you?

Who wants to wait on a long customer service line to return something? If all products come with a manufacturer’s warranty to replace problems then it doesn’t matter to me if there’s no customer service desk. If they had a UPS store there, I would be even more inclined to shop there!

2. Would you be willing to do without a sales team roaming the floor trying to help some of the customers if the item you were interested in had a full and complete description listed? For example, a computer would list every part in it, the specs of each part, descriptions of all the software as opposed to bullet points taken from the side of the box.

I’ve noticed that not only are most sales people annoying, they’re also pretty ignorant sometimes of the products they carry. I could do without a sales team if I could understand what the description said. Sometimes the descriptions have too many techy words in them and go way over my head … although I suppose if that was the case, I ought to bring a knowledgeable person with me in the first place!

3. If you entered a store that was organized more like a grocery store, having each area clearly labeled as to what products are sold where and not just by category, would you refrain from asking where things are?

I doubt it because sometimes I can’t find an item even when the aisles are clearly labeled. For instance, I have been looking for OTC soup crackers for the last 2 or 3 weeks and I still haven’t found them. I’ve been up and down the cracker aisle at least a dozen times. I need to ask but so far the store has been too crowded for me to brave the hordes at the customer service center.

4. Often we find ourselves waiting in line behind the person that feels the need to update their checkbook ledger at the register or they are a checkwriting challenged. Therefore, would you shop at a store that only took cash or credit?

No because then everyone who is credit-or-debit card challenged would go to the store and get in line ahead of me anyway. ;)

5. Stores loose money when customers do not pay their bill. This cost is passed on to you in the form of interest rates. Would you obtain or use a store card where they refuse to sell you any merchandise, regardless of payment method, until you've settled your delinquent bill?

Are you kidding? I like that idea! If I owed a store a lot of money I’d be too embarrassed to go in there and buy more stuff anyway!

6. Often stupid or ignorant consumers clog up the works for the rest of us. In order to weed out such consumers, would you be willing to shop at a store that treated these types of customers like they deserve? Some examples:

Q:You people aren't very helpful, are you?
A: Only to those that deserve it.

No way. At some point maybe it’s me who is the moron and I sure don’t want some sales person to be sarcastic or rude to me.

It’s all relative. Maybe these customers seem stupid to us, but they have real concerns. It’s not our place to say they should be treated badly. :P

7. Most stores force you to shop at their hours, only extending them during the holidays. If there were a store open early in the morning (from 5am - 10am for example), closed during the day for cleaning, tagging, stocking etc., and reopened at evening (4pm - 11pm for example), would you find that more suitable to your shopping hours? If not, what would be a good schedule?

My schedule varies day to day. I like the store hours as they are now.

8. Finally, when a store closes, it's closed. Lingering customers not shopping or rushing to buy trivial things like film or batteries just get in the way of those that have been there the last hour trying to complete that HDTV purchase. Would you shop at a store that refused entry to new customers 30min before closing, warned you that the registers close exactly when the store does and basically ushered everyone out of the store once it closed, purchase complete or not?

No, I don’t like shopping in stores that are so anal about their closing policies. And I do understand that the clerks want to get the heck out of there and go home. But if I went to a store a half hour before closing and was made to feel like I needed to hurry up or get out I sure would not go back!

We feel having a store without customer service, not wasting payroll on sales staff when you know what you want and can help yourself if given the information on the product, filtering out those that clog the shopping experience for the rest of us is in fact giving you a place to get done what you need and on with your lives. After all, you're shopping for something to take away and use in your life, not for the experience of sitting behind someone asking the difference between a CD and a DVD. Your survey will be reviewed by our home office and your comments incorporated into our business philosophy design of a new store, hopefully coming soon to your hometown.

Thank you for your time.

I don’t think this would be a store I I’d go to more than once! Heh.