I have to write this quickly. You see, my
wife has just dished an Amazing lunch. If I don’t get to the table
quickly, my 6 year old son will just about scoff everything in sight and
leave me with only some disfigured grey –beige cartilage thingy left
behind after the chicken carcass has been absolutely vandalised and
decimated to a pulp of gooey skeletal remains.
Our subject today is about modern convenience and about how more the ‘convenient’ things get, the more inconvenient it becomes.
A mouthful huh?
I was pondering about things this morning. I’m always pondering about stuff. I ponder, therefore I am. It’s just about the only thing I’m good at.
I took my kids to the KFC Drive-through (or thru, as it’s spelled) – and noticed something. Drive-thrus were originally created and designed for quick hit-and-grab takeaways: Order – Pay – Collect, without ever leaving the car. Now, as amazing as this sounds, in reality, as we’re all aware – one ends stuck up behind Koos and the Koekemoer family for ages. There are usually 10 cars ahead of you (the Thabo Tshabalala family in car #3 will order half the store as well) and when you do eventually place your order, you’re asked to park elsewhere for half an hour while your waiter, Amy Adams from Athlone, and the staff cook up something that somehow slightly resembles the thing you requested. During the wait, while everyone else is munching their grub, you’ll notice Piet Pompies and his Crocs wearing clan go into the shop, order and receive their goodies, eat and leave long before your parcel arrives.
My point is, we have all become so attached to the concept of convenience that we completely miss what the term ‘convenience’ actually is. We will endure just about any inconvenience to achieve this new version of convenience we’re all programmed and hot-wired to believe is beneficial to our lives.
Take IVR systems (that I wrote about previously). It’s created to help and aid the customer and the company, but very rarely does. Or 3G cellular Network speeds – modems offer up to a billion Gigabits per nanosecond – but, let’s be honest – is slower than a snail high on Prozac and Castle Lager. There’s also Metrorail (a public transport system so inefficient, locals in Cape Town started dubbing the train service operator MetroFail). Or how about Internet marketing services! “Apply for your new automatic toilet roll bum wiper and have it delivered to your doorstep in 24 hours”; “Russian brides only a click away”; “Apply for the Newspaper Editor post at StrontPraat Publications by filling in the following five thousand questions about why we need to even have this role in our company and why you feel you can do something as easy as it”.
Our home and car is filled with gadgets and gizmos that sounded so cool when I bought it. Aerosol toilet spray for example: Stay very far away from that Ylang-Ylang crap. As cool and funky as the spray can looks, the content just enhances stinky smells. It should be marketed as a tile remover and paint stripper.
We also have automatic cereal dispensers (standing empty for months). The car has a cup holder that’s been designed to hold anything but any cup made here on planet Earth. When I put on the TV using the hundred button remote control (I only use 5 buttons: The volume control, On / off and channel selection) – I’m usually greeted with a ton of infomercials promising me a fabulous life if I purchase their all new automatic coffee cup stirrer.
Things that were initially created to speed up and simplify our lives end up doing completely the opposite.
Game and Makro offer Fridges with automatic ice dispensers: It looks uber cool from the outside, but the ice machine gizmo-thingy takes up half the space on the inside of the fridge! Microwaves now offer grilling, baking, cooking – everything but microwaving. I have a portable vacuum cleaner that merely relocates dirt to another section of the room. Everywhere I go, every direction I turn – I’m offered with items promising me freedom from the oppression of lifting my arse up and doing it the old way. And these products, I can only imagine, were designed in a laboratory filled with large chubby idiotic couch potatoes who ponder stuff... much like me, I’m guessing. The only difference is, they get paid to do this sh*t.
Maybe I, the great ponderer, should invent something too. Something that would be flawless in design. A celestial grand masterpiece of orgasmic quality that would go viral and change the world forever... like peanut butter flavoured bubblegum. Or Spur-ribs scented cologne. Or a call centre that actually focuses on customer service. Or a political party that actually cares for the country's need. Or a fly-thru for Boeing Jet passengers wanting Nandos.
I have a pair of takkies that were designed by a former NASA spaceship wizard. It contains cushioning for running, high dynamic rubber non-slip soles, strips of pleated leather to allow your feet to breathe and is ergonomically engineered for comfort, double stitched and triple laced and aerodynamic and super cool to look at... But I prefer my crocs - now that I’m on to Piet Pompies and his efficient way of approaching the world... regardless of what Glamour magazine says about it.
And my wife just popped her head into the doorway, glanced at the computer screen and asked: “Bitching again?” Sigh... Let me go and see if I can find any chicken left on the grey-beige bony lunch remains my kid left me.
Our subject today is about modern convenience and about how more the ‘convenient’ things get, the more inconvenient it becomes.
A mouthful huh?
I was pondering about things this morning. I’m always pondering about stuff. I ponder, therefore I am. It’s just about the only thing I’m good at.
I took my kids to the KFC Drive-through (or thru, as it’s spelled) – and noticed something. Drive-thrus were originally created and designed for quick hit-and-grab takeaways: Order – Pay – Collect, without ever leaving the car. Now, as amazing as this sounds, in reality, as we’re all aware – one ends stuck up behind Koos and the Koekemoer family for ages. There are usually 10 cars ahead of you (the Thabo Tshabalala family in car #3 will order half the store as well) and when you do eventually place your order, you’re asked to park elsewhere for half an hour while your waiter, Amy Adams from Athlone, and the staff cook up something that somehow slightly resembles the thing you requested. During the wait, while everyone else is munching their grub, you’ll notice Piet Pompies and his Crocs wearing clan go into the shop, order and receive their goodies, eat and leave long before your parcel arrives.
My point is, we have all become so attached to the concept of convenience that we completely miss what the term ‘convenience’ actually is. We will endure just about any inconvenience to achieve this new version of convenience we’re all programmed and hot-wired to believe is beneficial to our lives.
Take IVR systems (that I wrote about previously). It’s created to help and aid the customer and the company, but very rarely does. Or 3G cellular Network speeds – modems offer up to a billion Gigabits per nanosecond – but, let’s be honest – is slower than a snail high on Prozac and Castle Lager. There’s also Metrorail (a public transport system so inefficient, locals in Cape Town started dubbing the train service operator MetroFail). Or how about Internet marketing services! “Apply for your new automatic toilet roll bum wiper and have it delivered to your doorstep in 24 hours”; “Russian brides only a click away”; “Apply for the Newspaper Editor post at StrontPraat Publications by filling in the following five thousand questions about why we need to even have this role in our company and why you feel you can do something as easy as it”.
Our home and car is filled with gadgets and gizmos that sounded so cool when I bought it. Aerosol toilet spray for example: Stay very far away from that Ylang-Ylang crap. As cool and funky as the spray can looks, the content just enhances stinky smells. It should be marketed as a tile remover and paint stripper.
We also have automatic cereal dispensers (standing empty for months). The car has a cup holder that’s been designed to hold anything but any cup made here on planet Earth. When I put on the TV using the hundred button remote control (I only use 5 buttons: The volume control, On / off and channel selection) – I’m usually greeted with a ton of infomercials promising me a fabulous life if I purchase their all new automatic coffee cup stirrer.
Things that were initially created to speed up and simplify our lives end up doing completely the opposite.
Game and Makro offer Fridges with automatic ice dispensers: It looks uber cool from the outside, but the ice machine gizmo-thingy takes up half the space on the inside of the fridge! Microwaves now offer grilling, baking, cooking – everything but microwaving. I have a portable vacuum cleaner that merely relocates dirt to another section of the room. Everywhere I go, every direction I turn – I’m offered with items promising me freedom from the oppression of lifting my arse up and doing it the old way. And these products, I can only imagine, were designed in a laboratory filled with large chubby idiotic couch potatoes who ponder stuff... much like me, I’m guessing. The only difference is, they get paid to do this sh*t.
Maybe I, the great ponderer, should invent something too. Something that would be flawless in design. A celestial grand masterpiece of orgasmic quality that would go viral and change the world forever... like peanut butter flavoured bubblegum. Or Spur-ribs scented cologne. Or a call centre that actually focuses on customer service. Or a political party that actually cares for the country's need. Or a fly-thru for Boeing Jet passengers wanting Nandos.
I have a pair of takkies that were designed by a former NASA spaceship wizard. It contains cushioning for running, high dynamic rubber non-slip soles, strips of pleated leather to allow your feet to breathe and is ergonomically engineered for comfort, double stitched and triple laced and aerodynamic and super cool to look at... But I prefer my crocs - now that I’m on to Piet Pompies and his efficient way of approaching the world... regardless of what Glamour magazine says about it.
And my wife just popped her head into the doorway, glanced at the computer screen and asked: “Bitching again?” Sigh... Let me go and see if I can find any chicken left on the grey-beige bony lunch remains my kid left me.
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