I know y'all have been waiting breathlessly for my new rant. I've had a hard time getting it posted, but here it is, in all its glory. Thanks for waiting. Hugs to everyone, btw, even the stinky hippies.
My rant today is about the upsell we have to endure when completing almost any transaction with a large corporation, and how it sucks a little bit of humanity out of our daily lives.
I'll start with eating out. Whether it is a fast-food restaurant or a mid-priced chain, there's always an attempt to get you to buy more.
Arby's, for example, has three sizes: medium, large and giant. (Which is nuts, but that's fuel for another, unrelated rant.) The staff is trained to ask you whether you want large or giant when you order - medium isn't offered as a possibility. So if you want a medium, there's an uncomfortable moment when you stop, look at the menu, determine that medium is actually a choice, and then tell the person behind the register, "medium".
I saw this little scene play out almost every time someone ordered at Arby's yesterday, because medium is already huge and who wants to even contemplate the fat ass that they'd have after eating "giant" for lunch? Of course, the person at Arby's HQ who came up with this plan doesn't care that his little ploy alienates the customer and makes the Arby's employee feel like a tool. The only thing on this corporate droid's brain is the small percentage of customers who will upsize because they're too shy or intimidated to say "medium".
Mid-priced chains (Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster, etc.) are the same. The first interaction with your server is usually a speech: "Welcome to [chain], my name is [name], would you like to start with [greasy overpriced appetizer]?" There's also usually some other point during ordering where the server has another point of upsell (such as adding shrimp to a salad). Instead of viewing the server as someone who can help me understand the menu and who might actually recommend something that's good, I spend my time fending off their attempts to get me to buy the high-margin items that management wants to promote.
Retail is just as bad. There's always the "extended service" warranty at the electronics stores, which is invariably a bad deal. And there's the "club" that you pay to join to get a discount, or the store's special credit card. All of these items are shilled by the minimum wage help manning the cash registers.
Target's a great example. The clerks are trained to ask if you want to apply for a Target Visa before every transaction. The other day, I had to buy two sets of items, one for home and one for my business. I paid for them using different credit cards. Before each transaction, the clerk asked me if I wanted to sign up for the Target Visa card. Hey, I'm the same person I was two seconds ago, and like everyone else, I don't want or need another fucking credit card.
I realize this rant sounds a bit like Andy Rooney whining, but my point isn't just to bitch. I'm actually mourning the loss of positive human interaction that used to occur when ordering a meal or purchasing an item. Instead of having to put up my guard and say "No", I would rather just smile and exchange a pleasantry with the person working behind the counter. Plus, it pains me to see an 18-year-old kid have to act like a tool because his boss at Target will fire him if he doesn't say the same thing every time he opens the cash register. It shouldn't be so hard for him to make enough scratch to buy beer and condoms.
So, this rant is dedicated to the marketing drones at these companies, who are denying me a few tiny human moments in their never-ending quest to add a couple of percentage points to this month's gross. May you all be sent to a special corner of hell where you are forced to wear polyester uniforms and ask "do you want fries with that" to an endless line of pissed-off customers.
