buttercup

We are also small cogs in a similar business enterprise, so we know that the profit /cost disparity is as large as it can possibly be. The customer is always pushed to the absolute limit of what they are willing to tolerate in terms of cost, quality and inconvenience to maximise this profit.

This feeling of being constantly ripped off and milked, while we do longer and longer hours (we are also customers at work; we pay with our time, which has different value depending on our intelligence, education and what others are willing to pay for our time balanced against the urgency or desirability of the service we provide) means that we feel we DESERVE it.

At the coffee shop, the service is slow and surly. The place is a bit dirty, there's a weird smell coming from the toilets. And the coffee isn't that great. And the sandwich you ordered comes. It's advertised as X and there's a beautiful picture of it in the menu. It looks like it came from the seven eleven. It's been microwaved, even though it has salad on it. It was 100 NT, ffs! So you snarl at the waitress who agrees but can't say so because her boss is listening. The boss also has no control over what's on the sandwich; sandwich component and assembly instructions come from head office.

buttercup