I refuse to use self-check out. When I first saw cashier registers being replaced at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Shaw’s, I thought, “Brilliant! I can run into a store and buy stuff without human interaction. The days of making embarrassing Home Depot purchases and shuffling up to the counter while trying not to make eye contact with the cashier are over!”
Then I tried to buy gum and a headband using self-check out at Wal-Mart. First, the computer rejected my bagging technique, and the machine jammed up and asked me to seek the assistance of a Wal-Mart employee, which I did for about the amount of time that it would have taken for a cashier to scan my goods and send me on my way. By the time that was settled, I opened my purse to pay and somehow spilled all of my change across the Wal-Mart supercenter. I left the store embarrassed and confused, and assumed all guilt in the matter.
In the few similar experiences that I had with self-check out, I slowly got better at using the machine, but then about a year ago I realized something: I was in Wal-Mart employee training. Actually, I was a volunteer Wal-Mart employee. In fact, every consumer who had ever used self-check out was in training to be a self-sufficient buyer. Corporate America has just pinched our cheeks and told us that we were old enough to do the big-kid chores, and we, glowing with pride, dashed out the kitchen door to get started.
Now that I’m looking for a summer job, I like the self-check out concept even less. It is another machine that is replacing the need for human labor, which is good for the bottom line of the corporation, and bad for the displaced employee looking for a job. If an ideal corporation is a self-sufficient machine that turns all profit for no cost, where will potential customers go to earn money to pay for its products?
Currently, we are in an unfair bargain with the corporations we buy from. The only way to stop them from telling us what to buy and how much to pay for it is to put our money where our loyalties lie. That means buying from the people we know and respect most. It means waiting in line for one extra minute, so that a cashier can say “hello” to us, and scan our items, and bag our goods, and help us feel unflustered enough to not empty our change purses onto the floor, and say “thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart” as a paid employee should.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Little Love
You are so
Tiny
My little
Tiny house.
But still you
Beguile,
You
Sweet domicile.
I know these
Words are
To you
Short-selling,
My XS dwelling,
But know that you
Could not be improved
As a petit abode,
Unless you were
served
A la mode.
Photo by Rachel Salois
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Wednesday Post
I—self appointed Tiny House guru of Champlain College—am finally building a house on campus, which is cool, but harder than I could have imagined when we started this project (if I even could have imagined anything about what it is like to build a Tiny House) . Being a student activist who wants to help other people become student activists, I’m going to tell you what it is like to stand in the culmination of all the work I have put into planning this sustainability week. It is a complicated place, because it is the intersection of my two lives: the “college student doing finals and making summer plans” life, and the “eco-hero of the week “life.
6:45 AM: My alarm goes off in the middle of one of those dead sleeps where I realize later that I may not have moved (even a little) for the whole night.
7:00 AM: A bowl of Kix and a bowl of Frosted Cheerios for breakfast. Yessss…
7:13 AM: Shit! I have to leave. Must catch the 7:25 bus, but my teeth aren’t brushed and my backpack isn’t packed.
7:17 AM: Teeth briefly brushed. Backpack packed.
7:20 AM: At the bus stop in record time.
7:21 AM: Oh. Actually the bus doesn't come until 7:35. No matter, I’ll do my homework while I wait…
7:30 AM: (on the bus) Can’t read with angry republican financial radio talk show in my ear. Oh well. 2/52 pages of reading complete.
7:45 AM: Arrive at Little House worksite in Hauke Courtyard. Randy (the carpenter helping us this week) works hard pounding nails, making measurements, and cutting wood with power tools. I stand around watching him, because I am unqualified to operate all tools in the world.
8:30 AM: Randy gives me a job to do!
8:31 AM: Job is hammering nails into wood.
8:32 AM: Randy chuckles while I hammer away (generally) in the direction of the nail and manage to pound it in about 1/8th inch with about 12 strikes from the hammer. This is the hardest wood I have ever pounded a nail into.
8:33 AM: Randy leaves me to struggle in privacy, which I prefer.
8:45 AM: Have learned to fear nails, because if you hit them at a weird angle when you first start pounding them in, they ping off in crazy angles at 1,000 times the speed of light.
8:46 AM: Ask Randy for safety glasses, which pleases him immensely, because he is the safety inspector on the construction site where he normally works.
9:00 AM: Every nail I hammer in brings me closer to safety.
9:30 AM: Caity arrives and is equally unskilled at hammers, which means it is funny instead of life threatening now.
10:00 AM: It’s funny, but still impossibly hard. I have lost about 20 nails to lightspeed pinging now.
11:00 AM: Have gone back to observing work instead of participating in it, which is where I feel most comfortable at the moment.
12:00 PM: Etc.
INTERMISSION
1:00 PM: Eating Yak meat at Rob William’s Vermont Yak Company presentation. The sun is shining and I am eating free food.
1:15 PM: Time to get to my class that started at 12:30…
1:25 PM: (In journalism class) Being asked questions about the student newspaper. I feel proud but also nervous and defensive about answering them.
1:26 PM: Come off sounding more defensive than proud.
1:30 PM: Class gets out early.
2:00 PM Another class.
INTERMISSION PART II: ATTACK OF THE ZOMBIES
3:08 PM: Class is not boring, I manage to sound intelligent after only reading two pages of homework, and we get out early. Yesss…
3:10 PM: Work at the seed-planting table. I love plants, so feel happy about helping people plant seeds in the sunshine.
3:30 PM: Asked by Chris Yoon and Connor to be in their Zombie movie.
3:31 PM: Get filmed walking into an elevator and screaming at Chris Yoon’s dead body. (No Chris Yoons were injured in the making of this movie.)
3:50 PM: Clean up and prepare to job search downtown.
4:10 PM: Inquire about summer work at Old Navy, Gap, Aeropostal, Bath and Body Works, and Famous Footware.
4:45 PM: Inquire about work at a little gift shop downtown where the girl at the counter says, “Let me get you an application,” and then proceeds to pull out a stack of 50 already filled out applications. Unable to find me a clean one, she prints another off and sends me on my way feeling less confident about the prospect of finding a summer job.
5:00 PM: Call mom to tell her about my job search.
5:15 PM: Bust out in tears on the phone over my nervousness about finding a job and guilt of wanting to pay to live in Burlington for the summer even though I don’t have a job yet. My deposit is due in two days if I decide to stay.
5:20 PM: Mom is calm and reassuring.
5:25 PM: Am all snuffly and puffy red-eyed in public, looking like an ultra-stupid idiot, but have at least stopped crying.
5:30 PM: Hang up the phone and decide to discreetly walk to the locker room to pick up my backpack, even though I look like a hurricane just hit my face.
5:31 PM: Run into my boss on the sidewalk. He is a very nice person, but I would rather not have run into him so shortly after the tear-busting incident.
5:32 PM: Escape by saying I had to go apply for a summer job. I hope he thought it was for a job as an actress in the crying scene of a Zombie video.
5:35 PM: See Lorelei with her shirt half on (everything was covered) in the locker room and run into her arms.
5:45 PM: Tell her my whole story. She cheers me up by telling me jokes and talking about this kid in a totally worse situation. I feel better.
6:25 PM: Get on the bus and go home.
6:45 PM: Get home and none of my roommates are there to greet me.
6:55 PM: Grab a fresh Pillsbury Homestyle Biscuit and my Spanish book and go next door.
7:00 PM: Tucker makes tacos while we discuss jobs, summer, and whether or not Peeps (like wine) get better with age. I also am semi-barely studying Spanish.
7:30 PM: Go back home and eat cod and carrots for dinner.
8:00 PM: Tell my roommates, Allyson, Carl, and Scott about how I won’t find a summer job and will die.
8:15 PM: Allyson finds me an ideal summer job about WRITING about TINY HOUSES, which are the two things I love most (not including any people who I love.)
8:15 and half a minute PM: Scream and kick the yoga ball hard because I am so happy.
9:00 PM: Start writing this blog.
6:45 AM: My alarm goes off in the middle of one of those dead sleeps where I realize later that I may not have moved (even a little) for the whole night.
7:00 AM: A bowl of Kix and a bowl of Frosted Cheerios for breakfast. Yessss…
7:13 AM: Shit! I have to leave. Must catch the 7:25 bus, but my teeth aren’t brushed and my backpack isn’t packed.
7:17 AM: Teeth briefly brushed. Backpack packed.
7:20 AM: At the bus stop in record time.
7:21 AM: Oh. Actually the bus doesn't come until 7:35. No matter, I’ll do my homework while I wait…
7:30 AM: (on the bus) Can’t read with angry republican financial radio talk show in my ear. Oh well. 2/52 pages of reading complete.
7:45 AM: Arrive at Little House worksite in Hauke Courtyard. Randy (the carpenter helping us this week) works hard pounding nails, making measurements, and cutting wood with power tools. I stand around watching him, because I am unqualified to operate all tools in the world.
8:30 AM: Randy gives me a job to do!
8:31 AM: Job is hammering nails into wood.
8:32 AM: Randy chuckles while I hammer away (generally) in the direction of the nail and manage to pound it in about 1/8th inch with about 12 strikes from the hammer. This is the hardest wood I have ever pounded a nail into.
8:33 AM: Randy leaves me to struggle in privacy, which I prefer.
8:45 AM: Have learned to fear nails, because if you hit them at a weird angle when you first start pounding them in, they ping off in crazy angles at 1,000 times the speed of light.
8:46 AM: Ask Randy for safety glasses, which pleases him immensely, because he is the safety inspector on the construction site where he normally works.
9:00 AM: Every nail I hammer in brings me closer to safety.
9:30 AM: Caity arrives and is equally unskilled at hammers, which means it is funny instead of life threatening now.
10:00 AM: It’s funny, but still impossibly hard. I have lost about 20 nails to lightspeed pinging now.
11:00 AM: Have gone back to observing work instead of participating in it, which is where I feel most comfortable at the moment.
12:00 PM: Etc.
INTERMISSION
1:00 PM: Eating Yak meat at Rob William’s Vermont Yak Company presentation. The sun is shining and I am eating free food.
1:15 PM: Time to get to my class that started at 12:30…
1:25 PM: (In journalism class) Being asked questions about the student newspaper. I feel proud but also nervous and defensive about answering them.
1:26 PM: Come off sounding more defensive than proud.
1:30 PM: Class gets out early.
2:00 PM Another class.
INTERMISSION PART II: ATTACK OF THE ZOMBIES
3:08 PM: Class is not boring, I manage to sound intelligent after only reading two pages of homework, and we get out early. Yesss…
3:10 PM: Work at the seed-planting table. I love plants, so feel happy about helping people plant seeds in the sunshine.
3:30 PM: Asked by Chris Yoon and Connor to be in their Zombie movie.
3:31 PM: Get filmed walking into an elevator and screaming at Chris Yoon’s dead body. (No Chris Yoons were injured in the making of this movie.)
3:50 PM: Clean up and prepare to job search downtown.
4:10 PM: Inquire about summer work at Old Navy, Gap, Aeropostal, Bath and Body Works, and Famous Footware.
4:45 PM: Inquire about work at a little gift shop downtown where the girl at the counter says, “Let me get you an application,” and then proceeds to pull out a stack of 50 already filled out applications. Unable to find me a clean one, she prints another off and sends me on my way feeling less confident about the prospect of finding a summer job.
5:00 PM: Call mom to tell her about my job search.
5:15 PM: Bust out in tears on the phone over my nervousness about finding a job and guilt of wanting to pay to live in Burlington for the summer even though I don’t have a job yet. My deposit is due in two days if I decide to stay.
5:20 PM: Mom is calm and reassuring.
5:25 PM: Am all snuffly and puffy red-eyed in public, looking like an ultra-stupid idiot, but have at least stopped crying.
5:30 PM: Hang up the phone and decide to discreetly walk to the locker room to pick up my backpack, even though I look like a hurricane just hit my face.
5:31 PM: Run into my boss on the sidewalk. He is a very nice person, but I would rather not have run into him so shortly after the tear-busting incident.
5:32 PM: Escape by saying I had to go apply for a summer job. I hope he thought it was for a job as an actress in the crying scene of a Zombie video.
5:35 PM: See Lorelei with her shirt half on (everything was covered) in the locker room and run into her arms.
5:45 PM: Tell her my whole story. She cheers me up by telling me jokes and talking about this kid in a totally worse situation. I feel better.
6:25 PM: Get on the bus and go home.
6:45 PM: Get home and none of my roommates are there to greet me.
6:55 PM: Grab a fresh Pillsbury Homestyle Biscuit and my Spanish book and go next door.
7:00 PM: Tucker makes tacos while we discuss jobs, summer, and whether or not Peeps (like wine) get better with age. I also am semi-barely studying Spanish.
7:30 PM: Go back home and eat cod and carrots for dinner.
8:00 PM: Tell my roommates, Allyson, Carl, and Scott about how I won’t find a summer job and will die.
8:15 PM: Allyson finds me an ideal summer job about WRITING about TINY HOUSES, which are the two things I love most (not including any people who I love.)
8:15 and half a minute PM: Scream and kick the yoga ball hard because I am so happy.
9:00 PM: Start writing this blog.
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