The real cost of convenience...
Lowdown on the high cost of shredded cheese
Bankrate.com asked some provocative questions as posed through Linda Vaughan, nutrition department chair of Arizona State University about the costs of convenience.
However, the real cost of convenience isn't in dollars and cents, the real cost is when things that were once convenient become necessities.
Take meal preparation. At one time, it was an amazingly convenient option to have a microwave to prepare a meal (originally in 10-15 minutes now in 3-minutes tops. What a time saver! Now, many over committed, over "convenience" people can't catch a meal unless it's fast food or nuked.
What was once a solution in a pinch has become the sole meal plan.
How about pagers, cell phones and PDAs. Not only do we pay way more a premium if we go "over" on our minutes for the convenience of a cell phone, but also not having the phone with you at every moment of the day feels like your Tom Hanks in Castaway or Ms. Havisham from Great Expectations belligerently living in the past to your own detriment.
These items which once were a herald of a more effective, productive time has become a standard for which any absence of the tools is a sign of weakness and neglect.
Yes, the real cost of convenience is the creep of expectation toward a more instant, immediate, in-touch, intense, and inescapable EVERYTHING.
posted by Paulie Sabol | 12/21/2004 02:19:00 PM
3 Comments:
Paulie,
Okay, man of action, you've forced me to join Blogspot, just to post a response to you! http://smallishbees.blogspot.com/ is now up and running, such as it is.
Regarding "Shredded Cheese" (which would also make a good name for a blog, or a rock band)--
If I think entrepreneurially, I see that people's desire for convenience is golden-- it means they'll pay for someone who can make their lives easier. And if I'm the guy who can make dinner easier by, say, inventing a new-fangled gas oven so people don't have to lug lumber from the forest to cook a meal (or even better, an efficient distribution system for said ovens), then I will receive the reward. My gas oven is a necessity, but I don't think it's a burden.
But in a burgeoning marketplace, we all have to chart our path through the conflicting voices telling us the latest gadget is the one we can't live without. It's all about choices. Personally, I love living in a society in which I can choose to have Vietnamese pho for lunch, or I can go to the local supermarket and buy fruit from across the globe in the middle of the frigid Chicago winter.
In short, I like choices. I like opportunities to say, "No." And I think I'll go get myself some cheese from the dairy farm I keep in my closet, just for these occasions!
Paulie,
Okay, I've read the article, finally. I think the thing the author misses is this: We're paying someone a premium to slice our cheese, an equivalent of $150 an hour or whatever, of their time. To shred the cheese takes them only about 30 seconds or so, because they have an entire facility devoted just to doing this. But if it takes me 3 minutes to find the shredder in the back of my cupboard, five minutes and a cut thumb to actually do the shredding, and then another 3 minutes to clean the cheese goop off the shredder, dry it, and put it away, I might just not bother if I'm tired or busy. So, no cheese for me until I feel like being bothered. The premium in convenience allows me to access products and services I might not want.
Similarly, the article's reference to shrimp linguini, or whatever. The author says it takes the same amount of time to complete the preprepared dish as it would to make it from scratch. Not so, though, because first you would have to find an appropriate recipe, look to find if you have the requisite ingredients, then go to the store to buy them, lug them upstairs, chop and slice and whatever, then clean everything up afterwards.
That being said, I love to cook crazy, complicated meals from scratch. But I like to do so by choice, and I enjoy that occasionally I can eat second-rate linguini from a box, if it makes my life simpler. No one is forcing me to eat boxed linguini.
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