Above is a depressing, ham-fisted, but incredibly successful marketing plot aimed at striping you of your dignity and of your money.The illusion of personal assistance and luxury to sucker you into thinking you have power or options. “Customize your cup to suit you!”
Yes, personal customization now includes things as petty and redundant as your morning cup of coffee.
Want to show people that you are on a diet? Get a skinny latte (and then knock it back with a triple chocolate fudge cake that may as well be renamed Cholesterol on a Plate).
Want to show you enjoy coffee without gaining any of the benefits of coffee? Get decaf. (And on the subject of decaf; people that drink it are stupid. Are person that drink coffee for the taste rather than the caffeine is as retarded as a smack addict shooting up because he likes to play with needles, not because he like getting high.)
Want to show you’re a undeniable, grade-A cunt? Get a soya drink.
So now you can customize your coffee in a million different ways. And it makes you happy right? Makes you feel warm inside? Empowered and content? Feeling pretty good are we? Well no, you’re not. You have just shot yourself in your foot. And I’ll tell you why.
The more choice you have, the longer it takes for your drink to be made. Making a soya, decaf, half shot cappuccino with sugar free hazelnut syrup, whipped cream and cinnamon powder is going to take a lot longer than making a cappuccino. The more tweaks you make, the longer you are going to have to wait. The longer you have to wait, the longer the queue will become. And believe me, when you are serving hundreds of people a day, that shit adds up. Some people realize this and try to be nice and simple. They will order, “just a regular coffee.” However, sadly, due to the fact that we live in a world of the “customized consumer” these good, honest, straight forward folk are forced to endure a mini interrogation from myself.
“Is that a small, regular or large?”
“Is it to have in or to take away?”
“Is it with or without milk?”
And of course, when you are partaking in these exchanges dozens upon dozens of times a day, then it also adds up.
Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing (well, little) bad about having choice. Choice is good. Choice, as a consumer, allows us to be ourselves. Otherwise we’d be all wearing the same clothes, eating the same food, listening to the same music, voting the same way and having the same conversations. However what you have to understand is there is a time when personalization becomes ridiculously pedantic. And you also have to know that choice leads to time. Time leads to waiting. Waiting to leads to queues. Queues lead to the dark side. And the sad fact is that the anally retentive customizing customer will be the same person tutting while they wait, complaining that their coffee is taking too long to prepare.
God, I hate you all.
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