Reader Advice...2.21.05

Since I haven't figured out how to make any of the pages on the site interactive yet, today's report will be a surrogate for interactivity.

Dave Rice of Naples, FL sent along a link to an article in today's New York Times about the fact that housing developments planned according to the premises of "New Urbanism" are popular with architects and designers, but aren't selling well with the general public, (who still prefer to buy into subdivisions.) The most disturbing part of the article from my perspective is the fact that, even if they DO move to more walkable communities, most "new urban" residents aren't willing to give up their car. The NYT article is corroborated by a December 27, 2004 article in the Los Angeles Times about how yuppies moving into the new developments in downtown LA are bringing their cars with them, rather than switching over to pubic transit as many planners had hoped they would. This is creating some planning problems, as dense urbanism doesn't usually include floor plans for two car garages.

In his email about the Times article, Rice pragmatically suggests a way to insist that those cars we love dearly are, at least, fuel efficient.

"My new thought on auto problem is to require cars to get 40 mpg or if they don't, they must have an unalterable governor which prevents them from going over 60 mph. we'd pollute less, save lives from slower speeds and generate more volume of vehicle traffic in a given time resulting in less road construction. An additoinal benefit would be the decreased reliance on foreign oil."

This seems like a good idea to me! Thanks to David Rice for the email.

2.21.2005 Another great Ex-Consumer story was told to me by my Dad, George Blackmar. My father and I share a love of coffee. And, (though I'm embarrassed to admit it), I think my Dad is FAR more conscientious about voting with his coffee dollars than I am in voting with mine. (I've been having a love affair with Guatemalan Coffee lately, and haven't bought a sack of "Fair Trade Blend" in months.)

When Starbucks metastasized its way into our town of Ocean Beach, CA my Dad drank lukewarm coffee from the thermos guy for a year or more as a protest gesture (even though the hotter coffee at Starbucks was just across the street.) Though he is a dedicated user of re-usable coffee mugs, my Dad recently had to take an early morning flight to Florida, and he didn't pack his mug. During a four hour layover at LAX, he got himself a cup of coffee and a newspaper, and sat down to wait.

When he decided to get a second cup of coffee a few hours later, he took his now-empty cup with him, expecting a refill.

When he got up to the front of the coffee line, though, the cashier said that he wasn't allowed to refill customer's cups "for sanitary reasons." On a normal day, Blackmar might have backed down and taken the new cup. But a night of minimal sleep and a few hours of sitting in the airport, my Dad chose instead to give the cashier a look of death.

As someone who has worked a lot of counter service jobs, I understand that people like my father (aka, angry looking people) are always right, and I think the guy behind the counter had also been indoctrinated in this belief. So after a little debate, the cashier gave way, and poured some more coffee into my Dad's old cup.

Behind my Dad in the line was a big guy who had been watching this transaction take place. Of course the big guy ended up on the same plane as my father, and within enough proximity to him that he was able to take a few jabs at my dad for his behavior at the coffee stand, "Like one cup is going to do anything" and so forth. My Dad, who isn't exactly an adherent to any group's ideology, was accused of being a silly liberal environmentalist, which I think must have amused him somewhat. (He claims, and I believe, that it was more his natural orneriness that made him insist on a refill.)

So I publicize this story partly because I feel that I may have brought this sort of environmentalist mis-labeling upon my father... and because I wish I could pull that angry look as successfully as he does. Maybe perfecting the look of the scary, angry consumer who is about to make a huge fuss should be the next Ex-Consumer workshop, as it seems one of the more useful tactics in the campaign so far. Stay tuned for the Ex-Consumer "Look of Death" workshop.
CB

2.20.05 Unemployment is getting me down. Up to this point looking for a job has been a surrogate for shopping. Surfing Craig's List and fantasizing about how I would fit into the different jobs posted on it each day delivers a seratonin rush that's not all that different from the one I get when I imagine myself decked out in swimming clothes from the "resort ware" section of J.Crew.com.

Today, though, after a month and a half of fruitless searching, I am beginning to feel more desperate. And in this state I do the unthinkable; I apply online for a job at Whole Foods Market (a business which I patronize, but cannot help being very suspicious of; please see The January Report.)

Over the past month I've noticed some similarities between job searching and shopping. When I shop, I find that the moment when I finally receive an article that I've ordered online can be profoundly disappointing. After all the fantasy involved with searching, buying, and waiting, I often wish in the end that I hadn't gotten the thing in the first place. It ruins the fantasy.

The same is true with jobs. In a job search where nothing advertised has ever seemed quite right, imagining myself doing a lot of slightly wrong jobs involves a similar, jaunty act of fantasy. Just as I logically know that none of those J.Crew bathing suits would look good on me, (and also that it is February and I'm not at any risk of having to go to St. Bart's), some part of me holds out a crazed belief that the logical side of me could be wrong. I imagine that I might actually like working at Filene's, or that I might be actually be good at teaching Spanish to disgruntled high schoolers in Dorchester. But the moment I get close to actually having these jobs, the moment they are attainable, I look at them and feel a woozy vertigo. And I've consistently jumped back from the ledge.

The thought of being 25 years old and working food service again, (even if it IS in the aesthetic wonderland of Whole Foods Market), gives me a similar feeling of seasickness. I signed a release to let them do a background check, gave them the SSN, and took their 280 question personality test. When the frenzy of applying was over, though, I regretted it.

The closer I a come to joining the regular, non-academic workforce, the more unappetizing it seems. Perhaps all those things I ordered online when my brain was clouded by fantasy were messengers from that same world of commerce I am now trying to join. When they finally arrived they never seem to fit, and they unraveled on the third day. Now at last I think I may be able to decipher the lesson of those never-quite-right flirtations with commerce. The fortune cookie reads: "Stop shopping online, and go out and MAKE your job instead."

 

 

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