... lies probably the worst problem of all: bad citizens.
I became a regular customer of this place some months ago since my mother-in-law asked me once to get her a frozen chicken there. Sometimes there is a bit of a line, she told me, but the price is very low compared to other places.
The first time I tried to shop here I just could not. The line was too long and slow. I was asked again, some time later, and this time I was able to buy the f-ing chicken. it was certainly almost 50% cheaper and all the products (meats, poultry, etc) looked fresh and well handled (hygiene being one of the biggest issues in our country).
However, today, I decided that I had had enough of this place. Their prices had been progressively going up to the point that they sell as expensive as any retailer. This place is a big distributor in town. They provide meat to most butcher shops in town, but they have been unable or unwilling to provide better customer service, especially in light of the current pandemic. They realized that even though they should be selling at lower prices, people end up not caring (result of years of hyper-inflation) and no regulatory entity will do anything to them.
People have to wait in line outside the establishment, under the sun. After we enter the premises, we wait in line to order whatever products we plan to buy (that horizontal line in the picture), and then we have to wait on a third line to pay for the purchase (vertical line on the right).
Efficiency is definitely not in our vocabulary, and god forbid you suggest it can be done better.
It took me two hours to get out of here, and there were only 12 people ahead of me. What happened? Some slow customers who always forget what they want to buy or make absurd changes of mind at the last minute, and more importantly, one cultural curse of ours: los coleaos (people who cut-in line).
There must have been a dozen of those today. Some I have no problem with (a pregnant woman, and elderly and fragile man), but most coleaos are friends or relatives of the people who work there. So, they go "recommended", sponsored, if you will, by someone in yellow and red t-shirt and they get to pay as soon as they get there. People complain, you bet they do, but the owners could not care less and since most people have used that "system" elsewhere (everybody knows a bank teller or some other clerk who gives them the VIP treatment, and it feels so good...).
I was able to capture the very moment this police officer got his VIP treatment. Uniforms are in disrepute around here these days, to put it nicely. However, they are feared too, for obvious reasons. Everyone wants to have a person in uniform who owes them a favor; everyone wants to be in good terms with a "law-enforcer."
Well, they are the most corrupt and most corrupting. They rarely teach by example.
As far as I am concern, I will stop shopping here. I'd rather pay more somewhere else. It's hard to find a place where basic social rules are respected or enforced. A society like ours is corrupted at so many levels. We complain about government-run institutions, but private institutions or businesses are also corrupted and provide little to no options to our fundamental problems.
It has become a vicious cycle that we are not better, more demanding customers and citizens because we do not have better businesses or institutions. I think individuals can start the change, but there must be cooperation. Only an old man who was behind me and myself spoke up when the police officer cut in. The rest of the people either pretended they were not seeing anything or just murmured among them.
This kind of individualism is doing a lot of harm to an already decaying social body.
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Damn that’s a real pain in the ass. People who cut in line really piss me off! It’s like what the fuck man? Wait in line like everyone else! I can’t say that it’s happened somewhere I’ve been for a while but when it happens, it just hits a nerve with me.
Companies need to have better standards for sure. I don’t know why there’s such a destruction of decency and social norms but it’s getting bad in a lot of ways! The people who don’t know what the hell they want to order are absurd. You waited in line this whole time and you don’t know what you want? Changing it should make them go to the back of the line in my opinion lol
Not a bad idea at all. Businesses, when run by people with vision, play an important role in people's social behavior. We used to have social spaces where stand-up comedians joked people literally suffered transformations (even the way they talked changed). It had to do with order, cleanliness, plain decency and manners.
No one wanted to be the out-of-tune note. Everyone wanted to feel they were contributing to something better.
All that went to hell. It's dog-eat-dog scenario now.
I know what you mean, it seems that the population approves of these behaviors. If someone thinks of complaining or protesting for their rights they find no support from the people present. This happens on public transportation, in the supermarkets and everywhere else. The security forces whether police or military are no example, we must remember that we have rights and we must demand them, I am sad because I feel that we lack unity.
I agree. Lack of unity, lack of awareness of the power of unity is the only reason we are perpetuating the current state of affairs.
It has been proven that when multitudes move in the same direction there is not brutal force strong enough to stop them.
But, no one wants to be the sacrificial lamb of sorts. That fear, which I find it pointless now that we have lost most of what makes life worth living, is what keeps widening the divisions.
People are better at joining forces to do evil things.
Remember back in the school days? Students, entire clases, were able to agree on protests to avoid taking a test; they rarely agreed on a study plan or marathon.
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