by Ralph Maltese | Apr 23, 2017 | Uncategorized
Of Kumquats and Pineapples
Polley shared with me a newspaper article describing how stores like Sears and Macy’s were moving out of malls. Replacing them were supermarkets. One of my failings is that I see every event as an indicator of cultural change. I have to catch myself and remember Freud’s comment that a cigar is just a cigar…..but that is no fun. So…..an obvious reason for the abandonment of malls by clothing department stores is the rise of online shopping. Hence the mall vacuum being filled by food stores. Not too many people order kumquats online. Not yet.
My earliest memories of shopping contain mental movie reels of my mother, pulling a vertical cart behind her down the sidewalks of Burnside Avenue in the Bronx.
We passed up some stores and entered others based on a rationale I was too young to understand. We would visit the butcher or fish monger or both, then the store that sold fruit, maybe the dairy store (we were not big milk drinkers in my family), and finally the grocer for canned goods, vegetables and staples like sugar and salt. My mother paid all the proprietors in cash. By the time we got back to the apartment building, the vertical cart was quite heavy, and we struggled to get it up the five flights of stairs.
My Uncle Ray and my Aunt Marge lived in the apartment above us. He and his brother owned a grocery store in Harlem, New York, and on Friday nights Uncle Ray would bring home leftover fruits and vegetables that were in season….pineapples, pomegranates, persimmons; whatever he shared was fresh and luscious, and we could identify the seasons by the produce Uncle Ray brought home.
Once a month my father drove us to Arthur Avenue and the Italian market. My mother would haggle with the owner over the price of the leg of lamb or beef ribs, asking him to throw in some end pieces for free. My father always asked the owner if his son could pluck an olive from the big wooden barrel, and the answer was always yes. Then the cheese store and the bakery for cannolis or sfogliatelle. It was an all-day affair, but I was happy, using one hand to hold my father’s hand and using the other to cradle an Italian lemon ice with real bits of lemon.
When we moved to the suburbs of northern New Jersey, my mother endured a shopping cultural shock. There was a local bakery, but no butcher, fishmonger, dairy, or grocer…at least there were no such stores within walking distance. And my mother did not have a driver’s license. No need for one in the Bronx. But, our town did have the Coop, a supermarket. My mother developed new habits.
Our family’s shopping trends followed the pattern of most Americans. At the turn of the twentieth century, most people shopped at grocery stores, waiting at the counter while the grocery clerk filled the orders. So much for impulse buying, except for the items displayed by the cash register. “Then, in 1916 Clarence Saunders opened the Piggly Wiggly store in Memphis, Tennessee. ‘Astonished customers,’ write the Sterns in their Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, ‘were given baskets (shopping carts weren’t invented) and sent through the store to pick what they needed-a job formerly reserved for clerks.’” http://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/02/the-origin-of-the-supermarket/
At first, “supermarkets” were disparagingly referred to as “cheapies,” and the media and grocer associations ridiculed their existence. A factor that changed American minds about these new stores was the invention of the ignition switch for automobiles. Women found it too hard to crank the engines, but with the ignition switch women could expand their shopping radius from “walking distance” to area supermarkets. This innovation led to the parking lot—no more cruising the street searching for a parking space. My mother got her driving license, and shopping in our family became an all-day affair as my mother comparative shopped at two or three supermarkets within five miles of our home. Another innovation that spurred the popularity of supermarkets was cellophane. Customers could now see the meat they were buying, bolstering their perception that they were in charge of making the buying decision. Suddenly, supermarkets became very democratic and very American. When Polley and I were in Paris many years ago, we noticed the extremely linguistical-protectionist French had to yield to Americanese and identify their stores as “Le Supermarket.” There was no other term in French.
I thought back in the eighties that supermarkets as they existed would soon become extinct. What led me to this erroneous conclusion was a visit to my sister-in-law in Missouri who could go online and see the comparative prices of items on her shopping list at local supermarkets. She then could call each supermarket, order her items, and drive around to the pickup window of each one and collect her groceries….all without leaving her car. The problem with this convenience (from the store’s perspective) is that it severely curtailed impulse buying.
There is a wonderful scene in the movie Moscow on the Hudson, starring Robin Williams as a Russian musician who defects from the barren shelves of the Soviet Union’s stores to the American supermarket and its shelves filled from floor to ceiling with buying options. He enters the store to purchase coffee and looks up from his shopping list to see the cans of coffee stacked as far as he can see. Dizzied from the choices, he faints.
Robin Williams was awed by the options he could exercise, but we take it for granted. What I find interesting is the idea that we are in charge of making the decisions. Maybe.
“When you see items on a supermarket shelf, you are actually looking at a planogram. A planogram is defined as a “diagram or model that indicates the placement of retail products on shelves in order to maximise sales”. Within these planograms, one phrase commonly used is “eye level is buy level”, indicating that products positioned at eye level are likely to sell better. You may find that the more expensive options are at eye level or just below, while the store’s own brands are placed higher or lower on the shelves. Next time you are in a supermarket, just keep note of how many times you need to bend down, or stretch, to reach something you need. You might be surprised.” http://theconversation.com/the-science-that-makes-us-spend-more-in-supermarkets-and-feel-good-while-we-do-it-23857
I am not surprised. My personal code of shopping etiquette forbids my choosing an item from a shelf below knee level. One reason for this is my indelicate balance caused by my Parkinson’s. I don’t want the “Cleanup in Aisle 8” to be me.
When I shop, I am aware that I am deliberately being manipulated. “The ‘number of facings’, that is how many items of a product you can see, also has an effect on sales. The more visible a product, the higher the sales are likely to be. The location of goods in an aisle is also important. There is a school of thought that goods placed at the start of an aisle do not sell as well. A customer needs time to adjust to being in the aisle, so it takes a little time before they can decide what to buy.”
And supermarket marketing science takes into account the type of shopper. My mother-in-law did all the shopping in her household until she fell sick and sent my father-in-law, sans grocery list, to the supermarket to procure the week’s vittles. He came back with two steaks and a bag of Snickers. Given the power to choose, he opted to enact his fantasy meal. I understood his choices perfectly.
For a time, when our four children were young and Polley was nursing our twins and our schedules were a chaotic mosaic of overlapping responsibilities, I did the weekly food shopping on Saturdays, dropping off our oldest Christie at Jazz and Tap lessons. I had only an hour to fill the cart from the list Polley provided and drive back to pick Christie up. No impulse buying here.
Now, my shopping is more of a saunter than a mad dash up and down aisles. I notice things. I notice the lighting, some stores more dingy than others. I notice the labeling of aisles and think about the marketing logic. Some stores have aisles identified as “Mediterranean” or “International.” This is where one finds tomato sauce for pasta. Other stores carry the same item in the “Pasta” aisle. Eventually shoppers develop a map for each supermarket. Personally I like to view what stores advertise outside. Barbeque pits, fireplace logs, even outdoor patio sets are sometimes on display. Now, if I was in the market for a patio set, my first thought would not be a visit to Piggily Wiggily. But that is my mindset.
One area that tests my sense of justice and fairness is the express lane. I used to be more judgmental as I scrutinized the carts of the people ahead of me in the “15 Items or Less” lane, making certain they adhered to the quota. It annoyed me when someone cheated, basically because I felt helpless. There is no Express Lane Police. Then, one day, I got caught with 16 items. Who knew that two bags of baby spinach counted as two items?
A section I totally avoid no matter the store is the Self-Checkout line. I am in the regular checkout lane, a guy in a red and tan plaid coat pushing a cart with some steaks and a couple of bags of Snickers behind me, when I decide to drop out of this queue and line up in the Self-Checkout line. My first problem with this dynamic is that I haven’t quite got the swipe down. I often have to swipe an item three or four times before the scanner recognizes it. My second issue is that I tend to get into arguments with the metallic mechanical scanner voice.
“Please swipe the next item.”
I swipe. The scanner does not recognize my swipe.
“Please swipe the item again.”
I swipe the item again.
“Please swipe the item again.”
This is supposed to save me time?
My dialogue with the scanner continues.
“Please place the item in the bag.”
I place the item in the bag.
“Please place the item in the bag.”
“Hey! I placed the item in the bag!”
“Please place the item in the bag.”
So I retrieve the item from the bag, wait two seconds and replace the item in the bag.
“Please place the item in the bag.”
“Dammit!!! I just placed the %$%#@ item in the bag!! Thrice!!”
Finally, when the scanner is satisfied I have placed the item in the bag, I press the image of the filled cart signifying I am finished buying. I press the credit card icon.
“Thank you for your purchases. Please swipe your card.”
I swipe the card.
Whirling and humming. I can see the machine thinking.
“Please swipe your card again.”
I swipe the card again.
“Please see the attendant.”
Self-Checkout always has a helpful attendant who helps me with my card swiping. Personally, I believe the Self-Checkout Helpful Attendant would be better used behind a regular cash register in a regular lane or commissioned as an officer of the Express Lane Police.
Yes. I agree with you. I understand that navigating the waters of supermarket shopping is a first world problem. The very fact that marketing is such a big deal in the industry is because the marketers know that shoppers have options….and the seasons are blurred at the supermarket. Pineapples, pomegranates, persimmons, though of varying quality, available at all times of the year from all over the world. At times I think it is wise to be reflective and revel in the choices we have.
by Ralph Maltese | Apr 9, 2017 | Uncategorized
Robo Calling
“Hello. Is This the Party to Whom I Am Speaking?”
Lily Tomlin
I am one day home from my hospital stay sitting in my family room surfing afternoon television for something, anything, to watch, my eyes getting bleary from the two hours of reading about James Garfield and his assassination. Ah, Star Trek, The Next Generation, the episode in which Dr. Beverly Crusher keeps losing shipmates as her world keeps closing in. Boy, could I empathize. My chest is sore from the dialysis port they inserted, my legs are weak, and every movement of my body is an effort. My world and what I can do in it seems to have shrunk. Will I ever be able to get up and refill the bird feeder? Will I ever feel again the gentle force of a Pocono stream against my flyfishing waders? Heck…will I be able to reach over from my chair and munch on the Granny Smith apple perched on my end table without any pain?
Brringoong!……. Brringoong!….. Brringoong! Our landline ringtone sounds like a drunken hog burping. The damn phone is off its holder and on the kitchen table. Might be the doctors. Okay legs, Up! Up! Up!, let’s go spine, straighten out.
Brringoong!……. Brringoong!….. Brringoong! Out of the family room chair finally, I shuffle to the phone. Do not recognize the caller id.
“Hello?”
A cheery metallic voice begins its routine. “Hello, you have been chosen to win a two week vacation to the Florida Keys…”
A robo call.
Is it my imagination or are robo calls on the increase?
Dinner time seems to be a prime target of robo calls, I guess because the company issuing the calls supposes that most people are home at that time and don’t mind their dinners being interrupted.
We are eating our linguine Bolognese, a few delicious strands wrapped around my fork as we listen to the evening national news. I wait for the reports of the latest Trump-tropisms before I stick the fork in my mouth.
Brringoong!……. Brringoong!….. Brringoong! Mouthful of pasta, I answer the phone. “Hello, we have heard that someone in your household has been suffering from diabetes.”
I did not know that my type 2 diabetes was the subject of local gossip. “I have diabetes.” The recording continues, ignoring my response. “We will send you a brand new meter and blood strips as an introductory offer free of charge.”
“That is sweet of you.” I hang up because toying with robo calls is not satisfying. They don’t listen.
Robo calling is big business. Here is what one company offers to sellers of products who want to reach millions of potential customers relatively cheaply.
- Termination capabilities added for offshore agents eliminating the need for a US based phone number. [So U.S. law enforcement has a more difficult time prosecuting.]
- Calling capacity has been expanded to allow over 16 million calls daily for large political broadcasts. . [Sixteen million! Do the math—300 million Americans. In less than nineteen days the entire population of the United States can receive the same political message—or unfact.]
- Proprietary new voice recognition technology added to more accurately identify Live Callers vs. Answering Machines. . [Because reaching those “Dead Callers” as opposed to Live Callers is a complete waste of money.]
The charge by this particular RoboCall company is (for the minimum program), $150 which buys the advertiser 6,000 minutes or 2.5 cents a minute. At these rates I am surprised my phone is not Brringoong! continuously.
And robocallers are becoming increasingly sneaky. Polley and I always check Caller ID. No help. From the Federal Trade Commission:
“Robocallers fake the caller ID information that you see on your phone. That’s called caller ID spoofing — and new technology makes it very easy to do. In some cases, the fraudulent telemarketer may want you to think the call is from your bank, or another entity you’ve done business with. Sometimes, the telephone number may show up as “unknown” or “123456789.” Other times, the number is a real one belonging to someone who has no idea his or her number is being misused.”
So what to do?
- Hang up the phone. Don’t press 1 to speak to a live operator and don’t press any other number to get your number off the list. If you respond by pressing any number, it will probably just lead to more robocalls.
- Consider contacting your phone provider and asking them to block the number, and whether they charge for that service. Remember that telemarketers change Caller ID information easily and often, so it might not be worth paying a fee to block a number that will change.
- Report your experience to the FTC onlineat or by calling 1-888-382-1222.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0259-robocalls
The other day I was dozing in the blissful world of napdom when Brringoong!……. Brringoong!….. Brringoong!
“This is Microsoft support. We have learned that your computer is under attack by viruses.” I have heard this scam before and reported it to a state enforcement agency (the scammers were operating from a foreign country). I did not press 1 or any other keyboard number. What was interesting about this call was that it was a robo call, but when I responded by voice it alerted a real live scammer. Technology…amazing. Of course I gave the live scammer an earful (I might have said something that impugned his parentage), and he responded with a few choice counter responses which did not result in a sale.
My problem with robocalls, aside from the nuisance (to the infirm and elderly it is more than a nuisance) is that they are no fun.
Like the live caller the other day. (I can tell I am recovering and my world has stopped shrinking but is actually expanding. Toying with telemarketing is part of the expansion.)
Brringoong!……. Brringoong!….. Brringoong!
“Hello?”
“Hello. This is Jason. Here at Aural America we have learned that someone in your household is having hearing issues.”
Damn local community gossip again!
“What’s that?”
“Hi, this is Jason. Does someone in your home have hearing issues?”
“Do I want earrings? No. Never worn them.”
“No,[slower and louder] I am sorry. Is someone in your home suffering from hearing loss? We manufacture the best hearing aides in the world.”
“Sorry you have aids. I can’t hear you. Wait. I will get my wife….[pause] She must have gone shopping. I didn’t hear the garage door open and close.”
“I’’ll call back.”
You do that, Jason, and you will be conversing with Morris the Mumbler.
But robocalls do not offer that opportunity for fun.
“If you receive a robocall trying to sell you something (and you haven’t given the caller your written permission), it’s an illegal call. You should hang up. Then, file a complaint with the FTC and the National Do Not Call Registry.” https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/media/video-0028-what-do-if-you-get-robocall
See, it is the “illegal” part that prevents me (along with a lack of finance) to enacting my own revenge—shelling out $150 to robocall my tormentors….targeting those who robocall me.
Brringoong!……. Brringoong!….. Brringoong!
by Ralph Maltese | Apr 2, 2017 | Uncategorized
The Textbooks Tablets Debate
As my brain continues to forget the details of life (see my blog post, Recoiling at the Lack of Recalling) it worked hard the other day to recall the name of the black cat in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat.” This was bothering me because Poe’s second Principle of Composition cites “every word must contribute to the emotional effect” the author is attempting to create. The name of the cat was significant and it was on the tip of my tongue. We have several bookcases and our attic is stuffed with texts (including my college textbooks—want to borrow “Engineering Calculus?” Drop an email.) Somewhere in the house were at least three collections of Poe’s short stories and poetry, and the search became a quest—a frustrating one.
I went online. There I found the complete short story and the name of the cat. I was even able to do a search routine on how many times the name is used in the story. Now, I love books. I love the smell and the feel of them, and I appreciate the weight of a good text when it rests on my chest as I lie in bed, ending my day by reading a few enlightening words.
I bring up my love of books because Polley (the most avid reader I know) showed me a newspaper article about school districts abandoning textbooks in favor of online texts. I am in favor of this, and here are the reasons why:
I taught high school language arts for almost four decades. Every year we assigned anthologies, large textbooks with short stories, poetry, and one or two plays. Ninety percent of the selections in these books were not used by teachers, simply because what the publishers thought were the best selections by certain authors and what former English majors, now teachers, thought were the most teachable and valuable literary works was not congruent. There was also the “censor factor.” Believe it or not, a very small group of extremely narrow-minded people had an irrational but powerful influence on what textbook publishers should include in their anthologies. Their thinking prevented excellent literature from being included in the textbooks.
I followed an online debate between supporters of textbooks and supporters of textbook replacement, namely tablets. One consistency seemed to be the supporters of textbooks claim that textbooks were much cheaper than tablets ($25 instead of $100). These textbook advocates might be citing prices from the 1950’s. When I left teaching our anthology ran close to $70, and that was just for the English textbook.
And publishing companies began doing what I consider to be not nice things. Kids lose books. No matter how much a teacher emphasizes that a lost book will cost the parents $70, students still lose books (someone has to pay for it—either the parent or the other taxpayers). So imagine the English department is minus 100 American Lit Rejuvenated textbooks, $70 a crack or $700. In an ideal world, all owners of lost books pay up, and the English department chairperson orders from the publisher, Textbooks Are Us, 100 replacement anthologies. But wait! Textbooks Are Us no longer print that edition of American Lit Rejuvenated. The department chairperson will have to order the second edition of American Lit Rejuvenated at $90 a book. What choice does the department chairperson have? So she orders 100 copies of American Lit Rejuvenated Second Edition and her budget is down an extra $200 she did not count on.
Nor are the English teachers happy. In the first edition of American Lit Rejuvenated the Poe selection was “The Black Cat.” In the second edition, the selection is “The Fall of the House of Usher.” So half my class might have one story and the other half the second story. The students would spend considerable time arguing who had the more difficult reading assignment. In other courses, the science problems in one textbook edition might differ from the problems in another edition. As the years go by and the school has multiple editions of the textbook, congruency in planning and assessment becomes a casualty. My point is that this tendency by publishers to not replace the editions educators need is costly in both money and wasted energy.
As a teacher I argued against textbooks for two reasons: 1) for $70 we could purchase a collection of short stories, several plays and a couple of novels. If a student loses a paperback then he is more likely to shell out $7 than $70. 2) Textbooks should not drive instruction. Two of my daughters graduated from Mount Holyoke College. As a parent and as an educator, I was enamored of that institution. Mount Holyoke, noted for its science instruction, decided that textbooks should not drive teaching, so they banned them. Professors would have to develop their own resources and lessons, resulting in better teaching. I agree. I had many conversations with teachers, unhappy with student progress who asked me for advice. I would suggest a few projects, and the response was often, “That sounds good. I would like to try that, but I do not have the time—I have to get through the thirty two chapters of the math textbook.” And the teacher, by the end of the year, would “get through” those thirty two chapters even if their students were still mired in chapter one. Too often textbooks become a crutch and excuse for less-than-stellar teaching.
So why don’t school boards, primarily motivated by their campaign promises to keep school taxes down (good school boards make decisions based on what’s best for their taxpayers; great school boards make decisions based on what’s best for their students), give up the purchase of textbooks in favor of online sources?
Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Early in my teaching career, I was frustrated because every week many, too many, were failing my vocabulary tests. I did what every other teacher was doing: introduce a new lesson from the vocabulary textbook, review the words with students, require them to complete the exercises in the vocabulary textbook as well as some generated by me, and tested them at the end of the week. Not only did they not score well on the tests, but they promptly forgot the definitions in a short time. I remember a student passing me in the hall shortly after he took the SAT’s.
“Hey, Mr. Maltese, three of the vocabulary words from our textbook were on the SAT’s. Saturday.”
“Great. So you got at least three questions right.”
“No. I recognized the words, but forgot the definitions.”
So I researched “teaching vocabulary,” and in the pounds of data I studied, the research showed that no one was successful in teaching vocabulary words from a textbook, simply because they were out of context. I tried to remedy the problem by constructing a computer database of vocabulary words that appeared in the literature that my high school listed in the curriculum. Any English teacher could add words from the literary works they taught and generate exercises and tests at a few clicks of the mouse. Goodbye vocabulary textbook. Wait! My superiors nixed the English department database I constructed and continued to buy vocabulary textbooks. Why?
This was the reason given to me: “If the kids don’t walk around with a vocabulary textbook, the parents will think we are not teaching vocabulary.” In discussions with groups of parents this turned out to be a myth, but, as I learned working in Harrisburg, “Given the choice between deciding what was politically expedient and what was best for education, the former always won out.” As Kurt Vonnegut writes in Slaughterhouse Five, “So it goes.”
Teaching is challenging whether we use textbooks or tablets. One problem with tablets involves the equity issue. One of my student teachers assigned the class a visit to a website for background material. I told her, “You cannot assume that every student at home has access to the Internet.” Never occurred to her.
If the school issues the tablets, then we have the same replacement issue as textbooks. One teacher, fighting the use of electronic devices in the classroom argued, “How do we know that the student is visiting the assigned website and not viewing a porn site—or texting?” Fair enough. There are ways to deal with that, however, namely by “crunching assignments,” and critical deadlines. I shared with this teacher the experience of reading aloud a Shakespeare play in class and discovering that one of my students was perusing a copy of Playboy neatly folded in the textbook.
There are advantages to books over tablets. When I drop a book, it is less likely to break, and a book needs no batteries or recharging. But the greatest drawback to online resources is the mistaken belief that students will more likely read something online than in print. Not necessarily true. I helped a student find a critical piece of research for his term paper. His search routine skills needed drastic improvement, but I helped him locate a great resource that supported his thesis. He stared at the page of text on the computer monitor and looked up at me.
“Now what?”
I looked at him, back at the screen and back at him. “What do you mean ‘now what’?”
“What do I do now?”
“You read the article.”
I heard him mumble an expletive under his breath. Some students are so visual that unless they see a screen full of graphics they won’t read a resource no matter how good it is, and this concerns me. Whether we use textbooks or tablets, the emphasis should still be on rigorous, and I mean rigorous, stimulation of high level thinking skills. “Bambi Visits Hawaii” doesn’t cut it. And if the student is to succeed in a good academic collegiate environment, we do him/her a disservice by dumbing down his preparation.
Students have to develop the skills of not only locating good online resources but the skills of summarizing and interpreting the data they find. In future years they can quickly locate the name of Poe’s black cat—-Pluto (no, not the Disney character…the Roman god of the Underworld)
