Date posted: November 21, 2007 - Wednesday
Title: Settling for Mediocrity
Current mood: Exasperated
I read in the paper today the airlines are getting worse about losing your luggage. A year ago there was a one in 150 chance they would lose your luggage and now it is a one in 138 chance.
They blamed it on dirty printer heads on the machines that print the barcode labels for the bags.
"We never hit 100%, 90% is acceptable," a spokeswoman for American airlines said.
Acceptable to who?
I mailed a package at the post office the other day. It was going to Los Angles; just a 3 hour drive north on a bad day. The postal clerk told me it would get there "in two to three days." When the private company took over the postal service a number of years ago it was promising next morning delivery within 150 miles and no more than two days delivery across the whole country. Now it's two to three days for a city a short drive away.
I was in a store a while back getting a tune-up on a laptop computer. I got to talking to the store manager and he clued me in on information about computer printers. "They are only designed to last for about two years," he said. Why would I want to have to buy a new printer every couple of years?
I thought at first it was just another example of American manufacturing's planed obsolesce schemes to get you to spend more money. Then, a couple of days ago I saw an article on the business page that said Hewlet Packard's profits were up more than expected. It also said the sale of printer ink made up a huge part of its business. So it seems they don't care about the printers as long as you keep buying the ink.
Microsoft issues its' new Widows Vista operating system and there are compatibility problems will all kinds of peripherals on your computer. The solution suggested, buy a new printer.
In fact Microsoft seems to have a history of issuing new computer operating systems with bugs and flaws and expecting the consumer to find the problems and complain before the company issues an "update" or "patch" to correct something they should have done before they issued the product.
I am sure, with a little research, I could come up with many more examples.
What it comes down to is mediocrity.
We, as a consuming public, have grown too used to mediocrity; and too willing to accept it.
We accept it in the things we buy. We accept it in the services we pay for. We accept it in the way we are treated at our jobs. And, we accept it in the leaders we choose for our government.
