As you may or may not know, I work for Corporate America. In fact, I have worked for several International Brand Companies in my employment experience. Now, the interesting thing is that I find myself in a particular situation when looking at the way that the world works from a consumer prospective. When I come across an organization that has especially capitalized their profit margin in a particular area of business, despite the fact that they may be exploiting shoppers, I have come to realize the talent within the effort.

Let me give you an example: Last weekend I went to a baseball game. It was one of the more exciting high profile games that I have attended in my life. In the more exciting games, the vendors really pull out all the stops. Every beer kiosk is stocked and ready for the hordes of thirsty excited fans. They are cram packed with peanuts, popcorn, deep dish nachos, foot long hot dogs, slushies – and not to forget the light-up iced beer mug. We will all shuffled to our seats, juggling our 12 glorious inches of hot dogs as to not spill out of our “Collector’s Beer Mugs.” Along the way we can’t help but pass by about a million “Team Stores” where they have branded every single article of clothing and worthless nick-nack imaginable with the team’s logo.

Now, as I sit in my seat and chow my amazing ball park food, one can’t help but notice the electricity in the air, the fact that the whole crowd is in matching colors to their teams…and my wheels start turning. As I am taking in all of the “baseball-isms.” I realize that I don’t care that I just spent $45 dollars on hot dogs, peanuts and beer. And for that matter, I don’t think that anyone else does either. We all are just so excited to be there, and take part in the experience, we will gladly give away our money.

Now, as I really begin to delve into this thought, I think about the 20, 30,  or 40 players on each team that has contracts signed. At 10 million dollars a pop, or several hundred thousand per game, you can imagine that the bills really begin to add up. Factor in the cost of paying all of the employees to be there, the cost of electricity, water, and other utilities to keep the stadium open,…clearly we are talking about nearly a billion dollar industry. 

Now my first thought goes to the VPs that overseethose operations. I’m totally impressed. Jealous even. The fact that they can generate that kind of capital, or even that they can even forecast the enormous amount of revenue that passes through their books each week is a talent that is far beyond most of our capabilities.  If each of us in life is given talents or gifts that we are extraordinary at, I think it is fair to say that I fully recognize and appreciate these VP’s ability to make money in the baseball industry.

Now here is the funny thing: as a consumer, I am completely different.  One of the things that drives me absolutely bonkers is the “Self Check Out” lane at the grocery store. Now I know that a number of my friends like them, and some might go so far as to say that they even LOVE them. Maybe its the novelty of checking your own items – like a child playing grocery store. They love scanning their items, seeing all the lights, touching the screen, and bagging their own groceries. Or for some people, maybe its a privacy thing; they dont want anyone to know that they menstruate and need tampons, have sex and need condoms, accidental wet their pants and want Adult diapers, or whatever other embarrassing items that cause you to not want to make eye contact with your checker.

For me, the self check out drives me crazy. And the reason is simple: when a business sits down to figure in the retail price of an item on the shelf, there are about a million factors that go into choosing the price. Where on the shelf the item is placed, the color of the packaging, the month of the year that it is sold it, the neighborhood in which the store is located in –  these are all deciphering factors in a price of an item. Even more so, the cost of keeping the store lit, air conditioned, refrigerated,  cleaned, stocked, employed, etc. are all also factors that pay into the price of the item that I purchase. Now it might sound crazy to actually think about these things, but I am certain that entire companies spend $millions$ of dollars a year researching, tracking, testing and sorting facts like this to determine the price of their items.

The point I am getting to is this: when you buy an item, a very small part of that list price is the dollar amount that it will take that particular grocery store to pay the checker to scan your items. Now, when I stand at the “Self Check Out” line, and scan my own items, do I get a discount? After all, I am doing the work of the employees…I am saving that corporation money by doing the work FOR the checker. Ok, I do realize that we are talking about pennies, or even fractions of pennies. But any  person that works in business long enough knows that if you have several thousand “fractions of pennies,” adding up several thousands of times a day, it doesn’t take very long to have dollars, and even thousands of dollars.

And all of this doesn’t even mention the fact that now we have one “Self Checker Supervisor” that can overlook 8 check stands at  time, thus eliminating jobs for other checkers. We are single handedly volunteering to put our checkers out of work…for free!

I do get it that this is all ridiculous and extreme. I still do use the Self Check out once in a while (particularly when I am on the phone and don’t want to be rude to the checker and talk while they are checking me out – I’ll stay on the phone and check my own groceries).

I suppose my point is this: the individuals that work for corporate America are incredibly talented. They get me to check my own groceries or pay $10 for a 33 cent hot dog without even batting an eyelid. And I don’t say that with spite as much as I do awe. I can’t really fault the industry, it’s the hand that feeds me. Corporate America literally pays my pays my paychecks. Ideally, I want to grow up to be just like them -making billions of dollars for my company based on and initiative that I birthed into the marketplace.

But at the same time…it really pisses me off that I don’t get my 2 cent discount when I check my own milk, tampons and adult diapers.