[ExI] will work for food

[spike]

All this talk about capitalism, WalMart and Taco Bell gave me a hell of an
idea, we will make a cubic buttload of money.
 
You know of RFID, ja?  Radio frequency identifier tags, so tiny they can fit
inside a credit card making a scarcely noticeable bulge.  My ID badge at
work had one in it, so when I walk past certain secure doorways, they know
it is me and would automatically unlock.
 
Imagine a SuperWalMart or equivalent, a huge warehouse store.  You can see
twenty to thirty cash registers, proles lined up with shopping carts,
hauling stuff out of there 24/7, so simple logic and Kirchoff's current law
suggests an equal, opposite army of proles hauling stuff at an equal rate
from out back where the trucks park to stock the shelves.  Idea: if all the
products have RFID tags, the checkout process is greatly simplified, for the
device would automatically charge the proles for everything in the cart and
everything they have stuffed into their underclothing, assuming they wore
any.  This would greatly simplify the checkout process, and remove one of
the biggest objections to Walmart: it takes a long time to check out with
only 30 registers.  (Our local Fry's Electronics has 60 cash registers.
Sixty!)
 
With all the products marked with RFID, you could have readers on the
shelves, so the shelves would know when the proles have removed a sufficient
number of products to need restocking, so you could have a computer send a
message out back to bring a certain product.  Next, you could have your
trucks lined up with Chinese manufactured goods receive the message from the
shelves, then could load up shopping carts with the appropriate cartons,
which the employees would then push to the appropriate place, but (here's
the critically important point) the shopping cart knows where to go, so the
employee need not worry herself with reading, thinking, knowing where
anything is located.  Just follow the instructions of the differential GPS
guided shopping cart, go where it says, stock the shelf, return.  We could
employ the mentally retarded, or anyone who can physically move.
 
Next, the employee need not be paid by the hour.  The computer knows how
many products were stocked and by whom, since the employees would also be
wearing RFID, so they could work by commission like taxi drivers.  No need
for expensive supervisors cracking the whip, no need for employees to show
up at a certain time or leave at a certain time, so completely flexible work
hours.
 
Next, Taxifornia is proposing digging out of their budge hole by legalizing
and taxing marijuana.  OK we can work with that.  The above job requires so
little mental capacity it could be done while stoned.  We could dig up
Cheech and Chong to record the PA messages.  Remember that mellow stoner hep
cat?  Imagine his voice: Hey like attention shoppers man!  There's
like...um... stuff for like sale on aisle 9 maaaan...
 
The pay per item stocked could constantly fluctuate depending on how many
shelf stockers are present, so you would have something analogous to a
standing army.  The local Super Walmart is being built close enough to a
residential area that the stoned employees could walk to and from their
work.  Each employee could sign on as an independent contractor, which may
help with legal liability.
 
You have seen the way the customers dress at Walmart, well since this would
be the next logical step beyond that, you know they would let even more of
their stuff hang out.  Hell I would shop there just to see that.  In
compliance with health department rules we could have the shortest dress
code of any work place: Employees must wear shoes.
 
In any grocery, some food expires on the shelf, but is still perfectly
edible well after it's expiration date.  Don't worry about how I know this,
just trust me I know this.  You could offer that stuff to the employees, so
even if they don't make a lot of money, they have a job where they are high
constantly and are actually fed and stoned on the job.  This gives a whole
new meaning to the phrase Will Work For Food.
 
In fact, that would be a great name for the store, Will Work For Food Inc.
You have seen people hired to carry ad boards?  If we open Will Work For
Food, we already have a standing army of people carrying ad boards for us,
free.  We could send around a van and round them up: they are standing there
with the sign, we have work and we have food, we even have dope, get on
board.
 
The RFIDs on everything could be used to tell the customers where to find
the object they need, without having to ask the stoned employees.  Don't you
hate asking where to find stuff?  It is sooo too much like asking
directions, onerous, humiliating is this, puts one in a temporarily
submissive posture in relation to the WWFF employee, who probably doesn't
know anyway. 
 
For those of you who have ever worked for minimum wage, you know those are
some of the highest stress jobs imaginable: you are making next to nothing
under deplorable conditions, you often have a wild eyed boss screaming at
everyone to hustle their asses before she goes broke, etc.  This would
actually be likely a subminimum wage job for most of those doing it, but
they appear to be having a fine time, and besides, theoretically a sober
highly motivated person could exceed minimum.  And it would likely be a fun
job in its own way, temporary for most, but one of those which would offer
fond memories of a misspent youth down at WWFF.
 
It would appeal to people across the political spectrum: Walmart haters
would know that this would directly undercut the object of their wrath.  It
has a lot of "stick it to the man" in it, since the Searses and Macyes would
be crushed in the stampede right past their businesses.  The democrats could
set up a table out front to register voters in stunning hordes.  The
libertarians would like it because there are so few rules.  The hard core
capitalists would admire the fact that it is another step toward the most
efficient means of distributing manufactured goods, and would like the idea
of helping the hungry, poor and naked while making a buttload of money and
creating a free gawkfest for superannuated gentlemen.
 
spike
 
 
 
 
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