I am actually a flesh and blood human being, standing here before you. I know you are busy. But you are fulfilling orders for people who are not here and, by the looks of things, won’t be anytime soon. This is what I would like to say to the nice, young barista, calling out “mobile order for…” to the void as I stand by my lonesome in my almost empty local Starbucks.
I keep quiet because I know she’s not responsible for implementing the mobile order policy of the global corporation that employs her in Astoria, Queens. As a barista she’s too far from the center of decision-making to be blamed for much of anything beyond the taste of my drink, and even then, she doesn’t choose the ingredients that go into making it. I also, perhaps unfairly, judge by her youth that anything I say about the injustice of prioritizing online customers over flesh and blood ones will make me look like a cranky, middle-aged Luddite.
I get it though. I understand why a multibillion-dollar global corporation would tap into a new technological advancement and the zeitgeist it creates. The dictum of corporate masters is to create new revenue streams. It makes a certain sense for decision makers at Starbucks to further monetize the need for self-caffeinating in our go-go world by allowing customers to order their favorite coffee and breakfast snacks from apps. This way at least harried commuters avoid waiting in line to place and pay for their orders. Commuters running late, who might have forgone a recharge to get them through the morning, can now order from their smartphones. Those orders represent income that otherwise the company wouldn’t capture.
Nevertheless, the workings of mobile orders perfectly captures our depersonalized, technology mediated moment. Customers in the flesh have to stand in line, even when there isn’t a line, as disembodied customers have their orders fulfilled.
I imagine baristas take the orders as they come through regardless of whether these were made online or in person. The selling point of a mobile order, however, is that it will be fulfilled before the customer appears in the flesh. And as this in-person customer finds himself more often in virtual cues behind a series of mobile orders, he can’t help think that even the miniscule community building activity of being surrounded by other customers is going the way of the neighborly chat, the telephone conversation, and the home visit.
Forget, can we all get along? The saying and its goal might be too ‘90s. Getting along might be an impossibility in our social-media fueled polarization. But can we all at least stand with each other? You know? Not in any social responsibility sense, but… to get our coffee.
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