Pre-Boomer Musings

Pre-boomers remember the time when service played an important role in the selection of the stores in which we shopped the restaurants where we ate and virtually any one with whom we did personal and professional business.  Times have changed and service, as we knew it, is a thing of the past.

 

One of the first areas where service slipped away was the place where we bought our groceries.  As supermarkets wiped out the local grocer, customers soon adapted to walking up and down the aisles, picking out what they wanted and dropping it into the shopping cart.  There was some help in the produce area and fresh cuts of meat and selected seafood could be obtained at the service counter, but the store preferred that we buy the pre-packaged items in the refrigerated or frozen food cases.

 

The expansion of department stores to the suburban malls resulted in fewer qualified people who were willing to work in the relatively low paying retail business, so service took a backseat to convenience.  Discount retailers learned that the promise of lower prices could offset the need to provide service on the floor, so they reduced service even more as they reduced prices and became self-service operations functioning much like supermarkets.  The trend for lower price/less service was exemplified in what became known as “fast food” restaurants. 

 

When the fuel shortage hit in the ‘70s, we learned to pump our own gasoline.  Later, there was a discount for giving up service, and then it became so expensive that a person, all  dressed up for work, thinks nothing about filling their tank, washing the windows with a dirty squeegee and paying for what was once free air and water.  Needless to say, there are no free maps.  In fact, it’s virtually impossible to get directions from the person seating behind the bulletproof glass who takes our cash if we decide not to use a credit card.  And, now there’s an extra discount if we pay the inflated gas price with real money instead of using plastic.

 

There are many other examples of how service has all but disappeared.  We’ve allowed this to happen.  Our parents aren’t doing much shopping anymore and we pre-boomers along with the older boomers have, over time, been trained to accept the change in the way we buy things.  The younger people think it’s a convenience to shop the Internet and buy online rather than go out to buy something.  In some ways they’re right, but there’s something to be said about feeling the merchandise, having human interaction at the store, and just getting out of the house.  But as long as we are willing to believe that we don’t need service because the quality of what we buy is all pretty much the same, then low price will be synonymous with value.

 

Pre-boomers still know that quality plus service at a reasonable price equals real value.  We owe it the X, Y, and Z Generations to help them understand this concept instead of having to do everything themselves.  By embracing just some of this notion, they will experience how good the feeling of service can be.  

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