Mediocrity A Way of Life
Posted on February 12, 2008
Filed Under Corporate Greed
Many companies thrive by being mediocre. Their entire business is built around it. McDonald’s, Wal-Mart and Books A Million are names that come to mind. I got a good dose of mediocrity this weekend and felt like this was the best place to talk about it.
This past Sunday my wife and I took a shopping trip in a mediocre car that I just purchased. The day started rather uneventful. We visited the mediocre book store Books A Million and I purchased enough less-than-mediocre books to keep the family occupied for quite some time. The issue I had there was that my Millionaire’s Book Club Card that was renewed two weeks earlier was not working. So instead of them being able to correct the problem on the spot they have to send a memo to their corporate office to have this problem resolved. Not a real problem but it does show that Books A Million does not empower their employees to correct a customer service issue. Mediocrity at its best.
Despite my unwillingness my wife coerced me to visit the mediocre empire, Wal-Mart. They have made it big business to provide mediocre products to the masses. So, while I was there, I decided to have my mediocre car’s oil changed and serviced.
By this time we were hungry and despite having a mediocre sandwich shop, Subway, located inside of Wal-Mart my wife once again used her coercive powers to visit a restaurant located next to the Mediocre Empire, Shane’s Rib Shack. About the best thing I can say about Shane’s Rib Shack is that they have an awesome location, good fries and good tea. The sandwich I had was absolutely mediocre to say the best. Looks like they took pointers from McDonald’s. But rest assured, if I find myself at Wal-Mart hungry again I may visit them but will pass on the sandwich, but would never go out of my way to eat there again.
I picked up the car, paid my less-than-mediocre bill for service and did not give it a second thought until I heard the valves rattling as we were traveling home. I then looked at the service ticket to see exactly what fluids were topped off and looked really close at all of the services performed. Nowhere did they mention checking coolant levels on their full service, but they did check the tail lights and blinker operation and even indicated that they were checked. Well, I knew that there was an issue with the blinkers and break lights, they were not fully operational and I am waiting for a part to correct the problem with a real service shop. This made me wonder what else they did not do that I paid for.
But hey, I knew going in that to expect anything over mediocre from an oil change tech at Wal-Mart would be a mediocre thought process.
Our economy thrives on mediocrity. Mediocre products, mediocre service, mediocre blog post… this probably is not my best effort. Mediocrity fuels what we do day in and day out and is the accepted standard here in the good ol’ U S of A. It wasn’t always like this. It is a travesty that these things are accepted as “the way it is.”
Dare to be Mediocre
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2 Responses to “Mediocrity A Way of Life”
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“break lights”
Paul spellcheck works only when you use the right word! As for the article I can relate.
Thanks Tater,
Like I said it was a mediocre blog post.
Paul