Wednesday, October 24, 2012
A Modern Version of "Forced Perfection"
I was thinking about John Rusken's writing on how man made things loss all their uniqueness when copied over and over again. Since the industrial revolution, the would has been rapidly been moving closer and closer to that concept. Today, we go into any fast food place and we can get the exact same thing as the person next to you. Yes, there is a little verity (if you want to exchange the pickles for the ketchup) but overall its the same as all the other meals that are ordered there. Same goes for the place I work at. I'm a cook at the Residence Inn and we use the same 2 week rotation with hardly no change in routine. All of our meals are prepared the exact same way and served the same way as we did the same day 2 weeks before. Getting a bigger picture, all of the Residence Inns are using the exact same line up for their meals as well. You can go to 2 different Residence Inns on the same day and see the exact same food. All uniqueness is completely lost. It makes me think how many other places do the exact same thing. (Again using food for an example) I look back at the places I have all ate at, and the ones that stick out the most were the ones that were different. It was something I either haven't seen before or never tried before. The makes me wonder if we made and sold something unique (just not food) would people flock to it because its different or would they reject it because its too different?
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Could we ever get over our desire for uniformity? Is it something we actually want or do we just think we want it?
ReplyDeleteReading this post also made me think of my job. And the same idea of uniformity that I experience every day I work. I'm a waitress, so although I encounter different people everyday, occasionally some regulars will come in, I am constantly struck by how similar my encounters are with them. Now, this is probably my fault. I say the same spiel to every table "Hi how are you guys doing...blah blah blah what can I get you to drink? Need a refill? etc." Not only do I say the same thing, but I usually get the same response. They respond "good, good, how about you?" So at the end of the night (except rare occasions) I couldn't even tell you who I served because they all seemed the same.
ReplyDeleteThe exceptions:
Occasionally (and I mean very occasionally) I will get a table the actual asks me questions, and not just questions about the specials, but questions about me: where I go to school, what do I want to do, etc. This always takes me aback because I'm not prepared for it. I expect people to give me the same responses to my same questions. Your blog post and comments about how people would respond to something different really struck me because that's how I responded to it! At first my response to people when they engage in conversation with me takes me aback and I think oh great, now what do I say, this is completely off my normal script. BUT as we start talking, I am usually very grateful about it. My original reaction is a sort of mild panic (what about my other tables? is my food up? what am I supposed to say to these strangers? what if they don't like what I have to say?) but as the conversation gets going, very often people have great things to say. At the end of the night (if I have had customers like this) I have no trouble remembering them. And I always leave with a better feeling. I wish this would happen more often, because I think we do want it, even if we don't know it.
Routine is easy. It's easy because it's predictable, we know what 's going to happen and that makes us feel safe. As animals, our natural instinct is to veer toward what is safe and predictable because we know how to handle it. But I don't think routine allows us to thrive and learn and experience things the way we need to as conscious, cognitive beings. Our brains and minds thrive on novelty, it's how we become better and more intelligent.
I think that in areas of work such as restaurants, there should be more non-uniformity and that more novelty should be encouraged such as new menu items at the Residence Inn or for me to throw away the script I mentally read from at work, because those novel items make us greater human beings.
Hopefully this wasn't too much rambling, but I think you brought up some great points that we should all consider during our everyday living.