Stay hungry, keep shopping!

A few weeks ago, Vredeseilanden held a workshop on 'The Farmer Effect', how different actors driving sustainability in agricultural value chains lead to improved livelihoods for small-scale farmers. Put simple, a bigger income allows farmers to invest in their land, education, health and whatnot. As reporter of the event, I wanted to record the talks to facilitate writing the report afterwards. This set me on a quest for tape recorders, which turned out easier than expected. Seems like bosses still like to tape themselves…

I ended up buying two simple devices - basically the two most basic recorders they had, due to budgetary constraints and the limited use they would serve. As there were no devices on the shelve, I ended up buying the recorders on display. When unpacking the boxes, I noticed that one recorder was missing the USB-cable to connect it to a computer. So I went back to Media Markt, the multi-media supermarket where I'd bought the devices, to fix this problem or get my money back so I could buy another basic recorder elsewhere.

I asked the lady at the service counter to whom I should direct myself with my problem of the missing USB-cable. 'The guy from the store section where you got the stuff from', she said. 'No no, I can't help you with this,' the guy from the store section said, 'go to the repair desk.' I already feared that answer, as this usually is the place where you spend hours waiting before you get attended. I was lucky, only half an hour was my share of waiting and witnessing how many products cannot be repaired because fixing that small problem would cost almost the same as getting a newer version of that product. 'Ok,' the repair desk guy said, 'we'll just have to send it back. Here's a receipt to get a voucher at the service counter.'

It's been now almost 40 minutes of being told to go from one place to another, waiting and not being helped that much. I was eager to get it all over with and get my money back - they couldn't fix the problem and, being the last models of that series, the shop couldn't offer me another recorder of the same series, nor did it have any alternative within the same price range. 'I'm sorry,' the twenty-year old lady said to me at the service counter, 'it's not our policy to give you a refund; we only give vouchers.' I tried to explain to her that I didn't want any voucher; as the shop couldn't satisfy my need, I had to be able to get my money back to do so elsewhere. To no avail - along the process I had somewhat run out of patience, and my grumpiness was easily passed on to her. She was clearly in no mood or capacity to accommodate my sense of customer dissatisfaction. 'Take it or leave it,' was the snappy verdict.

As I left the store with the 'gift card' - almost thrown at me, because I had dared to object to the no-money refund policy and, as a consequence, complicate her life behind the counter - I could not help but wonder how symptomatic this experience had been of the consumption-driven society we live in. Goods are produced not to last, but to be sold. They often brake down, sometimes far too easily. It's not producers' or retailers' policy to repair your good, but to stimulate you buying the newest version of it (you know, to keep labour going). To reduce your resistance to this vicious cycle of consumption, they cook your brains while you wait in endless lines of understaffed customer service desks and are attended by unexperienced assistants who are hired according to their ability to parrot the shop's policy - otherwise they might even sympathise with complaining customers and help them finding a solution, oh horror (and wast of time)! The message is clear: keep shopping and don't bother about the complete irresponsibility of this unsustainable waste-generating consumption industry.