Service

I really thought this would be easy.  It was 5:45, dinner had to be on the table, and I had a package of Trader Joe’s Hash Browns.  Trade Joe’s is a wonderful place, but they generally haven’t yet discerned the invention of the air fryer, so I was Googling for instructions on how to air fry the hash browns.

I clicked open the first link, and six pages later,I found the one sentence I wanted.  Dinner was three minutes late, as a result.

Stuff like this is everywhere:

 “Giuseppe met Marlene on the boat over from Europe, and it was love at first site.  By day, they worked the sweatshops, and by night, they got to know every inch of New York City.  But it was their love of food that brought them closer together than ever, and three years later, when he accidently spilled his marinara sauce on her homemade baguette, it was the start of a journey that had an ending neither one could anticipate.”

This tells me absolutely nothing about how to make French Bread Pizza, so why put it in a recipe?

Hats off to the good folks at Food Network, who generally have the good sense not to engage in this blather.  Props also to the recipes that have been edited to include a “Jump to Recipe” button at the top. 

Articles on social media could learn a lesson or two from the Jump to Recipe people.  Their posts—not their ads, but their posts—include a captivating description of a fascinating article that really could make life richer.  But a click on the link, and you realize the goal here is to make themselves richer.  “This premium article is restricted to Executive subscribers only.  Click here to pay $622 for unlimited annual access.”

I’ve spent part of my lifelong career writing for a living, so I get that doing it for free isn’t always the smartest thing to do (although this is free!) Still, if you really expect me to seriously fork over that much cash based on two Twitter sentences, you are clearly out of your mind.  You freely admit you use cookies to track me; how about you let me have one free article every month, so I can get a feel for the quality of what I’d be paying for, and then decide if it’s worth it or not?  Either way, isn’t it worth me retweeting or citing it on my social media pages, to expand your reputation, and your customer base?

Finally, we return yet again to the wonderful world of food, where a new and disturbing trend is emerging from restaurants I can only surmise are desperate to be considered snooty.  I went online to make a reservation for 1 at a new breakfast spot.  Nope.  If you want a reservation, there has to be at least two in your party.

This makes no sense to me.  A table for two can fit exactly two kinds of parties—a party of one, and a party of two.  If my one-person reservation was keeping them from taking a reservation for 15, well, OK.  But how much more money are they going to make by insisting two people are there to order coffee and a sweet roll—or, more cynically, if I make a reservation for two and show up solo, claiming the other person couldn’t make it?

Commercial America seems intent on recovering something they think they lost during COVID.  Permit me to suggest that all you’ve really lost is some of your integrity.  The customer isn’t always right, but they can always go somewhere else.

November Trees

A million licorice sticks
Poking at the sky
Having lost their oxygenating lollipops
In the carnival of the first frost.

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