Is Convenience Becoming Too Convenient?
Graphic by Phoebe Stone
We have become accustomed to convenience. If you want Chick-Fil-A, you don’t even have to leave your house; you can DoorDash it to your front porch. If you want to order a cute shirt on Amazon, it can be outside your door within the same day. You can even skip the line at Starbucks and Dunkin’ on the Syracuse campus with mobile ordering. Everything that is inconvenient―waiting in line, waiting for a package, having to get into your car and drive to pick something up―can be skipped. All you have to do is hit “add to cart” and “order now.”
Nearly every action or purchase you make has been modified to be more convenient for you. Things are more accessible than ever. Yet, when every order becomes overly convenient and the act of waiting is completely eliminated, it spurs annoyance and disrespect when even the most miniscule of issues arise.
Because we have become so accustomed to getting exactly what we want whenever we want it, we freak out whenever something is delayed or slightly changed. Social media feeds are littered with videos of customers throwing a fit at Starbucks baristas for making their latte with the wrong milk or having to wait an extra 10 minutes during a rush.
Recently, a video of a woman cutting the line at a Starbucks in Texas went viral. The woman fought a Starbucks employee over a limited-edition Snoopy cup after grabbing it from behind the counter, knocking a display of gift cards to the floor.
Minor inconveniences like these do not warrant threats to “speak to the manager,” being rude to baristas or causing more of an inconvenience to the rest of the waiting line, and certainly not a physical altercation.
Is waiting an extra 10 minutes really that big of a deal? Are you really so tired that you can't drive 15 minutes to your closest fast food chain? There is nothing wrong with utilizing the convenience of certain apps and online shopping, but we should not be so reliant on them that when systems are down, we ourselves have a meltdown in response.
Delays and “out of stocks” are bound to happen, but mistreating employees shouldn’t be. The person behind the counter did not cause the issue, and are only doing their best to keep things moving and to carry out their job. An inconvenience is nothing more than just that: an inconvenience. A little patience and courtesy can go a long way to the person behind the counter.