Immediate Gratification

 

With all the speed of technology, a click-of-a-button and we expect immediate gratification. When this doesn’t happen, we get frustrated.

No comparison to the days when one would have to get dressed in presentable public attire and travel to a brick-and-mortar building, find a parking spot, search through shelves of options, fill your cart and push it to a line and wait until your turn to have each item scanned, present coupons, have the items bagged and write a check before you can leave, pack your trunk and return to the starting point. Imagine dragging an uninterested spouse or a hyper child or two to make the venture more special.

Once home, you find you have forgotten an item or the size or color doesn’t look the same as it did in the store. Rinse and repeat.

No, we have grown use to immediate gratification. Scroll through endless selections, add to cart, give a credit card number and verify your purchase. We expect a cardboard box will appear on our front porch the next day.

I, like you, have become familiar with ordering online and expect prime customer service, including the constant emails tracking the delivery of your request and asking for a review of the service. The delivery truck normally comes through in the afternoon so I check my email to see the photo sent to me when delivered.

Looking back at my history I’ve ordered everything from underwear to tools to books and music. I’ve not returned anything, but I do my research before I click ‘OK’.

Everything seemed to working fine, until…

My recent birthday/Christmas items were ordered in October and seemed to arrive within a few days (as advertised), except for one. None of these items were urgent necessities, but I do appreciate an on-time delivery. It is like Christmas every day to find a package on your porch to open. Even though you know what is inside, it is always a happy process to cut open the box and put the cardboard in the recycling.

More expensive items I want to touch-test before I buy and check the delivery for quality before the truck leaves. I only use a credit card and then pay off the bill before placing another order.

What was wrong with this order? No truck drivers? Supply log jam? Ordering snafu? I can imagine robots and folks in orange jumpsuits with wi-fi radios and handheld scanners rushing about a massive warehouse somewhere in rural Virginia looking for order # 113-6675561-1044241.

 

The message now, when tracking the delivery, is ‘running late’? No ‘regrets for the delay’ or ‘offer any discounts’ have been made. Looking at my neighbors recycling bins, the delivery truck has been through with plenty of cardboard boxes.

We (I included) spend way too much time scrolling screens for something to entertain us. Shopping is a form of entertainment and gives our dopamine a rush.

The other day at the Tummy Temple there was panic at the check-out. Managers were scrambling to offer customer service to waiting lines. Since I’m never in a hurry, I can watch the circus knowing full well I’ll leave with my cart full and probably some hidden discounts due to the confusion. ‘Not enough people’ is the excuse for the blockage, but this is the time for reconstruction of the cathedral, so wait your turn.

What about Tinder or eHarmony or MatchY or the never-ending sites that promise ‘love’ with a click-of-a-mouse. Do you ‘add to cart’ and click ‘OK’ to deliver to your front porch? I don’t know because I don’t use them, but I have been shopping (in a department store or a bar). Both of these establishments expect us to pay some money and possibly leave happy. If this was pizza it would be cold by now.

If I take out a date to dinner and dancing and then late-night drinks under the moonlight, do I expect immediate gratification? As a teenage at the drive-in movie in the backseat with syruping drinks and sticky popcorn, do we want to watch the movie or get immediate gratification? It doesn’t always work out that way.

So, I wait.

 

 

And then finally

I checked the tracking and lo and behold, it said it was delivered yesterday. So, I checked the email and there were no announcements from Amazon with their little photo to show the package on my porch. I left a customer service message that if the package that was delivered, I was not notified. Then some detective work. Walk out front and view the yard for a misplaced bag or box. Maybe a neighbor got it? Maybe a porch pirate brazens enough to climb the fence and avoid the critter crewe that even makes the postman run by, confiscated the package?

I go out to rake leaves into the street before the rain to annoy my neighbors from parking in front of my house unless they have a monster truck and notice..

The mailbox. The lid was askew.

Sure enough, case solved. It was delivered by mail on a Sunday.

I’ll back off from ordering until after the holidays, due to traffic on the roads and anything that would annoy me.

Instead, I wait for my yearly venture to the Tummy Temple on Thanksgiving Day. Not for the shopping, but for the entertainment.