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As a quick warning, this post will be a bit more of a rant than my usual semi-informative essays and reports, but I think it touches upon a few of the key elements barring the way of social progression and forward thinking. First of all, I am NOT against ALL big businesses nor do I think it is probable that some day we will not have them. I do not think the majority of society will start paying more for consumer goods in order to support local businesses in the near future. I think many will continue to want to get the most they can for the least amount of money, regardless of who ends up paying for it at the end. As a result of that type of thinking, big business will remain.

That being said, there is another casualty of large chains beyond restricting competition for smaller companies. A month or two back I started to look for a suitable location to host a VEG parking day event (www.parkingday.org) on September 16th. Typically the park installations are placed in public metered parking spaces in downtown areas, but after some deliberation and discussion we thought it might be best to try to make a PARKing day event more centralized into this specific area of Austin. There were too locations that I thought would be great for the event within close proximity to our office as well as plenty of nearby foot traffic etc. I started by making a couple calls to a Galleria shopping center that is situated more like a downtown street. Overall I think it was planned out relatively well, and thought it to be a local place that we can really promote these ideas of green space and rethink how the areas covered with asphalt could be more enjoyably used for. After being passed to multiple different people within the Galleria office, I was asked to leave a voicemail with a person in charge of managing the Galleria. Considering this was a non-public area, I figured permission was appropriate. After 2 days of waiting for a response, I called the Galleria office again, and yet again, left a voicemail. I called in another 2 days, talked to the secretary, and managed to be connected to another in-box. After about a week and a half of no communication and no calls returned, I determined that apparently, the Galleria management had no interest in the PARKing day event, even after being promised media attention surrounding the event.

After that failed attempt, I contacted the closest Seattle-based coffee shop thinking that given their attempts at being more socially and environmentally conscious, they might be interested in letting me have our PARKing day outside their store. After speaking with a manager, he was surprisingly helpful, informing me that they would probably be interested but I would need to gain permission from the grocery store chain that owns their lease. This is where things became all too familiar. After speaking with two different managers and a regional director, I was patched through to one of the regional managers where after a quite friendly phone call was instructed to send a outline of the event which I did promptly. After 3 days of no response, I called the regional managers office again, where I was told that a message would be sent that day. Two days later without a response, I made another call, and again the same response. After more than a week I received an email asking for clarification on a couple points which I responded to. After another week and a half, and several calls to the company, I gave up.

Now maybe it is just my sense of manners when it comes to these things, but if I tell someone I will respond within a day or two, I generally do. First off its polite, but secondly customer service is extremely important to the success of our company. If it wasn’t for that element of our operation, we probably would not be in business right now. Not returning a correspondence through phone or even email after 3 weeks is simply unacceptable. Even if they were not interested in the event, a courtesy call informing me of such would have been very welcomed so an alternate plan could have been devised.

This is an example of one of the greatest detriments of big business on our every day lives. Yes, a large company can employ many people, and create income. That is surely an important factor for the success of an economy. What it does not create is a sense of bond and responsibility within the community itself. Employees typically compete amongst eachother not to climb the corporate ladder but in many cases today, to stay employed. Typically with large big box retailers, grocery stores, health care centers etc, the job pool can be quickly replaced if needed. In these cases, distrust becomes more common than companionship. Chain restaurants often use labor systems and methods to increase profit by insuring that employees are paid the least amount while maintaining functionality. These large companies work as machines, primarily concerned with the bottom line and profit margins as well as the salaries of the board and executive staff, rarely bothering with creating an actual society. If we do see a large company involved in a public project, it usually has the project named after the company itself so instead of a selfless act of community building or philanthropy, they create a billboard.

In  order for a society to prosper, there needs to be some sort of common bond between people: some sort of connection. Today it seems much more common to look upon a neighbor and treat them as a threat than someone who might be able to improve your life or situation. In my example above, there was so much red tape involved, with so much detachment from management, a simple event taking up one parking spot was too much to ask. What happened to customer service and companies caring about people’s needs being met, rather than simply sales numbers surrounding the products? When people become numbers, the person ceases to exist, and only the numbers remain. A true society is not composed of numbers but rather a diverse group of people working to better the lives of the people around them. Where are the hardware stores where people know you by name? Where are the small markets that don’t only exist in a parking lot on Sunday mornings? Where are the people coming together only to create a tighter and healthier community? I hope we find them.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 1:56 pmand is filed under Sustainability: Social Aspect, VEG Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.