Funny

We let MBAs, who have no skills other than "buy low, sell high", take over everything.

Story time:

I used to work at a place that sells exclusively to local factories. We had an insane warehouse that may very well have had the Ark of the Convenant in the back, and small shops in each factory. Workers could get gloves, drive belts, fans, and other day-to-day stuff right there at the factory or order from the warehouse. The big Fortune 500 plant manager (engineer, nice guy, smart) tells me that he's retiring and the New Guy (MBA) wants to have a meeting. Ok.

New Guy immediately starts making demands, "I want to know how much we are buying off your shop". Well, we send a weekly update every Monday and each month a full report that tracks trends and notes any major purchases.

"I want the full report TODAY". Ok, here is the most recent report.

"No, run it for today". Sir, it's the middle of the month so all the metrics will be skewed comparing two weeks to previous months.

"I don't want your opinion, I want the report. Now." To which I think I'm this guy's supplier and he talks to me this way, I can only imagine what employees hear. So I print the report and leave.

Start of next month I get a call "You're robbing us blind!" Well good morning to you too, what is the problem. "This report you sent says you're charging us way too much. We're going to fix this." After some back and forth, it's clear he was using the two week report as the baseline for what he thinks our services should cost. I try to get him to look at literally any other monthly report or grasp the basics of how time works. Nope.

Then he says the greatest thing a human in charge of a factory has ever said. "It looks like the maintenance guys are the ones spending the most money..." I pause trying to figure out what he is getting at since of course the people replacing parts are the ones buying parts. "...the maintenance department doesn't even make us any money!" It was at this moment I realized I wasn't dealing with an asshole, I was dealing with an idiot asshole.

They also moved most of the maintenance guys over to the line. Soon after, our shop was kicked out. Idiot Asshole would bulk ordered parts, usually incorrectly. Parts, tools, and safety gear kept disappearing from their new storage room which he tried to make my problem, somehow. They ran up absurd levels of delivery fees over the following months because the line would shut down so they had to emergency order the replacement from the warehouse instead of walking to the shop. Lots of wrong parts ordered because while the shop had the most commonly replaced parts for that factory handy, the warehouse list had a million billion almost identical parts and good luck figuring that out looking at a part list.

My last week I had to emergency deliver ($$$) some fuses over and they had a team of suits there trying to figure out why productivity had cratered. I caught a smoke on the way out with one of the remaining maintenance guys who informed me the first thing the suits did when they walked in was fire his boss, the miracle worker who kept the place somewhat running with Idiot Asshole in charge. The maintenance boss didn't say a word when he was fired, just got in his truck to drive across the street where they hired him on the spot.

This was a few years ago. The plant is still down more than it runs. The company has done two huge stock buybacks in recent years, so the stonks is way up even with their largest facility barely operating. The Roaring 20s keep on roaring.

Look them right in the face and use the broken shit.

My phone is not physically on fire? I'm still using it.

My pants are ripped? Don't look.

You can't MAKE shit obsolete enough that I won't suffer through using it out of sheer spite.

Not sure how much of this channel is AI generated but they do seem to use a fair bit of it at least.

There’s a secret code built in too that if you buy the extended Warrenty, it lasts just beyond it

Whenever some device breaks, I try to get a replacement from ancient times so I'll never have to buy another shitty one again.

When my desk lamp broke, I got a medical lamp from the 1930s. It's made out of steel and aluminum and will never fail.

When my fan broke, I got a desk fan from the 50's - it needed just a few drops of oil and has been running continuously for a week during the European heatwave. Everything down to the gears that make it turn from left to right is made out of solid metal.

The next thing will be an analog scale. I have an electronic one from amazon that partly melted when it was sitting a little bit next to my stove (it didn't even get that hot). And I secretly hope my toaster will break soon, because ancient toasters look fucking awesome and I want one.

I also have an eBook reader from 2008, when Sony went crazy for a bit and actually produced models with a metal shell. All of these things will definitely last longer than me, as it should be.

The only thing I cannot replace are my fridge and my washing machine. :( You just cannot get those old ones - and even if you do, sellers will not ship them and without a car or driving license, I simply can't get them. But I do what I can to minimize having to spend a shit ton of money every few years to replace my failing devices.

McDonalds sells hamburgers for $7

I can beat that. Let me sell you a hamburger for $1

Capitalism approves... the government does not

I'm not allowed to sell you a hamburger. Not without a permit, and an inspection, and a place designated as a business to sell that hamburger from. What, you think you can just cook a hamburger on a grill and sell it to someone?

So I get a business license, find a place of business, get my permits, get my inspection, and open the doors... except all that cost money so I have a $12k loan and a building that costs $3k a month and I still need electricity, water, and wifi. Once all that is paid for I still need to earn enough money that I can go home and pay my own bills and survive

At $1 a hamburger, I'll never sell enough hamburgers to survive so I have to raise the price. My hamburgers are now $9

McDonalds knows this. They got a stranglehold on the market and while anybody could technically compete and that competition is suppose to keep product quality high and prices low people can't actually compete

Now McDonalds can make their burgers smaller, the quality worse, and jack up the price... what are you going to do about it?

You think Wendys will save you? Burger King? Nah, they do the same thing

Now apply this to literally everything. Clothes, washing machines, dish washers, etc... I guess in theory I could make a better TV that doesn't come with a bunch of bullshit advertisements built into it and sell it to you for less, but the government won't let me

A while back I was at an event with a huge coffee urn. At the end of the event I took home a mostly empty plastic container of Folger's coffee. Instead of throwing it out when I was done, I kept it and used it for years to hold tea bags. It finally died when I left it on the stove and the open fire melted it.

About the same time I brought a plastic measuring cup. That thing exploded the first time I dropped it.

Under capitalism, garbage is eternal, and things you pay for self-destruct.

Companies don’t make anything new anymore. All the amazing leaps in design and technology we’ve enjoyed over the last multiple decades are finished. They cost too much…a negative expense on quarterly report.

What’s cheap and effective? Shrinkflation. Cutting employee benefits. Stagnating wages. Decreasing quality. Removing employees and replacing them with AI or other automation. Cutting customer service. Forcing people to use apps. Finding new ways to unbundle, insert fees, or force another middleman between customers and what they want.

It’s a perverse Matrix, the “coppertop” is us, and they’re extracting everything they can from us to keep their system going and the line moving up.

I say it EVERY DAY now, and my family is sick of it, but they know it's true: NOTHING works any more. Products, systems, etc., nothing works the way it's supposed to, including customer service, which is worse than it has ever been. These days, corporations consider an AI chatbot to do ALL of their customer contact to be high quality customer service.

I think this is due less to planned obsolescence than people want to believe. I'd argue it's as much due to market pressure. People want to buy cheap things so companies start making things cheaper.