"blah...offset costs...blah...blah..."

I was filling the tank this morning at the local servo, when I heard a noise.  Talking.  Close by.  Something I'd never heard before, but pretty much dismissed as there is a workshop just over the fence from the pump I was at.

Then I realised it was words I'd heard before.  An ad?  It was coming from nearby.  Very near by.

Then I glanced up, and I saw IT.  Look carefully.

A television.  Or at least a screen, displaying television.  Doubtless some tie in with Shell and Coles and Channel 7, who's morning news was on after the ads.

Seriously?  Shell suddenly find enough money to install these moronic devices on every pump?  And they reckon they're not taking everyone to town on pricing (and not just in the servo)?  I'm sure Shell/Coles will have a press release or statement ready to roll for complaints or queries, something like "advertising allows us to offset and absorb costs that would otherwise be passed on to the consumer".  Hmmmm.

I want a mobile phone to make calls.  I want a digital camera to take photos.  And I want a servo to be a servo.  A service station is not an opportunity to multi-task.  I pay you money for petrol.  And maybe an iced coffee now and then.  But expect people to pay an extra few cents per litre plus forty cents on every item so you can advertise, and you can be sure people will flock away.  Here's a discussion you won't hear:

She: "Darling, lets get fuel at the Shell, they have those nice little televisions"
He: "But Pookie, we've already blown the petrol budget in 3 months...once we get two skim latte's, a bag of soy chips and the sneaky Mars bar with it, it all adds up you know, and daycare isn't free..."

She: "Darling, they have those nice little televisions..." (cue patronising arm rub)

Turn a service station BACK into a servo.  On a side note, look for little televisions at supermarket checkouts and aisles real soon.

Mind you, these are probably great for people like the couple in front of myself and GLW who spent the first fifteen minutes of last nights Pearl Jam concert updating Facebook and Twitter from their iphones.

Insert tagline here...

Time keeps on slipping...

I’ve been doing some thinking lately on the concept of time. Not time, per se, as a passing of the inevitable, more time as a commodity that is saleable, irreplaceable and somewhat monetary in nature.

Naturally, time has always been associated with money in the investment world. You need only look at ‘short-term, high-risk’ strategies to understand that narrowing the time margin increases the risk margin, and vice versa. Should you attempt to make 5% return on investment (as opposed to 5% p.a.) in 3 months, your money will be subjected to a higher risk than a 5% return in 12 months. As the time extends, risk decreases. Never to a point where there is zero risk, though.

And what are you buying, when you purchase nearly any commodity? It can all be boiled down to time.

Say you buy a shirt. Break it into components.
- Raw materials
- Assembly
- Supply
- Sale

Raw materials:
Plastic buttons? Someone had to garner raw materials = time. Someone had to manufacture = time.
Cotton? Someone had to plant, tend, grow, harvest = time. Someone had to extract and form into thread = time. Someone had to supply to manufacturer = time.

Assembly:
Someone had to stamp buttons = time. Someone had to weave = time. Someone had to pattern, cut, stitch = time.

Supply:
Someone had to ship it to the store via truck, ship or air = time.

Sale:
Someone bought the material and manufacturing time in the form of completed buttons to put onto their garments, and woven cotton fabric to cut and sew into shirts = time.

Someone had to stand in the store to be there to attend to you during the sale = time.

So you’re buying more than the sum of its parts. You’re buying the equivalent of (possibly) hundreds of man-hours in production from raw material to sale, all for what you probably think is an outrageously high price. But think about it this way. If you had to go out, mine, farm, manufacture, ship and sell that same shirt, what would your charge out rate be?

For some, their time is cheap. By our standards. For others, they have deemed their time to be so valuable that they command thousands of dollars a day for their skill and knowledge. But lets see a barrister farm cotton to make his shirts, or wool to make his suits. Granted, his business is high risk, but why would the humble farmers business not be risk? His land floods, his crops fail, he has no livelihood. And it’s unlikely that he has a superannuation fund or investment as the barrister may.

Even if you’re reading this on a broadband internet connection, you’re buying someone’s time. ISP’s invest in technology, and what is technology but someone else’s time that they used to develop it? You invest in the speed of the network, removing a certain element of time from your day for other uses, or fitting more into the same amount of time.

There’s a lot of inequality in the world, and time is just another one of those. Sure, we all get 24 hours in a day no matter who or where we are, but for some people they demand they get more money for their utilisation of that time.

Insert tagline here…