Alison and I needed a tape measure. We were looking to measure a wall in the small bedroom of our Boston apartment, to see if it could accommodate a king-size bed.
So off I went across the street to CVS, where I found one tape measure remaining in the home goods section. It measured only to 12 feet and sold for $9.99. And it was locked. That single item on that single bracket had a tiny red magnetic nob on it, preventing it from being taken off the shelf without staff supervision.
This was clearly done to prevent theft, a new problem for a new generation to solve. As a child or young adult, I never would have encountered a product in a retail store locked in this way. Normally when I come across a locked product, I don’t buy it because of the hassle involved, but in this case, I truly needed that tape measure. So, I left the aisle, found a CVS employee, and explained my situation.
“I don’t have the key,” she told me. She proceeded to call the manager. (Side note: She was hired by CVS to work in the aisles and was not empowered by that company to unlock a $9.99 item.)
Next, the manager came over and I had to explain my situation all over again. “I’m sorry, I don’t have that key,” he told me. “Let me call the person who does.”
Usually I would have been long gone by this point, but I really needed that tape measure, so I stuck it out.
Eventually, a third employee arrived with the magic key. She unlocked the item, handed it to me nicely, and left.
Comically, I now found myself alone in the aisle with the very product CVS had locked up in the first place, to prevent anyone from being alone in the aisle with it. I could have easily stolen it, thanks to the help of not one, not two, but three employees, including the manager. But, of course, I had come to buy that tape measure, not steal it, so I went to the self-checkout register—where once again, no CVS employee supervised me—paid for the item, and left.
While this might seem like CVS’s problem, it’s bigger than that. We all pay for the total cost of the inefficiency and distrust baked into our culture. Theft by some increases the costs for all. Waste by some impacts the price paid by all. Nothing is free. There is no free health care. There is no free education. There is no free public transportation. Everything we do as a society carries a cost. The lock on a single tape measure at a single CVS store that requires three employees to release has a cost. Society only streamlines its efficiency when everyone takes ownership of their choices and begins calling out the absurd.
Everything has a cost. That’s the tale of the tape.
