Keep it Simple Dude !

Human beings pride on bring the smartest beings on the planet though history will time and again prove that our 'smartness' has done more damage than good to mother nature.

In Bangalore the law mandates for stores NOT to provide free plastic bags. Now we have to pay from Rs. 1 to Rs. 5 depending on size for a plastic bag or bring our own.  At first sight it seems like a good move. Junta will stop treating plastic like free stuff and use it with a bit more responsibility and make mother nature stronger in its big fight to survive human onslaught.

But like all human moves this too has a catch - not visible to the naked eye when viewed in isloation. Now let me to put  this move in context to my trips to the local supermarket store Aushan (pronounced O-Shan). 

First thing, the very first thing, after I walk into the store I realize that I didn't bring my reusable bags (again!). This makes me feel like a dumbo !

Then I start looking for milk, only to discover that some genius in the store thinks that milk should be placed in over a number of different locations throughout the store. You have your regular milk here, your tetrapack milk there, your slim milk somewhere else, and so on. There is no logic that I could conjure up to justify this. Five minutes into my shopping, I am filled with rage and I feel manipulated. I assume someone at Aushan's marketing department decided that inconveniencing me would somehow make me buy more shit because I end up walking down every goddamn aisle in the store looking for milk. It's not the inconvenience that bugs me so much as the feeling of manipulation. After-all I am an MBA-Engineer, if anything I should be manipulating others and not the other way around.

After this I look for the shortest checkout line. The 10 Items or Less line looks good, but I'm never confident in how they do that calculation. Is a '3 pack bundle' one item or three? What about multiples of the same product for which only one needs to be scanned and the cashier can just punch the exact number in the qty column of his billing software? Will the lady behind me feel I just cheated? Will the cashier give me a disgusted look and mentally abuse me? Will he kick me out of the line ? What exactly is the process for dealing with junta who cheat in 10 items of Less lines? 

I can't stand the ambiguity or do I want to risk humiliation at the hands of the cashier so I head for the regular checkout stand and its a longer line. When it's my turn to pay I am faced with the choice of proving I have a loyalty card or paying a penalty if I can't. I don't carry loyalty cards with me because I would need a thela for all of them. The cashier asks me for the phone number the card is registered against. But which phone number was it? Its registered in my wife's name but with our last few years being extremely nomadic I can't remember where and what number she might have used while registering. After a couple of futile and embarrassing attempts I give up. The people behind me have deployed their angry glares at me and my time-wasting hesitation, or at least it feels that way. 

Now I have to decide on Cash vs. Debit vs. Credit. I choose credit because one of my MBA Profs told me that ultimately CASH is reality so I delay parting ways with this cash I surely have. Plus the added rider of my PAYBACK points associated with the credit card, which is another mindfuck of complexity. I get mad just thinking about my points.

Now the cashier asks if I want to donate a Rupee to some worthwhile charity. I approve of the charity, but it pisses me off that they ask me in this particular situation. It's manipulative. I JUST WANT MY DAMN MILK !!!!

Now I have to mentally figure my way out of the plastic bags situation. Cannot carry it in my hands because I have too many items. HOW ?? Because in my search for MILK I stumbled upon Mordor and Middle Earth and I ended up buying stuff I didn't even know I needed. It only got worse as I got hungrier and hungrier over the course of my milk safari. Damn you, Aushan marketing department! Damn you!

The cashier asks, as law requires, whether I want to pay 2 bucks for the plastic bag. I would happily pay the 2 bucks if the cost were factored into the total price, but something about being asked in front of witnesses makes it feel wrong. And I know that if I do buy the bag I will be destroying the planet for future generations. I will feel guilty buying it, guilty taking it into my home, and guilty recycling it later. 

By the time I reach my home I feel frustrated, angry, guilty, stupid, incompetent, belittled, weak, humiliated, ripped off, and inconvenienced. The feeling lasts until my wife says, "That's the wrong milk." That feeling pretty much replaces all the other ones.

My point is that the new plastic bag law is entirely reasonable when viewed in isolation. But we don't live in a highly interconnected world where nothing can exist in isolation. Remember "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt. Aushan and BMC have made the buying Milk so complicated that I'd rather directly milk the cow standing behind the store than endure the pain of shopping inside the store. 

This is an interesting issue because every business decision that causes inconvenience for customers is viewed in isolation. When you take that perspective, eventually the entire process becomes so complicated it is barely competitive with milking the cow.

So the need of the hour is to see things from start to finish. The first complication usually doesn't cause much problem. The tenth complication - no matter how well-meaning - destroys the system. 

Being a part of the FMCG industry where lots of people are trying to solve lots of problems to unlock Sales growth. The reason why most of them haven't accomplished anything is because they over-complicate things trying to cover too many bases. Also they think of solutions from their perspective and NOT from the one facing the problem. The ones who use the problem-facer's perspective are the ones that come up with simple solutions and achieve success and fame.

But here's my real problem with this whole issue. You see, brains are like muscles. They can take only take a limited load. If you lift too many heavy objects, your muscles will tire. Likewise, if you use up all of your brain cycles on nonsense, you have nothing left for the important things in life. 

On a serious note, there is a hidden cost of complexity. Every minute you spend trying to find milk, and trying to pay for it without getting mob-bashed, is time you aren't thinking about solutions to real problems. If this seems like no big deal, you might be wrong. What happens to a world-class engineer or entrepreneur when he or she has to siphon off more brain energy to satisfying Aushan's marketing strategy instead of designing new products? Now multiply that times a hundred because every retailer, website, and business is trying to complicate your life too. Right ?