Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Bondrock]

It�s pouring rain outside, just past 7 pm. I just got back from Homeplus.

Drove from my dry, underground garage to the equally-dry, above ground parking lot and was thinking about how convenient it all was. And I�ve been thinking a great deal about this topic lately.

Is life too convenient?

Near my place of work a decade ago there were no 24 hour stores. Not one� if you wanted something after hours you had to know the local Mom & Pop well enough to rap on their door. But now, in 2009, there are six 24 hour stores within a 10 minute walk from my office. And last week they put a Family Mart in the building beside mine (this is a University).

Now I don�t live on campus. I live in a nice, new apartment surrounded by other nice, new apartments. Within a 5 minute walk from my flat there are five 24 hour stores. There are over twenty Buy the Way-style marts within walking distance. (And a number of 24 hour restaurants and hofs that stay open till Gus Hiddink knows when.)

Do we really need this much access to chips, gimbap, beer and cigarettes? I mean, how much convenience do we really need? Seems to me that one or two convenience stores in an average neighborhood of 30,000 or so people would be able to turn a decent profit and justify the energy for running lights and aircon 24/7.

But twenty 7-11's? C'mon...

I like to see things getting easier and I sure don�t want to go back to begging bootleggers for beer on Sundays, but perhaps we are going too far with all this consumerism.

[thoreau]

Some might argue that convenience is being used to draw people into the city. Once in the city, people are more likely to become consumers.

Once you have someone consuming, you can use advertising to convince them to consume more.

If you get them to consume more, eventually you get them into debt.

Once in debt, these people must now accept life at dead end jobs so they can pay off the debt and continue to consume.

Its a nice little system. Attract people to the city with convenience, encourage them to consume, use advertising to increase consumption thereby causing debt, force them to work at mindless jobs to pay off the debt. Rinse and repeat.

If you were a corporatist isn't this how you would design the system?

[Bondrock]

[Sergio Stefanuto]

Millions of stores is one of my favorite things about Korea. If you want batteries at 4am, Bob's your uncle. Really, I've no idea how they stay in business, but the fact that they do and make a profit is the justification for their existence.