This is a close approximation to how a toilet paper exchange went in my workplace yesterday:
Nearby business person comes into our office [which is near a pharmacy and Coles]: "The pharmacy and Coles have both got some toilet paper in! Coles have doubled the price, but the pharmacy is selling it at normal price but they'll only sell me 4 packets. Can you go down and buy some more?" [She was speaking to a staff member - not me]
Me, calling out from my office: "Can you stop trying to get other people caught up in your panic shopping?"
Panic woman (to me): "What? What's wrong with you? You don't know when they'll next get some in. They say Coles have ramped up the price, but the pharmacy is selling it but they'll only sell me four."
Me: "If people keep doing what you're doing, we'll never get back to normal supply and stock. Isn't that obvious?"
Panic woman: "But my son and daughter have both run out!"
Me (internally dubious, but still): "Well, OK, you might have an excuse for buying more than one packet then..."
Panic woman: "Yes, and I mean 'who cares'?"
Panic woman (to the staff member she had started with): "Does your daughter have any. Go buy some for your daughter." [Staff member's daughter lives about 60 km from her.]
Staff member (who, mind you, had been complaining to me about the ridiculousness of the panic buying, sounding defeated): "Yes, yes, OK I will get one packet for my home. You want me to get another for you?"
Panic woman: "Yes please. Get two."
PS: that evening, I told my wife about it. Her reaction "But if people keep doing that we'll never get back to normal." Obviously, I married wisely.
You didn't fucking listen before did you? Its not a panic. Its rational sensible stocking. I've just counted my stash. I've got 40 rolls minimum. All bought at half price special prices and well before everyone else started buying. This is the way to do it. You don't get more rational behaviour then that. Its called thinking ahead dopey.
ReplyDeleteUm, people are not buying it now because it's on half price.
ReplyDeleteBuying large quantities now at full price (and, no doubt, in many cases buying a more expensive brand than they normally would) is obviously nothing like the irrelevant explanation of why you have 40 rolls sitting in your cupboard.
Obviously its better to buy BEFORE a crisis and tolerate a fake shortage, then to have a real shortage in the middle of a catastrophe. Its healthy and its good. But it would have been better if everyone had a bit more foresight and did this in a milder fashion earlier.
ReplyDeleteSo now we have to face a toilet paper shortage when we DON'T have a contagion catastrophe. This is so much better than having a contagion catastrophe everywhere, and not being able to get any toilet paper at the same time.
Graeme Bird: toilet paper prepper.
ReplyDeleteIts an obvious thing to do, its a rational thing to do, and if I wasn't on the unemployment benefit I would have bought a new freezer and I'd have stocked up on cheep lard and other products as well.
ReplyDeleteYou don't even have a clue what constitutes rational behaviour since everything you think about is to do with advancing an ethnic agenda.