Who doesn't love a good rant now and then, and today's target - the Park Slope Food Co-op - probably isn't going to lose its status as a neighborhood fixture (with more than 11,000 members) while providing one blogger, writing at Simon's Brain, with more than enough grist for his disillusioned-progressive mill:
If you are one of those naïve people (younger than 25) who think communism is a good idea in principle, you need to spend 30 minutes in the food Coop. See how petty, bitter and mean people become when they are working for the collective. Everyone is paranoid that everyone else is shirking their responsibilities, not working hard enough or disobeying a rule they themselves obey.Click through, comrades, for more social realism.I’ve been told off more times than I can count for such minor offences as leaving the queue for a moment to grab something I forgot, having 16 items in my basket instead of 15 when on line in the xpress queue, reaching over somebody’s head, not having my membership card out and ready the second it was requested and on and on… By the time you are done in there you want to shatter glass with a hysterical screaming fit.
Working there was even worse; you’d always get one hideous person on your shift. Someone whose every word would bring you closer to a spasm of homicidal/suicidal rage. They’d always be into Italian hip-hop, Maori chanting, crocheting or some other random absurdity that affirmed their status as the dullard of the universe. Either that or they’d be a busybody, a person in love with the coop. The equivalent to an informer in communist Russia, the kind of person who would have you killed with a sly word in the right ear.Now, returning you to your regularly scheduled doses of capitalism.No, I won’t miss the food coop. Give me regular supermarkets any day ...
· Freedom [Simon's Brain, via EiNY]
· Park Slope Neighborhood Report: Wake Me on Monday [Curbed]