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I was at our local chain grocery store this afternoon. Walking down the frozen section, I saw a middle-aged grandmother with her 4 or 5 year old granddaughter. They each had their own carts, the little girl’s a miniature version of an adult cart.  We crossed each other at the ice cream section. The little girl was looking at the large assortment of treats in the freezer-chest window. She looked at something that struck her fancy and said to her granny: “Oh, yum, that looks really good Granny”. Her next words, however, stunned both her grandmother and me. She said, “We’ve got to look at the calories!”.

Her grandmother was aghast and clearly discombobulated. “Who told you such a thing?”, she stammered at her granddaughter. “Mommy”, the little girl said. Grandma tried to put a better spin on it by saying, “Well, I’m sure what Mommy meant was that we should read the labels to make sure there are only good things in the food we buy”. But it was too little, too late. We both new what Mommy had said, and it wasn’t about nutrition, it was about calories.

This phenomenon of adults transferring their food obsessions to their very young children has been extensively documented and criticized. It is particularly disturbing because we know that the externalization of control away from the individual’s intuitive sense of what and how much to eat, is a central problem in obesity control. In other words, relying on a label, diet, system, program, method, etc., to control how much you eat is precisely the way to get fat fast.

And as well intended as it might be, it is so irresponsible and destructive to be pushing our obsessions on our young kids.

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A couple of posts ago I described the latest hotel industry scam, the variable rate. In this bewilderingly anti-customer cash-grab, you get a rate for your first night’s stay, but you never know what your rate will be for subsequent nights because it depends on the demand for rooms in the city on each of those subsequent nights. So, if you get a rate of $150 for your first night, and then the Shriners have their convention in the city the next day, filling up every hotel room, your rate will likely skyrocket.

When I complained about this to the sales and marketing manager at the Holiday Inn where I was recently victimized by this bizarre practice, she explained that my association had endorsed the practice because it was shown to save its members money over the long term.

Being in the anti-bullshit business professionally, I called my association and spoke to the person in charge of hotel programs. He explained that in their last “negotiation” with IHG (Intercontinental Hotel Group), the owners of Holiday Inn and many other large hotels, the association was told: “We are the world’s largest hotel group, this is our policy (variable rates), and you can either take it (a discount on the variable rate), or take a walk”. So much for negotiation.

The gentleman on the phone confirmed that he had received many complaints from members, but that in effect, his hands were tied. I suggested that in the next round of negotiations, he should in fact take the walk and send the 50,000 members to other hotels who don’t have such a policy.

This is like a virus. You can be sure other hotels are looking for it to succeed or fail. If it succeeds, it won’t be long before every hotel does the same thing.

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I took my 11th shave with the same DE blade on Monday, a Wilkinson Sword treated with the Razorpit blade “sharpener” (it doesn’t really sharpen, but rather cleans the blade of accumulated skin cells, hair, soap scum, etc.).

The 10th shave had been a revelation; I had flipped the blade over and “stropped” it on both sides, providing a truly marvelous shave. But unfortunately, it didn’t endure. By the 11th shave the blade was pretty much done for; a spectacular performance by the way, doubling the useful life of a DE blade is no small accomplishment.

So, here’s my completely anecdotal and unscientific redux of the Razorpit: It works. The science of it makes little sense, in that you aren’t really stropping the blade (unless you flip it over for each shave), nor are you fully cleaning it, since the dirt on the underside of the blade doesn’t get touched in the normal cleaning process (again, unless you are ready to flip the blade over each time). But it really does work; I got great shaves all the way to the end and more than doubled the useful life of the blade.

The Razorpit web site claims that you can get up to 6 times the shaves from a single razor, but they are referring to the multi-blade cartridge razors and I can’t comment on that claim since I only shave DE.

For the DE shaver, of course, the question becomes, why would I want to do this?

My DE blades cost around a quarter. There are more expensive ones like the Japanese Feathers running around 50 cents. A Razorpit costs about 30 bucks, with which I can buy an additional 120 blades or about 3 year’s worth at my shaving pace (I shave on average every 2 days and replace the blade every third shave). So, I’m not sure that the savings is worth the extra clutter in my shower, nor the extra time it takes to clean the blade. But that’s me.

If you are environmentally obsessed and want to prevent every morsel of waste from entering the environment (steel does break down quickly though), the environmental argument might be compelling. And after the 3 year break-even point, well, the Razorpit will save you money (unless you drop it and it breaks).

Overall, this is an excellent product that does what it claims. The economies for a cartridge saver might be really worth it at the price of those suckers and if the Razorpit can really produce 150 shaves from one blade. I’d love to try it, but can’t stand the thought of shaving with a Fusion or Hydro 5 for almost a year. Besides….the lubricating strip certainly wouldn’t last the 150 shaves, so not sure if it would be as effective without it.

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I had shave #9 in the Razorpit test series last Tuesday, just before leaving for Vancouver. The blade felt pretty well done, at about the same level as an untreated blade at around day 5. Still, 9 shaves is almost double the lifespan of the blade; pretty good in my book.

This afternoon, getting ready to go for dinner at a friend’s, I jumped into the shower, forgetting to put a fresh blade in my E.J. Chatsworth razor. The day 9 blade was still there. Too late to switch blades and not looking forward to getting cut, I gave the blade a few strokes on the Razorpit, took it out of the razor, flipped it over, and put it back in, giving it a final few Razorpit swipes on the other side (sort of like stropping a straight-edge on an old-fashioned leather strop).

The blade was transformed! It felt like a day 2 shave with an untreated blade. Smooth as silk. I got a beautiful BBS shave, and I think this baby may even have a few more shaves left on it. Can you imagine getting 12-15 great shaves on a single DE blade????

I think the Razorpit guys need to revise their recommendations. Why not flip the blade over each time and give it a good cleaning/ersatz stropping with each shave?

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Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the water, the hotel industry has come up with yet another scam to pick your pocket. Just back from a couple of days at the Holiday Inn, downtown Vancouver, and apart from the fact that it included an outrageous series of unpleasant surprises, the most outrageous of all was the discovery of the variable room rate.

Here’s how this works: You make your reservation and get the rate that you think will be the rate for your entire stay. Mine was $179.00/night. No mention is made of anything else by the reservations department (likely located in Azerbaijan). I booked for two nights. The day of my departure (this morning), the hotel slipped my bill under the door to my room. Still groggy from waking up, I glanced at it and noticed, to my astonishment, that the second night was billed at $195.00! Surely a mistake, I thought.

Checking out at the front desk, I asked the young man about this “mistake”. “Oh, no”, he said, “That’s no mistake…we have a variable room rate policy”. “A what!”, I exclaimed. “I’ll have the manger explain it to you”, he continued, bringing over the front desk supervisor. The supervisor proceeded to explain to me that when I had signed in I had initialed a paragraph on the check-in form that stated that I accepted that the room rate was subject to a day-by-day change depending upon the demand for rooms on that date.

He showed me the form and I am ashamed to admit that, among all the paragraphs I had been asked to initial (e.g., that I would pay a penalty for smoking in the room, that I agreed to pay for parking if I had a car, etc., etc.), was the above-mentioned paragraph. I told him that I had simply initialed in the various spots indicated by the clerk, and if he had a clause saying that I must run through the lobby at 8 AM stark naked, I probably would have initialed it too, since I didn’t expect such an insane clause. So, I accept the fault for not paying attention to what I was asked to initial, although a 6 hour flight at the end of a busy work day might well make the average person a little less attentive than usual.

I told the supervisor that this policy was not only outrageous, but predatory and deceptive since the front-desk staff make no actual mention of the policy when you are checking in. If you miss the clause, you’re screwed.

I refused to pay the up-charge and the supervisor rescinded it.

Another fantastic example of Steve’s Third Axiom: “You can’t protect yourself part-time from people commuted to taking advantage of you full-time”.

From now on, I will read every single paragraph on a check-in form very carefully. You might want to also.

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I shaved back-to-back the last two days, making for days 7 & 8 in the Razorpit test series. By day 8, yesterday, the Wilkinson DE blade was shaving at about the day 4 level, pre-Razorpit. It is getting somewhat draggy and leaving a little extra stubble. The alum block still reveals virtually no irritation. I suspect I may only get one more shave out of it, which would essentially mean that the Razorpit has doubled the useful life of a DE blade. I’ll save my final comments for when the fat lady has sung.

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Some of the strangest things go on in retail. I worked retail when I worked my way through university for 5 years at, what was then, Canada’s largest department store (Eaton’s). My kids have also each worked retail. The wages aren’t great, which you don’t usually mind as a student, but as a long-term career, retail at the “floor level” doesn’t tend to attract lots of, how shall I put this, “gifted” people.

But it’s all part of the retail equation: Put near foolproof systems in place and then hire low-wage workers to just follow the recipe. Unfortunately, human beings being what we are, this rarely works very well; there are just too many cases that don’t perfectly fit the foolproof “rules”, requiring, as a consequence, that those who interact with customers actually have both good intelligence and sound judgement – something tough to get consistently at minimum wage.

A stunning case in point today:

About a month ago, I went to our local l’Equipeur (Mark’s Work Wearhouse in the rest of Canada), a large national retailer of mid-range, durable clothing (coats, jackets, shirts, t-shirts, shoes, work-wear, etc.). I think they’re part of the massive Canadian Tire family of companies. I like this chain primarily because they carry clothing in larger sizes to fit gorillas like me. They make an excellent line of t-shirts up to 5XL. I wear a 2XL because I find they quickly shrink a full size after a couple of washes.

I scoured the shelves looking for a few t-shirts in my size. Nada. I asked the sales girl for help and together we still couldn’t find any. “Must be sold out because of the sale, so come back in a couple of weeks we should be all stocked up”, she said.

I went again today and still no 2XL or larger t-shirts. I asked another sales girl about this paucity of t-shirts and she replied that they were out of stock. Standing near her was an older lady who appeared to be in some position of authority. “We do have them”, she chimed in, “but we’ve been trying an experiment, and have moved all the larger sizes to another part of the store”. There was no explanation as to the reason for the experiment.

I looked at her coldly and said, “Frankly, your experiment isn’t working. If I hadn’t run into you, I was a hair away from assuming you still didn’t have stock and walking out”.

Now comes the good part. She looked at me and said, “You know, in the six weeks since we’ve been trying it, you’re the first one to complain!”. I looked at her in amazement and replied, “How do you know how many didn’t complain and just walked out?”. You could almost hear the gears in her brain trying to process that one, but I suspect she was unsuccessful because she just said, “Let me show you where they are”. When I heard that the “experiment” had been going on for six weeks, I realized that the last time I had been there a month ago, the sales clerk and I spent an hour looking for nothing because even SHE didn’t know where they were.

When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

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There are some businesses whose product is so great, and the demand so strong, that they can afford to ignore all modern business protocols for customer service and convenience. Then there are others whose businesses are in decline and they begin to retrench by taking it out on their customers, e.g. raising prices, cutting back on quality, and reducing services.

There’s a pizzeria in Pointe-Claire village that makes a decent, if not particularly noteworthy pizza. It’s main benefit is that it’s close to my home and they deliver. Unfortunately, they have neither debit cards nor credit cards, so if you suddenly find yourself in the mood for pizza, you’re out of luck if you don’t have cash.

I was very tired today from a long day of driving and interviews. A pizza seemed a good idea. I did a Google search for our local pizzeria’s name but it turns out they have no web site. I managed to locate their name from 411. Here’s the conversation with the order person:

Me: “You don’t have a web site where I can see the menu do you?”.

Her: “No”.

Me: “O.K., could you please recite the pizza menu so I can order?”.

Her: “Sure….’Blah, blah’, she rattled off ten pizza choices.

Me: “O.K., I’ll take an extra-large all-dressed”.

Her: “You know we no longer offer delivery, right?”.

Me: “So let me get this straight: No web site, no debit card, no credit card, and now no delivery?”.

Her: “Right”.

Me: “And you still have business?”.

Her: “Yes….do you want the pizza?”.

Me: “No thanks”.

I ordered from one of the other nearby places that has a menu delivered door-to-door every few months, a web site, takes debit and credit cards, and has free delivery. It was good and it cost the same.

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An unprecedented 6th day with the Razorpit treated Wilkinson DE blade. Still going strong and producing a smooth, nick-free, comfortable shave with no sign of irritation (as confirmed by the alum block). No incremental stubble either – just a clean , close, comfortable shave, BBS smooth.

How far can this thing go?

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This is the critical day. By now, most DE blades have pretty much given up the ghost. My Wilkinson Sword in the pre-test baseline period was no exception. At day 5 it was still usable but no longer any fun; it dragged in spots and was unpredictable.

To my utter surprise, the Razorpit treated blade continues to perform well, mimicking a blade on day 2 or 3 of normal usage. I shaved a three-day growth of beard and there was no tugging, and most important, no hint of irritation when the alum block hit the skin.

As I wrote in my previous post, I’m not so interested in the longevity of the blade, as I am in a continued smoothness and comfort. So far, the Razorpit has lived up to the hype, even though I’m not sure of the technology behind it. Conventional wisdom says that you can’t “strop” a blade from one side only. And that dead skin cells and soap-scum accumulation could so degrade a blade is hard to believe.

The test continues with an unprecedented 6th shave next time.