Sign of the Times

Do you have a ton of rewards cards in your wallet? Every last one of them is for a good cause, but... there are too many of them! Every store has their own card that you have to carry around. Which ends up taking loads of space in your wallet and has a tendency to be a little more frustrating than helpful. Money savings or not, there has to be a better way!

This is exactly the conversation I had with a customer this week. She had just signed up for my store's customer rewards card, adding yet another card to her already bulging wallet. Then she said something that totally threw me.

This normal lady said, "I would take a chip in my arm if it meant I didn't have to carry these cards around."

Wow!

So I was thinking an app on my phone or a single loadable card... not a chip in anyone's arm!

Talk about a sign of the times! Here is a lady who would gladly take a chip just to lighten her wallet load.

I mentioned to her that then anyone could track you at any time, if you had a chip in your arm. (Not to be argumentative, but as part of the discussion... that had now grown to include several employees.) She suggested that you can be tracked through your phone. But let's be honest, you can turn your phone off, destroy it, leave it behind. It is not permanently attached inside you!

For anyone who has grown up in church and studied the Bible, you know the impact of this woman's mindset really means. I assumed that this was something that the "evil" in the world had on their minds. This was the first time I encountered someone normal, who was just as for this as the presumed evil.

It was mind blowing to say the least.

For the record - I had continued to conversation with my fellow store employees. Several of the ladies I work with agree that an app or card would be awesome, but under no circumstances would they be implanting any microchips into any part of their body. One of the teenagers said that she could see this being something that is required, but she said that she is going to fight it, because she thought that it was wrong. Well, at least that was encouraging.