But I don't want to live in Toronto, which is why I moved away from there. Sadly, though, Toronto seems to be following me, and I'd just like to apologize to the rest of the city for that, because now that we opened the door to it by banning smoking in bars, it has started forcing itself the rest of the way in with one of the most insidious things out there: 10-digit dialing.
I hate 10-digit dialing. Hate it. It's actually one of the things I was most glad to never have to deal with again when I left Toronto, along with arrogant corporate flacks*, right turns on red lights, and streetcars whose routes are randomly and drastically modified with no forewarning when you're only halfway to your destination and completely lost. And it's not just the two seconds longer it takes to dial, or the hours it will take me to re-program my speed dial, or even the hassle of changing the imprint on my brain to add the extra three digits to the beginning of numbers I've been dialing for years: It's what it means.
Because what it means is that we think we've gotten as big and messy as places like Toronto, when we know we're much more sleekly designed than that. It means that we've bought into the whole culture of everyone, even kids, having at least two contact numbers in addition to their office phones and faxes and whatnot. I recently worked for a woman who is personally responsible for at least 8 different numbers, two of which are "portable devices" she would have with her literally 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, and she would frequently be using both at the same time, too. Have we really all bought into that kind of lifestyle so much that we need 10-digit dialing? Because if we open the door to that, then the next thing to force its way in is Toronto's self-important, live-to-work attitude, and I know that's just not what this city's about. It just makes me sad to think that that could happen if we're not careful.
* I know many of you will say that we also have arrogant corporate flacks here. I know we do, I've had dealings with some of them. But trust me, nobody does "arrogant corporate flack" better than those punks in Toronto; and what's more, here, they stay in their own little communities for the most part, but in Toronto, they're everywhere. There's no escaping it. Well, there is, but it involves renting a U-Haul and moving to a different city. And one day, I'll start posting some of those stories, too.
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I read an article in the paper today about how Starbucks and the other big coffee companies are starting to carry fair trade coffee in their stores. To my way of thinking, this is a good start, and even if it's only about 3% of their overall purchasing right now, it's 100% more fair trade than they were buying in the past, and it's not like any of these companies have imposed some kind of a limit to stop them from making more than 3% of their purchasing be fair trade goods if the demand grows. However, there are others, who work for fair trade organizations, who disagree, saying that Starbucks et al are only doing this due to public pressure and not out of any real commitment to the cause, and also wondering if the whole fair trade market will collapse if places like Wal-Mart get in on the act and start buying out all the fair trade coffee they can get, thereby tying up farms and preventing them from selling to other retailers, and what will then happen "if fair trade stops being a trend."
It seems to me that these people have answered their own questions, if only they could see past the end of their noses to realize that. First of all, who cares if Starbucks and Wal-Mart cave in to public pressure rather than having any commitment to some cause? At the end of the day, they're changing their behaviour and their purchasing practises, which is exactly what fair trade groups want, so why question the motivation? I say, accept the gift, find a nice stable to put that horse in, and remember to send a thank-you note. Second, if these corporations have actually caved in to public pressure, doesn't that mean that the fair trade groups have still succeeded in doing their jobs, since they've changed enough people's way of thinking for those people to actually get together and in turn influence the behaviour of giant corporations? (And on a side note, if public pressure can get companies like Wal-Mart and Starbucks to change one thing about how they do business, it means that they do respond to public pressure, and that it is actually possible to get them to change other things we might not like about their business practises too.) Third, it's not as if there is some kind of quota in coffee-growing countries that say "oh, only 25 of our thousands of farms can be fair trade growers, no matter what the market demand is for" - if the demand is there and keeps growing, more growers can easily be converted to fair trade operations. I can't imagine it would even take much persuading - "excuse me, Mr Starving Farmer, how would you like to actually be paid what your product is worth, and earn a decent living wage, as opposed to busting your hump in abject poverty while someone else makes a pile of money off you?" Who would turn that down? Who honestly says "No, I'm alright, thanks, I don't really want to be making more money doing exactly the same thing I'm doing now, better luck next time?" Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, I think it's now up to the fair trade advocacy groups to help make sure that it isn't just a trend that disappears tomorrow morning (although Wal-Mart being on board will usually do that to a trend), but to make this a genuine shift in public thinking, the same way we went from telling pregnant women to smoke cigarettes to help with morning sickness to now banning smoking just about everywhere and even making noises about making it illegal altogether. It can be done.
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Screw you, Carolina Hurricanes.
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