Noise that annoys
Heard about it; couldn’t hear it. The mosquito. Actually, this story has been around for a while, but there’s a local flavour, according to the news. Store owners who have camp followers, in the sense of kids that hang around outside (waiting for Godot) and drive more monied customers into the arms of the competition have been testing a repellant that uses high frequency sound to annoy the young, more than the young annoy them. Simply feed the sound into your outdoor speakers and the triage is done.
The local element is that Couche-Tard (a chain of convenience stores that have spread like mushrooms) is supposedly testing the device. Given that mosquitoes are endemic during the summer months, who is really going to notice? Except… this store depends on youth to staff their tills. Cheap labour and all that. If you drive away your workforce, who handles the monotony of receiving payment? One of my progeny receives a portion of his discretionary income in the profession. Does this mean he’ll have to wear earplugs, and learn to read lips? He has already protested the daily dose of hit radio on the store sound system; now he’ll have something else to add to the “reasons to find a better job, ASAP” list.
More autoworker angst on the news, as the governments start to push back against poor management and even poorer prospects for the future. After all, when you’re pouring money into the pit, it helps to ask a few questions along the way. The CAW president/spokesperson was pretty clear: the rest of us owe him great wages and pension benefits, because if he loses his job, we’re all going to the poorhouse. I’m not an economist, but I want this walking pile of hubris to be proven wrong.
