I’ve written on clutter and Kroger’s/Ralph’s before. The immediate occasion for this round of my cogitations on stimulation and clutter and such wasn’t the downscale rococo of Ralph’s but the very “moderne” variation on the theme of clutter and customer manipulation at the Apple Store in a fairly up-scale local mall.

         Apple Stores are, of course, the essence of with-it, youthful modernity. Here the paperless office is sufficiently real that there are no wastebaskets in the customer area. No clumsy furniture: just stools, where you can sit and wait, but you will sit up straight.

         At the iStore, the clutter is people; and the crowd is there in part because there are Americans out there with money for gadgets — plus, if you bought a new gadget from Apple, you probably will get your ass to The Apple Store to consult a “Genius” ‘cause your local sales-folk ain’t gonna answer any technical questions over the phone.

         You will call MyApple, because the iPowers have set it up that way.

         The larger issue here is one I’ll be getting to in the Back-to-Basics set: the continuing issue of “Who’s In Charge?” and (following from that), who puts in what time on what work.

         My feeling is that the slogan “The Customer Is King” is more of a lie than ever: even in a horrible economy, even with firms desperate for business, you, beloved customer, will do things their way, and between one of their paid employees’ putting in five minutes and you devoting an hour (say, to driving over), it will be your unpaid time, not theirs.

         Even with AppleCorp and its profitability: it may be “MyApple” for a phone code, but it’s their Apple for how things get done.