Monday, May 13, 2013

Ha ha ha, ho ho ho, and a couple of tra la la laaas

There comes a point every day when I don't want to do my job anymore. I want to color or go to the gym or just go home and not take care of whiney adults all day or process the same dumb paperwork. I want to work with colorful abstraction and not concrete black and white. Luckily, that point usually comes sometime after I've gotten to work so I've at least gotten a little bit of the black and white stuff taken care of.

(That's just a side note because I'm writing this while incredibly bored at my desk. I want to sew or do something else creative but alas I am stuck in my office and it's a straight paperwork day, hence my quick break to freestyle write about what else is on my mind).

I find fewer things immoral than, say, your average church. I know that. It's probably because I don't really go to church all that much and, since seminary, less things fall into black and white do/don't categories. But one thing I find incredibly immoral - and unethical and just plain wrong - is retail markups. I get the point of making a profit: sure, add a little on so you can stay in business and I have the convenience of buying from you instead of owning and milking my own cow. Just don't increase the price 300-500%.

Seriously.

(Another side note: I am incredibly grateful and indebted to the hearing aid manufacturers - HAMs - and providers who work with my organization. Yay.)

But just suppose the following scenario: we buy hearing aids at, say, $215 per aid. Just throwing a number out there. That is well below the sale price the HAMs gives to regular retailers (we essentially get the manufacturing price). Just say the regular retailers have to buy those same aids at around $550 per aid. You will pay approximately $2000 per aid when you walk into your hearing doctor's office. Hopefully everyone involved can stay in business with those kinds of margins. It would be really sad to see someone have to live on less than that.

Oh wait.

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