The other day I was on a train from Milan to Rome. I asked for coffee and was told it was on the way. In Bologna I reiterated the request and was told that it was on its way. In Florence the same. The coffee arrived just before the train arrived in Rome. I do not tell it to cause controversy but because it is probably one of the many examples of a phenomenon that is growing due to the pandemic and that in the United States they call skimpflation. A form of inflation in which prices do not increase but services deteriorate. When on Alitalia they suddenly lifted the bar service during the flight, making excuses like the turbulence was actually saving on our shoulders. When Disney cancels the free theme park shuttle forcing visitors to walk more than a mile it’s doing the same.
When a call center takes hours to answer it is not because there are too many calls but because there are few people in charge of intervening. When there are six checkouts in the supermarket but only one is open and therefore a very long line forms, the same happens: they do without the cashiers and we support the cost with our time. Sometimes this phenomenon is not only caused by the need to economize and defend profit: there are bars and restaurants that struggle to find waiters and therefore offer a worse service. This is the other side of the so-called Instant Economy, where everything is just a click away. In short, the Amazon model. The one place where the service never seems to get worse.
Skimpflation is not a good thing, it signals an ongoing crisis, small business owners and large companies struggling to make ends meet and damaged customers without even saying thank you for understanding. It takes patience in these moments, even waiting for a coffee for three hours.
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