Cupmunication

Today’s coffee cup was a generic one, but oh the information it contained! First off down the seam we have “SBUS 1942 PREMIUM CUP Caution: Very HOT!” Written out just like that. Then there’s a notice that says “Printed with soy ink.” I guess that’s a selling point?

The bottom of the cup is a bonanza of information. “16 oz Distributed by Ko Chi Sales Soy bean ink Water based coating Designed by ARTIPUS Mfg by SB group www.sbus1942.com”.

Of course I had to go to the website. You already clicked it, didn’t you? It is a bonanza. Non Pollution! Best Quality! Low Cost! Short Delivery!

You thought you couldn’t learn anything from a silly old beverage container. Oh, you were so wrong friends. So, so wrong. I am enjoying the exploration of coffee cups so much I officially decree that it will be a regular feature of this blog. Perhaps I will inspect other items as well – napkins, plastic forks, and of course the obvious follow up to the coffee cup: the coffee cup lid. Have you ever looked at beverage lids? Do you realize the wealth of information contained there that is misused and ignored? The beverage type indications left unchecked or sometimes they have those little bumps next to the beverage type and all the damn cashier has to do is push it down, push down the button next to the “Sprt” or “D Coke” or whatever. But no, they almost never do unless they’re special needs employees, right? Why is it the allegedly “slow” employees always pick up on the lid information while the “normal” employees ignore it? They’re missing a chance at communication, leaving a dialog unsaid, leaving a gift unused.

Can you imagine the cup designers at their computers and the workers at the factories cranking out those lids and cups knowing that 99.9% of the populace will never notice that the design on the cup doesn’t matter? Yet there they go, off to work every day cranking out the work, head down, collecting a check, living their lives, hoping like the rest of us they don’t wind up destroyed by the economic winds buffeting the world. Cranking out fancy pictures for paper cups or running the machines that make the cups or packing them or delivering them or drinking out of them in a closet in front of a computer. .

Ah, don’t worry about it, they probably don’t think of you either.

Comments

Cindy said…
My coffee lid says "place drink area opposite cup seam."
CB said…
At my workplace we have potato-based cutlery which I dutifully throw out in the compostable trash cans (I think I'm the only one who does this, but I'm not sure). Note that I wrote "compostable" not "combustible" as some of my colleagues refer to them.

"One Word: Bioplastics"

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