INTELLECTUAL DIVISION OF LABOR.

The design of a condiment bar is probably a nontrivial problem in ergonomics. When humanities types start thinking about condiment bars, the resulting discussion can be anything but brief. Whether it rises to the level of nontrivial is up to the reader as an exercise. Consider Stanley Fish contemplating ordering a coffee.

It used to be that when you wanted a cup of coffee you went into a nondescript place fitted out largely in linoleum, Formica and neon, sat down at a counter, and, in response to a brisk "What'll you have, dear?" said, "Coffee and a cheese Danish." Twenty seconds later, tops, they arrived, just as you were settling into the sports page.

On one hand, Mahler's Prodigal Son reports on the column as if it's another ETTS moment.

This op-ed piece from the NY Times [only available on subscription on line] shows how things aren't as simple and straight-forward as they used to be - even in just wanting and getting a cup of coffee.

[Superintendent's note: there are ways around the Grey Lady's "select" wall. Professionals study logistics.] That interpretation is not cast in doubt by what follows shortly.

It turns out to be hard. First you have to get in line, and you may have one or two people in front of you who are ordering a drink with more parts than an internal combustion engine, something about "double shot," "skinny," "breve," "grande," "au lait" and a lot of other words that never pass my lips. If you are patient and stay in line (no bathroom breaks), you get to put in your order, but then you have to find a place to stand while you wait for it. There is no such place. So you shift your body, first here and then there, trying not to get in the way of those you can't help get in the way of.
Finally, the coffee arrives.

It's possible that Mr Fish never had to purchase coffee at a beanery just before shift-changing time and perhaps the one harried counter lady could spare a second for a "Wuts yawz?" after a few minutes.

Here, however, is the first ergonomic challenge: how best to configure an order-here, pick up there service in a small space. McDonald's, for all its expertise, had to retire its "Speedee Service System" slogan from its Arches. Although there are formal proofs that the "wait for the next available agent" queue is faster than the "take your chance on the shortest line" rule at grocery stores and McDonald's, the persistence of that second approach (which at coffee bars often means threading the queue through the sitting room) suggests that the theoretical advantage is to the right of the third decimal place in the income statement.

My speculation about Mr Fish is just the kind of thing, however, for Slate's Ron Rosenbaum to get in a few licks.

Fish's column showcases what happens when certain academics descend from the ivory tower to offer us their special insights on popular culture.
Not that Fish would cop to living in a tower. The professor took great pains to demonstrate that he is not one of those academics who mingle among the commoners for a mere 20 minutes or so before pronouncing on their baffling customs.
It seems that professor Fish is a real man of the people who has been getting his coffee served to him amidst the regular folk for years...

Or not. See above. But such licking gives the Scathing Online Schoolmarm to stick up for Stanley Fish, or call out his writing style, or something.

I'll return to Professor Fish's column for a further ergonomics problem.

But then your real problems begin when you turn, holding your prize, and make your way to where the accessories - things you put in, on and around your coffee - are to be found. There is a staggering array of them, and the order of their placement seems random in relation to the order of your needs. There is no "right" place to start, so you lunge after one thing and then after another with awkward reaches.
Unfortunately, two or three other people are doing the same thing, and each is doing it in a different sequence. So there is an endless round of "excuse me," "no, excuse me," as if you were in an old Steve Martin routine.
But no amount of politeness and care is enough. After all, there are so many items to reach for - lids, cup jackets, straws, napkins, stirrers, milk, half and half, water, sugar, Splenda, the wastepaper basket, spoons. You and your companions may strive for a ballet of courtesy, but what you end up performing is more like bumper cars.

At least, at the cafe counter, you might have to ask your neighbor to pass the creamer or the sugar. That's still the drill at the Waffle House. That an ergonomically sensible condiment bar hasn't yet emerged -- yes, I've encountered the same phenomenon, not necessarily in coffee bars as hoity-toity as Starbucks, and I've thought about it, but from the perspective of an economist son of an engineer -- suggests that there is no evolutionarily stable coffee supplementing strategy, or perhaps no condiment bar configuration that induces emergence.

Perhaps the column is, after all, an ETTS moment.

The coffee shop experience is just one instance of the growing practice of shifting the burden of labor to the consumer - gas stations, grocery and drug stores, bagel shops (why should I put on my own cream cheese?), airline check-ins, parking lots. It's insert this, swipe that, choose credit or debit, enter your PIN, push the red button, error, start again.

Mr Rosenbaum offers a counter-argument.

[Professor Fish] might have mentioned ATMs. Used to be you could walk into a bank and ask a teller to give you a couple hundred bucks, and they'd hand it over, "twenty seconds, tops." No troubling paperwork, remember? And what about credit card machines? Now, it's "insert this, swipe that, choose credit or debit, enter your PIN, push the red button, error, start again."

Let's unpackage this. Perhaps the pump jockeys and grocery baggers have discovered more rewarding opportunities, perhaps as symbolic analysts or as pundits. The working class doesn't have to vanish into the destitute. On the other hand, has Mr Rosenbaum forgotten that at one time that teller would ask, "Do you have an account with us?" Good luck cashing a check drawn on a different bank, let alone an out-of-town bank.