Good morning and welcome to another edition of Five Moments. I hope everyone is enjoying the turn in weather and the run up to summer. Onto the update!
Enjoy!
This American Life Moment
The radio show ( later released as a podcast) This American Life is one I never miss. Each week they share fascinating stories about people, culture, history, music, politics and anything in between. I wanted to highlight two recent great shows that I think are worth a listen.
This episode focuses on the real life consequences of the SAT / ACT and other educational structures that are utilized to sort high school students. They tell the story through the lens of a few students that have been positively and negatively affected by these structures and all with the backdrop of the pandemic-forced trend of many colleges no longer requiring these standardized test. If you listen to this episode I think you are bound to learn something and leave with questions about how our higher educational system is structured.
I am only recommending “Act One” of this podcast (only 20 mins). I won’t give too much away so I will just share their summary, “Fort Bragg Army base was suffering a number of unnecessary deaths — so they decided to attempt to save soldiers’ lives through the art of musical theater.”
Box Tops for Education Moment
Over the past 25 years, the program has given nearly $1 billion to schools nationwide. But the clippings are rapidly becoming symbols of a bygone era, as General Mills announced in 2019 that it would be retiring physical Box Tops in favor of an app.
There is no doubt I am out of touch with many things in this world, but never in a million years would I have guessed that this program would have donated >$1 billion to schools.
Many think of the program as a feel-good way for a company to help families support their schools. But the economics of Box Tops has always involved trade-offs. To earn a 10-cent donation, families would need to buy, say, a $4 box of name-brand cereal, such as Lucky Charms. In exchange for offering the coupons, General Mills gained invaluable access to an impressionable audience: kids. For more than 20 years, many families and schools were happy to exchange a bit of cardboard for a bit of extra cash, and the program was very successful. (Box Tops is by far the most popular of its peer programs, and similar initiatives have gone away in recent years: In 2018, Labels for Education, run by the Campbell’s company, wound down after more than 40 years in operation.)
In the Box Tops app, users must scan their receipts within 14 days of purchasing any eligible products. Physical clippings are being phased out of production, though families can still bring in any unexpired ones they find on old packaging. “No longer do parents, teachers, and other community members have to cut out and then physically drop off dozens, or even hundreds, of Box Tops clips at their local school,” Moeding said.
The article is worth checking out for the stories about teachers and schools that relied on the Box Tops to support after school programs, athletic equipment, and other vital resources.
“I think if Box Tops were lost,” she said, “maybe it would give everyone pause to say, ‘Hey, we need educated people; we need to fund our schools; it is not fair to rely on students and their parents and the community to scan their receipts to fund schools.’ Maybe we can sit down and figure out a way to solve this problem.”
As Marc Andressen said, “Software is eating the world”
DoorDash #DeclineNow Moment
Speaking of software eating the world -- DoorDash drivers are gaming the app to get paid more. Bloomberg had the story this week about a strategy some drivers are employing to fight back against low wages provided by app-based delivery companies.
The two DoorDash drivers—Dashers, as the company calls them—are trying to persuade their peers to turn down the lowest-paying deliveries so the automated system for matching jobs with drivers will respond by raising pay rates. “Every app-based on-demand company’s objective is to constantly shift profits from the driver back to the company,” Levy says. “Our objective is the reverse of that.
In October 2019 they launched the #DeclineNow Facebook group. They urge members to reject any delivery that doesn’t pay at least $7, more than double the current floor of $3.
Another tactic the company uses to discourage decliners is obscuring the full amount any job will pay by not disclosing the tip, making it harder for drivers to be picky. This and other nontransparent practices have led workers critical of the service to dub DoorDash’s app “Tony’s Casino,” a reference to Chief Executive Officer Tony Xu.
I am not sure how sustainable of a practice this is for the driver’s but it sure is an interesting tactic to try and utilize the company’s algorithm against them. If the shoes were on the other foot -- this would be seen as the company “optimizing their product”. Despite the recent unionization loss in Alabama this past week, it is hard for me to think we are not on the precipice of a large workers’ rights moment that pushes for transparency in this world of app-based gig work.
Ernest Hemingway Moment
Master documentarian Ken Burns has released his latest project Hemingway-- a deep, deep dive into the life and career of writer Ernest Hemingway. If you love Ken Burns and his previous projects on the history of Baseball, Vietnam War, or any of his other works you should definitely hop over to PBS and check it out.
If you are not sure -- give this overview from WBEZ a listen to see if they can interest you.
**A quick aside -- This story really should have a sponsorship from a sleep aide company for recommending not only PBS but also my local NPR station**
Music Moment
We have two playlists for you this week -- my not so sneaky way of sharing more than one or two songs with you all because we all need more music in our lives.
Playlist #1 - Jack White’s (from White Stripes) 10 favorite Led Zeppelin songs
If that playlist made you want more Jack White / Led Zeppelin -- check out the documentary, It Might Get Loud where Jack White discusses the electric guitar with Jimmy Page and The Edge.
Playlist #2 - Corridor’s April Playlist
Nothing too serious here -- just what you would expect from an NYC-based clothing retailer.
Cutting Room Floor
Stories that are great to read but did not make it into the newsletter
Dramatic Shifts in Coffee Consumption During Pandemic | Daily Coffee Magazine
Craft Beer’s Pandemic Slump | Axios
Shop while you Scroll | Vox
What was your favorite Moment this week?
Click the link to let me know which story was your favorite!
📻This American Life
🥣 Box Tops
🚚 DoorDash #DeclineNow
✍️ Ernest Hemingway
🎵 Music
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Next Distribution 4/18/2021