Paper. You probably have too much of it, and so do I.
I took my parents out to lunch yesterday, and my mother decided to drive. Before she pulled off, she showed me a receipt for two items she purchased at a store that will remain nameless.
My Receipt is Bigger than Your Receipt
My mom held up the receipt dramatically, and said, “Look. This receipt is as tall as your Dad.”
I laughed and said, “The same thing happened to me. I couldn’t believe it.”
She asked how many items I bought? Just 5. But my receipt was so long that I actually saved it, took it home to measure it. 31 inches long! That’s more than half the length of a fancy executive desk.
My actual purchases took up less than 2 inches of paper; 6 more inches were the normal things you would see on every receipt.
The remaining 23 inches were spent hyping savings on that week’s items for sale.
The Paper Pusher
In an age where technology has made even some reward cards mobile instead of physical, CVS still pushes the paper.
Oops! I said that I would keep the offender nameless, but why bother? Back in May, CVS vowed to Jimmy Kimmel that its epic-length receipt was going to be a thing of the past, as of the end of June this year.
Well, it is a month past that date, and the long physical receipts are still around. Maybe they need until the end of summer?
As for me, I combat the paper pushers of the world by avoiding physical receipts. Even when I will need a receipt for a future purpose, i.e., to bill a client, I always ask for a digital receipt, if at all possible.
The downside is that signing up for digital receipts can also opt you in for promotion emails. You will have to go that extra step to keep your physical receipt clutter from cluttering your inbox.