For real though, this feels like it would fit half of the retail and food businesses here in Portland. And they don't even bother to update their website or socials to warn you. I really don't mind flexible hours at all but I hate wasting an hour of time and gas getting across town for nothing.
I imagine this is what business hours used to be like, before capitalism dictated that store hours should take precedent over every other part of life.
Well for stores of this style yeah, probably before like the 1890s or so. The store owner probably lived as part of the store, opened at sunrise, closed when it died down, but would come down for you and open up if you knocked real hard.
But like public markets have always had pretty strict hours, often historically around church. Church is out, bell rings, market is open, ring another bell, market is closed. And a lot of that was actually in place to prevent people from getting in earlier, buying up everything, and then selling it at a premium. It was like the anti-scalper for medieval markets lol.
The other half of that though is that while capitalism brought about more strict timekeeping you're right, though ironically the strict hours allow for things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Closing_Association that morphed into more and more labor protection we see today
thing is, they just distilled it down to having a sign that says if it's open or closed, and made no effort to inform people when they can expect it to be open.
Most things are probably open at 14:00, that's yer lot
17 replies
For real though, this feels like it would fit half of the retail and food businesses here in Portland. And they don't even bother to update their website or socials to warn you. I really don't mind flexible hours at all but I hate wasting an hour of time and gas getting across town for nothing.
I imagine this is what business hours used to be like, before capitalism dictated that store hours should take precedent over every other part of life.
Well for stores of this style yeah, probably before like the 1890s or so. The store owner probably lived as part of the store, opened at sunrise, closed when it died down, but would come down for you and open up if you knocked real hard.
But like public markets have always had pretty strict hours, often historically around church. Church is out, bell rings, market is open, ring another bell, market is closed. And a lot of that was actually in place to prevent people from getting in earlier, buying up everything, and then selling it at a premium. It was like the anti-scalper for medieval markets lol.
The other half of that though is that while capitalism brought about more strict timekeeping you're right, though ironically the strict hours allow for things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Closing_Association that morphed into more and more labor protection we see today
thing is, they just distilled it down to having a sign that says if it's open or closed, and made no effort to inform people when they can expect it to be open.
Most things are probably open at 14:00, that's yer lot
Ah yes, Pacific Northwest business hours
So, your hours are 1-4
Or sometimes none at all
It’s giving Dr Suess.
...finally, a place with reasonable hours....
I'll have a double granola latte with beet root milk
Be your own boss
How to lose a lot of money, in one year or less!
There's a cafe near me with hours like this. My friends say it's great but I've never been able to go
flexible closing hours is fairly normal for food places i think, though usually "closes 20:00, but we might stay open until activity dies down"
Ah, that sounds like the place I have to go to get my license plate.
This is Congress.
Sign me the fuck up!