Habits Die Hard from Planck's Constant

In the early 1970s my brother and I were partners in a vending machine business. While most small town vending companies stuck with just candy and cigarette machines, we dealt with sandwiches, juke boxes, pool tables, coffee, soda, chips, nuts, snacks, salads, soups, and canned meats. That is to say, we literally sold everything from soup to nuts.

One day I approached a Gulf Gas Station owner near the Bayonne, Jersey City border about installing an ice machine on his property. The machine, which for 50 cents dispensed plastic bags filled with ice cubes, was 84 inches high and was painted glittery gold with gigantic black letters spelling out "ICE." I wanted to place the machine at one end of his station far away from his milk machine; he wanted to call the milk company to remove their machine and for me to replace it with my ice vending machine.

I told him that was a bad idea, putting an ice machine where some other vending machine used to be, that people would get confused.

Photo Credit: swinz

He dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand; the milk machine was painted white and had 'MILK' in big letters, our machine said 'ICE' - no way anyone would confuse the two.

Once the milk machine was gone, despite knowing that it would be trouble, I put the ice machine in the very same spot.

That same day, not even an hour after the installation, he called to say that a few customers put money in the ice machine and were surprised to see a bag of ice instead of a container of milk. No one was bothering to read the sign. He had to give them their money back since they didn't want ice. A dozen customers later and less than 24 hours, he asked me to move the ice machine to a completely different spot.

Habits die hard.

One more example will suffice: On 25th Street and Broadway in Bayonne, New Jersey there was a great barbeque chicken place called Ralph's. I had three machines in his store, a candy, cigarette, and popcorn machine.

One day Ralph calls me to ask to have the cigarette machine moved about 8 feet further away from the entrance to his store. I told him that was a bad idea since the machine was in that spot for more than 4 years and people would get confused.

I don't recall if he waved his hand but he dismissed the idea saying that it would be obvious to anyone who looked that the machine was only a few feet away from where it used to be.

Despite knowing that it would be trouble, I moved the machine less than 3 yards further into the store.

I knew what would happen so I took a seat and waited. A guy came in for a pack of smokes, looked at the wall where the vending machine used to be and, without looking any further, asked Ralph, "Hey, why'd you take out the cigarette machine?"

Ralph pointed a little to the left and the guy said, "Oh. Why did you move it?"

Five minutes later the same thing. Ralph pointed again.

A few minutes later, well you can guess by now. In less than half an hour Ralph asked me to move the machine back to where it was.

Habits die hard.