"A lot of people want that soda"

I asked the cashier about the sign posted there at the checkout. “How do you feel about that?” I said.
“Not on my watch,” she instantly replied.
Here is the gist of it: If the cashier doesn’t circle a little item at the bottom of the receipt and inform you of an online contest that the company is promoting, then you are entitled to a free soda. Simple as that. This cashier was confident that no one would get a free soda while she was on duty, because she always fulfilled that obligation—another part of her tedious job. The customer was instructed to inform a manager in order to receive the free drink.
I tried to get to the heart of the matter, wanted to expose the indignity of having customers rat out the employee with the promise of a free beverage. This of course would have a detrimental effect on that employee, who would now be subject to sanctions and probably receive less than favorable performance evaluations. The whole enterprise was so distasteful on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to begin. This cashier, who has been with the company for a long time, summed it up quickly:
“A lot of people want that soda.”

Across town in a high-security building, men and women wearing white lab coats were discussing things in a gleaming steel building. They were focused on the latent rage that bubbled like molten rock, just below the surface of the general population. Where was it all coming from, they wanted to know? Outside, tight-fisted motorists were using their cars like battering rams to plow their way through the thick and sticky tension that enveloped everything, made the very air vibrate with hostility. Store clerks were throwing their change in the general direction of customers, watching with disinterest as it scattered across the floor. Bank clerks were once again incapable of counting money—even the smallest amounts, and wore sullen expressions of superiority when a customer happened to point out that he’d like the correct amount of money, please.

Inside the complex of laboratories, computers flashed endless calculations, bright lights encircled the cavernous research facility, whirring sounds came from expensive machines that helped them with their puzzle, signs flashed on and off: “Restricted Area: Authorized Personnel Only.” More figures were fed into the calculating machines, more results, more incertitude about the source of all the rage.
“Look at this spike,” Elder Hoffsgrauten, a prominent Swedish statistician said, pointing to a jagged peak on a graph. “It is significant, no?”
The others bunched together, murmured unintelligible noises of acquiescence or dissent, then dispersed to the activity room for their afternoon ping-pong game.

Not knowing the extent of their research, I might nonetheless offer this: Suggest to the managers of those large companies that employ thousands of people to stop enticing their customers with the promise of a soda in the hope that they’ll serve as an informal and rag-tag group of spies for the people in charge. I’ll bet the significant peak in Dr. Hoffsgrauten’s graph would diminish substantially by the time their next ping-pong game rolled around.