My first job paid $7 an hour, and the adult working the till beside me was paid $12 an hour for the same shift. It was a stationery shop. I was at school. As far as I could see we did the same things: we cut open the same cartons, faced the same shelves, rang up the same pens for the same customers, and stood on the same floor for the same number of hours. I thought we did the same amount of work. I quit after 3 months.
A till is a small machine for agreeing on a price, and I spent three months standing next to one, watching what it would agree to. It didn’t care which of us had put the pen in the bag. The customer paid the same, the shop took the same, and the receipt came out identical whoever’s hands had been on the keys.
The rest of this essay is in Marketing Curious.