Buying Locally

A recent experience reinforced my belief that one should buy goods and services as close to home as possible.  Joan’s computer became infected with a virus that left it unable to connect to the internet as well as having some other problems.

I first contacted our internet service provider’s technical support, and after a long wait I was connected to a “boiler room” where a man with an accent that was hard for me to understand, took me through steps trying to isolate the problem.  Each step was followed by a long pause where perhaps the technician was studying his service manual for the next step.  After about an hour of this agonizing process, he told me that there was nothing he could do and suggested that I call either the anti-virus software company or the computer manufacturer.

My next step was to call tech support of the anti virus software that I use.  Surely they should be able to fix the problem.  Right?  That’s their business.  So after a long delay…(why I wondered; I know that signals whether on land lines or in the ether travels at 300 km per microsecond.)   I was finally connected to a technician with a foreign accent.  Again, he went through laborious test steps for about an hour (he assumed, for example, that I didn’t have the brains to do the test of turning off my modem for 30 seconds and turning it back on).  Finally he declared that he couldn’t fix the problem and that it was probably in the hardware.

In a mood of frustration and despair, I called the computer manufacturer hoping that they could find me a solution.  I was whisked away again by the magic of modern communications to a faraway country where another hard-to-understand technician took me through most of the test steps that I had now become familiar with.  After the usual hour, he arrived at the conclusions that I had heard previously, “I can’t help you; it seems to be a hardware problem.”

Had my options run out, requiring me to take the computer to its final reward at electronics recycling?   Fortunately a thread of reality surfaced in my troubled brain.  I should call a local computer shop.  This I did and the next day I had the computer back in good condition and at a modest cost.  And there was no hardware problem!

Is there a lesson here?  Of course there is; it’s look first close to home, be it computer repair, appliance repair, car repair, etc.    It might not always be the answer but frequently is.  And when it is, there is satisfaction of contributing to the livelihood of a neighbor.

It goes beyond services—consider food.  Why should we buy avocados raised in foreign countries when we have such abundant crops grown in Summerland and Goleta?   Restaurants that feature local foods remind us that we have a wealth of good vegetables, meat, dairy products and seafood locally.   The people who produce it are  members of our civic organizations, parents of children in our schools, members of our churches and people we meet on the streets of our towns.  We want them to prosper as we want to proper ourselves.

I will buy locally wherever I can.