7Ae q-lIltle witA
II ?utU,.e
By B. K. ANDERSON
CAN'T tell you Joe 's las t name be-
I cause
when he reads this he is going
to know that I've taken a lot of liberty,
not only with his private business, but
also his private life and private thoughts.
And as long as I don't use his last name
he can always say, "That guy was talk-
ing about some other operator."
That's a funny thing about operators.
They don 't mind your saying they
bought a carload of Whoozit's machines,
or are cleaning up by putting daily high
score awards on their games. Some-
times you can e ven say that their bUsi-
ness is rotten.
But they never tell you that they
prefer the coin machine game to all
others. Not for publication they don't.
Nine out of ten times they say, "This
is the rottenest, dirtiest, cut-throat way
of making a living on earth. I wish I
was a barber, a preacher, or had a hot-
dog stand someplace."
Joe talks like that too-most of the
time. Why? Because he 's an operator;
and operators, like write rs and doctors,
have to be cynical.
Joe might have gotten by with this
sham indefinitely, this I-only-operate-to-
keep-from-starving front of his, if I had-
n't bummed a ride down to Springfield
with him the other day.
According to the calendar it was still
several weeks before the green wave of
spring was supposed to swing up the
Missouri Valley. Someone, however, had
slipped up. The air was warm enough
that we were able to let the windows of
the car down, and there was the smell
of things beginning to bud and grow.
For the first fifty miles Joe didn't say
a thing. He jus t lay back in the seat
with his eyes almost closed. I was
scared he was going to fall asleep.
"Joe ," I said, making conversation,
"what are you going to do with that
degree you got in engineering?"
Perhaps I should have told you before,
that's how Joe first became an operator.
He needed part time work to put himself
through school. He got through two
years ago, and as far as I can see he
has done nothing, except double his
numb er of locations a couple of times,
since then.
"I dunno," Joe says yawning. " I know
a lot of engineers who don't eat nearly
as regularly as I do."
"But you're always crying about what
a lousy game coin machine operating
is," I reminded him.
"All operators do that," he said with
a hurt tone, "and engineers say the
same thing about their work."
Now, I thought to myself, I'll get the
whole low-down on this business.
"Well, if you like operating so much,
why did you spend all that time and
money studying engineering?" I chal-
lenged.
"Not that it's any of your business,"
Joe shot back, "but you can put this in
your little red book, I didn't waste a
thing. I found out as much about coin
machines in schools as I did operating
them."
1
I could see that Joe was getting a lit-
tle hot under the collar, so I didn't
waste any time. I told him that certainly
all the principles of mechanics and the-
ories they had taught him would help
some, but I didn't think it was worth
spending six years in college for. He
could have learned the same things in
a more practical way overhauling his
own machines.
"You 're dumb," he says, "but maybe
you can understand this if I explain it
simple-like. In the first place a man who
services a machine isn't an operator,
he 's a mechanic. An operator is a sales-
man who can place a machin-e on loca-
tion and make it pay."
Joe eyed me a minute, as if contem-
plating whether it was worthwhile go-
ing on. He must have decided to try. He
said, "Now look, this may all sound
silly to you, but wait until I'm done
before you ask any questions.
. "When I first went to college, I wa!;
determined to be an engineer. I still am
- a coin machine engineer. And I took
that field becaus'e I believe that in the
next twenty-five years it is going to be
one of the ten most important industries
in this country. It will rank right up
there with radio, automobiles, and steel.
"I can prove it too. Look, way back
there when they had that industrial re-
volution. That was when people first
realized just how important machinery
was. At first they didn't take to it, be-
cause they had been working every
hour they were awake to make a living.
They didn 't know what to do with their
spare time. Then they found out that
they could have more fun doing things
they liked to do than working. So, they
set up a yell for better machines to give
them more spare time. And the ma-
chines got better and better.
"Why look at this country. Five years
ago the cry was for a forty-hour week.
Today it's for a thirty-five-hour week,
and already the thirty-hour week is
getting a big play.
"In other words, people don't want to
do anything any more that a machine
can do equally as well. And that's
where coin machines come in. They are
the salesmen, the retailers of tomorrow."
I couldn't restrain myself any longer.
'Do you mean, Joe, that we aren't going
to have any more salesm,.n after this
development in merchandising vendors
you're talking about? "
"You missed the point," he shot back.
"We'll have salesmen,-probably not as
many, nor will they work anywhere
near as many hours as now. But the
point is that advertising of brands in all
fields , and the popularity of packages,
their cleanliness, and all that sort of
thing, all point to machine sales of most
products.
"After all, the machine is the perfect
salesman. It gives honest and uniform
weight and service. Advertising has be-
come so thorough that the present day
customer does not ask for products; he
asks for brand names. In other words,
the customer is sold before h-e goes to
market.
"Which brings up a very important
point. Unless operators realize the im-
mensity and profitability of this future
for coin machines, and take up the pio-
neering of them, other interests will. A
good demonstration of this is the Coca-
Cola electric refrigerated, coin-operated,
"coke" dispenser which has opened
many new locations recently, that never
before had a coin machine within their
walls. And in one building I know of,
that has both a fountain and a dispen-
ser, the machine is doing far more
business."
"But, Joe, they have to have clerks in
the stores, someone to take care of
ihings and make change. Machines
:would only add to the expense," I sug-
gested.
"There'll be more machines in the
"tores, but that still isn't the big market,"
"Think of the thousands of buildings,
J:ommunity centers, and specialized bus-
inesses that wouldn't support all the
investment required to maintain other
retail outlets. It is there, where the
machines take the product to the con-
sumer's door, that the real future lies.
And don't forget that stores close, but
machines offer twenty-four hour daily
service.
"A good example of this," Joe says,
motioning to a ramshackle filling sta-
tion along the highway, "is gas sta-
tions. It would be the easiest thing in
the world to build and maintain coin
operated gas and oil stations. They
would require much l(isS capital. Any-
one who has traveled knows that there
are plenty of stretches of highway that
couldn't support an elaborate set-up
with several attendants on the payroll,
but would welcome and make profitable
the installation of coin operated pumps.
(Se e Col. 2, Page 8)
7
COIN
MACHINE
REVIEW