The storage bin fallacy

Why the Container Store gives me panic attacks.

The Container Store is an odd place. A store that doesn’t sell things per se, just containers for things. Rows and rows of empty boxes, baskets, and more types of containers than you ever knew existed. Is it post modern? Ironic? Capitalistic overaccumulation?

I don’t know the answer, but what I do know is that my heart races every time I’m there, and not in a good way. I’m not trying to pick on the Container Store itself, but rather what it represents as a symbol of organizing culture at large. The Container Store is just plugging along every day, doing its best to deliver value to shareholders and its private equity owners. It grossed $900 million last year so clearly not everyone is as conflicted about the place as I am.

So why is this store so challenging for me, someone who by all accounts should love it?

Is it the cognitive overload of processing aisle after aisle of potential solutions piled all the way to the ceiling?

The fact that my whole schtick in this newsletter is to tell people to stop buying bins?

Is it all the plastic destined for landfill?

The sensory overload from the overhead lighting and inexplicable fragrance emitted from every corner of the store?

The fact that browsing bins is somehow a one way street to confronting the gaping maw of desolation in your soul?

The employees are the kindest people imaginable. It’s hard to fathom how this can be when I consider that their core customer is impatient Type-As like me. They don’t deserve having to attend to our demands! I know this and yet I cannot stop the feeling of emergency that overruns my better nature inside those sliding doors.

I finally decided to interrogate what is going on in my body when I go into this place.