Human Vending Machines - A Little Orwell With Your Candy?

by Bruce Watson, Posted Feb 19th 2009 @ 9:00AM

My daughter is addicted to Dirty Jobs, a Discovery Channel show in which the host tries out the filthiest, nastiest jobs in the country. Watching him work his way through a septic system or clean gum off a sidewalk, it's hard to imagine worse tasks than the ones that he regularly undertakes. However, in a recent move, Japan and Kit Kat seem to have figured out an innovative new way to lower the bar on horrifyingly bad employment.

Kit Kat's new Human Vending Machines combine the best elements of convenience foods, automatic vending, and slavery in one brutally delicious, schadenfreude-laden package. Basically a snack machine with a human being trapped inside, the machines put a personal face on candy vending transactions. Users put in their money, make their choice, and ask the man inside to send out the chocolate. The vendor, in turn, smiles at the customer, grabs the candy, and drops it into a slot.

There is no word yet on whether, underneath their smiles, the anonymous vendors are dying inside, asking themselves what series of bad choices led them to become nameless cogs in a snack-distribution empire. Similarly, one has to wonder if any of the vendors has found himself on a weekend-long alcoholic bender after selling a candy bar to his former prom date, a slickly-attired professional who pretended that she didn't recognize him.

Perhaps I'm projecting.

At any rate, the whole concept is tied to Kit Kat's Working Like a Machine ad campaign, which suggests that crunchy, delicious candy bars are the perfect break for people who feel bored and exploited by their jobs. Of course, patronizing a human candy vendor who seems to be stuck in the ultimate boring, monotonous job is icing on the cake!

Filed Under: Business, Food Oddities, Stores & Shopping, Food Gadgets, Ingredients, New Products
Tags: british isles, candy, comfort food, europe, Gadgets, Human Vending Machine, HumanVendingMachine, Kit Kat Vending Machine, KitKatVendingMachine, oddities, stores-and-shopping

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-19-2009 @12:21PM Ben said... You have to wonder, as technology increases if the backlash to something older/ combined with technology (this idea) will become somehow "cool". I mean this is quite frankly WHY vending machines were invented, so you don't have to pay someone to stand at/in a booth for 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

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2-19-2009 @1:28PM greg said... In Amsterdam, they have a chain of restaurants/vending machines called FEBO that has a human cooking food and putting it in slots for customers to put their coins and get the food. No human interaction from the customer. Pretty good food too.
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