Good Little Communists

Lately, Neil and I have been using Zipcar to run errands like grocery shopping and taking the dogs to the groomer. All we have to do is go online, reserve a car and then walk a couple blocks where we use a card to open the doors and the keys are in the ignition. The system depends on the goodness of people. Each renter must pull out of the Zipcar spot, stop, get out of the car and put down an orange cone stored in the back seat to reserve the space. Any renter who drives until there is only 1/4 of a tank left is responsible for taking the gas card out of the glove box and filling up the tank of gas. All Zipcars have XM radio and renters need not worry about insurance -- like gas, it is covered by the hourly rate.

So yes, Zipcar is a bit like communism, but it works. Part of what makes us care about leaving the car clean and full of gas and returning it on time is knowing that other people like us might be picking the car up and the next time slot. It's all about the human element. If we took the car back to the rental shop and knew they'd be cleaning it and inspecting it, we would not care nearly as much -- it would be corporate -- not human. But Zipcar, with its cleverly named cars (Matrix Maddy), introduced the human element into their business and it makes me proud to participate in their communist-reminiscent car rental system... (of course, it's only the friendly customers who are communist... Zipcar is making bank.)