steak sign

Qualitivity (or: Dollar Tree is run by space aliens)

steak sign

Note the ‘While Supplies Last’ disclaimer.

This is how this blog was supposed to start: “I made up the word qualitivity, so there’s no point in writing to say this blog title makes no sense. I thought it sounded like a bullshit business school word and it amused me. Qualitivity is supposed to suggest the value for the money. As in, ‘This steak is being sold at a Dollar Tree for only a dollar! That is all you need to know about how this steak will taste!'”

I couldn’t start the blog that way ’cause, when “Qualitivity” spell-checked in the headline I Googled it. Guess what? It’s a bullshit business school word. It means something different (I think). I’ll quote the definition that appears to have a sentence structure, and then we’ll pick it apart for fun.

Quality is equated with excellence that conjures up eminence, value and worth. Productivity is equated with intuition that conjures up instinct, impulse and sixth sense. The single term that best describes this dynamic combination is Qualitivity:
Quality + Productivity = Qualitivity

From: (http://www.articlebiz.com/article/1051618900-1-qualitivity-quality-and-productivity/)
All the words are in English, and some of them technically go together, but this paragraph could equally say: I’m not 100 percent sure what words are used for, but I am 100 percent sure that, if you’re reading this, you aren’t either.
Briefly: Quality is not equated with excellence, it is “equated” with aspect, if anything. In business school terms, I believe it is equated with nice. In the dictionary it is equated with how good or bad something is. I’m not certain why this person thought productivity “conjures up” sixth sense, or any of the other nonsense they claim it does. Intuition and instinct are, strictly speaking, opposites–intuition being going with your gut and instinct meaning a compelling genetic drive–but, hell, we’re really entering poetry territory here, and the sounds are so much more critical than the meanings.
The claim is that Qualitivity (which should be a made up word in the first place) is a combination of excellence, eminence, value, and worth (insofar as they have difference senses) and intuition, instinct, impulse, and sixth sense (insofar as they have combinable meanings).
To be fair, my definition isn’t a ton better, because ‘relative quality’ (which is what I was getting at) is an established phrase. Also, because the suffix “ity” means “state of” and at some level “quality” which is a little brain achy. The primary difference is that my definition was mocking a culture where Dollar Tree orders banners for one dollar steaks without shame or irony, and the printing company fills the order in the same way. The other Qualitivity coiner was exalting that same culture (here I equate exalting with eminence). So, finally, let’s go with my definition and title because it is my blog and I doubt the other coiner can read, let alone make it past the 250 word mark.
The photo and the fact of the steak sign is, when you get right down to it, only weird out of context. In context, it is posted on the outside of a Dollar Tree that shares a building and parking lot with a Buffalo Wild Wings. So, far from being the bumblers I suggested they were earlier, the management team at the Dollar Tree actually is quite savvy, even if they are space aliens. To be honest, I can’t prove deductively that they are space aliens, but by using my powers of induction I can build a pretty good case that, when the alien invasion starts, their base will be located in this Dollar Tree.
Ready? Here goes.
The reason the aliens at Dollar Tree believe they are savvy to sell dollar steaks, even though their primary market is overstocked bleach and typo-laden greeting cards, is because they are next door to the Buffalo Wild Wings, the thought being that people who go into Buffalo Wild Wings don’t care what they eat, as long as it is meat and as long as it is cheap. But this only is part of the truth. Yes, humans, and especially Americans, believe it is their God Given Right (GGR) to have as much cheap meat as they can stuff in their gullets.
They demand it at every turn, such that there is a looming chicken wing shortage. McDonalds is being destroyed by Buffalo Wild Wings (chicken-wing-wise) because of Qualitivity, and Qualitivity is the reason people on their way to eat garbage at Buffalo Wild Wings would amused at (rather than attracted by) the garbage for sale at Dollar Tree.
Americans also believe it is their GGR to eat out at least once a week. These demands are the result of Qualitivity. Qualitivity is the GGR of the middle class and, as long as you exercise your GGRs no one can claim that you’re not a member of the middle class, no matter how poor, poorly mannered, or poorly educated you actually are.
To that end, they believe they have a GGR to be offended by people failing to recognize their GGRs, but let’s not lose track. Back to the Dollar Tree aliens.
As is clear from our made-up understanding of them, Aliens are coldly logical, so a word like Qualitivity could have no sense in their alien language. In coldly logical alien thought, words have meanings and work together to express concepts. Therefore, aliens have no concept of GGRs and as a result, do not recognize God.
A massive banner saying (essentially) Really Cheap Steak only could be the result of cold alien logic. This sign isn’t on all Dollar Trees in the area (and we have a FUCK TON of Dollar Trees, as not having to pay much for any product if we don’t want to is a GGR), only the one near Buffalo Wild Wings.
Fortunately, there is no need to fear. What attracted the aliens to our planet was what they thought was our stupidity. Seeing our insatiable desire for Qualitivity, Buffalo Wild Wings, and other things cheap and awful, they thought we would be easy to rule. What they will discover, though, is that people with GGRs can only be ruled by people with more authentic GGRs, and, clearly having no greater gods to give them greater rights, cold logic would dictate an alien retreat.