Houston, We Have a Problem!

Here’s a good one. According to an Associated Press report, a company called Cybersoft Technologies has developed a system called Primero Food Service Solutions, which allows parents to set up prepaid lunch accounts so children don’t have to carry money. It is being implemented in the Houston Independent School District, the nation's seventh-largest with more than 250,000 students. While that’s nothing particularly new or interesting about the cashless purchasing system, what is interesting and what is being touted as one of the systems’s major features is that student profiles can be established to prevent students from purchasing forbidden items.

It sounds like a pretty good idea, especially for kids with food allergies, who could be prevented from inadvertant exposure to items containing such things as peanuts or milk products. Plus, parents can go online to monitor their child’s eating habits and add restrictions if desired.

It gets nastier, though. If Mom and Dad want little Chelsea, er, Big Chelsea, to take off a few pounds, then Chelsea’s profile can be set up to allow her to buy salads, but not brownies or apple pie.

The beautiful thing about this arrangement is not that Chelsea will be prevented from buying a brownie with her lunch money. The beauty is the Mom and Dad are going to believe that Chelsea is eating healthy whereas in fact she is going to eat whatever she wants. Chelsea is going to solve this parental restriction problem in one of two ways:

1. Chelsea will have a friend or group of friends who form a lunch club. As long as the club contains some members with no lunch purchase restrictions, Chelsea can buy chicken and salad, and friend Janine can buy pizza and brownies. Then they can split the lunch between them.

or…

2. Chelsea will have some enterprising classmates who have no lunch purchase restrictions. They are going to buy up chips and brownies and are going to sell them to Chelsea at a markup. These classmates will go to business school and will be successful but despicable managers in a Fortune 500 corporation.

Another oversold IT system thwarted!