Smaller is Better, Except When It's Not

There are moments when my freelance career and my life intersect.
It happened again last week when I was working on a profile of Bashir Suba for the @ Work section of the New York Post. The piece appeared today at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/jobs/some_good_medicine_NsMFE6xxOg6bv0QlJoNuON and I'm pretty grateful. I love being printed in that lively tabloid.
But it was weird to be writing about the independent pharmacy. And it got weirder when Suba told me about how mail-order prescriptions are helping to kill his business. He knew as he said this that I'm part of the problem, using exactly that method to get one of the drugs I wish I did not have to take. But I do. And I don't love hanging out at the pharmacy, even the small independent one where he presides. I also don't like paying more, and I catch a break from mail-order program I use. It's not fair to small independent businesses like Suba Pharmacy.
I'm the son of people who ran a small, independent bookstore back when such a thing existed. Now I have a Barnes & Noble card and think of it favorably, if only because it was (is?) New York based and the Amazon people are out west somewhere. It's weird the emotional connections we feel with merchants, and when we lose the real connections to our small-town businesses we go right on imagining some relationship with a mega-corporation.
There's a wrinkle, though, with the smaller-is-better theory. And it plays out in real life. Like years ago when the Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side drove out an independent bookstore and the writer (and my future professor) Victor Navasky wrote about how he was treated better at the superstore. I had something similar happen in Summit, N.J., where I eagerly awaited the arrival of Starbucks, having survived the sloppy service of a small, independent coffee store for years. I still love Starbucks, God help me, and could not help but notice this morning that the service at the Upper West Side place I frequent is nothing short of terrific. Speedy, too.
I don't feel good about it, but I recognize that sometimes smaller is better. Suba should not be at a competitive disadvantage, playing by more restrictive rules than the mail-order companies aligned with insurance giants. But I have enough guilt in my life without feeling too badly about my Barnes & Noble card.