White Collar Woes
Ah work. What have I to say about thee. Here are three things I hate about the retail industry:
1: Meeting with simpering baboons. A few days ago we held audience with a gutless, kowtowing American who was all form and no function. His ridiculous opening statement about "bridging oceans" and “cherishing our synergy” had me projectile vomiting against the walls of my closed mouth. Fortune cookie say: Exporting headphones to China does not make you a modern Marco Polo.
2: Trying to motivate people who have no fiscal incentive to do anything but stew in their own gastric pudding. We met with a store manager whose boss ordered him to reduce in-store theft of certain items. His solution was to take those items off the rack and mark them out-of-stock.
3: Company cheers. Sorry FroggyMart. Max doesn’t do hand-clapping. He is not going to recite your mantras about low price and great service. It’s not that I’m above it; I can see our high powered MBA execs are diving right into it. It’s just that I’d rather equip a fat guy with cleats and let him play Dance Dance Revolution on my unfurled penis than partake of your unholy ritual.
Three things to love about the retail industry:
1: Seeing how the world ticks. Retail gives you the skinny on all kinds of industries. Thanks to a vendor meeting this morning, I could now talk your ear off about the past, present, and future of olive oil.
2: Promotions are a fun time for all. Think your grandmother makes a mean deviled egg? Cook up a demo batch in the store and see if it catches on with the customers. Is the makeup district a little confined? Put up some mirrors and screw with people’s heads. I get to be a runway model in a fashion show at our flagship department store next week. That never really happened when I was a programmer.
3: Freebies galore. We get to “appraise” new food items all the time. Even goods that are already in our stores get “inspected”; it is not uncommon to see bakers and deli chefs running around our HQ with “product samples”.
Any TexMex manufacturers reading this? Come hither. You have a market in Shanghai of at least one freeloader.
