The tale of retail...

I have to share this one. I am looking for something engaging, anything that keeps me out of the house and amidst people. I like meeting people. So I came up with a great idea, why not work with the retail industry for a bit. I get to meet a whole variety of people that way. I also have a genuine desire to learn how the retail industry goes about with its business.

Hence I thought of applying for an opportunity with an upscale retail chain. It serves a lot of purposes.

1) I get to go out of the house and meet people. I have not had too many encounters with people outside my community ever since I landed. 

2) I get to meet the people who shop at upscale outlets.

3) I get to see what's new and happening from what's sold on the floor.

4) It has been a dream to learn more about retail cause it fascinates me. It can be another case of "the grass is greener from the other side", but nonetheless worth a shot.

5) Also since the place is just walking distance away from where I stay I get a little exercise.

So all the forces seemed to add up and it started looking like an opportunity.

I go to the office anticipating a great deal of action and questions about the retail industry. I, in turn was ready with my set of questions on how it runs, how do they choose reliable wholesalers / manufacturers, how do they decide what the customer likes, and what should be on the shelves, how do they manage shelf space, what are the logistics involved, how does the pricing / commission for each shelf work, what happens to products that do not get sold even after a price reduction / sale. These and many more were the questions I wanted to ask. I knew I wouldn't get a reply to all the questions but whatever little I come to know would account for some amount of learning.

Round 1:

Mr. XYZ comes up to me introduces himself and asks for my name and what I was doing previously. I answer the question, he says I like your personality, I think you can go upstairs to room **** for round 2.

Round 2:

A questionnaire on honesty and shop lifting, not something I was in the mood for. How could an employer be so naive. It was a questionnaire even I could manipulate leave alone petty thieves and shop lifters. Here's something that you could laugh at for a bit the first question is:

1) I have shoplifted in the last 6 months.

    - True - False

I have not done that so I marked false. How about someone who's done that? Does the retailer think they'll answer honestly? May be if we live in Utopia.

I struggle to keep myself from laughing or getting frustrated with how insecure the recruiters are. I want to be perfectly fair to them and think that the questionnaire was a result of innumerable bitter experiences in the past. But I think they should rephrase the questions to get into the person's psyche and not be so obvious. An eleven or twelve year old could trick them on that questionnaire.

Well after taking a good amount of time, I finish the questionnaire.

Round 3:

The final round. This time it's a lady, I tell her that my job used to involve drawing media plans, she looks at me in awe. Now will I ever want to take that job after that. She says "you can join today if you give me the number of anyone who knows you in the vicinity excluding family of course."

I totally lost interest by then. There was no fight or struggle in earning the damn role. I did not even get to ask questions about the retail industry. Boy, I wish I stayed near Manhattan. I need people who totally make me fight (not physically, in which case i'll never get any job ) and earn my brownie.

Well, I told them I could not give them any contact numbers without checking with the people concerned. I took their number and walked back home with an iota of knowledge augmented by the interview; there is a huge shoplifting problem in upscale retail houses. Also I learnt about a new method of stealing, changing price tags on objects to save some money. Believe it or not I deduced it from the questionnaire.

Well it sure can ignite ideas in honest people.

Thats about my brief stint with upscale retail. 

The way back was quite eventful too. On my way back I came across a bunch of school girls, the conversation was as follows:

School Girl : Hi

Me : Hi 

School Girl : You look all "businessy"

Me : Well :)

I walked away with a new adjective. I was quick to learn it cause this is the generation that's going to edit the wikipedia, which will probably be the single most revered and refered source of information soon, I better look contemporary with my vocabulary that day.

Then as I turned the loop I heard fire engine alarms, I assumed they were on the main road,  guessing the direction from where the sounds came. Turns out, the fire engines and me reached the spot at the same time. I smelled smoke - filled smokey air, and saw smokey hot firemen in action as they tried to put down the fire on the second floor of a building two blocks away from my apartment.

Life is back to normal now, I'm lazy, dreamy and tell - tale-y as usual. 

House...

Dr. Gregory House is a huge favorite of mine. Borrowing and customizing from the McDonald's ad - "I want to shake the hands of the genius who created the character". He is a megalomaniac, I absolutely love the way Hugh Laurie gives life and form to Gregory House M.D.. I am now of the belief that there is in fact a genius called Dr. House who heads the department of Diagnostics at the Princeton - Plainsboro teaching hospital in New Jersey. For a crew to create a character that people start believing really exist, I guess that must be a milestone of creative genius any movie/ tv show producer would strive to reach (apart from TRP's ofcourse).

I love the wit and the fast pace. There is an instance when someone says to House "Ya I've heard your name" House's immediate retort is "It's also a noun". I was stumped.I laughed for a while, I missed the next wise crack from him cause I was still laughing for this one.

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Well the word "House" as a noun is of interest to me as well. Over the years I have come to learn that this noun is associated with a spectrum of meanings. The term is subjective, and not limited to just the concrete, wood and glass that goes into it's making.

My mom bought three houses during her tenure, but only the last one does she call Home. Surprising how these two synonyms have a gulf of difference in their meaning. 

To almost all of us it is an investment; statistics say that approximately 60%  of a person's fortune is accounted for by the real estate they own. I assume the house people live in will be at least a miniature portion of the real estate they own. Hence I safely assume that the house is a part of their financial fortune. 

If there was ever a graph to see how the meaning of the term "house" varied with income levels, I would love to see what people closer to origin on the the two axis would say, and compare it to the remarks of those on the other extreme of the graph.

 I'm also curious to see the Venn Diagram which states for what portion of the people it is home (h), for whom it is pure investment (i) and for what percentage of people is it home and investment (h intersection i).

The thought crossed my mind after Ike. I couldn't find an answer to the following questions:

1) Why didn't people evacuate their houses even when authorities warned them of certain death in case they stayed back?

2) Did they think the house was indestructible? Or was it some unshakeable faith in their home that made them think they'll be safe?

3) Did they prefer to die in their home, than take refuge elsewhere? Is a home more precious than your life?

4) Were they plain lazy or plain crazy?

Whatever be the case it would be devastating to know that your home / house was destroyed after all that you've dreamed of / paid for in it. One million people were left homeless in Haiti after Ike swept through the island. I can only imagine the pain they undergo seeing only wreckage where once their house stood.

Let me jump to another level and think about a much larger picture, the Earth. Men of wisdom have said "Mahatmanam tu Vasudha ev Kutumbakam", an interesting phrase in Sanskrit which means "for the great the whole earth is their family". The Human race and all living forms are a family, and our home is the Earth. We are born here, we live, learn, dream and make our dreams come true here. 

Then regarding the majority of us who consider their House an investment, by the standard of having the whole Earth for our house, we should consider investing more time, money and fortune into this huge chunk of real estate. Well I am not one to judge, I'm sure we all do our part. Except for the pollution bit about which we all complain but do nothing, and wait for another member of our extended family (kutumbakam) to come up with a solution, or at least do moral policing. 

Coming back to my Mom - she thinks her 3rd house is her Home because she says this is the hearth my Dad and herself had pictured in their younger days. My mom only wanted one promise from me, never sell this house. I play the words in my mind again and think she meant do not consider this just another house and sell it. Well I won't, because it is the home of their dreams where their memories and mine will live happily ever after. 

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Today at 8:00 pm EST the new season of House premieres. Another hour of action from Hugh Laurie, where he limps around the whole place stabbing people's egos and feeding his own, while he cures the most complex and subtle diseases, and leaves millions of us breathless in anticipation of what's next. I don't know about others but I'll be glued to the idiot box for sure. :), well I'll breathe during commercials .. duh!!!