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.