Memo to Mall Retailers

It's no secret that the economy these days is driven largely by the American consumer. Sure, we can debate the macroeconomic impact of the banking industry, or the price of oil, or what Ben Bernake had for breakfast, but the real catalyst is how middle class America burns its disposable income.

So, you'd think that in this time of economic crisis that retail store owners would be doing everything in their power to ensure that their potential customers were at least given a minimal effort of good customer service. After all, the available pool of employable customer service and sales personnel must be the one bright spot in this economy, with unemployment numbers approaching double digits and so many people desperate for decent jobs.

Right?

Apparently not. At least not if my last trip to the mall was any indication. No, I'm sad to report that nearly every store in the mall is still staffed by inept teenagers who can't be bothered to help a paying customer when they need it. The most glaring example was our trip to Famous Footwear, where all I wanted to know was the price of a pair of shoes, and there was nary a sales rep in sight. After wandering the store for ten minutes, I discovered the teenaged girl seated, out of line of sight of the entire store, behind the cash register chatting away on her cellular phone. Sorry, no sale.

In some cases, it's not even their fault. For example: all my wife really wanted to shop for was boots. That's WOMEN'S boots. So, why is it half the stores we stopped at had teenage boys trying to sell her shoes? I won't profess to be an expert in this sort of thing – my shoes all come from Wal-Mart or REI. But my observation is that when a woman shops for shoes, she doesn't want some overbearing young man trying to show them to her. And, let's face it, there's no law that will penalize you for NOT hiring the young white man. Especially in a women's shoe store.

Finally, how about some sales and promotions that actually make sense. I was in a sporting goods store that had a certain section of hats marked 2 for $20 or 3 for $25. Great deal, right? Except, I only wanted one hat from that section. Retail price? $22.

No, they wouldn't let me buy one from another section, and count the sale hat towards the deal (even though the one from the other section was only $18, thus making it so I was really paying more than if I'd taken two $22 hats). No, they wouldn't mark down just one hat.

Again, no sale.

All told, I probably took home close to $100 that I might have spent in that mall had there been actual, knowledgeable, experienced sales staff present. Maybe this is the real reason why our dollars are going overseas to China via big-box stores like Wal-Mart. If we're going to get little or no service, we might as well get low prices for our trouble.

Does Posting Junk on Facebook Count as Blogging?

I make a lot of brief comments on news stories I find online on my Facebook page, as opposed to doing so with Blogger because Facebook is quicker, easier, and more widely read than my blog. 

The only problem I have is that blog writing is already substantially shorter and less formal than the traditional article writing I used to do ten years ago, and now with Facebook, I'm abbreviating it even more. 

In short (no pun intended), I'm not really getting much writing done at all.  I'm falling in to the same trap as so many these days who share their thoughts in shorter and shorter bursts - you can see how Twitter has made this epidemic with nothing but bad acronyms and a new sort of digital photography that makes the grammar junkie in me just cringe. 

I think those of us who still care about the English language, intelligent conversation, and the value of reading need to be careful about how far we go to embrace the shortening of the American attention span, and take the time to stop, think, and write something worth reading when we find something worth saying. 

I can’t believe that guy was married to Madonna

That was our reaction after seeing Sherlock Holmes and taking note of its director.

The film was brilliantly edited, with clever dialogue, a crisp pace, and a fascinating plot. Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law are outstanding in it.

In short: Go see it. You'll enjoy it.

Offline Blogging

I couldn't find an open wireless network at the moment (we're having dinner at the Johnny Rockets before we head off to see Sherlock Holmes), but with the MS Word blogging feature, I can easily write an entry and save it for upload later without having to cut and paste or anything.

It's sunny and 75˚ in the west valley today. Brutal weather for January.

I just found something really cool in Word 2007

You can create blog entries right in MS Word and have them posted directly to your online account (assuming you use a common blog provider).

I think it's fantastic that I can use Word to write blog entries. Score one for Microsoft – this is a great idea.

Avatar: James Cameron's Magnificent Hatred of All Things American

As one friend of mine put it, the plot of Avatar "...breaks no new ground."

That about sums it up.  While the movie is wrapped up in brilliant special effects, it is, in essence, a re-telling of so many films that have been designed to make us feel guilty to be American that I had a hard time picking just one film that Cameron ripped off.

There's the "evil corporate greed" theme, the "no-blood-for-oil" theme, the "save the forests" theme, the "oh my we are so mean to the indigenous peoples" theme, the "imperialist American military is bad" theme, and so on and so forth et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It's pretty sad when the only bad guy Hollywood wants to use in film these days is ourselves. 

Oh, and a memo to Blizzard Entertainment:  Cameron also ripped off about a dozen elements from your World of Warcraft franchise.  You might want to either sue him for it, or hire him for your upcoming movie.