Retail Work Quotes

His face held a certain impassivity; you see it in all waiters and valets. They might want to jam a knife through your left eye socket, but you'd never know it from their expression. Working retail, I've acquired a similar look myself.

Whoever had coined the phrase, ‘the customer is always right,’ had clearly never worked in retail or customer service. And if they had, well, then they’d need to be hauled out into the street and beaten to death with plastic spoons.

Retail therapy—usually one of my first resorts—wasn’t working; I felt like a cat that smelled pit bull.

She knew what bothered her at the store...It was that the store intensified things that had always bothered her, as long as she could remember. It was the pointless actions, the meaningless chores that seemed to keep her from doing what she wanted to do, might have done-and here it was the complicated procedures with moneybags, coat checkings, and time clocks that kept people from even serving the store as efficiently as they might-the sense that everyone was incommunicado with everyone else and living on an entirely wrong plane, so that the meaning, the message, the love, or whatever it was that each life contained, never could find its expression.

A life spent waiting for your paycheck, measured out in work hours...A lifetime spent buying everything retail while selling oneself wholesale - L'amour Existe (1960)

Being in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art, and good business is the best art

Mama," Bubba said as he came out of the back. "I can't beat up everyone in the world for being stupid. Have you seen how many of them are out there? I work retail. Trust me. The world's eat up with it. And aren't you the one that's always saying, 'you can't fix stupid, son so don't try?' Besides, I got better things to do with my time than fight every idiot I come into contat with.

Being jealous does nothing. It turns you into a person who’s unable to feel genuine happiness, and tarnishes every accomplishment when it’s used to measure your sense of worth on a made-up scale. You hear about a friend’s promotion (in an industry that probably isn’t yours) and feel like you will never venture past your existing achievements. You hear someone from high school is getting married and assume that you never will. You discover the guy you worked retail with in 2006 has a new apartment, and you sit wherever you happen to live and actively resent the space you loved five minutes ago. And feelings like will always come up; it’s just up to you to say “fuck off.” So, while I’d like to say you should just decide not to be jealous, and that we’re all in this together so let’s remember that and be best friends, I know that isn’t realistic because jealousy is immune to reason and logic…If I feel myself slipping into a jealousy wormhole when I see someone else shining, I remember that to gauge my self-worth based on someone else’s accomplishments is a one-way ticket to bitterness.

Marketing is not a department Do you have a marketing department? If not, good. If you do, don’t think these are the only people responsible for marketing. Accounting is a department. Marketing isn’t. Marketing is something everyone in your company is doing 24/7/365. Just as you cannot not communicate, you cannot not market: Every time you answer the phone, it’s marketing. Every time you send an e-mail, it’s marketing. Every time someone uses your product, it’s marketing. Every word you write on your Web site is marketing. If you build software, every error message is marketing. If you’re in the restaurant business, the after-dinner mint is marketing. If you’re in the retail business, the checkout counter is marketing. If you’re in a service business, your invoice is marketing. Recognize that all of these little things are more important than choosing which piece of swag to throw into a conference goodie bag. Marketing isn’t just a few individual events. It’s the sum total of everything you do.

Many people have a stereotype of what it means to be poor. And it may be somebody they see on the street corner with a sign: “Will work for food.” And what they don’t think about is that person who’s struggling every day. Could be the person who waited on us, took our bank deposit, works in retail, but who is barely above the poverty line.

I’ll still be sitting on my ass all day, five blocks from where I graduated, working the same crappy retail job I had when I was sixteen?” I finished for her. “Exactly.” I tried to look hurt. “I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I don’t think any other retail company in the world could do what I’m going to propose to you. It’s simple. It won’t cost us anything. And I believe it would just work magic, absolute magic on our customers, and our sales would escalate, and I think we’d just shoot past our Kmart friends in a year or two and probably Sears as well. I want you to take a pledge with me. I want you to promise that whenever you come within ten feet of a customer, you will look him in the eye, greet him, and ask him if you can help him. Now I know some of you are just naturally shy, and maybe don’t want to bother folks. But if you’ll go along with me on this, it would, I’m sure, help you become a leader. It would help your personality develop, you would become more outgoing, and in time you might become manager of that store, you might become a department manager, you might become a district manager, or whatever you choose to be in the company. It will do wonders for you. I guarantee it. Now, I want you to raise your right hand—and remember what we say at Wal-Mart, that a promise we make is a promise we keep—and I want you to repeat after me: From this day forward, I solemnly promise and declare that every time a customer comes within ten feet of me, I will smile, look him in the eye, and greet him. So help me Sam.

As it becomes easier to monitor informal consumer networks, the winners will be companies that figure out what’s working fastest – and do it more (and figure out what’s not working – and kill it). Zara, a fast-growing retailer in Europe, changes its clothing line every three or four weeks. By carefully watching what’s working and what’s not, they can evolve their lineup far faster than the competition can ever hope to.

He'd expected that at the very least he'd be able to slip into a decent social scene, but the problem with dropping out of the world is that that world moves on without you, and between the time spent on an all-consuming substance and the time spent working soul-crushing retail jobs while he tried not to think about the substance and the time spent in hospitals and rehab facilities, Paul was twenty-three years old and looked older.

I have often thought that everyone should work in retail at some point in their lives, kind of like mandatory military service. They would understand two things—first, that serving customers all day can be a very difficult job, and second, that being kind is so much more effective than being nasty.

As economist Thomas Sowell has noted, middleman minorities typically arrive in their host countries with education, skills, or a set of propitious attitudes about work, such as business frugality and the willingness to take risks. Some slave away in lowly menial jobs to raise capital, then swiftly become merchants, retailers, labor contractors, and money-lenders. Their descendants usually thrive in the professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, or finance.

Everyone should work in retail at least once in their lives. Consider it a form of national service.

When a person who works retail has a day off we don't do nothing for nobody unless you ask nice.

Am I supposed to be scared of him? I don't think he understands how bad working in retail is. He and his quivering moustache are far from the scariest things I've seen in this shop.

He sounds charming, Kharon,” said Ed, “but take no offense, this seems like I’ll end up being the minion of an evil god, and I’ve worked in retail before, so I know it’s not all it’s supposed to be.

This example from the retail world should be instructive: if you have only enough employees to barely get the work done as is, you’ve engineered a scenario in which employees may have theoretical permission to take time off, but understand that they’ll shoulder the burden of that time off in some way. Either they try to keep doing part of their work while on leave, a colleague takes on an even larger work burden, or a portion of essential work goes undone, slowing everyone on a team.

I know this is your religion, but for me it’s just a job.” “That’s your problem,” Basil said. “For you it’s ‘just’ a job.” “What’s it supposed to be?” “Work.” “Same thing,” Amy said. “No,” Basil said. “A job is what a guy in a gas station has. People at Orsk have work. It’s a calling. A responsibility to something bigger than yourself. Work gives you a goal. It lets you build something that lives on after you’re gone. Work has a purpose beyond making money.” “I am begging you to stop,” Amy said. “There’s nothing wrong with being serious,” Ruth Anne said. “She can’t take anything seriously,” Basil said. “That’s her problem.” “I do my job,” Amy said. “I punch the clock, I work my shop, I sell people their desks, I cash my check. That’s what Orsk pays me to do: my job. I’m not planning on being in retail for the rest of my life.” “Really? What are you going to do?” “I’m …” Amy suddenly realized that in fact she didn’t have any plans. “I’ve got plans. They’re none of your business.

The next time you drive into a Walmart parking lot, pause for a second to note that this Walmart—like the more than five thousand other Walmarts across the country—costs taxpayers about $1 million in direct subsidies to the employees who don’t earn enough money to pay for an apartment, buy food, or get even the most basic health care for their children. In total, Walmart benefits from more than $7 billion in subsidies each year from taxpayers like you. Those “low, low prices” are made possible by low, low wages—and by the taxes you pay to keep those workers alive on their low, low pay. As I said earlier, I don’t think that anyone who works full-time should live in poverty. I also don’t think that bazillion-dollar companies like Walmart ought to funnel profits to shareholders while paying such low wages that taxpayers must pick up the ticket for their employees’ food, shelter, and medical care. I listen to right-wing loudmouths sound off about what an outrage welfare is and I think, “Yeah, it stinks that Walmart has been sucking up so much government assistance for so long.” But somehow I suspect that these guys aren’t talking about Walmart the Welfare Queen. Walmart isn’t alone. Every year, employers like retailers and fast-food outlets pay wages that are so low that the rest of America ponies up a collective $153 billion to subsidize their workers. That’s $153 billion every year. Anyone want to guess what we could do with that mountain of money? We could make every public college tuition-free and pay for preschool for every child—and still have tens of billions left over. We could almost double the amount we spend on services for veterans, such as disability, long-term care, and ending homelessness. We could double all federal research and development—everything: medical, scientific, engineering, climate science, behavioral health, chemistry, brain mapping, drug addiction, even defense research. Or we could more than double federal spending on transportation and water infrastructure—roads, bridges, airports, mass transit, dams and levees, water treatment plants, safe new water pipes. Yeah, the point I’m making is blindingly obvious. America could do a lot with the money taxpayers spend to keep afloat people who are working full-time but whose employers don’t pay a living wage. Of course, giant corporations know they have a sweet deal—and they plan to keep it, thank you very much. They have deployed armies of lobbyists and lawyers to fight off any efforts to give workers a chance to organize or fight for a higher wage. Giant corporations have used their mouthpiece, the national Chamber of Commerce, to oppose any increase in the minimum wage, calling it a “distraction” and a “cynical effort” to increase union membership. Lobbyists grow rich making sure that people like Gina don’t get paid more. The

Is it weird that when I see a cool t shirt or pick up a toothbrush or see a new car I don't think about the product itself? I think about the thousands of people and dollars to make it. I think about how the retailer that took the risk to buy and resell it. Then I work backwards to the store costs, the distributer who got it there, the shipping company that brought it over from China, the factory workers that made it, the people that sourced the materials and the people that harvested the raw materials, and on and on.. . The global economy is amazing. Your $20 t-shirt is a freaking miracle.

Moral for psychologists. -- Not to go in for backstairs psychology. Never to observe in order to observe! That gives a false perspective, leads to squinting and something forced and exaggerated. Experience as the wish to experience does not succeed. One must not eye oneself while having an experience; else the eye becomes "an evil eye." A born psychologist guards instinctively against seeing in order to see; the same is true of the born painter. He never works "from nature"; he leaves it to his instinct, to his camera obscura, to sift through and express the "case," "nature," that which is "experienced." He is conscious only of what is general, of the conclusion, the result: he does not know arbitrary abstractions from an individual case. What happens when one proceeds differently? For example, if, in the manner of the Parisian novelists, one goes in for backstairs psychology and deals in gossip, wholesale and retail? Then one lies in wait for reality, as it were, and every evening one brings home a handful of curiosities. But note what finally comes of all this: a heap of splotches, a mosaic at best, but in any case something added together, something restless, a mess of screaming colors. The worst in this respect is accomplished by the Goncourts; they do not put three sentences together without really hurting the eye, the psychologist's eye. Nature, estimated artistically, is no model. It exaggerates, it distorts, it leaves gaps. Nature is chance. To study "from nature" seems to me to be a bad sign: it betrays submission, weakness, fatalism; this lying in the dust before petit faits [little facts] is unworthy of a whole artist. To see what is--that is the mark of another kind of spirit, the anti-artistic, the factual. One must know who one is. Toward a psychology of the artist. -- If there is to be art, if there is to be any aesthetic doing and seeing, one physiological condition is indispensable: frenzy. Frenzy must first have enhanced the excitability of the whole machine; else there is no art. All kinds of frenzy, however diversely conditioned, have the strength to accomplish this: above all, the frenzy of sexual excitement, this most ancient and original form of frenzy. Also the frenzy that follows all great cravings, all strong affects; the frenzy of feasts, contests, feats of daring, victory, all extreme movement; the frenzy of cruelty; the frenzy in destruction, the frenzy under certain meteorological influences, as for example the frenzy of spring; or under the influence of narcotics; and finally the frenzy of will, the frenzy of an overcharged and swollen will. What is essential in such frenzy is the feeling of increased strength and fullness. Out of this feeling one lends to things, one forces them to accept from us, one violates them--this process is called idealizing. Let us get rid of a prejudice here: idealizing does not consist, as is commonly held, in subtracting or discounting the petty and inconsequential. What is decisive is rather a tremendous drive to bring out the main features so that the others disappear in the process. In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever one wills, is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power--until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is--art. Even everything that he is not yet, becomes for him an occasion of joy in himself; in art man enjoys himself as perfection.

Why does Joe Normie think it’s a litmus test for morality if one returns one’s shopping cart? Big-box stores put out of business local retailers, they automated their systems to reduce employees, and they got customers to be their own cashiers without getting paid for their labor, and yet to prove I’m a good person, I’m supposed to do more unpaid work for them to streamline their operation?

I am tired of watching the daily parade of humanity regularly sink to meet my lowest expectations. The flipside of requiring everyone to work in retail is that there is a limit to how long you can work here before you start to view every human encounter as an irritation. I’ve been here for three years now and I believe I have reached that point. If I stay here much longer, I will develop a pathological and possibly irreversible hatred of all humanity. I will turn into Ebeneezer.

As it turns out, people who cut their work hours often take a smaller hit financially than they expect. That is because spending less time on the job means spending less money on the things that allow us to work: transport, parking, eating out, coffee, convenience food, childcare, laundry, retail therapy. A smaller income also translates into a smaller tax bill. In one Canadian study, some workers who took a pay cut in return for shorter hours actually ended up with more money in the bank at the end of the month.

Maybe it’s time Steve Jobs stopped thinking quite so differently,” Business Week wrote in a story headlined “Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work.” Apple’s former chief financial officer, Joseph Graziano, was quoted as saying, “Apple’s problem is it still believes the way to grow is serving caviar in a world that seems pretty content with cheese and crackers.” And the retail consultant David Goldstein declared, “I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake.

So he strode, and ran, and hurried home. He emptied into the ever-useful pocket-handkerchief the little meal remaining in the mug. Mary would have her tea at Miss Simmonds’; her food for the day was safe. Then he went upstairs for his better coat, and his one, gay red-and-yellow silk pocket-handkerchief — his jewels, his plate, his valuables, these were. He went to the pawn-shop; he pawned them for five shillings; he stopped not, nor stayed, till he was once more in London Road, within five minutes’ walk of Berry Street — then he loitered in his gait, in order to discover the shops he wanted. He bought meat, and a loaf of bread, candles, chips, and from a little retail yard he purchased a couple of hundredweights of coal. Some money still remained — all destined for them, but he did not yet know how best to spend it. Food, light, and warmth, he had instantly seen were necessary; for luxuries he would wait. Wilson’s eyes filled with tears when he saw Barton enter with his purchases. He understood it all, and longed to be once more in work that he might help in some of these material ways, without feeling that he was using his son’s money.

Do you really stick to your written opinions?” asked Vernou, with a satirical expression. “Why, we are retailers of phrases; that is how we make a livelihood. When you try to do a good piece of work — to write a book, in short — you can put your thoughts, yourself into it, and cling to it, and fight for it; but as for newspaper articles, read to-day and forgotten to-morrow, they are worth nothing in my eyes but the money that is paid for them. If you attach any importance to such drivel, you might as well make the sign of the Cross and invoke heaven when you sit down to write a tradesman’s circular.

The unemployment rate for young black men post-apartheid shot up, sometimes as high as 50 percent. What happens to a lot of guys is they finish high school and they can’t afford university, and even little retail jobs can be hard to come by when you’re from the hood and you look and talk a certain way. So, for many young men in South Africa’s townships, freedom looks like this: Every morning they wake up, maybe their parents go to work or maybe not. Then they go outside and chill on the corner the whole day, talking shit. They’re free, they’ve been taught how to fish, but no one will give them a fishing rod.

Like us, many students had spent their years in college thinking they’d get that well-paying, planet-saving job, even if they’d heard horror stories from recent underemployed grads. Those jobs, of course, no longer exist (if they ever did). By 2009, 17.4 million college graduates had jobs that didn’t even require a degree. There are 365,000 cashiers and 318,000 waiters and waitresses in America who have bachelor’s degrees, as do one-fifth of those working in the retail industry. More than 100,000 college graduates are janitors and 18,000 push carts. (There are 5,057 janitors in the United States who have doctorates and professional degrees!)

Entitlement Narcissistic vampires believe they are so special that the rules don’t apply to them. They expect the red carpet to be rolled out for them wherever they go, and if it isn’t, they get quite surly. They don’t wait, they don’t recycle, they don’t pay retail, they don’t stand in line, they don’t clean up after themselves, they don’t let other people get in front of them in traffic, and their income taxes rival great works of fiction. Illness or even death is no excuse for other people not immediately jumping up to meet their needs. They aren’t the least bit ashamed of using other people and systems for their own personal gain. They boast about how they take advantage of just about everybody.

Qualities such as honesty, determination, and a cheerful acceptance of stress, which can all be identified through probing questionnaires and interviews, may be more important to the company in the long run than one's college grade-point average or years of "related experience." Every business is only as good as the people it brings into the organization. The corporate trainer should feel his job is the most important in the company, because it is. Exalt seniority-publicly, shamelessly, and with enough fanfare to raise goosebumps on the flesh of the most cynical spectator. And, after the ceremony, there should be some sort of permanent display so that employees passing by are continuously reminded of their own achievements and the achievements of others. The manager must freely share his expertise-not only about company procedures and products and services but also with regard to the supervisory skills he has worked so hard to acquire. If his attitude is, "Let them go out and get their own MBAs," the personnel under his authority will never have the full benefit of his experience. Without it, they will perform at a lower standard than is possible, jeopardizing the manager's own success. Should a CEO proclaim that there is no higher calling than being an employee of his organization? Perhaps not-for fear of being misunderstood-but it's certainly all right to think it. In fact, a CEO who does not feel this way should look for another company to manage-one that actually does contribute toward a better life for all. Every corporate leader should communicate to his workforce that its efforts are important and that employees should be very proud of what they do-for the company, for themselves, and, literally, for the world. If any employee is embarrassed to tell his friends what he does for a living, there has been a failure of leadership at his workplace. Loyalty is not demanded; it is created. Why can't a CEO put out his own suggested reading list to reinforce the corporate vision and core values? An attractive display at every employee lounge of books to be freely borrowed, or purchased, will generate interest and participation. Of course, the program has to be purely voluntary, but many employees will wish to be conversant with the material others are talking about. The books will be another point of contact between individuals, who might find themselves conversing on topics other than the weekend football games. By simply distributing the list and displaying the books prominently, the CEO will set into motion a chain of events that can greatly benefit the workplace. For a very cost-effective investment, management will have yet another way to strengthen the corporate message. The very existence of many companies hangs not on the decisions of their visionary CEOs and energetic managers but on the behavior of its receptionists, retail clerks, delivery drivers, and service personnel. The manager must put himself and his people through progressively challenging courage-building experiences. He must make these a mandatory group experience, and he must lead the way. People who have confronted the fear of public speaking, and have learned to master it, find that their new confidence manifests itself in every other facet of the professional and personal lives. Managers who hold weekly meetings in which everyone takes on progressively more difficult speaking or presentation assignments will see personalities revolutionized before their eyes. Command from a forward position, which means from the thick of it. No soldier will ever be inspired to advance into a hail of bullets by orders phoned in on the radio from the safety of a remote command post; he is inspired to follow the officer in front of him. It is much more effective to get your personnel to follow you than to push them forward from behind a desk. The more important the mission, the more important it is to be at the front.

People, especially those in charge, rarely invite you into their offices and give freely of their time. Instead, you have to do something unique, compelling, even funny or a bit daring, to earn it. Even if you happen to be an exceptionally well-rounded person who possesses all of the scrappy qualities discussed so far, it’s still important to be prepared, dig deep, do the prep work, and think on your feet. Harry Gordon Selfridge, who founded the London-based department store Selfridges, knew the value of doing his homework. Selfridge, an American from Chicago, traveled to London in 1906 with the hope of building his “dream store.” He did just that in 1909, and more than a century later, his stores continue to serve customers in London, Manchester, and Birmingham. Selfridges’ success and staying power is rooted in the scrappy efforts of Harry Selfridge himself, a creative marketer who exhibited “a revolutionary understanding of publicity and the theatre of retail,” as he is described on the Selfridges’ Web site. His department store was known for creating events to attract special clientele, engaging shoppers in a way other retailers had never done before, catering to the holidays, adapting to cultural trends, and changing with the times and political movements such as the suffragists. Selfridge was noted to have said, “People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice.” How do you get people to take notice? How do you stand out in a positive way in order to make things happen? The curiosity and imagination Selfridge employed to successfully build his retail stores can be just as valuable for you to embrace in your circumstances. Perhaps you have landed a meeting, interview, or a quick coffee date with a key decision maker at a company that has sparked your interest. To maximize the impression you’re going to make, you have to know your audience. That means you must respectfully learn what you can about the person, their industry, or the culture of their organization. In fact, it pays to become familiar not only with the person’s current position but also their background, philosophies, triumphs, failures, and major breakthroughs. With that information in hand, you are less likely to waste the precious time you have and more likely to engage in genuine and meaningful conversation.

Then I got to the point: “I don’t think any other retail company in the world could do what I’m going to propose to you. It’s simple. It won’t cost us anything. And I believe it would just work magic, absolute magic on our customers, and our sales would escalate, and I think we’d just shoot past our Kmart friends in a year or two and probably Sears as well. I want you to take a pledge with me. I want you to promise that whenever you come within ten feet of a customer, you will look him in the eye, greet him, and ask him if you can help him. Now I know some of you are just naturally shy, and maybe don’t want to bother folks. But if you’ll go along with me on this, it would, I’m sure, help you become a leader. It would help your personality develop, you would become more outgoing, and in time you might become manager of that store, you might become a department manager, you might become a district manager, or whatever you choose to be in the company. It will do wonders for you. I guarantee it. Now, I want you to raise your right hand—and remember what we say at Wal-Mart, that a promise we make is a promise we keep—and I want you to repeat after me: From this day forward, I solemnly promise and declare that every time a customer comes within ten feet of me, I will smile, look him in the eye, and greet him. So help me Sam.

Social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest took a step closer to offering ecommerce on their own platforms this week, as the battle to win over retailers hots up. Facebook announced on Thursday it is trialling a “buy” button to allow people to purchase a product without ever leaving the social network’s app. The initial test, with a handful of small and medium-sized businesses in the US, could lead to more ecommerce companies buying adverts on the network. It could also allow Facebook to compile payment information and encourage people to make more transactions via the platform as it would save them typing in card numbers on smartphones. But the social network said no credit or debit card details will be shared with other advertisers. Twitter acquired CardSpring, a payments infrastructure company, this week for an undisclosed price as part of plans to feature more ecommerce around live events or, as it puts it, “in-the-moment commerce experiences”. CardSpring connects payment details with loyalty cards and coupons for transactions online and in stores. The home of the 140-character message hired Nathan Hubbard, former chief executive of Ticketmaster, last year to work on creating an ecommerce product. It has since worked with Amazon, to allow people to add things to their online basket by tweeting, and with Starbucks to encourage people to tweet to buy a coffee for a friend.

Along the way to Seattle, he wrote his business plan. He identified several reasons why the book category was underserved and well suited to online commerce. He outlined how he could create a new and compelling experience for book-buying customers. To begin with, books were relatively lightweight and came in fairly uniform sizes, meaning they would be easy and inexpensive to warehouse, pack, and ship. Second, while more than 100 million books had been written and more than a million titles were in print in 1994, even a Barnes & Noble mega-bookstore could stock only tens of thousands of titles. An online bookstore, on the other hand, could offer not just the books that could fit in a brick-and-mortar store but any book in print. Third, there were two large book-distribution companies, Ingram and Baker & Taylor, that acted as intermediaries between publishers and retailers and maintained huge inventories in vast warehouses. They kept detailed electronic catalogs of books in print to make it easy for bookstores and libraries to order from them. Jeff realized that he could combine the infrastructure that Ingram and Baker & Taylor had created—warehouses full of books ready to be shipped, plus an electronic catalog of those books—with the growing infrastructure of the Web, making it possible for consumers to find and buy any book in print and get it shipped directly to their homes. Finally, the site could use technology to analyze the behavior of customers and create a unique, personalized experience for each one of them.

When you buy from an independent, locally owned business, as opposed to nationally owned businesses, you strengthen the economic base of our city. And of course there’s no doubt that you’ll receive a better quality product or service. I share John Roeser’s amazement that people today tend to prefer saving a dollar or too two on a birthday cake, for example, by purchasing a sub-par cake made with artificial, cheap ingredients from a mass retailer, when Roeser’s Bakery offers some of the most delectable, housemade cakes in the world. How could anyone step into a fast food joint when we live in a city that has Lem’s barbecque rib tips, Kurowski’s kielbasa, Manny’s matzo ball soup, and Lindy’s chili within reach? You can’t even compare the products and services of the businesses featured in this book with those of mass retailers, either: Jjust try putting an Optimo hat on your head—you’ll ooze with elegance. Burn a beeswax lambathe from Athenian Candle and watch it glow longer than any candle you’ve ever lit. Bite into an Andersonville coffeecake from the Swedish Bakery—and you’ll have a hard time returning to the artificial ingredient– laden cakes found at most grocers. Equally important, local, family- owned businesses keep our city unique. In our increasingly homogenized and globalized world, cities that hold on tightly to their family-owned, distinctive businesses are more likely to attract visitors, entrepreneurs, and new investment. Chicago just wouldn’t be Chicago without these historic, one-of-a-kind places, and the people that run them from behind the scenes with nothing but love, hard work, and pride.

A confidential report delivered in June 1965 by Abel Aganbegyan, director of the Novobirsk Institute of Economics, highlighted the difficulties. Aganbegyan noted that the growth rate of the Soviet economy was beginning to decline, just as the rival US economy seemed particularly buoyant; at the same time, some sectors of the Soviet economy - housing, agriculture, services, retail trade - remained very backward, and were failing to develop at an adequate rate. The root causes of this poor performance he saw in the enormous commitment of resources to defense (in human terms, 30-40 million people out of a working population of 100 million, he reckoned), and the 'extreme centralism and lack of democracy in economic matters' which had survived from the past. In a complex modern society, he argued, not everything could be planned, since it was impossible to foresee all possible contingencies and their potential effects. So the plan amounted to central command, and even that could not be properly implemented for lack of information and of modern data-processing equipment. 'The Central Statistical Administration ... does not have a single computer, and is not planning to acquire any,' he commented acidly. Economic administration was also impeded by excessive secrecy: 'We obtain many figures... from American journals sooner than they are released by the Central Statistical Administration.' Hence the economy suffered from inbuilt distortions: the hoarding of goods and labour to provide for unforeseen contingencies, the production of shoddy goods to fulfill planning targets expressed in crude quantitative terms, the accumulation of unused money by a public reluctant to buy substandard products, with resultant inflation and a flourishing black market.

Scrupling to do writings relative to keeping slaves has been a means of sundry small trials to me, in which I have so evidently felt my own will set aside that I think it good to mention a few of them. Tradesmen and retailers of goods, who depend on their business for a living, are naturally inclined to keep the good-will of their customers; nor is it a pleasant thing for young men to be under any necessity to question the judgment or honesty of elderly men, and more especially of such as have a fair reputation. Deep-rooted customs, though wrong, are not easily altered; but it is the duty of all to be firm in that which they certainly know is right for them. A charitable, benevolent man, well acquainted with a negro, may, I believe, under some circumstances, keep him in his family as a servant, on no other motives than the negro's good; but man, as man, knows not what shall be after him, nor hath he any assurance that his children will attain to that perfection in wisdom and goodness necessary rightly to exercise such power; hence it is clear to me, that I ought not to be the scribe where wills are drawn in which some children are made ales masters over others during life. About this time an ancient man of good esteem in the neighborhood came to my house to get his will written. He had young negroes, and I asked him privately how he purposed to dispose of them. He told me; I then said, "I cannot write thy will without breaking my own peace," and respectfully gave him my reasons for it. He signified that he had a choice that I should have written it, but as I could not, consistently with my conscience, he did not desire it, and so he got it written by some other person. A few years after, there being great alterations in his family, he came again to get me to write his will. His negroes were yet young, and his son, to whom he intended to give them, was, since he first spoke to me, from a libertine become a sober young man, and he supposed that I would have been free on that account to write it. We had much friendly talk on the subject, and then deferred it. A few days after he came again and directed their freedom, and I then wrote his will.

Buy verified Paypal accounts – 100% Verified & Fast Delivery. Are you afraid that our Verified PayPal Account service will be Dropped? Don’t Worry; We are not like the rest of the fake PVA account providers. We provide 100% Non-Drop PVA Accounts, Permanent PVA Accounts, and Legit PVA Accounts Service. We’re working with the largest team, and we’re instant start work after you place order. So, Buy our Service and enjoy it. Our Service Always Trusted Customers with sufficient Guarantee ✅ 100% Customers Satisfaction Guaranteed ✅ 100% Non-Drop Verified PayPal Account ✅Active Verified PayPal Account ✅Very Cheap Price ✅ High-Quality Service ✅ 100% Money-Back Guarantee ✅24/7 Ready to Customer Support ✅ Extra Bonuses for every service ✅If you want to buy this product, you must Advance Payment If you want to know more or have any queries, just knock us here- 24 Hours Reply/Contact ✅➤Telegram:@usukseller ✅➤Whatsapp: +1(939)328-6215‪ ✅➤Email: usukseller6@gmail.com Buy USA-Verified PayPal Accounts Looking to expand your online payment options in the USA? Consider buying verified PayPal accounts tailored specifically for the US market. These accounts come with additional layers of security and verification, giving you peace of mind when conducting transactions. With a USA-verified PayPal account, you can tap into a wider range of online shopping opportunities and seamlessly send or receive payments within the country. Whether you’re an individual or a business looking to enhance your financial flexibility, these accounts offer added credibility and trustworthiness. By purchasing a verified PayPal account for the USA, you ensure smoother transactions and increased convenience when dealing with American clients or customers. The process is straightforward and efficient, allowing you to start using your account almost immediately after purchase. Experience the benefits of having a verified PayPal account designed specifically for the US market by exploring reputable sellers offering top-notch services tailored to your needs. Introduction to Paypal Accounts PayPal accounts have become an essential tool for online transactions in today’s digital world. Whether you’re a buyer or a seller, having a PayPal account makes sending and receiving money easy and secure. Introduced in the late 1990s, PayPal revolutionized the way people engage in e-commerce by providing a safe platform for financial transactions. It allows users to link their bank accounts or credit cards to make payments with just a few clicks. By creating a PayPal account, users can enjoy added security features such as Purchase Protection and Seller Protection that safeguard against fraudulent activities. This gives both buyers and sellers peace of mind when conducting business online. With millions of users worldwide, PayPal is accepted by numerous online retailers and businesses across various industries. Its user-friendly interface and efficient payment processing make it a popular choice for individuals and businesses alike. In conclusion… Is it legal to buy verified PayPal accounts? Many people wonder about the legality of purchasing verified PayPal accounts. It’s important to understand that while buying and selling PayPal accounts is not illegal, it does go against PayPal’s terms of service. This means that if you are caught using a purchased account, you risk having it suspended or even permanently banned by PayPal. Buy Verified Paypal Accounts When you buy a verified PayPal account, you are essentially taking on someone else’s identity in the eyes of the platform. This can lead to issues with security and fraud prevention measures put in place by PayPal. It’s always best to create and verify your own PayPal account to ensure compliance with their policies and avoid any potential risks associated with buying an account from a third-party seller.

While working at the hedge fund in 1994, Bezos came across the statistic that the web had been growing by more than 2,300 percent each year. He decided that he wanted to get aboard that rocket, and he came up with the idea of opening a retail store online, sort of a Sears catalogue for the digital age. Realizing that it was prudent to start with one product, he chose books—partly because he liked them and also because they were not perishable, were a commodity, and could be bought from two big wholesale distributors. And there were more than three million titles in print—far more than a bricks-and-mortar store could possibly keep on display.

We even evaluated rebates and points-based programs similar to the airlines’, but there’s an important difference between airlines and retailers. Once a plane takes off, its empty seats have no value. Therefore, airlines, in exchange for loyalty, can give away marginal inventory that would otherwise go unsold. Whereas in retail, giving away either product or shipping fees always has a cost. None of the ideas made it very far because they could not meet the three essential criteria.

But if God is behind, under, and throughout all good work and every moment of our lives, prayer is never a merely “spiritual” act of piety, a few feet off the ground, divorced from the real work of the world. When we pray for healing or redemption or peace or justice, we are praying for those who work—for scientists, doctors, poets, potters, researchers, retail clerks, farmers, politicians, and pilots—these actual and limited men and women through whom God is bringing renewal.

He explained to Steve that there was an important difference in the digital media value chain as well. In physical retail, Amazon operated at the middle of the value chain. We added value by sourcing and aggregating a vast selection of goods, tens of millions of them, on a single website and delivering them quickly and cheaply to customers. To win in digital, because those physical retail value adds were not advantages, we needed to identify other parts of the value chain where we could differentiate and serve customers well. Jeff told Steve that this meant moving out of the middle and venturing to either end of the value chain. On one end was content, where the value creators were book authors, filmmakers, TV producers, publishers, musicians, record companies, and movie studios. On the other end was distribution and consumption of content. In digital, that meant focusing on applications and devices consumers used to read, watch, or listen to content, as Apple had already done with iTunes and the iPod. We all took note of what Apple had achieved in digital music in a short period of time and sought to apply those learnings to our long-term product vision.

When the retail, operations, and finance teams began to construct the initial Amazon WBR, they turned to a well-known Six Sigma process improvement method called DMAIC, an acronym for Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control.1 Should you decide to implement a Weekly Business Review for your business, we recommend following the DMAIC steps as well. The order of the steps matters. Progressing through this metrics life cycle in this order can prevent a lot of frustration and rework, allowing you to achieve your goals faster.

The advance of computerization and automation technologies has meant that many medium-skilled jobs—clerks, travel agents, bookkeepers, and factory workers—have been replaced with new technologies. New jobs have arisen in their place, but those jobs are often one of two types: either they are high-skilled jobs, such as engineers, programmers, managers, and designers, or they are lower-skilled jobs such as retail workers, cleaners, or customer service agents. Exacerbating the trends caused by computers and robots are globalization and regionalization. As medium-skilled technical work is outsourced to workers in developing nations, many of those jobs are disappearing at home. Lower-skilled jobs, which often require face-to-face contact or social knowledge in the form of cultural or language abilities, are likely to remain. Higher-skilled work is also more resistant to shipping overseas because of the benefits of coordination with management and the market. Think of Apple’s tagline on all of its iPhones: “Designed in California. Made in China.” Design and management stay; manufacturing goes.

Bri liked to say she could tell I’d never cried in a walk-in fridge before. I’d never worked retail or in a restaurant. She said it should be mandatory that everyone work at a fast-food place for six months because it changes you, and I think this is what she meant.

Why work a retail job when you’ve just found out you aren’t real? Why bother with anything when your entire world is going to end around bedtime?

self-control, conscientiousness, and empathy. For successful retail store managers, the key competencies

Futures Made Simple has been developed based on years of educating, coaching and working hands on with thousands of retail investors. Through our partnership with you, we provide all of the tools and support that you need, in order to confidently trade the worlds' biggest markets. Utilising the leverage these markets offer, rewards can be spectacular, and of course care needs to be taken with managing the risk, hence why we provide a huge depth of education.

The New Way To Shop For Diamonds- We help people find the best priced diamonds from all the leading diamond companies. Search and Compare over 1 million ethical & conflict free natural and lab grown diamonds using augmented reality. Our augmented reality tool helps you try on diamond rings on your hand from anywhere in the world. How It Works Search: Search over 1 million ethical confict-free certified diamonds. You can refine your search for color, clarity, carat and cut. Compare: Browse and compare diamonds according to your search criteria from the best companies in the world. Purchase: Buy directly from the retailer’s site. About Us: Diamond Hedge simplifies the way people shop for diamonds. We are an independent firm that helps to narrow down the selection for any occasion. We work with only the best diamond companies in the world that source only ethical and conflict-free diamonds. We understand how stressful it can be to shop for a diamond, and we aim to simplify the process by providing a place to compare diamonds by carat, color, cut, clarity, price and other diamond specifications. Once the customer finds the perfect diamond, they can buy the diamond directly from the vendor of their choice. Contact Us: Please reach out to us at contact@diamondhedge.com

I often counsel people to really understand if and how their business model creates customer need. You need to know if you’re going to be able to fulfill good economics per products sold, and if the overall business model is successful. A lot of the business plans that don’t work get created around settings where people are dissatisfied with status quo. They really don’t like having to pay fifteen percent to a distributor in order to get the product from the manufacturer to the retail outlet. But they don’t understand that just being unhappy with the status quo doesn’t mean you can rip the distributor out of the model and make it work. You have to make sure the model that you create has viability, so that every time you sell a product, you know how much money you are bringing in, and what the cost and scale is. It’s more about ‘How do I make money out of this?’ rather than ‘I wish the world in this area were different.

What got less coverage was that, adjusted for inflation, egg prices were actually lower in 2022 than they had been in 2015. Prices peaked in December 2022, with a dozen eggs selling for around $5 on average. Egg supply and prices were already recovering in early 2023. Producer prices, the prices farmers charge grocery stores, began to fall. The retail price, the price consumers pay in the grocery store, fell sharply (by $1 in one week in early January!) and continued to fall into 2023. The moral of the story is: We need more egg-laying chickens. The eggflation story is emblematic of what could happen to the rest of the economy. We are dependent on fragile systems that can break when stressed.

The idea here is that we have only a limited amount of self-control or willpower to draw on, and when our reserves are drained we have a harder time resisting temptation. Fatigue, mental strain, stress, and hunger can all work as drains on our self-control resources.48 Research shows that stigma or the threat of rejection can also reduce self-control through ego depletion,49 so stereotype threat can be a trigger for overspending if you use retail therapy. However our egos get worn down, the effect is the same: We have less self-control. So, when we are ego depleted, just trying harder to resist temptation will only work against us, making us more tired and more ego depleted. Instead, if we want to resist the temptation to shop when our egos are drained, the solution is not to be hard on ourselves, but to focus on replenishing our resources. This is where affirmations come in.

in Parma and handles them very well. This is the choice of the Consorzio itself when it needs to ship the cheese within the United States for events. For high-quality balsamic, look for the full name Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena or Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Reggio Emilia. Italian law precludes the years of aging on the labels, but better retailers list it, and eight years is the minimum for the good stuff, though truly exceptional balsamic, the kind to be applied with an eyedropper to cheese and ice cream, should be at least twenty-five to fifty years and will always cost you more than a hundred dollars, sometimes much more, for a small bottle. The best are labeled by color, with silver and gold denoting the oldest. Again, Zingerman’s is an excellent resource for authentic standout balsamic vinegars. *“Paolo Rainieri” is an amalgam of Parma cheese makers I met, almost all male and almost all second, third, or fifth generation in their jobs. One had worked every day, save his two-day honeymoon, for thirty-five years.

Based in Manchester and serving the UK, we specialise in the fabrication and installation of Aluminium Windows, Doors, Bi Folding Doors, Hybrid Windows and Shopfronts. We have worked on many large projects across the UK and are equally at home working with small to medium businesses, pubs and other retail outlets and in domestic environments. Our team have over 25 years experience and our fabricators are among some of the best in the UK.

According to research by retailer Littlewoods four year old girls ask an average of 390 questions a day. That works out at about one every 2 minutes while the long suffering parent is awake.

Please come again… when I’m not working.

In lieu of providing unionized jobs with decent conditions, the new retail stores learned from Walmart to pay lip service to workers’ wants and needs, to embrace “teamwork” while making sure workers didn’t actually team up enough to organize.

Word of Mouth: the Power of True Believers As everyone knows, word of mouth is the most effective advertising of all. Or, when in my cups, I have been known to say that there’s no better business to run than a cult. Trader Joe’s became a cult of the overeducated and underpaid, partly because we deliberately tried to make it a cult once we got a handle on what we were actually doing, and partly because we kept the implicit promises with our clientele. I used to work every Thanksgiving Day in one of the stores. They only let me bag, because I had lost all my checker skills. One Thanksgiving, a woman came in and asked for bourbon. I told her that we had none, because we had not been able to make the right kind of deal (this was after the end of Fair Trade, when we were deep in the Mac the Knife mode). “That’s all right,” she exclaimed. “I know what you’re trying to do for us!” Note the us. There aren’t many cult retailers who successfully retain their cult status over a long period of time. A couple in California are In ’n Out Burger and Fry’s Electronics. But across America, in every town, there’s a particular donut shop, pizza parlor, bakery, greengrocer, bar, etc., that has a cult following of True Believers. The old Petrini’s of the 1950s and 1960s had that status when it came to meat. Brooks Bros had that status until the 1970s. S. S. Pierce in Boston was another. But all of them failed to keep the faith. Beware of ever betraying the True Believers! The fury of a woman scorned is nothing compared with that of a betrayed cultee.

The Most Important Strategic Decision Was to Become a Genuine Retailer The fundamental job of a retailer is to buy goods whole, cut them into pieces, and sell the pieces to the ultimate consumers. This is the most important mental construct I can impart to those of you who want to enter retailing. Most “retailers” have no idea of the formal meaning of the word. Time and again I had to remind myself just what my role in society was supposed to be. Many of the policy decisions for a retailer boil down to this: How closely should we stick to the fundamental retailing job? “Retail” comes from a medieval French verb, retailer, which means “to cut into pieces.” “Tailor” comes from the same verb. The fact is that most so-called retailers don’t want to face up to their basic job. In Pronto Markets we did everything we could to avoid retailing. We tried to shift the burden to suppliers, buying prepackaged goods, hopefully pre-price-marked (potato chips, bread, cupcakes, magazines, paperback books) so we had no role in the pricing decision. The goods were ordered, displayed, and returned by outside salespeople. To this day, supermarkets fight with the retail clerks’ union to expand their right to let core store work be done by outsiders. Whole Earth Harry’s moves into wine and health foods had taken us quite a distance into genuine retailing. In our cheese departments we were literally taking whole wheels and cutting them into pieces. I took this as an analogy for what we should do with everything we sold. Getting rid of all outside salespeople was corollary to the programs that would unfold during the next five years. In Mac the Knife, no outsiders of any sort were permitted in the store. All the work was done by employees. The closest thing to it that I see these days is Costco, which shares many features with Trader Joe’s.

In many organizations, your ability to grow in your career will hit a ceiling unless you start managing people. All C-level executives lead teams. If your ambitions are to be a CEO or VP someday, you’re going to need to move on to the management track. There are also jobs where, beyond a certain skill level, the only path for growth is learning how to manage and coordinate the work of more and more people—for example, in customer support or retail sales

Product: •What is the product? •Who is it for? •What does it do? •How does it work? •How do people buy and use it? Benefits: •How does the product help people? •What are its most important benefits? Reader: •Who are you writing for? •How do they live? •What do they want? •What do they feel? •What do they know about the product, or this type of product? •Are they using a similar product already? Aim: •What do you want the reader to do, think or feel as a result of reading this copy? •What situation will they be in when they read it? Format: •Where will the copy be used? (Sales letter, web page, YouTube video, etc) •How long does it need to be? (500 words, 10 pages, 30 seconds, etc) •How should it be structured? (Main title, subtitles, sidebars, pullout quotes, calls to action, etc) •What other types of content might be involved? (Images, diagrams, video, music, etc) Tone: •Should the copy be serious, light-hearted, emotional, energetic, laid-back, etc? Constraints: •Maximum or minimum length •Anything that must be included or left out •Legal issues (regulations on scientific or health claims, prohibited words, trademarks, etc) •How this copy needs to fit in with other copy that’s already been written, or that will be written in the future •Whether the copy will form part of a campaign, so that different ideas along the same lines will be needed in future (see ‘Take it further’ in chapter 9) •Which countries the copy will appear in (whether in English, or translated) •SEO issues (for example, popular search terms that should feature in headings) •Brand or tone of voice guidelines (see ‘Tone of voice guidelines’ in chapter 15) Other background information about: •The product (development history, use cases, technical specifications, distribution, retail, buying processes, buying channels, marketing strategy) •The product’s market position (price point, offers and discounts, customer perceptions, competitors) •The target market (size, history, typical customer profile, marketing personas) •The client (history, current setup, culture, people, values) •The brand (history, positioning, values) Project management points: •Timescales (dates for copy plan, drafts, feedback, final copy, approval) •Who will provide feedback, and how •Who will approve the final copy, and how •How the copy will be delivered (usually a Word document, but not always) These are only suggestions.

When you ask people at a party about what they do – keep your ears strained for how many of them project themselves as unique . Most of them might say I work for ABC company that ‘s into software or XYZ company that is into retail without implying what is perceptually unique about their companies

While I'm writing you I might mention the new novel I'm considering writing; it has to do with the phonograph record business, which I was involved with, at the retail end, for over seven years. I guess I'll make it a S-F novel, though, setting it in the future. My memory tapes (so to speak) have few if any gaps in them about my years in the record business, what with the rip-offs and payola. The small profits for the retailer, the huge chains that are wholesalers-retailers who crowd out the little guy. Provisionally, I will call the record company DOGSHIT RECORDS INC. (Or DRI, as they have now EMI, RCA, MCA, etc.) In my head I've blocked out the tory of an android who has an agent who is another android, but neither knows the other is an invader. (There is a sort of mutual surprise ending, but the main thing is to lay forth the inner workings of an industry for our readership, in a novel of the sort I tend to write and they tend to read.) The musical artist's agent is named (are you ready?) Skim Morewithit, and so forth. There are rip-offs of royalties, two sets of books, all the usual stuff you find today and yesterday in the record business. As to locale, I haven't decided. Maybe on Jupiter, because it will be a (ahem) heavy novel.

Brendan Corkery, nurtured in a tranquil small town, fondly recalls a childhood of simplicity and local schooling. Transitioning into retail, his dedication and proficiency propelled him from clerk to store manager. Beyond work, he finds solace and adventure in outdoor activities, such as soccer, scenic hikes, and cinematic appreciation.

No need for paternity leave, as I've opted to raise children like a gecko and abandon my babies at birth.

What in the emotional labor is this?

In the United States, the story of DST is rather ridiculous, influenced by that especially American blend of wartime morality and blatant commercial interest. In the surprisingly hilarious book Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, Michael Downing writes that soon after the United States adopted DST in March 1918, “the lofty humanitarian goals of Daylight Saving—to get working girls safely home before dark, to reunite dads and moms with the kids before shadows fell on the backyard garden, to safeguard the physical and mental health of industrial workers by increasing their daily opportunity for sports and recreation—also resembled an innovative strategy for boosting retail sales.

20 percent and that's my final offer." Dog folded his arms across his chest in a move that I assumed was meant to intimidate. He had sizable muscle, but the effect was watered down by his My Little Pony tattoos. I could swear I saw Fluttershy wink. "Don't give me that 20 percent bullshit," I said. "I work in retail. I know the margins and I know you didn't buy these goods so everything is profit for you." "You didn't tell me she was a hard-ass." Dog glared at Jack. "I like to keep the good stuff to myself." "Give me the Boxing Day special," I said. "Six A.M. door crasher." His eyes widened. "40 percent?" I shook my head. "First five people in the door." "Sixty?" "Take it or leave it." I pulled out a wad of cash. We'd all chipped in to cover the costs in hopeful anticipation of a bigger return at the end. Dog took the money, but not before registering a complaint with customer service. "You said she was a newb," he said to Jack. "She's a smart and savvy newb." Jack grinned. "Gotta say, it's pretty damn hot.

Preparation for the interview therefore ceases to be about the actual content of the job and instead becomes a theatrical rehearsal, concerned primarily with costume, demeanour, eye contact, stage presence, learning one's lines. The character of the applicant must be placed within a seamless yet engaging narrative, and any outside interests incorporated into the work sphere (so for instance, for a retail job, an interest in films becomes "I like to keep track of all the latest DVD releases"). Above all, it is important to appear 'natural'. Actual experience is secondary to a willingness to blend in; to contribute to that collective suspension of disbelief which is vital to the smooth running of the contemporary workplace.

No one in his family could remember talking about it. Must have been dreadful, they agreed. And, being Walkers, and Bushes, they didn't bring it up. It was only years later, when he got into politics and had to learn to retail bits of his life, that he ever tried to put words around the war. His first attempts, in the sixties, were mostly about the cahm-rah-deree and the spirit of the American Fighting Man. The Vietnam War was an issue then, and Bush was for it. (Most people in Texas were.) He said he learned "a lot about life" from his years in the Navy—but he never said what the lessons were. Later, when peace was in vogue, Bush said the war had "sobered" him with a grave understanding of the cost of conflict—he'd seen his buddies die. The voters could count on him not to send their sons to war, because he knew what it was. Still later, when he turned Presidential prospect, and every bit of his life had to be melted down to the coin of the realm–character–Bush had to essay more thoughts about the war, what it meant to him, how it shaped his soul. But he made an awful hash of it, trying to be jaunty. He told the story of being shot down. Then he added: "Lemme tell ya, that'll make you start to think about the separation of church and state . Finally, in a much-edited transcript of an interview with a minister whom he hired as liaison to the born-again crowd, Bush worked out a statement on faith and the war: something sound, to cover the bases. It wasn't foxhole Christianity, and he couldn't say he saw Jesus on the water—no, it was quieter than that.... But there, on the Finback, he spent his time standing watch on deck in the wee hours, silent, reflective, under the bright stars... "It was wonderful and energizing, a time to talk to God. "One of the things I realized out there all alone was how much family meant to me. Having faced death and been given another chance to live, I could see just how important those values and principles were that my parents had instilled in me, and of course how much I loved Barbara, the girl I knew I would marry…” That was not quite how he was recalled by the men of the Finback. Oh, they liked him: a real funny guy. And they gave him another nickname, Ellie. That was short for Elephant. What they recollected was Bush in the wardroom, tossing his head and emitting on command the roaring trumpeted squeal of the enraged pachyderm; it was the most uncanny imitation of an elephant. Nor were "sobered" or "reflective" words that leapt to Bar's mind when she remembered George at that time. The image she recalled was from their honeymoon, when she and George strolled the promenades, amid the elderly retirees who wintered at that Sea Island resort. All at once, George would scream "AIR RAID! AIR RAID!" and dive into the shrubs, while Bar stood alone and blushing on the path, prey to the pitying glances of the geezers who clucked about "that poor shell-shocked young man." But there was, once, a time when he talked about the war, at night, at home, to one friend, between campaigns, when he didn't have to cover any bases at all. "You know," he said, "it was the first time in my life I was ever scared. "And then, when they came and pulled me out ..." (Him, Dottie Bush's son, out of a million miles of empty ocean!) "Well." Bush trailed off, pleasantly, just shaking his head.

The electronics effort faced even greater challenges. To launch that category, David Risher tapped a Dartmouth alum named Chris Payne who had previously worked on Amazon’s DVD store. Like Miller, Payne had to plead with suppliers—in this case, Asian consumer-electronics companies like Sony, Toshiba, and Samsung. He quickly hit a wall. The Japanese electronics giants viewed Internet sellers like Amazon as sketchy discounters. They also had big-box stores like Best Buy and Circuit City whispering in their ears and asking them to take a pass on Amazon. There were middlemen distributors, like Ingram Electronics, but they offered a limited selection. Bezos deployed Doerr to talk to Howard Stringer at Sony America, but he got nowhere. So Payne had to turn to the secondary distributors—jobbers that exist in an unsanctioned, though not illegal, gray market. Randy Miller, a retail finance director who came to Amazon from Eddie Bauer, equates it to buying from the trunk of someone’s car in a dark alley. “It was not a sustainable inventory model, but if you are desperate to have particular products on your site or in your store, you do what you need to do,” he says. Buying through these murky middlemen got Payne and his fledgling electronics team part of the way toward stocking Amazon’s virtual shelves. But Bezos was unimpressed with the selection and grumpily compared it to shopping in a Russian supermarket during the years of Communist rule. It would take Amazon years to generate enough sales to sway the big Asian brands. For now, the electronics store was sparely furnished. Bezos had asked to see $100 million in electronics sales for the 1999 holiday season; Payne and his crew got about two-thirds of the way there. Amazon officially announced the new toy and electronics stores that summer, and in September, the company held a press event at the Sheraton in midtown Manhattan to promote the new categories. Someone had the idea that the tables in the conference room at the Sheraton should have piles of merchandise representing all the new categories, to reinforce the idea of broad selection. Bezos loved it, but when he walked into the room the night before the event, he threw a tantrum: he didn’t think the piles were large enough. “Do you want to hand this business to our competitors?” he barked into his cell phone at his underlings. “This is pathetic!” Harrison Miller, Chris Payne, and their colleagues fanned out that night across Manhattan to various stores, splurging on random products and stuffing them in the trunks of taxicabs. Miller spent a thousand dollars alone at a Toys “R” Us in Herald Square. Payne maxed out his personal credit card and had to call his wife in Seattle to tell her not to use the card for a few days. The piles of products were eventually large enough to satisfy Bezos, but the episode was an early warning. To satisfy customers and their own demanding boss during the upcoming holiday, Amazon executives were going to have to substitute artifice and improvisation for truly comprehensive selection.

Moreover, these changes occurred when most American households actually found their real incomes stagnant or declining. Median household income for the last four decades is shown in the chart above. But this graph, disturbing as it is, conceals a far worse reality. The top 10 percent did much better than everyone else; if you remove them, the numbers change dramatically. Economic analysis has found that “only the top 10 percent of the income distribution had real compensation growth equal to or above . . . productivity growth.”14 In fact, most gains went to the top 1 percent, while people in the bottom 90 percent either had declining household incomes or were able to increase their family incomes only by working longer hours. The productivity of workers continued to grow, particularly with the Internet revolution that began in the mid-1990s. But the benefits of productivity growth went almost entirely into the incomes of the top 1 percent and into corporate profits, both of which have grown to record highs as a fraction of GNP. In 2010 and 2011 corporate profits accounted for over 14 percent of total GNP, a historical record. In contrast, the share of US GNP paid as wages and salaries is at a historical low and has not kept pace with inflation since 2006.15 As I was working on this manuscript in late 2011, the US Census Bureau published the income statistics for 2010, when the US recovery officially began. The national poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, its highest level in nearly twenty years; median household income declined by 2.3 percent. This decline, however, was very unequally distributed. The top tenth experienced a 1 percent decline; the bottom tenth, already desperately poor, saw its income decline 12 percent. America’s median household income peaked in 1999; by 2010 it had declined 7 percent. Average hourly income, which corrects for the number of hours worked, has barely changed in the last thirty years. Ranked by income equality, the US is now ninety-fifth in the world, just behind Nigeria, Iran, Cameroon, and the Ivory Coast. The UK has mimicked the US; even countries with low levels of inequality—including Denmark and Sweden—have seen an increasing gap since the crisis. This is not a distinguished record. And it’s not a statistical fluke. There is now a true, increasingly permanent underclass living in near-subsistence conditions in many wealthy states. There are now tens of millions of people in the US alone whose condition is little better than many people in much poorer nations. If you add up lifetime urban ghetto residents, illegal immigrants, migrant farm-workers, those whose criminal convictions sharply limit their ability to find work, those actually in prison, those with chronic drug-abuse problems, crippled veterans of America’s recently botched wars, children in foster care, the homeless, the long-term unemployed, and other severely disadvantaged groups, you get to tens of millions of people trapped in very harsh, very unfair conditions, in what is supposedly the wealthiest, fairest society on earth. At any given time, there are over two million people in US prisons; over ten million Americans have felony records and have served prison time for non-traffic offences. Many millions more now must work very long hours, and very hard, at minimum-wage jobs in agriculture, retailing, cleaning, and other low-wage service industries. Several million have been unemployed for years, exhausting their savings and morale. Twenty or thirty years ago, many of these people would have had—and some did have—high-wage jobs in manufacturing or construction. No more. But in addition to growing inequalities in income and wealth, America exhibits

And even beer, retailing at 88 Pfennigs per litre, was a considerable drain on the working-class food budget. Not surprisingly, the majority of Germans lived on a modest and monotonous diet of bread and jam, potatoes, cabbage and pork, washed down with water and small amounts of milk and beer. Hence the derogatory term 'Kraut', popular both in France and Britain. Germans were also avid drinkers of coffee and coffee substitutes, consuming a total of almost 5 kilos per annum.

Consider the case of Walmart. It is the largest retailer in the world, with more than two million employees and annual sales of around $450 billion—a sum greater than the GDP of four-fifths of the world’s countries. Before the Web brought forth so much data, the company held perhaps the biggest set of data in corporate America. In the 1990s it revolutionized retailing by recording

The kinds of change that come from rapid process improvements are essential but are only the first steps of a lean journey. The core work of the transformation is changing the culture—changing how we respond to problems, how we think about patients, how we interact with each other. This is an issue not only in healthcare organizations; we have also seen manufacturing, service companies, retailers, and government agencies all struggle with the same issues. When lean thinking goes only skin deep and management does not change, improvements cannot be sustained, and savings never quite hit the bottom line.

Wal-Mart's business in the United States is stagnating, growing only because the company continues to relentlessly open new stores. But if Wal-Mart takes environmental responsibility seriously, if its stores become models for energy conservation and for doing minimal environmental harm (they are known for the opposite right now), that will be pioneering, and it might also be attractive to some Americans who have avoided Wal-Mart. If those stores are filled with products made by factory workers who are treated in a civilized fashion, products that do not damage the environment in the course of being made, products made in sustainable ways with minimal packaging, that will represent a pivot point, not just for Wal-Mart, or for retailing, but for capitalism. Nothing could do more to jump-start Wal-Mart's business than for Wal-Mart to find its soul. And of course, Wal-Mart's scale means that if it starts to take the design of its buildings and the impact of its products seriously, all its competitors will have no choice but to do the same. The virtuous Wal-Mart effect would ripple widely. It would ripple around the world.

Plus, as I’ve said, if you don’t want to work weekends, you shouldn’t be in retail. But

Shared ownership is not a universal panacea. Some employee-owned concerns work badly; many public or privately-owned companies work well. But the co-operative approach is not the cranky ideal that some boardroom “realists” like to make it out to be. It works. Few British retail companies have weathered the latest economic downturn so robustly as John Lewis. No wonder all three main political parties have talked recently about using “John Lewis style partnerships” to run key public services. In an age when capitalism is in danger of becoming as discredited as communism, the ideals of co-operatism have more to offer than many people assume.

I made up my mind I was going to learn something about IBM computers. So I enrolled in an IBM school for retailers in Poughkeepsie, New York. One of the speakers was a guy from the National Mass Retailers’ Institute (NMRI), the discounters’ trade association, a guy named Abe Marks. ABE MARKS, HEAD OF HARTFIELD ZODY’S, AND FIRST PRESIDENT, NMRI: “I was sitting there at the conference reading the paper, and I had a feeling somebody was standing over me, so I look up and there’s this grayish gentleman standing there in a black suit carrying an attaché case. And I said to myself, ‘Who is this guy? He looks like an undertaker.’ “He asks me if I’m Abe Marks and I say, ‘Yes, I am.’ “ ‘Let me introduce myself, my name is Sam Walton,’ he says. ‘I’m only a little fellow from Bentonville, Arkansas, and I’m in the retail business.’ “I say, ‘You’ll have to pardon me, Sam, I thought I knew everybody and every company in the retail business, but I never heard of Sam Walton. What did you say the name of your company is again?’ “ ‘Wal-Mart Stores,’ he says. “So I say, ‘Well, welcome to the fraternity of discount merchants. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the conference and getting acquainted socially with everyone.’ “ ‘Well, to be perfectly honest with you, Mr. Marks, I didn’t come here to socialize, I came here to meet you. I know you’re a CPA and you’re able to keep confidences, and I really wanted your opinion on what I am doing now.’ So he opens up this attaché case, and, I swear, he had every article I had ever written and every speech I had ever given in there. I’m thinking, This is a very thorough man.’ Then he hands me an accountant’s working column sheet, showing all his operating categories all written out by hand. “Then he says: ‘Tell me what’s wrong. What am I doing wrong?’ “I look at these numbers—this was in 1966—and I don’t believe what I’m seeing. He’s got a handful of stores and he’s doing about $10 million a year with some incredible margin. An unbelievable performance! “So I look at it, and I say, ‘What are you doing wrong? Sam—if I may call you Sam—I’ll tell you what you are doing wrong.’ I handed back his papers and I closed his attaché case, and I said to him, ‘Being here is wrong, Sam. Don’t unpack your bags. Go down, catch a cab, go back to the airport and go back to where you came from and keep doing exactly what you are doing. There is nothing that can possibly improve what you are doing. You are a genius.’ That’s how I met Sam Walton.” Abe

Another thing you need to understand is what we now call the “core competencies” of your organization. What are we really good at? What do our customers pay us for? Why do they buy from us? In a competitive, nonmonopolistic market—and that is what the world has become—there is absolutely no reason why a customer should buy from you rather from your competitor. None. He pays you because you give him something that is of value to him. What is it that we get paid for? You may think this is a simple question. It is not. I have been working with some of the world’s biggest manufacturers, producers, and distributors of packaged consumer goods. All of you use their products, even in Slovenia. They have two kinds of customers. One, of course, is the retailer. The other is the housewife. What do they pay for? I have been asking this question for a year now. I do not know how many companies in the world make soap, but there are a great many. And I can’t tell the difference between one kind of soap or the other. And why does the buyer have a preference—and a strong one, by the way? What does it do for her? Why is she willing to buy from one manufacturer when on the same shelves in the United States or in Japan or in Germany they are soaps from other companies? She usually does not even look at them. She reaches out for that one soap. Why? What does she see? What does she want? Try to work on this. Incidentally, the best way to find out is to ask customers not by questionnaire but by sitting down with them and finding out. The most successful retailer I know in the world is not one of the big retail chains. It is somebody in Ireland, a small country about the size of Slovenia. This particular company is next door to Great Britain with its very powerful supermarkets, and all of them are also in Ireland. And yet this little company has maybe 60 percent of the sandwich market. What do they do? Well, the answer is that the boss spends two days each week in one of his stores serving customers, from the meat counter to the checkout counter, and is the one who puts stuff into bags and carries it out to the shoppers’ automobiles. He knows what the customers pay for. But let me go back to the beginning: The place to start managing is not in the plant, and it is not in the office. You start with managing yourself by finding out your own strengths, by placing yourself where your strengths can produce results and making sure that you set the right example (which is basically what ethics is all about), and by placing your people where their strengths can produce results.

There are two kinds of retailers: there are those folks who work to figure how to charge more, and there are companies that work to figure how to charge less, and we are going to be the second, full-stop,” he

Servco Industries Bronx was one of the first Office Cleaning Service companies, over 20 years ago to introduce high speed floor care services to retail giants like Sears Holding Corp, Kmart, Sports Authority, Waldbaums Supermarkets, Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company and FAO Schwartz. Prior to using this equipment, it took four times the labor to clean stores than it does today. With new floor finishes that promote high speed burnishing, you get brilliant longer lasting great looking floors. These companies represent just a few of the corporations that Servco Industries works with today to solve their Janitorial Cleaning and commercial floor cleaning services.

In late 2008, one of my business partners, Clayton Christensen offered his opinion that the recession would have an “unmitigated positive impact on innovation” because “when the tension is greatest and resources are most limited, people are actually a lot more open to rethinking the fundamental way they do business.” This theory is supported by the Kaufmann Foundation statistic that “51 percent of the Fortune 500 companies began during a recession or bear market or both.” Whether launching a business or pursuing a dream, there are many high-profile instances in which a lack of resources ultimately proved to be a boon, rather than a bane. If we dig a bit, each of us can uncover examples among friends and family, and ourselves. Would most children have as many opportunities as they do in sports, music, or other extracurricular activities without parents, mothers in particular, who are accomplished at bartering as a way to stretch limited family budgets? Would kids have as many chances to explore their interests if their parents weren’t so adept at arranging for carpooling, chaperoning, and borrowing, thus enabling their kids to participate? Without the constraints of time, money, and health, would the online retailer Shabby Apple exist? (For a reminder of how that business came to be, see chapter 5.) If my parents could have paid for college, would I have caught an early glimpse of corporate life during the Silicon Valley heyday? Would I have ever set foot on Wall Street had I not needed to work to put my husband through school? All of us have had the opportunity to bootstrap if we look hard enough. Men seem to know how to do this in the business world: 88 percent of the founders of Entrepreneur magazine’s Hot 500 were men. But I wonder if women aren’t better at bootstrapping than we think we are. Chronically under resourced (whether due to the gender pay gap or ceding our resources to conform to societal expectations), women continually feel the tension of having too little budget and too little time. Because of this tension, we are expert at rethinking how to get things done. Many of us know how to turn scarcity into opportunity.

Direct-sold retail funds can be great for investors, but sometimes they can work against the fund companies that market them. Throughout the recent bear market, advisor-sold funds did a better job in retaining their assets because financial advisors were able to prevent clients from selling in a panic. A little handholding goes a long way in convincing clients to ride out the turbulent markets.

Adidas produced a limited-edition pair of Haçienda trainers, designed by Yohji Yamamoto (Saville has worked with Yohji since the late 1980s, creating his catalogues and advertisements). They retailed for £345 but people queued up from midnight just to be first through the doors to buy a pair. The shoes disappeared in twenty minutes - all soled out.

The fact that it worked is a reminder of manufacturers’ power to add value to their markets in a way that retailers cannot. This

Today’s equivalent is probably ‘get an engineering degree’, but it will not necessarily be as lucrative. A third of Americans who graduated in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) are in jobs that do not require any such qualification.52 They must still pay off their student debts. Up and down America there are programmers working as office temps and even fast-food servers. In the age of artificial intelligence, more and more will drift into obsolescence. On the evidence so far, this latest technological revolution is different in its dynamics from earlier ones. In contrast to earlier disruptions, which affected particular sectors of the economy, the effects of today’s revolution are general-purpose. From janitors to surgeons, virtually no jobs will be immune. Whether you are training to be an airline pilot, a retail assistant, a lawyer or a financial trader, labour-saving technology is whittling down your numbers – in some cases drastically so. In 2000, financial services employed 150,000 people in New York. By 2013 that had dropped to 100,000. Over the same period, Wall Street’s profits have soared. Up to 70 per cent of all equity trades are now executed by algorithms.53 Or take social media. In 2006, Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. It had sixty-five employees, so the price amounted to $25 million per employee. In 2012 Facebook bought Instagram, which had thirteen employees, for $1 billion. That came to $77 million per employee. In 2014, it bought WhatsApp, with fifty-five employees, for $19 billion, at a staggering $345 million per employee.54 Such riches are little comfort to the thousands of engineers who cannot find work. Facebook’s data servers are now managed by Cyborg, a software program. It requires one human technician for every twenty thousand computers.

It wouldn't be so bad, really, if I wasn't paid so shit, if there wasn't the constant misgendering, if I didn't work in both the retail industry and the hospitality industry. It's always astounding just how stupid people can be. My

The idea of putting customers first and acting with integrity is gaining traction. Outdoor-gear retailer REI received adulation for adhering to its values when it announced that it would not only close its stores on Black Friday in 2015 but pay its employees to get outside. Contrast that with blood-test startup Theranos. CEO Elizabeth Holmes was lauded as “America’s youngest self-made billionaire,”12 and the firm was quickly valued at $9 billion. Then, testing showed that the company’s flagship Edison device, which purported to deliver test results from a single drop of blood, did not work.13 The federal government swiftly began investigating Holmes, with regulators not only revoking the company’s license to operate but suggesting a ban preventing Holmes from owning or operating a lab for two years. Walgreens Boot Alliance Inc. sued Theranos for $140 million, equivalent to the amount the drugstore giant had invested in the startup. 14 In the fall of 2016, Theranos announced it would be shutting down its blood-testing facilities and shed at least 40 percent of its workforce. 15

Here’s the thing that you learn almost immediately when you work in retail: the customer is absolutely never right.

Herrick then had to prove the third part of his proposition—that a demand for wine from this region could be established in the UK market. Not surprisingly, convincing the key buyers in the specialty chains like Oddbins and Victoria Wines took longer than first thought. The 1993 vintage was small and somewhat experimental; it was really not until the 1994 vintage was available that the buyers became confident of the sustainability and quality of the James Herrick label. The big retailers Tesco and Sainsbury’s also bought the product as it began to establish a position at the then premium price point of £3.99 a bottle. The fundamental pieces of the core proposition were beginning to work.

It chooses to play in its own retail stores, with athletic wear for women. It decides to win on the basis of performance and style. It creates yoga gear that is both technically superior (in terms of fit, flex, wear, moisture wicking, etc.) and utterly cool. It turns over its stock frequently to create a feeling of exclusivity and scarcity. It draws customers into the store with staff members who have deep expertise. It defines a number of capabilities essential to winning, like product and store design, customer service, and supply-chain expertise.

Consumers look for geographically convenient rooftops. In urban areas, there typically are three or four supermarkets for every three or four square miles just because there is a demand for that many. You try to put yourself in a “first right of refusal” position to as many conveniently located households as possible. The first right of refusal’s very important in our business, and that means that you drive by us either coming from work, going to work, or coming from home to anywhere you go. You have to drive by us to get to somebody else. We feel like if we have first right of refusal to, say, 60 percent of the geographically convenient trade, then if we get our fair share of that—and our fair share is the lion’s share—then that store has a chance to be successful

fine work by other pioneers, such as Paco Underhill and Siemon Scammel-Katz.

great retailers and brand owners continue to experiment. They test to find out what works, and what doesn’t, so they can continue to improve their strategies. This rigorous investigation and testing is how we arrived at the principles discussed previously.