7 November 2007

How can one reach his goal when he do not know what his goal is, and putting his focus on reaching it.

Saturday, 29 September

No blogging on weekends

Thought

To change the world, you still have to begin with yourself.

Switch to Metric, NOW

Well to the dearest USA thanks for keeping us all behind for refusing to change to a system which is much easier to use.

You cannot complain about the service, for there is none

Something that gets to me and pisses me off a lot is the horrible manner in which employees treats in South Africa. And I have to come clean, but the majority of the employees who abuse their customers is mostly the black employees.

At Woolworths, except for the long lines at the till and always being out of stock at their food section I was treated terribly by one of their employees. I asked them to put a jersey aside for me and told them that I will come and pick it up in two days time. On the second day I went there and asked for it no one knew where it was, after about half an hour of waiting it turned out that it was sold. So when I asked the guy who were suppose to keep it, he first tried the typical African reaction of it was not my responsibility. So I asked him why not, in a polite manner, at that moment he started to raise his voice at me and basically told me I don't know anything. So I asked him to check on the system if they might have one in stock, he argued with me again. Then I asked him for his manager, he told me that the manager was not there, when I asked him for his supervisor, he went to the till to check on the system.
When we got at the system it turned out that the system is not updated in real time. So their branch still had two in stock, but none can be found.
I asked him if he can check if any other branches have the jerseys in stock, he started arguing again. By that time a white female employee walked passed and saw what is happening so she asked me if she could help.
5 Minutes later I was asked an apology for the black guy have done (loosing my jersey and raising his voice at me), got an update of which branches might stock it, got one set aside for me in a branch 50km from me.
So I still had to travel 100km to get the jersey, but I got it.

At the same Woolworths branch, there is two separate lines for baskets and trolleys. That day I had a basket and after waiting in the queue long enough to read two articles in the Men's Health I got to the front. Normally they use the last till of the trolley line to serve the basket customers, so like the lady who was two place s ion front of me I went on to the till in the "trolley lane" when it opened. I started unloading my groceries then I realized that the cashier is not doing anything. When I looked up she crossed her arms stayed quiet for about 10 seconds in which I got a death stare, then she told me she is not helping me since I am in the wrong queue (you helped the lady just now who was also in my queue). So I had to pack up all my goods while she kept starring at me and move to another till.

At Steers, the lady operating the till pointed at us then frowned and told us to move to another position in an extremely rude manner, not even asking please and using a terrible tone.

Most South African restaurants have which is part of a chain is also very dirty. Notable exceptions is MacDonald's and KFC. Steers is the worse offender and John Dory's and Cafe Bugatti is close on its heals.

At Pick 'n Pay at the tills is sounds like you are in the middle of an tea party. The way in which the cashier and the packer talk to one another is really compromising on the service they deliver. And they are on a permanent go slow, at least the waiting time at their tills is much short or non-existent.

At Mr. Price Home they act like government always sending you to the next person without even walking with you.

At Levi's well that was just terrible, you enter the store and 3 people start to stare at you as if you are a criminal. At the same moment you are bombarded by loud music (and they were constantly swearing in song which they played when I was in the store ). After that you want to run away, but realize that you can't for you need to get a new pair of jeans. So one start to browse. Then choose what you like and move on the the fitting rooms and realize that the one you chose is not the right size so one have to get out of the jeans you have on, put on your own pants, leave the fitting room and go back to search for the correct size. By now the people who stared at you a few minutes ago forgot about your existence and carried with their normal conversation, before you the customer so rudely interrupted them by walking into their store. So eventually you find the correct size then someone would shout from the other side of the store: "Youra'igt!" (More like saying than asking, thus th e absence of the question mark). You lie and tell them that you are fine, not wanting to get anymore stares, put the jeans in your hand back and leave the store.

Okay, enough moaning for one day.

At Meltz, I got exceptional service which was really unexpected. Well done guys!

Well and then there are the regulars (in no particular order) like Sport Scene, Diesel, Polo, The Body Shop, Vodacom 4U (Not Vodashop), CNA, Edgars, Primi and Puma who we all came to know for their good service

Thought

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others.

Monopolies

Monopolies are not bad to consumers. If they were then they would not exist.

Monopolies form because a lot of people want goods and services from it. As soon as they misuse their power, competition will arise and consumers will take their money somewhere else.

If you look trough our recent history, companies that was once thought of as indestructible does not really matter today. A quick example I can think of now is Sears.

The problem with monopolies only arrive if the necessary regulation to promote competition is not in place.

So perhaps to all those people who protest against big companies should rather start to inform the general public a bit more about the problem that some of the big companies cause so that they would rather take their money to another place and thus forcing the large company to change their practices to stay relevant.

Eg. Groups of activists could inform regular shoppers about the benefits of buying goods that was produced locally rather than forcing the big companies to buy more domestically produced goods.
The company is merely providing what the consumers want, to change the whole shopping pattern it would need to happen at the consumer. Companies will adapt to provide what the consumer wants or else they will just disappear from the radar.

If consumers starts to buy more lets say organic goods or fair trade goods the companies will stock more of them, but it is unreasonable to force a company to stock goods that consumers will not buy. The additional costs of holding this product will just be passed on to the consumer by a rise in the prices of other goods and services provided by the company.

So perhaps if consumers are aware that the shop their buying does not treat they staff in a good manner they won't buy there and if they still keep on buying there then your believes is not shared by the majority of people so democratically you have been voted out.
Perhaps to the majority of people the extra costs of buying at Whole Foods is more than the extra benefits and the cost of guild caused by buying from a company which is less ethical. So it simply does not make sense to them to shop at the more ethical store.
This patter of behavior can be changed if activists can use their resources to raise the cost of guild of not buying ethical. Then more people would be willing to pay the premium for ethical goods and services.

So to most consumers Wal Mart is not bad, but I still prefer Whole Foods and Sears have not given the consumers what they want.