Going Down

Well, here we are at the start of a new week.  Temps were 37 (F) this morning when I rolled out of bed.  They're going to fall.  This afternoon a blustery cold front is going to blow into the area.  Tomorrow's high is expected to be in the low 30s (F), but only for a day.  Things are going to warm up, though our highs will not be in the 40s (F).

Yesterday was spent at the store.  I got a measure.  As a Christmas present, a customer is having carpet installed installed in her daughter's house.  This is a very nice gesture.  The install is happening at a slow time of year, which will make management happy.

Otherwise the day was slow.  I got my steps in.  Made some notes on the book.  I tend to do that a lot when there are no customers in the store.  Details of the plot advance.  Lines of dialog get written.  Bobby Tussel, the ex- Baltimore police officer with the bullet in his brain, has a number of unfiltered lines.  He still guzzles beer, but since Anchor beer went out of business, he now brews his own at his very own micro-brewery.  His most popular brew is none other than Hunky Donkey Draft, so named because when runs on a treadmill at his local gym, things tend to go flippy floppy in a big way.

And since I don't want to post an proprietary information on the retail market, I'll use our competitor.  This is what Orangie's economy is doing to the home improvement industry.

That's right, many people are not considering home improvements at this time, though if you commit to one right now you might be getting a deal since prices are only going to go up.  I share some info with my brother and he asked what I thought was causing this, my response was the tariffs.  Prices go up, purchasing comes down.  Our store did beat plan when Biden was in office, but beginning in January last year the bottom began to fall out.  People are very wary right now.

Lowes usually employs around 300,000 but recent reports indicate that number has dropped to 270,000, that's a lot of people losing jobs, and that figure doesn't include the number of hours that are being taken away from part-time associates.  Orangie's tariffs are having a snowball effect on the economy and things are not going to improve any time soon.  

Best Buy is hitting their sales plan, but those people purchasing new electronics, laptops and tablets, appear to be replacing items they purchased during the pandemic.  Translation:  that stability and minor growth is temporary.  These people are not going to go out and buy another new laptop or tablet next year.  In fact, as hours continue to get cut, they are going to hold on to the one they have, at least until the economy begins to improve.

Bad Moment at Best Buy

Last Friday I had ordered an Ipod Nano from Amazon.  Yesterday I checked to see if it had shipped yet - nope.  In fact it was not expected to ship until sometime today.  Ugh.  So I checked out Best Buy to see if my local store had the one I wanted in stock.  They did, so I cancelled my order with Amazon and drove over to Best Buy.  Years ago, when I purchased my first Nano, all Ipods and MP3 players were located in the same department, not so today.  All Apple products are segregated away from everything else; "beneath the Apple sign," is where I was told to look.

There were 4 sales associates in the department, one was attempting to sell an AirMac to some customers, the other 3 were with customers at the registers.  So, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the time.  I work in retail.  Timely Customer Service is important.  A Sales Associate came walking past me on his way to Small Appliances.  I said "excuse me," and he walked right on by. At 2.5 minutes an associate named Zach left his customer at the register and came over to pick up some paperwork setting near the Ipads.  I asked him if he could get someone to help me and he said he would.  A couple minutes after that another customer entered the department, a man wearing a dirty white T-shirt.  We looked at each other and shrugged, both of us figuring we were both going to have to wait.

How can the be so happy when their customer service sucks?

Four and a half minutes after I had initially talked to Zach, he closed his sale and came walking over.  However, instead of asking me what I wanted, he went to the guy with the dirty white T-shirt. I said "excuse me, I was here first."  His reply was "I called someone to help you."  Did he really expect me to wait until the associate he called showed up?  So I said "excuse me, you're expecting me to wait?"  And he made a face and said, in a snippy tone "well, do you have a question or do you know what you want?"  I told him what I wanted "a space gray Nano."  Of course, no one had the keys for the cabinet.  In fact, Zach had to leave the sales floor to get the keys, most likely from the person he called when I first asked him for assistance.

Best Buy's biggest competitor is Amazon.  They know this.  As such you would think they would demand exemplary customer service skills from their sales associates.  This is an example of rotten customer service.  It didn't ruin my day.  This was just a moment at Best Buy.  Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if this experience is repeating itself today, for someone else.

Rough Shoulders Ahead for Fox News?

Even though I don't watch Fox News, I get them.  They want to be the conservative mouthpiece of America, which for them means ratings.  Honestly, that is all they are concerned about, nothing else.  News is business.  To be successful your business needs to target a certain type of consumer.  This is why Best Buy doesn't sell clothing and Home Depot doesn't have a dairy section.  Fox wants every conservative in the United States to watch them, and only them.  This is where they run into trouble.  In order for them to maintain their image as the conservative mouthpiece, they need to brand every other media outlet as 'liberal' or 'progressive.'  Unfortunately for them, Independent voters are growing, and you can't count on every one registered as Republican or Democrat to stringently vote the party line.  In other words, if the United States was a two lane highway, in most cases, about 60% of Americans would hang around the yellow line.  True, they may veer a little to the left to pass on some issues and on others a little to the right but over all they go right down the center.  For Fox News to be the conservative mouthpiece. they need to push that yellow line as far to the left as possible in order to call it liberal.  As a result, Fox news seems to be spending a majority of it's time bouncing around on the shoulder and losing clout with those riding down the center line.

Are there rough shoulders ahead for Fox News?

This does not mean they will completely lose their audience, they can always count on that 25% to 27% the blood of the far right flowing through their veins.  Those people will only ever watch Fox so that part of the market is safe.  Others, however started dabbling a while back.  They will not only watch Fox News, but will also watch a little MSNBC and even a couple minutes a week of CNN.  A interesting statistic I ran across was that during the 2012 Presidential Debates more Americans turned into MSNBC.   Hhhmmm.  Were they more liberal, or more centrist.  Could it have been because that news network doesn't preach or pass judgement?  Or that they have both Republicans and Democrats on their staff?  Who knows.  I think we'll just have to tune in and see.