Tokyo Travels Part 20: Tower Records

I got back to the hotel after my first night in Shibuya, and showed the GF my pictures.  She saw this one, her eyes lit up, and she made and excited gasp.





I knew I would be going back to Shibuya.

After a day of sightseeing and tracking down squashed penny machines, we made it back to Tower Records.  It's much like the Tower Reocrds locations that used to be spread around the US.

Once we walked in the front doors, I wandered about and found an open listening station where you can sample various CDs.  I tried a few disks at different stations.  The GF did likewise and we picked out some music.

I grabbed "Rock 'n' Roll Circus" by Ayumi Hamasaki.  I chose it because I liked the cross between pop and "big" music.  It's hard to describe what I mean by big music.  It's like Meat Loaf.  Except Hamasaki doens't sound like Meat Loaf.  But the arrangements are both big, complex, and powerful, and the singers seem to push out powerful passionate emotions.  Of course for most of the album, I have no idea was Hamasaki is singing about, but I like the sound.  Here's a random review I found later on.

The GF found music by Moumoon who has a more mellow sounds. It was another great choice.

Eventually it was time to leave.  We paid, and the cashier said something to me.  I was used to cashiers saying things to me as a I was leaving and had no idea what she was saying. I smiled and nodded and said thank you.  I started to put my receipt in my wallet and she stopped me.  She and I tried a few gestures and she knew a few words of English.  It took a couple of tries, but I finally understand that there was a special contest and instore promotion associated with the Hamasaki album.  She was telling me to go to the desk near the door and show the woman there my receipt.  

I really appreciate how hard she worked to make sure I understood that, and how hard she continued to work on that after I understood it.

I headed over to the desk, showed the woman my receipt, and she pulled out a raffle box.  I reached my hand in there a won a prize:






It's a dangly, puffy little thing designed to hang on my cell phone, I think.  There were other prizes I could have won, so the whole promo wasn't focused on these little things, but I still think it's pretty cool.  And definitely unexpected.

In short, we had a great visit to the Shibuya Tower Records.

Cell Phone and Interview Tips

I was waiting for a flight with dozens of people and one of them decided to have a loud cell phone conversation. I was about 15-20 feet away. I'm not going to discuss whether or not this is rude; plenty of other people have beaten that topic to death.

Judging by the heavily logo'ed, red, button down shirt, he worked for Toys R Us.  He had been doing some interviews, trying to recruit managers from another major retail chain (which I won't name now, even though he had no concern about doing so. Most of the candidates seemed to be working at Oklahoma branches of that store

He explained that he was recommending his executive team not open a a new store in New Mexico due to the high minimum wage.

One of the candidates he interviewed did really well and will likely be invited to another round of interviews in Texas.

Another candidate did well, but wasn't sure how interested she would be in the position.  She had concerns about the job title.  Phone guy felt they could convince her it was a good career move and she could learn a lot.

Another candidate did really well, but then other issues came up.  Phone guy had the definite impression that the candidate was currently working.  The person he spoke with on the phone seemed to have conflicting information.  Apparently the candidate was not currently working.  Phone guy asked the person he was talking to to confirm that.  If the candidate was not in fact working and implied that he was, then phone guy had no further interest in him.

There are four lessons to take away from this.

1. Be careful what you say when you are wearing company logo'ed apparel in public.
2. Don't discuss sensitive information in public. You never know who else is in the airport.
3. If you must discuss sensitive information in public, do so quietly. (Remember, speaking louder into your cell phone doesn't make it easier for the other person to hear you)
4. Don't lie in an interview.  The world is smaller that many people realize, and if you get caught, it will kill your chances.

Psst! Psst!

My GF and I were walking around Ikea tonight. She hoped to find some good, cheap dishes for Thanksgiving. We didn't have much luck there, so we stopped at the Corelle Outlet store at the barely surviving SuperMall in Auburn. This raises two points.

First, the Corelle store is a great resource and she found everything she needed. And it was cheap.

Second, how is the SuperMall still in business? Even when the economy was strong, the place seemed empty.

But let's go back to Ikea.

While my GF was looking for exactly what she wanted, I meandered about the housewares department, trying to decide if I should buy some more bowls or just do dishes more often.

It was a tough internal debate.

It would be nice to have more bowls because that would mean there's one less thing to think about when I want oatmeal, Top Ramen, chile, or jarred peaches for lunch. Not that I would have all of those in the same bowl at once (I wonder what that would taste like).

On the other hand, I could save $5 and just wash my existing bowls more often. Of course, to accomplish that, I would actually need to wash my bowls more often.

So it was a tough choice.

I wandered around the department, checking Twitter now and again. As I was deep in thought, I would that cry arise from the aisles, "Psst! Psst!" I would pop my head up and begin walking toward the source of the call, thinking my GF wanted to get my opinion on something or let me know we were done there.

As my eyes found the source of the call, though, I saw that it was blonde. That was an important clue that the call came from someone other than my GF. I returned to my browsing.

And so did several other men in the department. It seems that the "Psst! Psst!" is the universal Ikea call that women shopping in housewares use to get the attention of their Significant Others. The call goes out, the SOs pop up to see where it cam from, and ultimately, one will follow the trail while the others go about their business wondering when their "Psst! Psst!" call will come.

Who says furniture delivery sucks?

A few years ago I had my new bed delivered. The delivery people did not like their jobs. The did it, but you could tell they weren't happy. I had to remind them to take the pathetic, spring poke-y old twin mattress I was replacing, and in general they were slow.

I can't blame them too much. It was hot. The work was hard. And the new mattress was really heavy.

This morning I had a different experience.

My GF bought a new bed last week and it was scheduled to be delivered Saturday morning. Her old mattress didn't have any springs poking out of it, but she still wanted to replace it. It seems she thought her mattress shoul be flat instead of U-shaped. Go figure.

She bought her new mattress at Macy's. The delivery people were actually awesome. The arrived at about 9:30, and were gone 5 minutes laters. They were pleasant and highly professional. The two of them brought in the new box spring and mattress quickly despite the weight. The peeled off the plastic bag protecting the mattress with perfect team work, and before I new it, wrapped up the old mattress in that same plastic and took that out of the apartment. The put down the new box sping, helped my GF spread out the bed skirt, quickly put the new mattress in place, and then they were gone.

It was really impressive and demonstrates that you don't have to spend thousands of dollars to get good service.

Chris and his delivery partner on route 104 in Seattle on Saturday morning did a great job and are a credit to Macy's.

Easter and Retail

On Sunday I went to the University Village Shopping Center because I had to make a trip to Storables. Yesterday I posted about how cool Industrial Post Shelving is. Well, one problem if the flexibility of it is that when you buy it, you buy individual pieces. It's not a kit that comes in a box.

And when I put together my list yesterday, I was one shelf short for my design.

So off I went to pick up a shelf and get this project done. I figured it was likely to be a waste of time because the store would be closed for Easter. At least I though it would be a nice drive and maybe the Starbucks would be open.

As I recall, stores usually shut down on Easter. When I worked for CompUSA I think we closed the store just three days of the year -- Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.

When I got to the shopping center, not only were Storables and Starbucks open, they were packed. And so were most of the other stores. The Apple Store, Sony Style, Ravena Gardens, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn -- they were all busy. The only store I noticed was closed was Crate and Barrel.

When did this happen? When did Easter become a big shopping day? It seems like a rather rapid turn of events.

Black Friday Thoughts

From the Seattle PI

The local frenzy began at Alderwood Mall at 12:01 a.m. Friday with an unexpected rush of consumers. Within minutes, the mall was heavily congested and shoppers were bottlenecked, with some customers pushing and shoving.

"I think this is the dumbest idea they have ever had," said a frustrated Matt Carter of Snohomish. "This is not an environment for young kids. All it takes is for one person to fall down and you would get trampled."

Shannon Schwartz of Stanwood, a friend of Carter's, said the mall was so packed they couldn't even shop. Other shoppers complained that anchor tenants weren't open until hours after the mall began its sale, and that some stores didn't have enough clerks.

...More

Black Friday got off to an insane start in Seattle. But it wasn't always like this.

The Who-Concert-like crowds choking the malls today weren't there 10-12 years ago.

I spent three Christmas seasons as a retail salesperson in the mid-nineties, and while working retail taught me to loathe the Christmas season (I'm pretty much recovered now), I always enjoyed Black Friday.

There were a few stores that opened at 5:00 AM or 6:00 AM, but most stayed closed until 9:00. There were doorbuster sales, but not quite the stampede inducing levels we've come to expect now.

What we had was busy day. Customers at my stores were generally excited, and not universally rotten. There was an incredible energy in the air, and I prided my self on helping as many customers, and racking up as much in sales, as I could during that day.

The whole day became a challenge to have the biggest sales day in the store's history. At one consumer electronics store I worked at, the store normally did $30,000 to $60,000 a day in sales. On Black Friday, we would do $100,000 to $125,000. Breaking into that 6-figure area was a challenge I was happy to be a part of.

The 8 hour shift flew by. Non-stop business and multitasking sapped my entire adrenalin supply for the week. At the end of my shift, I was tired, but knew I helped more customers than I would on most any other day. I knew I was part of the record-setting performance the store set. And I knew I helped some people have a better Christmas season by providing the best, most efficient customer service I could.

The rest of the season would erode the positive feeling of the day, and by early January, I would be anxiously waiting the end of the season and a return to normal.

But for that one day of the season, retail was the place to be.

Target and the Holidays

Tonight is 2007-11-02.

I went shopping at Target today. And I saw this:




I think I missed a month or two somewhere along the line.

Snack Bag

My GF and I went shopping at Ranch 99 last night. Ranch 99 is a the nation's large Asian grocery store chain. The store on HWY 99 near Seattle is as large as any traditional US grocery store.

The only difference is that I can't read the labels on half the products.

The most confusing item, though, is a bag filled with some fish-shaped corn snack. It's probably what you get when you cross Goldfish Crackers with corn nuts.

But can anyone tell me what's happening in the graphics on the front of the bag? An why would would I want to buy a product that seems to makes its consumers remover their underwear in front of the girls in the laundromat?

Clearance SALE!

No one does discount meat quite like Safeway.