Valentines Day = Klepto Day?

Yesterday was Valentines day, robbery is apparently the new way to spend the day of love. Maybe they figured since the day is considered so commercial, they should "stick it to the man" and rip a bunch of major stores off? Today there was a couple who hit about 8 stores in the mall. Mall security had their eye on them the entire day. Once they ended up in our store, they apprehended them and they were arrested. Justice is served, hooray! One heart-breaking downside; they had a one year old child. How pathetic must a person (not to mention TWO people!) be to use their own innocent child as a distraction while they commit a crime? How bad are things really, where you need to rob THAT many stores in order to get by? How can you justify this? If you're broke, get a job, get on unemployment...there are WAYS to keep yourself afloat without committing a crime, and without having to send a crying one-year-old home with his ashamed and embarrassed grandmother. Based on the fact that they were robbing game stores and cheap jewelry stores, I'm pretty sure this isn't the sort of case where you may feel sorry for the criminal..because they were just so desperate to have clothes on their back that they made a poor choice and faced the consequences. No, these were shop lifters, nothing more. It's a shame they happened to be parents too.

SO many things are wrong with this picture! I could go off on so many tangents, I don't even know where to begin!

I think shop lifting is pathetic. I know people personally who have bragged to me about shop lifting and I wasn't sure why exactly they were bragging. Are you bragging because you can't afford to pay for your own stuff? Are you bragging because you're dishonest? Are you bragging because you are willing to break the law? I don't get it. A good friend of mine once said (paraphrased quote from Amanda Purdie), "If you want stuff, get a job! If you want an awesome story to tell, do something awesome!" Seriously people, grow up and take care of yourself. Don't rip people off, there's no excuse for it.

I think putting your children in a spot like that is unforgivable. Doing something you could be locked up for when you have a young child at home? Really? Even worse, you have a child right NEXT to you! This child is too young to have a very vivid memory of his parents being cuffed and driven away in a police car, thankfully. Does that make it any less disgusting? I'm tired of parents KNOWINGLY putting their children into a bad situation. What mind set do people have where they think having what they want is more important then their child's comfort and safety? By the sound of it, they stole quite a bit of merchandise, meaning they may actually serve some time. It's just STUPID. It reminded me of a much more extreme example of this behavior. On the Dateline NBC show "To Catch a Predator", one potential predator brought his young son to the home where he was hoping to meet a young teenager. Seeing that put an intensely ill feeling in my stomach, and I know I wasn't alone. How dare a parent be selfish enough to put their own selfish desires in front of their child's well-being. It's my personal opinion that if you bring a child into this world, you have to stop being horrible in some ways. Maybe that's easy for me to say since I don't have kids! I don't know, I think most parents would agree that you just don't put your children in certain situations, and you don't do stupid stuff that could screw up their life or their mentality.

What lessons have we learned today? Stealing is pathetic, and some people just SHOULDN'T be parents.

Article on why shoplifting has increased.

Charging is Lessening

There isn't a lot of GOOD coming out of this economic slump. For the most part it is causing unemployment, it's causing stores to shut down, and it's made the word debt even more terrifying then it already was. I've worked at a retail store for over 2 years, and I've noticed a big change in the spending behavior and attitude of our customers.

I've noticed a lot of people canceling their store credit cards lately. I figured that had something to do with the fact that along with money being tight in general, our interest rate has increased, our finance charges have increased, and billing dates now rotate instead of being the same day every month. Not a bright move when you're trying to keep customers coming through the door and using our credit card.

I then realized that overall, people are charging their purchases a lot less. More and more people are paying with cash, checks, and ATM then before. People are doing a great deal to AVOID debt right now, and I think that's one positive thing that's coming from this recession. Many of us are spending what we HAVE instead of spending money we don't have and paying for it little by little down the road...while paying the interest that accumulates on top of that.

It has always frightened me when I see a balance on somebody's STORE CREDIT CARD that's over $1,000. My store doesn't sell much more then clothing and bedding, and those aren't things that one should be charging to that degree. I understand that when it's necessities, but I don't think all $2,643 of their balance was a necessity..just a hunch!

So I would like to applaud those of you who are now choosing to PAY for what you buy, it's not always easy to do when you're offered 10% off for applying for a store credit card that has a 22% interest rate...but you're doing it! Way to go!

California's Calling and Greentruck Records

About a month ago, I made a fun trip to Chico, CA and recorded one of my songs at Heirloom Studio. Chris Keene from Surrogate performed on guitar, and bass, plus he was the engineer (click the above picture to watch a video from the studio!). My brother Cayle from Armed for Apocalypse performed on drums and also assisted in producing the track. I'm really happy with how it turned out!


Click on the album cover that Julia Warren designed (thank you!!) for me to go to my music page and listen to "California's Calling"!

NEXT!

Cayle, Sarah, and I have officially started a new record label: "Greentruck Records" and we are now taking submissions from unsigned bands and artists! You can visit our myspace page, our blogspot (http://greentruckrecords.blogspot.com) or email us at greentruckrecords@gmail.com for more information!


Happy 19th Birthday Alex!!

A Chunk of Emazing History

Some fun fluff to get my bloggin ball rolling.


10 years ago...
How old was I? 11? HAH! I must have just entered Sequoia Middle School and become the shyest individual known to man. Also I learned how to be a truly terrible student. I played drums in beginning band and I would go to orchestra before school every day with my sister Natalie, and then take the bus to school. That bus ride SUCKED.
5 years ago...
Again...remind me how old I was? 16..ahhh. I didn't get my license until I was 19, so that right of passage wasn't taken advantage of. I was a junior in high school! So that means I was in the musical "Hello Dolly" and I made a couple of friends because I learned how to talk. I payed more attention to choir then I did school, of course. I was in A Capella and we went to LA and I saw Ty Pennington from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" as well as a few other designers. I'm not one of those people who can act normal and cool in front of people from TV....I was a moron.


5 months ago...
I had just recently been hired as an Optech in my store! The transition was interesting, but rewarding. It's been a challenging experience and I'm very fortunate to be given such a neat learning opportunity. I'm learning about glasses and such of course, but I'm also learning a lot about business and sales. I never thought I would be a sales person in this form. It's truly a CHALLENGING job which is good for me, since I tend to go for things that take little to no effort..and this is ALL effort. It's hard work and I've made a ton of mistakes that make me feel like an idiot..but I hope to become GOOD at that line of work before leaving, so I can take fully developed skills with me.


5 things on my to-do list tomorrow:
1. Wake up before the double digits. It's harder for me then it should be.
2. Dress in Hawaiian attire because we like to have fun at work sometimes.
3. Work
4. Work on a song
5. I don't have 5 whole things to do

5 things people don't know about me...
1. I can't stand being barefoot. I actually freak out when I walk.
2. I would rather be really buff then really skinny
3. In my mind I have played every part there is to play on Broadway...and I've excelled.
4. In reference to Sarah's dislike of chess...I get verbally abusive when playing that game. I SUCK at it, and when I play against my younger brother, I threaten him with murder and I'm DEAD serious...because without even thinking about it, he beats me. He laughs at me, as I tell him I'm going to force the King through his eye socket.
5. I'm physically attracted to most musical instruments.
5 bad habits...
1. Spending too much time on the computer
2. Poor sleeping patterns
3. Eating like crap
4. I'm lazy
5. Texting when I really shouldn't be.

5 places I have lived...
1. In the Easter Egg room
2. In this room
3. Kew Gardens, NY
4. In the living room
5. YOUR MOM


AMANDA'S TAGGED

The Customer is Always Surly

Okay maybe ALWAYS is an overstatement. Maybe.."a lot of the time" would've been more accurate. Oh well.

As somebody who's worked in retail for about 2 years, I've enjoyed and loathed many parts of the experience! I have a lot to say about all of the positives and negatives regarding this line of work, so I'm going to focus on my current annoyance. This annoyance is those customers who come in to a store and take out their bad day on somebody who's already unhappy (they work in RETAIL!). There are some people who have to blame somebody for the poor day/life they've had, so why not blame some kid because a shirt they really like is out of stock? Sure it's annoying, but do you have to go out of their way to make them feel bad for something that is completely out of their control?

I work in the areas of my store that place orders for people, and that's impossible to always get right. The warehouse/lab where these orders come from can screw up, the delivery company can screw up, and in the end, I am the lucky person who gets to call these customers and report the news that their merchandise is delayed or out of stock! I understand that it's annoying and you have to express that, but there are some people who just take it too far.

Example: A lady came into my department looking for a pair of glasses, and since she paid for express she expected it to be there. The express service we have takes an estimated 2-3 business days, but the associate had told her "2" and so they HAD to be there. Of course the associate who had told her it would only take two days wasn't there that day, and so my other co-worker got to break the news that they hadn't arrived and there's honestly nothing we can do to fix that. We just get yelled at and accused my making excuses for saying "it really is a 2-3 business day service, I'm sorry you were mis-quoted.." I really do understand this womans frustration, she has a right to be upset with her glasses not coming in, but did she have to attack our integrity and make us feel bad for something we have zero control over? So most likely this woman will demand money back, even though the glasses did come the third business day. We're expected to take this attack with a smile, and to cut off our arm and give it to them. What else can you do, really? This is a very MILD example. I've been around when customers make people cry, and do everything in their power to get people fired. I don't feel like getting REALLY angry right now, so I'll just stick with bitter.

IT BOTHERS ME that any person can walk into a retail store and demean another person just because they work there. If you do everything in your power to do things the right way and it's not enough, they'll call a manager to give them a gift card for making their life so horrible, and if they DON'T they're going to tell everybody what horrible service they received! Maybe they'll write a blog about it?! Well here's my blog to customers who are JERKS and overly demanding just because they can be. Grow up, and treat people with respect! We're there to help you, we're not your slaves. I understand we should do our best to fulfill your needs because we wouldn't have a store without customers, but you're not royalty...sorry to break it to you. If you were royalty, you'd be shopping somewhere else.