Category: Random Thoughts

‘Tis the season to be spending inordinate time and money at the local shopping center. Although I avail myself of online options whenever possible, there are just some things you have to step away from the computer and venture into the real world to obtain. I prefer to do this on a weekday, when crowds are light.

And this is how I came to be in a Sears store for the first time since their purchase of my favorite catalog and online retailer, Landsend.

Please keep in mind that although I was not in what anyone would call the very nicest of Sears stores, it was clearly remodeled sometime in the last 5 years. Furthermore, my visit was at 10:30 AM on a weekday morning: not a peak retail sales period, and close enough to the beginning of the day that there should still be evidence of the prior evening’s cleaning and straightening.

The store demonstrated a substantial degree of disarray.

The Landsend store-within-a-store concept is a great idea, but poorly implemented. As executed, it includes several racks of clothing within each section (Mens, Womens, Petites, etc.). Check the signage carefully, or it is hard to tell where the merchandise changes from Landsend to regular Sears inventory. Well, on second thought, maybe it isn’t. There were some very abrupt transitions: all cotton Landsend sweater twinsets next to fake fur trimmed cardigans, for example.

Stock was thin in general, particularly considering that we are in the first half of December. Only 4 of Landsend’s many colors of Mens mock turtleneck were available, and empty spots remained for other colors and sizes. Things looked very picked-over, as well. Folded shirts lay haphazardly on shelves instead of neatly stacked.

Finally, a visit to the Petites section confirmed my theory that I would have to do all my Landsend shopping far away from Sears. One of the things I love about Landsend is the availability of pants — and particularly jeans — in a wide array of inseams. I don’t call myself the ShortWoman for nothing. Although Sears appeared to have an adequate supply of petite jeans in assorted colors, including multiple non-blue hues, all were the 28″ inseam.

That’s like having a plus-size dress shop that only carries size 22.

It is my personal theory that part of Sears’s problem is the fact that a substantial number of managers end up being rotated around the country. The idea is that fresh blood will shake things up, that The New Guy Will Surely Turn This Store Around, that this prevents stores and regions from having a “this is the way we do it around here and to heck with corporate” attitude. In reality, this costs the company money in the form of moving expenses and lost productivity. The New Guy spends 6 months figuring out the market, his employees, and the peculiarities of his particular store, then maybe a year or so actually making things work. If he is lucky, he has staff that know what they are doing, so things run along pretty much as they always have with or without management.

Maybe all of this is part of the reason Wal-Mart, Target, and J.C. Penney have higher P/E ratios than Sears. My experience is part of why Sears is having declining sales at the same stores. Buying placement in a reality show is not going to make everything all better. Nor will placing hip-hop fashions next to Landsend and the existing ecclectic cast of fashion players. Their debatable online success aside, some are calling for radical change at Sears.

This has been my Sears experience. How about you?

Your mom called. She doesn’t quite know how to tell you this. But, this Christmas, she would really appreciate it if you didn’t get her an obvious piece of future garage sale fodder.

This is the time of year when salad shooters, foot spas, electric manicure sets, sandwich grills, quesadilla makers, and a hundred other things you would never think to buy for yourself come out of the woodwork and clutter the aisles of stores from Wal-Mart to Macy’s and everything in between. This is a little secret, but there is a reason you would never think to buy this stuff for yourself, the same reason most of it is only available in December. Don’t get to thinking this stuff is the answer for the person who has “everything.”

If you would like to know the truth about this stuff, check out a yard sale, a thrift shop, or eBay. Feel free to search for brand names such as “Salton” or “Homedics”, or for products like “home spa” or “smoothie maker” or whatever other bit of plastic looks so appealing on the shelves at Target. I’m sorry, but if mom liked smoothies half as much as you think she does, she would already be making them in her blender, a multi-purpose tool perfectly suited to the job.

Today I even saw a “hot chocolate maker.” What a great way to tell mom she isn’t even competent to stir a packet of Swiss Miss into hot water! The electric jar opener at first seemed like a thoughtless item, but then I thought about it. This might indeed be a very useful gift for someone elderly or handicapped.

This year’s lists of potentially hot gifts includes many of the usual suspects, but the one that truly baffles me is the “S’mores Maker.” I saw one that was actually billed as “restaurant quality.” When was the last time you saw s’mores on a menu, really? And how often does the typical family make s’mores? Less often than popcorn, ice cream, or pizza, I’d wager. And relatively few families have appliances dedicated to these foods cluttering their kitchens.

Don’t waste your hard-earned money on thoughtless and useless items, destined for a dusty storage area at best. Try asking people what they want for Christmas. Consider buying them a book about a subject they like — even if it’s a cartoon book. Maybe this is a good opportunity to introduce them to a movie you think they would like with a DVD. Maybe a gift card. If that fails, consider donating to a charity in their name that you feel they would approve of .

Oh yeah, and your sister-in-law would really appreciate it if you would avoid gifts for the kids that make noise or need batteries.

Greetings, and welcome to all readers. According to the most recent log, people are reading the ShortWoman in 40 countries.

A special thanks to some of the folks who have linked to me, and the folks who have clicked through. A particular thanks to Renpro, Paxtonland, Jay Currie, Chief Wiggles, foomart, Fecundity, and Jerry Kindall.

And of course, thanks to those who clicked through from Google, Blogdex, Weblogs, or any of the other “usual suspects.”

The AARP has spent most of the week trying to convince its members that the newly passed Medicare reform bill is a Good Thing. It isn’t particularly working.

Formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, they are certainly no longer just for retirees. Depending how you look at it, the AARP is a massive lobbying organization, a travel discount club, an insurance provider, the second largest membership club in the United States. Less than half of their income is from membership fees.

Oh, you didn’t know they are an insurance provider? They made $161 Million on health insurance alone last year through various partnerships. So it shouldn’t surprise you that they are very much in favor of this Medicare reform: they stand to make a great deal of money on it. The real question is whether they will alienate their 35 million members in the process.

In various cities across the nation, AARP members are expressing their frustration and disgust with this organization that is supposed to present their interests to the nation. They are calling. They are sending e-mail. They are resigning. They are staging protests and burning their membership cards. In short, they are not happy.

Just like the rest of us, the more they learn about this legislation, the less they like it. In fact, it would seem the only good part of this 1000+ page document that has come to light is certain adjustments in the way doctors are reimbursed for care. The bill is full of tax shelters, paperwork, unnecessary “privatization”, complicated deductibles and rules, “incentives” for insurance and drug companies, provisions that actively prevent seniors from getting lower prices, and other frills that really have nothing to do with making sure Granny can afford her medicines. The latter was the whole reason for this mess in the first place, wasn’t it?

The AARP has characterized this reform as good but not perfect. Congress needs to be on notice that “good but not perfect” isn’t good enough. It doesn’t do enough to help elderly people, and it costs a lot of money for us younger folks. This may surprise your Congressmen, but insurance companies don’t vote. You might want to send a little note to remind them.

Since I am not sure how much time I will have for writing this week, allow me to send my Thanksgiving Well-Wishes a little early.

Since this is the season for being appreciative of what you have, please take a moment to consider those who are less fortunate than yourself. Specifically, consider those half million people whose high tech jobs evaporated last year. And the 2.5 to 3 Million people who had jobs in manufacturing at the beginning of the Bush Administration. How many there are seems to depend on whose figures you like. Perhaps you would rather contemplate those Wal-Mart employees who work as many hours as they can and still qualify for government assistance, to say nothing of the people that Wal-Mart has made unemployed. Don’t forget all the people who contributed to the record level of bankruptcies. And the hundreds of thousands of people who file for unemployment benefits for the first time each and every week. And the reservists being called up for full time duty in the United States Armed Forces, spending the holidays away from the people and places they love so they can serve their country.

I have discussed and linked all those things this month. Most of these people tried to do the right thing for their families, and still ended up falling behind. They are not all slackers who made bad decisions and want to be bailed out of the results.

Find some way to make a difference before the end of the month, even if all you do is bring some store brand peanut butter to a canned food drive. Someone will really appreciate it.

Have you heard about the new version of Microsoft Office? Microsoft bets $150 Million you have. The rollout has been accompanied by a massive marketing campaign and a media blitz. Frankly you’d have to be living in a cave — or using a Macintosh — not to have noticed.

Office accounts for a third of Microsoft’s revenues: over $9 Billion dollars annually. It has a huge operating margins too. That being the case, $150 Million in advertising for the new version doesn’t seem like that big a deal, even as part of a half billion dollar marketing budget. But the problem is how to get perfectly happy users to spend $400 on the new version, particularly in an economy that is mediocre at best. In fact, about a third of the registered users haven’t upgraded since 1997. Add more features? Most users only use a fifth of the available features anyway according to Microsoft’s own research.

Badmouthing the old product and adding dubious features most people will never use hardly seems a good answer, particularly considering that Office historically has a large piracy problem. Touting enhanced security will not make people magically flock to the new product either, since most technically literate people believe Microsoft should have made it more secure in the first place.

I think many of us would appreciate an “Office Lite” product: give us the 20-25% most commonly used features of Office for $100. It needs to create and read the major standard filetypes for Word and Excel, it needs a secure but simple email client, and for the sake of argument a stripped down PowerPoint. In an ideal world, it should take up significantly less than 481 megabytes of hard drive space, have a relatively low RAM requirement, and be zippy enough to use on older systems without pain. Oh, and “Help” should not launch Internet Explorer. It is arrogant to assume that the sort of user who chooses this product wants to be connected to the internet every time he or she needs to figure out a new command. There should also be a clear upgrade path to the full product.

Most people simply don’t need half of Office has to offer, and the new version does not make that better. What a shame that most school computer classes seem to revolve around how to use Microsoft products. I would rather see kids learning to program computers than learning to put together PowerPoint presentations. It will be over a decade before this trend impacts Microsoft’s potential pool of programmers.

It is mid October. The leaves are changing. The kids are bugging you for that perfect Halloween costume — and God forgive you if you forget the accessories. Your local retailers already have brought out Christmas merchandise. Go ahead, look behind the Halloween costumes and candy bowls that make spooky noises when you stick your hand in them. Christmas trees and lights. Barbie, Hot Wheels, and Hello Kitty stockings. The toy section is already bloated with plastic memories that will be broken in six months.

Halloween is a much bigger deal now than it was when I was a kid. Back in those days, Halloween decorating was a matter of carving a pumpkin and putting up whatever black-and-orange thing you and your siblings brought home from art class. Mom might have worn a witch’s hat when she took you trick-or-treating, but she and Dad certainly did not wear costumes unless they were already, um, unconventional. These days, lots of houses are decked out for Halloween, and a wide variety of adult sized costumes are available practically everywhere. More than Generation X’s embracing of all things kitsch, Halloween is big, big, business.

Nevertheless, Halloween has to compete with what is arguably the biggest holiday in America, Christmas. Thanksgiving almost gets skipped in the retail scheme of things. Now, we aren’t talking about Christmas craft items, which have to be started well ahead of time if they are to be ready in December. We are talking about things that in the old days, we didn’t even start to look at until Black Friday. Some analysts are already predicting a lucrative holiday shopping season.

In fact, some retailers claim they feel pressured to put out the Christmas merchandise ludicrously early. However, some of us traditionalists would rather not think about Christmas until after the Halloween costumes are safely put away. Indeed, that’s still almost 2 months before the big day and 4 weeks before the holiday season even begins.

The funny part is that in the bitter cold of January, when the kids go through their sudden growth spurt or your good jacket meets a horrible accident, a large selection of heavy winter coats will be on clearance. In retail-land, it will already be time to shop for swim suits.

Somehow, they make money doing this.

Yesterday, a Federal District Court ruled that the Federal Trade Commission does not have the authority to run the National Telemarketing Do-Not-Call list. The ruling appears to hinge not on First Amendment free speech issues, but rather on issues of formal jurisdiction. Thus, my comments may be obsolete by the time you read them. As an example of how popular the Do-Not-Call list is, there are 50 million numbers registered compared to 46 million dial-up internet customers in the United States. Please keep in mind when comparing these figures that some households have registered multiple phone numbers, and that some broadband internet customers have a dial-up account as backup connectivity. Nevertheless, this list clearly has popular support and is already being funded by a tax on telemarketers themselves. Expect Congress to act quickly.

I fully support the idea of a Do-Not-Call list. Like many people, I refuse to buy products from some stranger who calls me on the phone. I frankly don’t understand why anyone would whip out the credit card for some unknown person who calls claiming to be a representative of some business that he or she did not first call personally. Furthermore, the idea that I would set up an appointment for an unknown salesman to visit my home on such a basis is ludicrous.

The Direct Marketing Association should not be fighting this list in court; they should be embracing it. It represents a comprehensive list of people like me, who will not do business with their clients under any circumstances. By properly using such a list, they increase productivity of their employees by sharply reducing the number of failed sales calls. That’s right. By not calling people who will not buy, they increase odds of reaching someone who will. The people who make a living as telemarketers should not see this as job threatening; they should see this as potentially improving their close ratio and thus increasing their bonuses.

Unfortunately, the list is useless. Exempted are “political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors, the business of insurance (to the extent that it is regulated by state law), or companies with which you have an existing business relationship.” Apparently, the FCC ceded authority to the FTC to regulate “telemarketers from financial institutions, telecommunications companies and others.” In my case, at least 90% of the telemarketing calls I have received in the last 3 years are exempted from Do-Not-Call list restrictions.

In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “What’s all the hubbub, bub?”

I’d like to take a moment to talk about advertising. I begin with the basic premise that advertising is supposed to make the people who see it do something.

This appears to be a radical concept.

There is a lot of really lousy advertising out there. It’s not just misleading banner ads on websites, or spam that promises low mortgages. Be honest, have any of you actually bought anything based on a pop-up ad? Television and radio ads are quite awful these days. Here are some examples of basic ad types that I can’t imagine being effective.

Hey kids! Adults are idiots! Make Mom and Dad buy this product for you! Mistake one, forgetting where the money to buy things comes from. Mistake two, insulting that source of money. That “idiot” adult is where kids get their revenues. You don’t see kids counting up their allowance money to buy breakfast cereal and hyper-mega sugary snacks.

“Wow, that was a funny commercial for…. what was it again?” Stop me if this is too logical, but if your customer can’t remember your product from the time he sees the commercial to the time he buys something, it wasn’t a very good commercial. Remember those “Ernest” commercials back in the late 80s? Very funny. What were any of them for? Darned if I remember. By contrast, we all know that Gilbert Gottfried’s characterization of the Aflac Duck is supposed to remind us to ask our employers about supplemental insurance. Those of us old enough to remember know that the “Where’s the beef?” lady was exhorting us to go eat at Wendy’s. We know that when he’s not getting high, Steven thinks all us “dudes” need to call Dell and get a computer sent straight to our doors. This case, by the way, illustrates the dangers of having a single, visible, fallible spokesperson.

Hey hey! Who here likes to polka?? It doesn’t matter how good an ad is if it doesn’t reach people apt to buy the product. Thankfully, advertisers have more or less realized that kids looking to buy dolls, toy cars, and GoGurt are not watching Cartoon Network at 11 PM on a school night. Likewise, the readers of Sesame Street Magazine are not in in a position to buy a new minivan. They aren’t even in a position to reach the pedals.

Here, have some heavy-handed morality to go. Public Service Announcements (PSAs) are not actually trying to sell us anything. They are trying to get us to do something — or not do something. Just Say No. Save Water. Talk To Your Kids. All are generally good messages. But sometimes they take themselves way too seriously: if you use drugs you support terrorism; won’t somebody please think of the children. Even the best of this class of ads lends itself to parody: This is your brain; this is your brain on drugs; this is your brain on drugs with a side of bacon. Let’s take it easy here. I think we all know the PSA message of the week.

Some of the most perplexing ads are “image ads.” Basically these are run by large companies, often with many subsidiaries, to remind us they exist. Sure, maybe you aren’t in the market for a GE product today, but maybe your dishwasher will break next week, maybe you’ll need a light-bulb next month, maybe your company will need jet engine next year, or maybe you’ll buy some GE stock for your retirement account. It’s hard to say whether these ads are effective.

An effective ad makes someone want to do something. That is all any of us needs to remember.

It does not take an expert to see that families are having a hard time in America. Manufacturing jobs — long seen as one of the best ways for a man with no college degree to support his family — are vanishing. The tech bust has left many educated professionals scrambling to avoid long term unemployment. Among those lucky enough to still have jobs, Americans have less leisure time than anytime after the 40 hour workweek was “mandated.” Schools are by all accounts not giving young people an adequate education, particularly when compared to the education of 50 or 100 years ago. Our children’s academic accomplishments are dwarfed by those from most other industrialized nations. Crime rates are dropping, but Americans feel less safe than ever. Personal debt is at incredible levels, consumers are desperate to refinance where they can, and the Government has sold them down the river by tightening up bankruptcy law and adding needless layers of complexity under the guise of a “tax cut.”

There are many theories regarding the causes of “The Problem With America These Days.” Unfortunately, many of them center on such untenable ideas as “It’s because we’ve lost Old Time Religion” (oh yeah, things were much better in Salem) or “It’s because there’s no respect for the Family anymore” (define respect and family so we can talk) or even “It’s all the fault of Women’s Lib and mothers working outside the home.”

The idea of Moms With Jobs is really not that new. Moms have been helping out with the family finances since biblical times and through the ages, but the amount of work required to run a family home had generally prevented most moms from being full time members of the workforce.* Mandatory school attendance and labor saving devices have made possible the Mom With Career. However, both parents working can be a surprising drain on the family finances.

There are expenses associated with work beyond increased tax liability (the argument used by some Republicans in the past about “mom working just to pay the taxes” is ludicrous, since you aren’t taxed on money you don’t make). To send mom to work means she will need more reliable transportation than she would need to just get the groceries, take the kids to school, and pick up the dry cleaning. Speaking of dry cleaning, she will need work attire, and she will need to have it cleaned. She will also have to arrange child care, which is by no means inexpensive, particularly if she wants licensed care by someone who will not jeopardize the health and safety of her child. She will also be having lunch out more often, meaning she will spend a whole lot more on lunch than if she were eating peanut butter sandwiches with the kids. There will also be a lot more take-out and convenience food in the family menu, and that is going to cost more money. Despite the potentially deleterious effects on the family health and waistline, nobody is really going to want to cook a nice meal after working all day and fighting traffic home. These costs vary from family to family, but they add up in a hurry. They can easily consume mom’s paycheck.

Bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren admits this while offering up another way that the two-income family is falling behind. If I may quote: “Presenting carefully researched economic data to support their arguments, the authors contend that, contrary to popular myth, families aren’t in trouble because they’re squandering their second income on luxuries. On the contrary, both incomes are almost entirely committed to necessities, such as home and car payments, health insurance and children’s education costs. When an unforeseen event such as serious illness, job loss or divorce occurs, families have no discretionary income to fall back on.” Her thesis specifically includes the idea that, based on their aggregate income, families are buying (and bidding up) houses in desirable neighborhoods with good schools. Furthermore, that “more reliable transportation” I mentioned as a necessary expense of mom working often is turning out to be a new car that the family can only afford because both parents are working. Interestingly, this book was written with her daughter; this would tend to suggest she knows something about being a Mom With Career. This is not from some two-bit economist sociologist wannabe, but from a distinguished Harvard professor with a list of publications and accomplishments longer than your arm. Nevertheless, the ideas are controversial.

Be of good cheer, as she does provide suggested solutions. First, arrange the finances such that necessities can be paid out of one paycheck. Then the second income becomes truly “extra” and can be used on luxuries like saving for retirement or eating out without guilt. She furthermore suggests regulatory reforms to require bigger down-payments on houses to discourage getting overextended on mortgage payments, capping credit card interest rates and fees, school vouchers, and better education about financial planning for those of us who have more liabilities than assets.

Something to think about.

* The single mother has also been with us throughout the ages, since the first time a father died or walked out on his family. Single mothers almost by definition have to earn a living in addition to all the expected activities of Mom. There is nobody else to do it.