House of Swank

Keep It Simple, Stupid

This evening I was picking up a few things at the grocery store, and kosher salt was on the list.  When we left Redmond I decided the half-empty, open box of salt was not worth packing and it was best to just replace.

So I'm at the store this evening, in the spice aisle, and they appear to not have kosher salt.  They have regular salt, sea salt, "ice cream" salt (which I presume was rock salt), but no kosher salt.  How can a good grocery store that prides itself on quality products not freaking carry kosher salt?

The moment right before my head exploded I realized it was probably in the kosher food section.  Which it totally was.

Which sort of makes sense.  Because it's kosher and all.  Although I would bet you that in Portland, Oregon, the vast majority of people buying kosher salt are not buying it because of it's kosher qualities, but because it's damn good salt for cooking.  So if they're not going to give up the 6" of shelf space to house it in the spice aisle, they should at least have a little sign on the shelf or something.  Because next time they might not be so lucky, and the person's head might literally explode before they can figure out what happened to the freaking salt.

Salesmanship

Moving into the house there are things we are needing and/or wanting to buy.  Living room furniture, a mattress for the guest bedroom, a washer and dryer... we've budgeted for these things, and part of my time of late has been spent doing at least preliminary shopping for them, to at least decide what store(s) to go to when we're ready to make the purchases.

A lot of sales people are really annoying and don't do anything to help earn my business.  It's not rocket science, people:

• Learn to shake hands.  The webbing between your thumb and pointer finger should collide with mine, and it should be firm.  Limply wiggling my fingers around is kind of nasty and creepy.
• Your assistance is not always required.  In most cases as soon as a salesperson has approached me, I've said, "Hi, I'm buying a new house and am just browsing right now, I'll let you know if I need any assistance."  This does not mean to follow me at 20 paces, to make it seem like I'm being given my space.  That's just sort of creepy.  And it's not like I can shoplift a couch.
• I understand that I am missing out on the sale of the century.  One mattress store I went to was running a sale that supposedly ended October 31.  If I put down a fully refundable 10% deposit it would hold the sale price through November for me.  When I informed the salesman, point blank, I was not putting down a deposit, you'd think I'd just shot his grandmother from the look of shock on his face. 
• Listen to your customer's priorities.  For our guest bedroom mattress the priority is price.  As in, we don't want to pay a lot.  As much as I'd like to have our guests sleep in the lap of luxury, the fact of the matter is the mattress won't get used a ton, and only for a few days at a time.  Many mattress stores I've gone into don't seem to understand that fact, and keep trying to sell me mid-priced (or higher) mattresses.  Luckily, I found a furniture store near our home that has a killer deal on pillow top mattresses, that are cheap AND comfortable!
• On consumer goods, I do my own research.  I found the washer and dryer of choice at Sears.  They weren't the top of the line, but they met our basic requirements, and were a good $500 cheaper for the set than the next closest alternative.  While explaining this to Sweetie, a salesperson came up to me and tried to tell me that the Maytag washer and dryer I was looking at were NOT rated well by Consumer Reports, it was this other set over here, that was $600 more for the set.  Yes, the washer she was showing me WAS ranked SLIGHTLY higher by Consumer reports.  Slightly more energy efficient, and a shorter cycle time.  The dryer was actually rated a point LOWER.  Perhaps it was a superior set, but not $600 superior. 

Takes all the fun out of shopping, I'm telling you.

Parking Lot Love

I fell in love with a parking garage last night.  So if any friends or family are planning on flying into PDX soon, I'm willing to pick you up at the airport.

It's the most high-tech garage I have ever seen in my life, and I'm surprised no one figured all of this out earlier.

From the outset, it looks like your standard airport parking garage.  Take a ticket, go up a ramp, pick a floor to exit the ramp on, and go in search of a spot.  The only difference at first is a plea to "follow the green arrow."  I figured it was like I've seen in garages before, where it will tell you if the level if full and you need to keep on going.

It is that and so much more.

When you get to an exit of the ramp, there is not only a green arrow if there is space available on the level, but it actually lists a number telling you how many spaces are available.  Then, when you have to choose whether to go to the left or right, there are more arrows telling you how many spaces are available in each direction.  Each row you come to; another arrow, another listing of availability.

This alone would have been kind of cool, kind of fun, helpful to have at the holidays when the garage is packed.  But then they took it one step further.

Above each parking spot is a sensor with a light attached.  If there is a car parked there, the light is red.  No car, light green.  So, you can pull into the row, and instantly know where there are spaces available.  Normally, I would have parked at the end of the row, where there was an abundance of space.  But the little green lights let me know that there were closer spaces, being blocked from my view by the SUVs.

Never has parking a car been so much fun.

Yeah, I really am that easily entertained.

Time Traveling

Last night Sweetie came home from a short trip he was on.  His flight was running late, and I left the house at what I felt would be an appropriate time to still get to the airport on time.

But then construction slowed me down, so I decided to call and see if the ETA had changed at all. 

I called into Delta's system, which is one of those computers that wants you to think it's a real person, so instead of making you press "1" for arrivals and departures it wants you to say "I'm calling to check on arrivals and departures."  I'm always tempted to get really snotty and passive aggressive with those systems.

I made it through without too much issue, and without paying total attention to what she was saying to me, stated that I wanted to check on the status for "today."  Because I was in my car, on the way to the airport, and the plane was scheduled to get in before midnight, so all of those signs pointed to the plane arriving "today."

Apparently the folks at Delta have a different definition of "today" than I do, and I suspect it revolves completely around their hub in Atlanta.  Because "today" gave me the status of the flight for "tomorrow," which was still running on time, thanks to not being due for another 22 hours or so.  I finally figured out that I needed the status for "yesterday." 

My thought on the matter is I'd prefer they spend their money on a user-friendly interface to gathering necessary information, rather than spending it on a friendly-sounding computer to answer the phone.  Who sounded a bit like some sort of phone-sex operator with the tone of her voice.

I mean, I guess I can understand that the computer sex-workers want to make improvements in their lives, just like the strippers who are paying their way through college, but I'm sure they'd like it to be easy to know when their planes are arriving as well.

A Reason To Get Back Into Sports Marketing

Jones Soda is the official soft drink of Qwest Field right now.  This rocks in so many ways, I may try to talk Sweetie into going to a Seahawks game next season, just so I can buy one.  And I don't even like Jones Sodas that much.

When selling sponsorships or season tickets for a sports team, the easiest deals are those in which there is back scratching to be done.  Teams need uniforms and janitorial services and radio broadcasts and gym facilities for their players, so you sell sponsorships to those places.  You promise to pay us sponsorship money, and we'll promise to use you for our business.

That being said, the two easiest sponsorships to sell for a stadium are probably beer and soda.  Because you're going to have both at your stadium, and pretty much everyone wants in on the action.  Think of how much beer and soda are gone through at a game... wouldn't you want to be the one to get a piece of that action?  So they are usually (relatively) high priced sponsorships. 

Side note:  When I was making the decision on whether or not to move to the Tri-Cities, one of the things that factored into my decision was the fact that the Portland Beavers were sponsored by Pepsi at the time, and the Dust Devils were sponsored by Coke.  The Coke contract wasn't finalized until I was in town, but one of the things (that I had nothing to do with, but was very thankful for) written into the contract was that Coke would provide a vending machine in the front office (which was not located at the Stadium, where I was allowed unlimited quantities of fountain Diet Coke) which dispensed cans of soda for a quarter each.  This was not something the company was going to make money on, but they knew it would make us happy, and by keeping us happy we would keep them as a vendor.

So I am amazed and impressed that Jones has the funds, and is willing to spend them, on the sponsorship.  I am also excited to see what they make of this partnership.  There is already talk of creating a special flavor of soda - "grass stain" - which sounds nasty, but no nastier than turkey and gravy.  And using labels as additional promotional opportunities both inside and outside the stadium.

I know there are those who dislike sponsorship style marketing, and how it reaches people.  I can see the problems, and there are definitely times where it goes over the line and is inappropriate or just plain bad.  But, when done well and creatively, it truly is a fun thing to watch.  Who doesn't get a chuckle when the optician's office that sponsors the announcement of the umpires during the pre-game festivities?  And I hope to see some really fun things come out of this new sponsorship.

Thanks, Jim, for pointing me to the story.