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Retail Adventures (1)
Sep. 4th, 2003 08:16 amLabor Day was big. Thousands of people lurching around with the buy light in their eyes. Items flew off the shelf. The Bolivians played El Condor Pasa twenty thousand times.
So odd to live and work in a place where the economy is fueled solely by transient voyeurism.
In the aftermath of the holiday things slowed to a kind of Parkinsonian totter.
I think maybe ten people came into the store yesterday. Most of them were people who work in the stores nearby. There is a subculture here and I’m beginning to plug into it.
One of the guys who came in was a man about my age who looked like the local Glengarry Glen Ross sales rep. "Hot sauce, huh?" he said looking around at the mostly empty store.
"Hot sauce and other things," I replied. "We just opened. We haven’t had a chance to stock a lot of our inventory."
"How’s business?"
"It was great over the weekend," I said.
"What do you think about the restaurant upstairs?"
"Crawdaddy’s? It’s a restaurant upstairs," I said.
"Did it do a lot of business?"
This man is not here to buy hot sauce, I thought. "Well, you know. They serve lobster. There are no lobsters in the Monterey Bay so the lobsters have to hop a plane from Australia. It’s a long plane ride. I wouldn’t eat there."
Five beats till he broke out laughing. He had the kind of laugh that made you worry he was going to do structural damage to his larynx.
"I own a store up the street," he said.
"Which one?"
"After The Quake."
One of those generic tee-shirt and souvenir stores. Personally I’ve always wondered how they manage to stay in business, but that’s because I’m a neophyte who still makes the mistake of thinking that my own tastes are somehow a proxy for the great American public’s.
"How’s business there?" I asked.
"Okay," he said. "I also have a couple of stores up in San Francisco. And a restaurant."
"Ah," I said.
He shrugged. "There’s been some talk about how maybe Crawdaddy’s is looking to get out of its lease."
"Great location," I said.
"Great location," he said.
The problem with me and retail, it turns out, is not that I’m not extroverted enough but that I am too porous. I have a hard time differentiating between personal and impersonal. Thus, when people don’t come into my store and give me money, it means that they don’t like me, that they're personally rejecting me – not that there aren’t very many of them out there and that the ones who are, are all spent out.
So odd to live and work in a place where the economy is fueled solely by transient voyeurism.
In the aftermath of the holiday things slowed to a kind of Parkinsonian totter.
I think maybe ten people came into the store yesterday. Most of them were people who work in the stores nearby. There is a subculture here and I’m beginning to plug into it.
One of the guys who came in was a man about my age who looked like the local Glengarry Glen Ross sales rep. "Hot sauce, huh?" he said looking around at the mostly empty store.
"Hot sauce and other things," I replied. "We just opened. We haven’t had a chance to stock a lot of our inventory."
"How’s business?"
"It was great over the weekend," I said.
"What do you think about the restaurant upstairs?"
"Crawdaddy’s? It’s a restaurant upstairs," I said.
"Did it do a lot of business?"
This man is not here to buy hot sauce, I thought. "Well, you know. They serve lobster. There are no lobsters in the Monterey Bay so the lobsters have to hop a plane from Australia. It’s a long plane ride. I wouldn’t eat there."
Five beats till he broke out laughing. He had the kind of laugh that made you worry he was going to do structural damage to his larynx.
"I own a store up the street," he said.
"Which one?"
"After The Quake."
One of those generic tee-shirt and souvenir stores. Personally I’ve always wondered how they manage to stay in business, but that’s because I’m a neophyte who still makes the mistake of thinking that my own tastes are somehow a proxy for the great American public’s.
"How’s business there?" I asked.
"Okay," he said. "I also have a couple of stores up in San Francisco. And a restaurant."
"Ah," I said.
He shrugged. "There’s been some talk about how maybe Crawdaddy’s is looking to get out of its lease."
"Great location," I said.
"Great location," he said.
The problem with me and retail, it turns out, is not that I’m not extroverted enough but that I am too porous. I have a hard time differentiating between personal and impersonal. Thus, when people don’t come into my store and give me money, it means that they don’t like me, that they're personally rejecting me – not that there aren’t very many of them out there and that the ones who are, are all spent out.
