Sunday Samurai: I Can't Wait...The New Harris Teeter, Pigs In A Blanket & Big Box (Home Depot & Lowes) Staying Open An Hour Later

For the new Harris Teeter store to open in the West Ashley section of Charleston, South Carolina. For those of you who live West of the Ashley River in Charleston and have suffered for years without a 24-hour grocery store to quash that desire for a midnight snack I present you the new Harris Teeter store. Be patient my friends, the end is near and she should be open here soon.

I was in the Pig the other night about 10 minutes before closing time (like 9 pm) and I asked the manager if the Pig was going to start staying open later to compete with the new Teeter. He replied, "Oh gosh no, in fact, I wish we could go back to closing at 7 pm." Seriously?

Leave it to Beaver or just leave Beaver
I can understand the gentleman's desire to hearken back to the old days when we all ate dinner together at 6:30 pm and the grocery closed early because most folks only made a trip to the "sto" once a week. But let's get with the times people, we work late, jam our schedules full of errands and appointments ad nauseum. And let's face it, convenience stores these days just are not that convenient.

Just recently, Home Depot decided to open an hour earlier and stay open an hour later. How friggin awesome is that? Countless times, I have broken something (whilst trying to repair something else) or been mid-way into a project when I realized I needed something-that I could only find-from HD or Lowes (not the 24-hour Super Wal-Mart) and then looked at the clock only to realize I had fifteen minutes before they closed. Not anymore baby! (FYI: Lowes decided to match their cross-street competition and match Home Depot's hours). I even filled out my first receipt-questionairre exclaiming how I loved the later hours @ Home Depot and wished they would advertise this new change so more people would take advantage of their new closing time.

For those great deciders who changed the hours @ Lowes & Home Depot-Bravo! To the Big Whigs @ the Teeter who decided to provide the folks here this side of the Ashley a new store-Bravo indeed Sirs.

Sunday Samurai: Bloggers and consumerism

I read in the WSJ on Friday that 29-year old Chinese television anchor and blogger, Rui Cheng-gang recently posted a blog regarding the inappropriate representation of Western-Culture in the holiest of all holies for Chinese Nationalism, the Forbidden City. Starbucks operates a kyiosk in a corner of the Forbidden City. Rui wrote:

"Starbucks is really too inappropriate for the world's impression of
the Forbidden City"

As it is for the Chinese, nationalism is also individualism and when someone finally had the chance to reflect on the coffee-shop in the Forbidden City. After Rui's post was viewed by 1-million visitors to his site, it became more than just a simple distaste for a coffee shop, but his words became a new challege for consumer-activism in a country with 20-million bloggers and 3.2 bloggers who post daily. The Chinese government does scrub the internet for political diatribes, but in a country with little or no action as consumers, they let the "market" control itself. This in turn brings a new challenge for companies in China. How much dialogue should they respond with between the blogosphere and how fast can a company put out the fires before 1-million people view it. As Mr. Rui e-mailed Starbuck's CEO Jim McDonald, he changed the face of dialogue between the average person and big business. Which I must admit is amazing.

Buttering the bread

What this story brought out to me the most was how Rui (a Starbucks customer) didn't care about not having a Starbucks, so he could snag a cup of Joe before a television broadcast; he just wrote what he felt and penned a jab at a company he felt took away from his heritage. On the flip-side, I can imagine that Mr. Rui also realizes that people will respond to this story, they will like him; Rui will become a better or at least more watched broadcaster. He knows where is bread is buttered, but like all reporters, he knows a good story when he sees one. Regardless of his own personal agenda, we must all think about the "truthiness" in this story, that one voice can become the voice of many. For those of who blog, we should think about the effect our posts will have on the blogosphere community and if the attention given to something is deserved. If we truly want to live the Bushido way, we should be honest, frank and approach each issues with as even of a keel approach as possible. (Photo compliments of Japanlifestyle.com)

Sunday Samurai: Productivity

Fortune Magazine's Stanley Bing, "While you were out", addresses the recent US Dept of Labor's release that (non-farm business) productivity hit naught for this past quarter. Meaning, American workers are getting paid (annually) 3.8% more for doing the same work as last quarter. Bing attributes the lack of productivity to variables such as excessive meetings, too many digital devices and too much time hanging ten on the keyboard (internet surfing).

Mr. Bing did an excellent job also addressing the intangibles of production: What does this country actually produce? How do we measure productivity? And after the job cuts to boost the numbers throughout the 90's and in this decade forcing 10 workers to do the work of 20, aren't we already maxxed out when it comes to productivity?As a blogger with a day-job, I understand the pressure of productivity. As a rule, I don't blog from work (full disclosure: every once in awhile I'll see a video on You Tube and spend the 20-seconds it takes to send it to the it takes to send it to the Bushido.) I do bounce ideas off of my colleagues and as part of my job I do get a lot of time to read articles for research. Besides, I spend my day putting out fires and dealing with deadlines so being on blogger wouldn't be very "productive".

I do take it as a point of pride to try and be productive on the Bushido, not for the money (naught) but to keep you all, if not informed at least talking about issues of the day. Obviously, you can tell when I am on vacation, sick (I had a touch of the bird-flu last week) or just plain beat from well, shuffling papers all day at Crosby, Stills and Nash. But if we measure productivity by posts, then the Bushido's production is up from last year. But since there is a new blog started every 30-seconds (one for every person in the country) then I have to at least keep things interesting, brief and office appropos to keep you coming back. So I'll do my part of producing intangible, yet entertaining, diatribes if you promise to keep up your productivity (currently even keel according to the government) at work.