So for most of the summer we have had the following on Southsea Common entertaining both children and adults alike :-
And of course along comes a crew of cretins and does this :-
Undoubtedly those who did this think it was funny.
Watching the reaction in various places has been interesting … it’s quite astonishing just how popular this misshapen dinosaur had become amongst the local residents. It would be nice to see some form of fight-back – perhaps build another one ?
This is a collection of a few thoughts mostly in relation to online shopping – I’ve been doing it for quite a while now; for over 10 years.
There are two kinds of online shopping – those items that you really want and are prepared to go to the extra effort of finding, and those items that you’ll pick up online if it is convenient.
It seems that nearly all online retailers want to build a relationship with their customers; complete with yet another username and password to remember, and yet more promotional emails cluttering up our inboxes, Frankly many of us do not want a relationship with the people who sell us stuff – we just want the stuff.
The effect of this, is that many of us have a tendency to stick with a relatively few online retailers (think Amazon), and only build new “relationships” when the special purchase crops up. This gives smaller retailers and those new to the marketplace a bit of a disadvantage. Although I would naturally prefer smaller retailers rather than the huge multi-nationals, I would rather not go through the hassle of creating a new account with a new retailer and deal with a bunch more “near spam“.
Plus of course there are people who are more cautious about online purchases who might stick to the larger online retailers as a way of avoiding risk.
What would benefit both the consumers and the smaller retailers is some sort of ‘meta-retailer’ who deals with the authentication, the “near spam” (by sending out a single digest collecting together multiple messages once a week please!), and serves as a clearing house for complaints. You might immediately think of eBay (or Amazon itself), which resembles what I have in mind, but the weighting is in favour of the ‘meta retailer’ rather than the business actually doing the selling.
As an example of what I have in mind, think of a retailer like Blacks (with whom I have a “relationship” for buying boots every few years). Whilst the process of choosing what to buy would be the same – by visiting the retailer’s website and picking out the chosen products, the process of buying would be different. You would select “Buy Now” which would take you to a different website, where you would authenticate using a username and password used for all the retailers who choose this service.
Such a service would benefit the smaller retailers by encouraging their use, and benefit the consumers who want reassurance and less hassle.
Delivery of online purchases needs to be fixed. Some of the companies that perform deliveries are less than competent. I’ve taken days off work to wait in for deliveries only to be left sitting in my flat all day without a delivery being made. And often when such deliveries fail to appear, the delivery company is less than flexible about making alternative arrangements – for example refusing to making a second delivery attempt on a Saturday requiring me to take a second day off, or insisting that the goods are returned (which I have done, and encourage others to do when the delivery company tries to pull a fast one).
There are two immediate solutions that come to mind :-
Some people like shopping on the high street in genuine bricks and mortar shops where you can touch and feel what is on offer. Fair enough, but there are those who hate it too. In addition, the high street is under threat from online shopping which offers a greater choice, and more convenience … especially for those who do not like shopping on the high street.
What strengths does the high street offer to give it an advantage over online shopping ?
First of all, there is the possibility of getting something right now. If I need a pair of socks urgently (!), then I need to pop into a shop and get a pair suitable for my size of feet (12). I don’t need a wide variety of socks to choose from – I need an ordinary pair of socks in my size.
Reduce the variety of socks available slightly and introduce a proper range of ordinary socks in all sizes. So what if the size 12 socks don’t sell in great quantities ? An occasional sale will serve as good publicity and keep people coming back to the high street. And who knows ? Whilst buying my size 12 socks I might pick up a silk scarf at the same time.
Secondly there is the ‘touch & feel’ factor. In many cases, it is possible to deliver goods from a distant warehouse at a later date or time leaving the shop as a showroom for the goods on sale. This especially works for larger goods – TVs, washing machines, and the like. But could work equally well for smaller items given that a shop with less storage has more room for goods on display.
There are several things that occur when watching this video :-
I am hardly a sought after photographer … I have fun making images, sure. But I don’t really expect my images to be stolen – even in the form of embedding my images in other web pages. Just on the off-chance, I went through my server logs to see what there was.
Much to my surprise, it is happening to me!! The following embed one or more of my images in their pages :-
Not exactly a huge list, but somewhat disconcerting.
Or just morally corrupt and a contemptible exploitation of the enthusiasm of youth ?
What is an intern anyway ? Well as I understand it, an intern is a sort of trainee; somewhat analogous to an apprentice, but used in somewhat more high-faluting professions such as the medical profession, journalism, advertising, etc. An intern gains experience in a particular industry with the hope that sooner or later they will be employed as a “proper” whatever on a suitably high salary.
But what does an intern do ? Well if they’re unlucky they will be doing nothing but the dogsbody jobs :-
Most interns find a position with considerably more training value than this of course. But even in such a position, the intern could well pick up considerable experience just from being ‘around’. After all an intern is quite likely to be a recent graduate in the right area and probably knows quite a bit of theoretical knowledge.
Because of that training element, there are those who feel that the value of an intern’s position is sufficient that people should be grateful for the experience and should not expect to be paid. Bollocks.
First of all, whilst the intern gets some value from being in a training position, the company providing that position also gets value by adding some additional training to recent graduates because those who start in the profession will have sufficient experience to get up and running far quicker. Balancing these values quantitatively is difficult, so let us agree that the two values are equivalent.
Secondly, all those dogsbody jobs (getting the coffee, etc.) are not part of training. They are merely a way of keeping an intern busy and effectively freeing up those with high salaries from performing mundane tasks. Nothing wrong with it, but because it allows those doing ‘real’ work to make more effective use of their time, those interns are of value to the company.
Not a great deal of course, but still some value. Enough that it can be said that those interns are actually performing a real job which should be paid at least as much as the minimum wage.
Can’t afford to pay that minimum wage ? Let me tell the story of a job I once had which could effectively be called an interneship – I once had a summer job working with a software house running around doing a wide variety of different tasks. I was paid a pretty trivial amount – such an insignificant amount that when the software house was rapidly running out of money towards the end of the summer and beginning to let people go, they carried on paying me because my wages would not make any difference to whether the company survived or not.
If a company cannot afford to pay minimum wage to an intern, then it is probably in such a poor state that it is probably going out of business.
There is a more sinister aspect to unpaid interneships. It is a conscious or unconscious means to keep certain professions to those of a ‘suitable background’. To survive, an intern needs a place to sleep and enough money to buy some food occasionally. Without a salary, an intern has to turn to other resources to survive – a friendly Uncle with a flat in central London, handouts from relatives and friends. Not everyone has those resources, which effectively increases the barriers of entry to certain professions to those whose background is of more limited means.
Of course it is possible that some interns may be able to survive in these positions on handouts from the government – income support, or whatever the benefit is called – effectively meaning that those companies ’employing’ interns are sponging off the government.
Companies that make use of unpaid interns are in the same category of employer as those backstreet sweatshops that pay under the minimum wage. And should be condemned as much as possible. Perhaps ’employing’ unpaid interns is not illegal, but that is only because these companies are exploiting loopholes in the law; it doesn’t excuse them from the moral position.