Kayak Wholesale Prices.

Electrical upgrades?
I sell electrical upgrades as well…

this has come up before

– Last Updated: May-25-12 11:27 AM EST –

The ones who complain about service at stores clearly have never worked in stores. More importantly, they have never owned their own small business. This is similar to the guy that doesn't leave a tip because their service was slow.

Tire kicking is acceptable, but don't get mad when you get called out for it. After all honesty is more important than making you feel good about your purchase. Just pick up some smartwools or a canister of fuel every once in a while.

In our coupon nation, we all want the best price, best deal, best service, best return policy, etc, etc. But then we want to have personal relationships and buy local, etc., etc. All of these things are in conflict with each other. Everyone is so concerned about calling out people in reviews online, and bragging about their deals, spending money to save money, blah, blah. In the end we are just buying crap we don't need. Talk about first world country problems. It's embarrassing that we don't have better judgement as a society.

If one is worried about 5-10% price while buying something as useless as a kayak, I question their whole existence.

Ryan L.

electrical upgrades
(I work for a massive global infrastructure engineering and construction company – don’t get as much “hands on” dealing with customers as I did during the many years when I was a senior PM for electrical contractors)

tipping (and other social negotiations)
I only worked as a waitress (back during college) for a total of 3 days. It was enough to give me a lifelong appreciation for how hard they work and what a thankless task it can be. Since then I have never left less than 20% for a tip. If the waitperson seems to be really “in the weeds” I will leave the same even if service has been crappy – if it is clear that they are overwhelmed because of circumstances beyond their control I will leave even more and then stop and tell the manager that I noticed that the service was being badly run.



I once stopped at a diner to take a break on a long solo motorcycle trip. I sat at the counter and just had tea and a pastry. The place was very busy and the waitress was grim, even rude, as she slammed my order down. I got the feeling she was having a really bad day. When I left, I put a $5 tip under my saucer before paying at the cashier. As I was putting my helmet on in the parking lot, the waitress came running out and tried to give me the bill back. I explained to her that I could see she was having a rough day and I had been there myself. To my surprise she began to cry and told me how her 10 year old daughter was in the hospital and she couldn’t afford to take the day off to stay with her.



There are some exceptions, of course, but I have learned that in most cases, if people are curt, ignore you or are unpleasant, there is usually something behind the behavior that explains it. If we would all try to respond with compassion instead of indignation, I think we could improve the world.



Being indignant is a form of personal arrogance that benefits nobody, yourself included. In both in my professional and personal life, I have gained more success and cooperation through humility, candor and empathy than from being demanding and self-entitled. The squeaky wheel does NOT “get the grease”. More often it earns itself the short shaft in the long run.

the cult of indignation

– Last Updated: May-25-12 11:51 AM EST –

In fact, several of my friends and I were just talking the other day about the nasty trend (i call it a cult) of indignation in public and political discourse. The "how dare he/she/they offend me/us/them" has become a wearying pattern, too often replacing honest debate, exchange of opinions and any attempt to understand the opposing points of view. To many people appear too eager to seize the slightest opportunity to portray themselves as grieviously "wronged" over the smallest, even imagined, "slights".

In fact, most of what I hear on outlets like Fox News consists mainly of pointless rants of self-righteous indignation.

Since when did questioning someone's opinion, or disagreeing with them, or even offering evidence against a statement they've made, constitute a personal "offense" against them?

Oops. Guess I should relocate this to "Bicker and Banter."

you can mark me down
As being indignant about being indignant. On this I will not bend. Life is way too short to get run over. If that’s personally arrogance, mark me down for that too.



Side note, if you actually knew me you would know that I use indignance and hyperbole as a matter of style not an actually tool in my professional life. I’m rarely being completely serious about anything. So when I say that I question someone’s existence, I don’t really, but I would ask them to remember the kids in China.



Ryan L.

Great observation
that I’m sure many of us have made. You expressed it very well. What I worry about is that young folks who grow up in this environment of “I am entitled not to be offended” don’t even understand what you’re talking about. Disagreement is not an offense, but very few under 50 or so seem to see it that way.

transference
People get mad because someone is mad, or get offended that they offended someone or they have been offended. This has been going on since the beginning of time. Please don’t push this onto young people, I have had my fair share of people over 50 exhibiting this same behavior. What’s worse is they use their “wisdom” as a sign of proof they are right.



Also, my other least favorite trait of customers is when they make their problems your problems. I think it is an extension of learned helplessness in a world of blame.



Also, also, no one watches fox news. It’s the highest rated of the cable news channels and still a very small share of tv viewers. Plus kids these days don’t watch news anyway :slight_smile:



Also, also, also. This is way too serious. Kayak shops don’t make anyone rich, everyone go buy something so they can stay open and feed our need for stuff we dont need.



Ryan L.

personal "offense"
If you re-read my first “volley” in this, I framed it initially as my own response of being upset at hearing what WB’s reaction was to the curtness of the dealer he visited. In all honesty, I’ve had that same reaction myself at times in my life “well, screw them if they are going to give me an attitude, I’ll take my business elsewhere.” I think that’s a prety natural human reaction.



What I have been trying to explicate here is that we should take a deep breath and consider if that instinctive reaction is really in the best interests of ourselves, as well as the people who have “offended” us.



On a deeper level, have not most of the horrible wars and mass sufferings of humanity been triggered by that sort of defensive “indignation” by one or more parties? I would argue there is a continuum there between our personal everyday habits of indignation (to having our real or imagined entitlements thwarted) and to the holocausts our collective flag-waving and religious or political self-righteousness can lead us towards.



I don’t think I intentionally insulted WB (sorry if it came off that way). I have been trying to suggest alternate ways the situation could have been approached.



This rise in the primacy of “indignation” has real costs at all levels of society. I have numerous friends who work in health care who unanimously report that their jobs and the medical industry as a whole are becoming almost unworkable due to the swelling dominance of “political correctness”, i.e., no one is allowed to “offend” a patient/client or even other staff member for fear of legal or regulatory penalty. Doctors are chastised for, even expressly prohibited from, telling patients that certain ailments that they present with are directly attributable to their being overweight or from poor lifestyle choices or behaviors. ER staff are not permitted to evict unruly and disruptive family members from exam rooms nor to deflect chronic abusers of services (drug seekers or people who routinely tie up emergency staff with non-critical problems.) Patients file complaints about having to wait for exams or staff being “rude” in overcrowded facilities that are jammed up because those same patients won’t take their routine medical issues properly to their family doctors. Again, no one is allowed to point this fact out to the complainers. And massive amounts of money (much of it our tax dollars in the form of Medicaid and Medicare billings) is wasted in “cover our ass” tests and procedures that the “entitled” crowd demands but does not really need.



I’ve seen it in retail sales and I’ve seen it in healthcare: there is an entire category of people who revel in creating situations where they can claim to have been disrespected so they can flaunt their righteous rage to authorities. In past years this sort of pathological whining was routinely ignored by management or the whiner was placated in a benign way. I even had bosses in the past who would side with me against customers with spurious complaints, in one case even banning the client from the store.



Now, most likely due to the eagerness of some branches of the legal profession to create income stream through spurious lawsuits, managers turn around and punish employees for trying to deal rationally with such people. It is “political correctness” taken to the nth degree. The squeaky wheelers end up not only getting the grease but bringing the entire cart to a full stop. Mass media contribute to this by hyping stories of these trumped up “insults.”



This modern glorification of the “offended” reminds me of the cartoonist Al Capp’s creation (in his “Li’l Abner” comic strip in the late 1960’s) of a mock student activist society based on the campus S.D.S. groups of the era. He had his crowd of placard waving hippies self-identify as S.W.I.N.E., an acronym for Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.



Let me be clear, I am NOT accusing WB of being one of these individuals. But his (fairly benign and admittedly understandable) reaction and action in the boat buying incident brought up the wider topic of indignation and how it should be a response we ought to be cautious about indulging in ourselves.

wrong about Fox News
Fox news has been watched regularly by 25% of the public since its inception in 1996. Furthermore it is the single most watched TV news outlet. Ironically, recent studies have indicated that Fox News habitual watchers actually tested lower than people who watched NO TV news at all on being informed about current events.



The acrimonious tone, shrill (mostly right-wing) commentators and the blatant promotion of lies and misinformation by the network, as well as its general tone of sneering and indignation, I would argue, have been a major factor in contaminating public discourse over the past 15 years.



There are many regions of the country and certainly certain industries where Fox is the major source of “news” and public opinion. I’ve lived and worked in the midst of such bubbles of rampant misinformation.

good one, Ryan
We ought to remember to poke fun at indignation at all times.



Think about it, hasn’t being indignant been among the central themes of some of our best comedies, from “The Jack Benny Show” (and the star’s signature crossed-arm slow burn), "All in the Family, “Seinfeld” and “Fraser” to the Sheldon Cooper character on “Big Bang Theory” (who is as apt to display it himself as provoke it in others)?

If you are in business
You are entitled to make a profit. Profit needs to cover expenses and overhead and something for yourself. That’s the way the world works.

this will put it in perspective
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2011/12/more-people-watch-the-daily-show-than-fox-news



This is why fox news never bothers me.



Ryan L.

but that’s a comedy show!
(nevermind that some people take it as a news source…)

Just like the misinformation spewed by
NPR?

No, but they always HAVE the right…
to shop where they like. Just because a shop is local doesn’t mean it has a captive audience.



Have you never walked out of a car dealership after talking with a sales rep who doesn’t hear what you say you want, who is merely pushing what’s on the lot instead of trying to match your wants? Have you never heard a sales rep try to use insults to prod someone into buying something “better”, i.e., more profitable? It’s not limited to car dealers.

Ripcord
Wow, I see WB deleted the encyclopedia of his/her threads and went home! I was indignant and really wanted to take my business elsewhere, but after some thought I figured I’d just get over myself.

taking my ball
and going home…oh, wait, I am home. Screw this! I’m going to the river!

Just curious…
I am curious as to what you do for a living or do you even have a job. You obviously have no business experience. Obviously you are not…but…I have a feeling that If you were a retail merchant and read your post above, your blood pressure would have risen a few points just like mine.



In this day and time, many manufacturers are continually upping wholesale costs directly to their retailers while making them hold retail MSRPs. Believe me, a 5% to 10% discount is a BIG FAVOR. Way too many dealers have gone under due to being forced into cutting prices and not leaving enough profit to cover rent, taxes, payroll, insurance, etc. Sadly enough, another big thorn in the side of a legitimate local retailer are the large internet dealers who heavily discount and operate out of a warehouse (or doing on-demand only sales) instead of a retail storefront.



With attitudes such as yours it won’t be too long until you will have no local access for your paddling needs and you will have to wait for days for a simple item…if the clerk filled you order with the right item.


Mike do you have any retail experience?

– Last Updated: May-27-12 11:56 PM EST –

Because after reading your post it sounds like you want to operate a business and have no competition. Do you pay sticker price for your car, the asking price for your home and always go with the highest bid as heaven forbid you raise a business persons blood pressure by trying to save some money.
As far as waiting days for an internet order. Where have you been the last decade? Do you think internet sales have grown because of orders filled incorrectly and lousy service?
The customer has the right to spend their money where they want and if you don't see it that way I am sorry for you because this is the reality of a free market.