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butterflydreamingThe Office Max next door to our store is closing. It's a large store with a sizable staff. I was thinking about this on a break today. My CW will be negatively affected by the drop in foot traffic, but we will weather it in the long run.
Small businesses always have narrower profit margins. Even a successful one, growing enthusiastically, is not a money factory. As my boss's dad told him last year during one of our big growing pains, you can have liquid capital or you can put it back into the business and keep growing. I'm aware that no one, including him, makes a lot of money doing what we do.
It makes me angry that big corporations such as Office Max and Starbucks cut back without regard to how many people are already out of work. They pass the responsibility on to the state. After all, these out-of-job workers can get unemployment! It makes me angry because they could weather it. It's not a good thing for society to see enormous, vacant spaces where a big box store or corporate coffee location has been closed. If these companies accepted lower profits for a year and took gentler measures at cost cutting (cut the fat out of upper management, decrease store open hours, make all 40 hour full-timers into 35 hour workers, freeze hiring, decrease advertising, tighten utilities costs, renegotiate rent) instead of bringing out the axe, they could do so much good.
We have dozens of small espresso shops in Seattle. They are staying in business, though I can imagine that they are feeling it, too. Why can't Starbucks? Oh, maybe it's because their product has been crap for years.
I realized today that it's not *really* bad if I can still choose to buy non-fat milk instead of whole milk at the same price. Whole milk has more calories. If I can can still choose lower calorie options, it's not really that bad yet.
Small businesses always have narrower profit margins. Even a successful one, growing enthusiastically, is not a money factory. As my boss's dad told him last year during one of our big growing pains, you can have liquid capital or you can put it back into the business and keep growing. I'm aware that no one, including him, makes a lot of money doing what we do.
It makes me angry that big corporations such as Office Max and Starbucks cut back without regard to how many people are already out of work. They pass the responsibility on to the state. After all, these out-of-job workers can get unemployment! It makes me angry because they could weather it. It's not a good thing for society to see enormous, vacant spaces where a big box store or corporate coffee location has been closed. If these companies accepted lower profits for a year and took gentler measures at cost cutting (cut the fat out of upper management, decrease store open hours, make all 40 hour full-timers into 35 hour workers, freeze hiring, decrease advertising, tighten utilities costs, renegotiate rent) instead of bringing out the axe, they could do so much good.
We have dozens of small espresso shops in Seattle. They are staying in business, though I can imagine that they are feeling it, too. Why can't Starbucks? Oh, maybe it's because their product has been crap for years.
I realized today that it's not *really* bad if I can still choose to buy non-fat milk instead of whole milk at the same price. Whole milk has more calories. If I can can still choose lower calorie options, it's not really that bad yet.