Kind of interesting today as there was a discussion about secret shoppers and how companies spend a lot of money contracting third parties to help evaluate the business and its employees. At first I asked what company they used and funny enough I was told they didn’t use a company but rather they simply asked friends and family members to drop by when they have time to give them feedback. This wasn’t a mom and pop shop type of operation too as the company itself has divisions all over the world.

In many ways I suppose it can make sense as your friend or family member can technically be like any other customer. Although the biggest issue would probably be the they most likely wouldn’t know all the questions to ask employees to know if they are on top of their game or not. At the same time asking friends or family to do it can probably make people feel weird as if you aer simply getting free labor.

Although it is an option though that many people simply overlook if you are looking to save money from hiring a third party to evaluate your business. I know for like myself if I had a friend’s business that was say in the same mall that I am going anyways I wouldn’t mind dropping by and relaying any feedback that I saw. Sometimes yo just need to ask.

It seemed like the top story in so many news reports here today was how the Company Best Buy was closing down a few of its stores due to the lack of sales and how this meant hundreds of people are now unemployed. Interestingly enough the main thing about the story that interested most people was how employees were essentially blind sided over this as they simply showed up to work only to find out that the store was immediately closed and that they would all have to find new jobs.

That painted the business in a negative light it seemed as to many it demonstrated that they didn’t really care much about say the employees or the public to even give them some kind of warning that this was going to happen. Not something you would think would be that big of a deal huh? I suppose it’s worst for businesses that have a lot of stores as the image of it will carry on to the other businesses as well. Even big businesses have to show courtesy compassion at times.

Today I was thinking where I may potentially have to purchase a property a little later and at the moment I know the seller has things like a real estate agent whereas at this point I haven’t really looked for one considering I pretty much had a good idea at what I needed to get. With my basic knowledge of how the industry works I know that the seller is paying them a commission and that normally if I had an agent as well they would be splitting it to a certain extent. But if the seller is the only one with an agent then the person will pretty much get it all.

That made me think that these are like those scenarios where you were going to buy it anyways and so you would rather give the commission to someone. But in this case I personally don’t have anyone that comes to mind immediately. It makes me wonder if I should just advertise it to someone else in like my circle of friends who personally know agents and to say like “free money.” Of course, maybe a wise thing to do too is to use that as a way to haggle the price more.

Generally speaking I do prefer to just pass things of like this as it’s less work and who knows what kind of other business relationships you can establish as a result where essentially it’s like you giving them referrals and so in return most people will try to return the same favour.

I haven’t heard one of these in awhile as I saw a person today freaking out how she couldn’t believe that another person who has less education and experience was making more money than her for what was essentially the same type of work. The only real difference was the industry as one was more along the lines of clothing and the other was a bit more tech savvy. That then raised the debate on whether or not she was working in the wrong industry if someone with no experience could immediately make like three dollars an hour more.

This is one of those things too where it comes down to if you are trying to make the most for your time or if you would rather be surrounded in an industry that you are genuinely passionate about. With that said, this is something that people overlook where you can easily generate a lot more income by being involved in specific industries. I know some examples are you can take the most mundane job such as a person handing out newspaper’s or fliers to the public where you would probably get minimum wage. However, do the exact same role with say a promotions company where other businesses contract them and you can easily make a lot more. Just be open minded into learning about the options that are out there.

It was raining here today and while passing the park I noticed that there was a group of people playing soccer. Despite the weather, they seemed to be dressed up the same as if it was a sunny day. For one reason or another this made me think of so many scenarios where people say they can’t do something because of the weather or circumstance yet like in this case people are simply used to doing the activity regardless of the weather condition.

It makes you wonder how many times there are things that we say we can’t do when really what we mean is that we prefer to do it a certain way as life has catered us to expect things a certain way. That’s one of the reasons where it is good to observe say different cultures and how other people make a living as more often than enough it opens your eyes as to how little you really need to make something work. If you are forced to be in a certain environment long enough then most likely you will learn to adapt with it.