Essay 2 - Draft

Essay 2 – Draft 

Science of Shopping
March 6, 2011

I decided to select Wal-Mart because I’ve worked part time there for almost 8 years.   I didn’t do this because I thought it would be easy but because I never really thought about any of the things mentioned in Gladwell’s article.  I had a small idea that stores paid people to give them advice on how to sell more and we use “mystery shoppers” at Wal-Mart, but now I had the opportunity to look at Wal-Mart in a brand new way.  It even made my work hours more interesting.

Because I’m an employee, it was very convenient for me to get plenty of observation time in.  What was more difficult was trying to answer all these questions I wanted to answer. because I had to keep everything in my mind.  Obviously, I couldn’t write anything down and sometimes my observations were interrupted by a customer.  So, I decided to try and observe just one topic on my list per shift.  The plan was to try and record my observations on a digital recorder the same night or at least the following morning before I forgot.  It definitely was a good plan for me.  It helped me break down each subset and not loose any details when I went on to the next observation point.  It also helped me make sure that I didn’t miss anything I wanted to include in the essay.

I think the most difficult observation topics were those that dealt with how the customers behaved and how the customers and staff interacted.  I guess it was because I had to try and look at things from the customer’s point of view and that was new to me.  I’m not saying I always think Wal-Mart is right, I’m just saying that I’m usually on the receiving end of the customers question or complaints so; it’s natural to look at it from more of a staff person’s viewpoint.

For the first time I really took my time to observe what I saw and how I felt as I walked into the main street side entrance of Wal-Mart.  I noticed that it was made mainly of hard surfaces like glass, metal frames, and a hard tile floor.  The floor is generally grimy with either heavy industrial carpets that are full of sand, mud or snow.  There is always a variety of debris and trash on the floor – like candy bar wrappers and empty potato chip bags.  This comes mainly from customers anxious to eat the items of food they just bought in the store.  Somewhere along the line they just decide its ok to throw trash on the floor.

The walls on either side are dull beige.  They look like they really need to be painted.They are filled up with a variety of raggedy posters and flyers announcing upcoming events like high school plays and food drives.  Most of these local events have long since passed.  There is also a display of armed forces photos of soldiers with their names listed below.  The idea  is to honor and remember those serving the country and those who have served in past wars like Vietnam and even World War II. Somehow it really bothers me that many of the pictures are starting to fray and look dirty.   My grandfather was in all the big battles of WWII - D. Day and Normandy, so I have great respect for veterans and I find the uncared for pictures disrespectful .  In general, the whole entrance feels really neglected.  Another negative thing I should mention is that you feel physically “blown into” Wal-Mart.  For some reason this area of Swansea has a little wind tunnel and even on the warmest days, you feel like you’re in a wind storm.  It's so bad that the guys who do carriages often complain about getting sand in their eyes.  It definitely does match the decompression zone described by Paco Underhill in Malcolm Gladwell's article, "The Science of Shopping" but in an extreme way.  Paco tells his clients over and over again to "Never, ever put anything of value in the decompression zone, not even shopping baskets or tie racks or big promotional displays, because no one is going to see it." That's alright, but  I don't think, Paco would suggest it should be a neglected or dirty either.

When you walk in the front of the store you can see that Underhill's belief in the existence of “Invariant right” was proven true. Underhill states that, "One of the fundamental rules of how human beings show is that upon entering a store, the shopper invariable and reflexively turns to the right." Underhill's research also held true in my observations. I discovered that at least 90 to 95% of Wal-Mart customers do turn right.

So, how about once you’ve made the turn right?  Well, your senses are bombarded with bright florescent lights, blaring overhead announcements and sounds of cash registers.  Overall, my observations of the whole store lead me to describe it as a very loud and noisy place to shop.  This is definitely not the relaxing, zen kind of place you might think of in a high end store.

There was another item I remembered from Gladwell's article that proved to be true.  That is advice about what items to place on the left.  Underhill's research states that people will only readily cross to the left in order to satisfy a need - like hunger.  I specifically looked to see what items were placed on the left at the entrance and sure enough they  matched Underhill’s recommendations.  At the Swansea Wal-Mart the left of the main entrance is the permanent location of the return desk. The merchandise after the return desk constantly changes - based on what's in demand with the current season.  Right now, that merchandise is      women's bathing suits.

When I observed the traffic flow of the store it wasn't good at all.  In the middle of the main isle is what I call “hot merchandise”.  This contains all the products that management thinks customers are coming in to buy.  For the guys this is where you’ll find all the latest DVD releases.  So, if that's all you came in for, you don't have to walk all the way to Electronics at the back of the store.  For women,the merchandise in this location is based on the next event on the calendar - St. Patrick's Day or Christmas; this is where you'll find the holiday displays.  Right now, you’ll see plenty of shamrocks and big green hats followed by rows of stuffed bunnies, Easter baskets and any chocolate candy you could want.   Getting back to traffic patterns, the The worse times are on the weekends.  Just picture the day before Christmas and you'll get the idea.  It's like real street traffic, with shopping carts flying everywhere followed by accidents and very short tempers.

The location of the merchandise also lets you know that this is a no-nonsense store, geared to the main shoppes of the family: women. Swansea Wal-Mart was definitely laid out for female customers.  As I said earlier, on the immediate left is women’s clothing, with the first items being the most in demand based on the current season.  Continuing down the left to the end of the store is regular women’s clothes, then baby clothes and baby items.  The back of the store on the left is shoes followed by sewing and craft items.  If your at the main entrance and take the "all important turn right", you'll find women's jewelry immediately on your left and 

the cash registers on the right.  Beyond that, is a nail place and play area for kids.  Down the rest of the right are food and paper/cleaning products on the left and health and beauty aides on the right, with a pharmacy beyond that. 

Most of the women shoppers probably range from mid 20’s to late 60’s but we also have tons of teenage girls and elderly women too.  The elderly women usually shop very early in the morning and usually come during the week when most people are at work.  Many are often accompanied by their husbands,  They also seem to be the customers who has the hardest time with the noise.  Teenage girls come mainly on the weekends and come in with their boyfriend or with girlfriends.  The single male shoppers usually come in on week nights.  In fact, most of the customers after 9:00 p.m. are single men.  The other big time for male shoppers is during the weekend.  The difference is they are usually with their wife or girlfriend. Often times their purchases are electronics or food and pet products.  The merchandise for men is basically laid out at the back end of the store - towards the mall side and the back end of the store facing south.  That's where you'll

find electronics, movies and music, followed by sporting,camping goods,car products and tools.

How do Wal-Mart customers behave?  Well, that’s kind of subjective.  If I had to pick one word to describe the majority of them, it would be …STRESSED.  Most people seem like they have too much to do and not enough time to do it.  The mothers with little kids seem the most stressed and many don’t seem to be able to (or want to) keep their kids under control.  I could tell you some pretty amazing stories and I’ve heard a lot of yelling and swearing, especially around the holiday season.

The customers and sales staff can sometimes have a combative interaction.  Again, I’m thinking about Christmas time in particular but whatever time of the year it is, customers are stressed, running in to get whatever they need and they can be pretty impatient if they can’t find what they want or they can’t find a staff person to help them.  Let’s face it, Wal-Mart is not the type of high end store people go to in order to get pampered.  The shopping experience at Wal-Mart is one of necessity with a “get in and get out” mind frame.

After really paying attention to what goes on in Wal-Mart based on the points I’ve highlighted from Paco Underhill years of research, I was really amazed at how much of what I observed in my own retail field site observation matched Underhill’s research.

With the exception of the dirty “Decompression Zone” and the general atmosphere which did not try to sooth or create a place that you wanted to spend hours in, everything else proved to be right on target.  From the “Invariant Right” to the “Necessities Left”, to the way the merchandise was placed and featured, Underhill had it right.  I don’t think I’ll ever look at Wal-Mart, or any other retail location the same way again.

*Work Cited
Gladwell, Malcolm "The Science of Shopping." The New Yorker 4 November 1996.

Essay # 2 Summary

Here's my summary of Section 1 of the article - The Science of Shopping:

• There really is a science to something as routine as shopping.
• That Paco Underhill's work as an "urban anthropologist" (that's the first time I ever heard that term) is really very important to the retailers across the U.S. and the world in general.
• Paco's work has proven to be very valuable especially now - the lowest profit margins ever
• Paco's work shows retailers how shoppers behave in their stores.
• In particular, Paco has found that americans keep to the right when they enter a store. 
• He calls this the Invariant Right and has verified it.
• American shoppers won't go to the left to make an impulse buy but only to satisfy a real need like eating
• That the faster a person walks the more their vision narrows
• That they need a certain amount of time to slow down and really start to shop-Paco calls it the Decompression Zone
• That a retailer should never put anything important in that depression zone
• That Paco's work really can help retailers know why a store works or doesn't work.

Final Personal Essay

Personal Essay - Final

The day we are born is a special day for all of us.  My birth, unfortunately, had an extra significance because there were complications.  I was breech and although I was delivered by a planned C-section, my head had gone under my mother’s rib cage.  As the doctor struggled to get me out, I was without oxygen and it resulted in a stroke that affected my whole right side, with the greatest damage occurring to my right hand.

As you can imagine, the years that followed have had a lot of ups and downs. You might be surprised to know that I never attended special education classes or a special school.  Instead, my brother and I both went to St. Jean the Baptiste School in Fall River. The teachers and the kids were great and even though I had a hard time academically, I have many wonderful memories of that time in my life.  

 Things started to get tough academically in second grade.  That’s when I started having trouble reading. School became more and more difficult for me.  I often felt stupid and was embarrassed when I was called on to read.   Looking back, I would have to say that there have been many difficult things in my life, but reading was one of the most difficult problems I’ve ever had to deal with.  The worse part about it was that it took so long to find out what was wrong and what to do about it.  You see, because a stroke at birth is so uncommon, no one realized the stroke had also affected my eyesight.  Once the school realized I was having problems with reading, they did give me a series of reading tests designed to break down individual reading skills.  They hoped the tests would pinpoint where the problem was, but all the tests came back normal. 

The first clue to what was really going on came when my mother read an article about adult stroke survivors.  One of their biggest complaints was that they weren’t able to read since their stroke.  After months of searching, we found a doctor in Boston who put me through a series of tests.  These tests showed that the stroke had affected my right eye too and that the damage meant there was an incredible strain to that eye whenever I tried to read.  The doctor explained that our eyes need to work individually in order to come together to form a complete picture when we read.  The stroke had severely damaged that ability and for the first time I finally understood why I often had headaches and felt physically exhausted throughout the school day.

For 18 months I attended vision therapy every week, while trying to keep up with ever more difficult school work.  It really was one of the most difficult times of my life.  Every Friday I was up and in the car by 6:00 a.m.   I usually slept until we got to Boston and the therapy was so draining that I would sleep most of the way back to school. After school my mom would pick me up and we’d head to Hasbro’s Children’s Hospital for physical and occupational therapy.  Much of the weekend would be spent finishing my normal homework and making up additional work that I had missed while at vision therapy. 

It was exhausting but at least I didn’t feel stupid anymore.  I understood that there was a real medical reason for why I couldn’t read.  It was a pretty tough time but the therapy did make a dramatic difference for me.  I can now say that I’m an average reader and it’s a lot less exhausting to read.

Right before graduating in sixth grade, a special reading evaluation showed that I was barely reading at a third grade level.  This was a turning point in my life. My parents had to decide what was more important – a normal school experience or the possibility that I would never really be able to read.  According to my mom, it was one of the toughest decisions they ever had to make for me.  Their decision was to try something really out of their comfort zone - home schooling for junior high.

Looking back, I think it was the right decision, but I certainly wasn’t too happy about it at the time.  My biggest fear was that I would lose my friends.  As it turned out I really didn’t have to worry about it.  I still hung out every weekend with my St. Jean friends and spent part of every school week with kids my age from a local home schooling group.  The best part was that I was learning more and the school work load was much easier to handle.  Most important of all was that by the end of just one year of home schooling, I was retested and I was reading at what was called “a proficient sixth grade level”.

When it came time for high school, it was my turn to make the decision.  Would it be back to a regular high school or continue with home schooling?  After doing some research, I came up with a completely different option – online high school.  I chose Keystone - a nationally certified online school and it was a great choice for me.  It turned out to be the perfect way for me to learn.  With an online school it didn’t matter if it took me longer to read assignments or to complete my online tests.  Plus, I could work as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted to.  Online high school was so successful that I ended up graduating with honors and became a member of the National Honor Society.

Do I ever wish I didn’t have a disability?  Of course I do.  It would be a lie to say anything different.  I think some of the biggest frustrations I have is how much longer it takes to do things that most people don’t even think about.   Another big frustration about having a physical disability is the way people can perceive you.  To walk into a room knowing every eye is on you (judging you before they even know you) is tough. 

The things that have made me the happiest are the many good friends I’ve had throughout my life.  My friends have been able to see past my disability and just see me – Ross.  I also like the fact that people at work and my friends come to me for advice.  Maybe it’s because they know I’ve had my struggles too.  Whatever the reason, it makes me feel good.   I guess that’s part of why I’m working towards my certification in human services.  I feel comfortable talking to people about their problems and I really want to work with kids that have experienced problems growing up too. 

Overall, I take pride in being a problem solver and not letting my disability get me down.  I definitely get frustrated but then I buckle down and figure out a way to accomplish whatever it is I need to do.  It may be in a different way, like driving a car with adaptive equipment, but I’m able to do what I want to do.  So, all in all it’s like the bumper sticker says… Life is good.

Success...I hope!

Here's my umpteenth try at sending my Personal Essay Draft.  I'm keeping fingers and toes crossed that it will work.

College Writing – ENG 101 – A3W

ESSAY 1 - PERSONAL ESSAY – 1^ST DRAFT

Ross M. Caron – 2/13/11

The day we are born is a special day for all of us.  My birth, unfortunately, had an extra significance because there were complications.  I was breech and although I was delivered by a planned C-section, my head had gone under my mother’s rib cage.  As the doctor struggled to get me out, I was without oxygen and it resulted in a stroke that affected my whole right side, with the greatest damage occurring to my right hand.

As you can imagine, the years that followed have had a lot of ups and downs. From the time I was six months old until I couldn’t stand it any more at the age of 15, I had hours of therapy three times a week at Hasbro’s Children’s Hospital in Providence.  On the positive side, I was naturally left handed and I had language skills on both sides of my brain.  This meant my language development wasn’t too badly affected.

Some of the not so good things included the fact that in a world that’s set up for you to do everything with your right hand, being able to use only your left hand is difficult.  Also, the stroke affected other areas that couldn’t be seen or expected.  The biggest problem came with academics.  No one understood that the stroke had affected my eyesight and because infants don’t normally suffer strokes, it took years to figure out why I was having trouble learning to read. 

I finally got help when my mother read an article about adult stroke survivors.  Many of them complained about how they couldn’t read anymore.  After much research, we found a doctor who offered vision treatment in Dedham.  He diagnosed that the damage to my right side also included my right eye.  He explained that our two eyes work together to form a complete picture when we read and my right eye was unable to do that.  I attended vision therapy every Friday morning before school for almost two years.  The therapy did make a dramatic difference for me; however, I had a lot of work to make up. Although I’m an average reader, it still takes me longer to get through reading assignments.   

I think the biggest frustration I have about my disability is how much longer it takes for me to reach regular, everyday goals.  For example, I passed my driving exam on the first try (maintaining a family record) but it required finding a driving school that had adaptive equipment.  The only driving school that offered this was in Boston.   I got a part time job at Wal-Mart to help pay for the driving classes.  At a cost of $80.00 a class, I was limited to only taking one class a week.  The other biggest frustration I have is the way people can perceive me.  I don’t like to tell people I’ve had a stroke because some people don’t understand and think I’m mentally handicapped as well. 

The things I’m happiest about are that I’ve had many good friends throughout my life.  My true friends seem to be able to see past my disability and just see me - Ross.   I take pride in being able to hold down a difficult job for almost ten years.  I consider myself a problem solver because I try not to let anything stop me.  It might mean that I have to do something in a different way than most people, but I figure out a way that I can do it and I get it done.   

Do I ever wish I didn’t have a disability?  Of course I do.  It would be a lie to say anything different.  To walk into a room and know every eye is on you – judging the way you look or walk or talk before they even know you, is tough.  But, I’m pretty sure I can continue to handle it because I’m tough too.