Take a Good Look: You Wont be Seeing this Much Longer
Shops are finding the old-fashioned cash register expendable as the bulk of purchases are made with credit and debit cards, making having cash-on-hand obsolete.
Instead stores are beginning to have their salespeople armed with smartphones or tablet computers to register sales, and in some cases even the customers themselves will be able to load their purchase into their own mobile device.
The luxury retailer Barneys New York is planning on making the changeover this coming year, using iPads or iPod Touch devices to record purchases in seven of their almost two dozen non-outlet stores. Urban Outfitters, a clothing store chain for teen buyers, ordered its last cash register last fall. They plan to go completely mobile one day soon. Wal-Mart, which is the largest retail chain in the world, is now testing a “Scan & Go” application that allows customers to scan their purchases as they shop.
“The traditional cash register is heading toward obsolescence,” said Danielle Vitale, chief operating officer of Barneys New York.
There is a certain attitude successful business men and women seem to have: it is not easy to discourage them. Where many people would see trouble, or would become discouraged by certain challenges, they instead gear themselves up to solve the problem or overcome the obstacle. Here is a list of ten things successful people are not fazed by.
1. Successful people seem to not be afraid to fail. It seems that when people are afraid of failure they have a hard time taking risks or getting hard things done.
2. They are not daunted by the prospect of getting up before dawn. Laziness is not a part of the successful person’s psyche.
3. Hard work is not a problem for these people. As a matter of fact, most of these successful people don’t even think of hard work as a work at all.
4. Successful people do not mind taking responsibility for things, and are also willing to take the rewards that one gains from taking responsibility.
5. Although successful people keep risk to a minimum, some risk is acceptable and even welcome. Usually the higher the risk, the more there is to be gained.
6. Conflict is not a dirty word to successful people. They actually see conflict as “the currency of leadership.” Caveat: they need to be able to handle conflict well or else others will not follow.
7. Just because it can’t be seen with the naked eye does not mean it is not there. Successful business people have vision, and are ready to pursue it.
8. They are not discouraged by either rolling up their sleeves or even getting their hands dirty.
9. Successful business people are ready to admit something is their own fault. Too much pride will make it hard to work with other people, a necessity to getting what you want.
10. The unknown does not discourage, dissuade or daunt the successful businessman or woman.
This year’s flu season has started early and has many people worried about the spread of disease, since about one third of all workers do not get paid sick leave making them often forced to decide between coming to work ill or staying home and getting poorer.
Low-paid workers will often come to work sick and contagious rather than stay home and loose a day’s pay. Supporters of legislation to create mandatory paid sick-leave say that this year’s flu season has made people more aware of why it is worth fighting for sick leave. Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, an organization that supports paid sick-leave legislation around the world said:
“There’s people who say, ‘OK, I get it — you don’t want your server coughing on your food,'” she said.
Business owners, especially of small businesses, disagree on the issue. They say it is an unfair and an impractically heavy burden for them. Critics of the legislation say the timing is bad, coming so soon after Superstorm Sandy, leaving many businesses vulnerable and in “survival mode.”
“We’re at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives,” said Michael Sinensky, owner of seven bars and restaruants around New York. About 500 of his employees switch shifts if they can’t work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn’t include tips.
“Right now, where companies’ incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
At the moment there are only four places in the US with a mandatory paid sick-leave law on the books; San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC and all of Connecticut. Now it may be New York’s turn to pass such a law. Councilwoman Gail Brewer’s law would require as much as five days of paid sick leave each year for businesses without at least five employees.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a probable mayoral candidate, generally supports the legislation, but she is not convinced that it is the smart thing to do now to create such legislation. Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg agree that the time now might not be ripe for such legislation which would be a challenge to New York’s recovering economy.
It’s always interesting from a business vantage point to follow major changes that business leaders make. Jamie Geller, for instance, celebrity chef and founder of the Kosher Media Network and the “Joy of Kosher” cooking series, recently changed her entire life. She and her family, with the help of Nefesh B’Nefesh, made Aliyah this summer and moved to Ramat Bet Shemesh, Israel.
She has released a documentary series which looks a bit like a reality TV style show entitled “Joy of Aliyah” which shows their transition. The series, assisted by Nefesh B’Nefesh, The Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and the Jewish Agency for Israel, promotes Geller professionally as it shows an interesting glimpse into the changes a family goes through when making a monumental decision of this sort.
Prior to becoming a famous cookbook author, Geller actually wrote and produced television shows. She was a writer and producer for CNN, Entertainment News, the Food Network and HBO. She worked on the groundbreaking original series The Sopranos and also worked on The Wire, Entourage and more. In 2007, Geller published Quick and Kosher Recipes from the Bride Who Knew Nothing. In 2010, she published Quick & Kosher: Meals in Minutes and in 2013 she is set to publish a third cookbook.
She has also co-founded the Kosher Media Network and launched the Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller, a magazine and companion website at JoyofKosher.com.
It is not uncommon for politicians to have a degree from Harvard Law School. For instance, President Obama has one. Some other public servants, like former President George W. Bush, graduated from Harvard Business School and earned an MBA. But it is not often that we see anyone with both degrees. Mitt Romney, the Republican contender for president, does indeed have both, and got both degrees simultaneously by attending a special program at Harvard which combines what should be a five year stretch of studying into only four years.
Harvard’s JD-MBA program began in 1969 and since then they have graduated about 12 people each year, with about 500 total graduates until now. There are a few other similar programs around the country, but so far the list of alumni from Harvard’s dual program reads like a who’s who of immensely successful professionals.
In addition to Romney, who attended Harvard from 1971 until 1975, are such notable graduates as C. James Koch, founder of the Boston Beer Company; and Theodore V. Wells Jr., one of the nation’s top trial lawyers; and Bruce Wasserstein, who ran the investment bank Lazard until he died in 2009.
The vast majority of graduates head towards the world of business and finance, rather than law, mostly for the financial rewards and easier working conditions. It is expected that as long as politics remains a relatively modestly paying venture with unreliable job security, most Harvard dual-program graduates will stay away from public service. That is one of the reasons Romney is attracting such attention; he is a truly rare breed.
As one alumnus of the program expressed it, “Who knows? Maybe we’ll be holding our next reunion at the White House.”
