free marketing

How many times you have experienced the annoyance from the price tags ? they are lesser menace, when compared to other devilish things. With some difficulty, you can cut them off. what about stickers ? Anything and everything you buy from almost any of the stores has a price label stuck to it in the prominant place. That too in a heavy duty gum, you cant neatly pull that out. If you try to pull it out, it tears into layers and leaves a gum mark.

What is the purpose of a price label ? the salesmen and the buyers need to refer it for the price. thats all ! so the stickers should be in place for say 2 months, by that time it will be sold out. then why do they have to put such strong adhesives to it ? Do they expect that it will serve any marketing purpose ?

Sometime back, i needed a small mirror. The local store had a few mirrors, But they had this stickers exactly where you are supposed to see your face ! Defeating the whole purpose of the mirror. i could see my right eye but not the left eye. the sticker covered it. why dont they, for heaven's sake, put that behind the mirror ? or atleast use a gum which leaves no marks ?

I know what those guys would be thinking.

If i put that in on that plane, every day the customer will see it and remember what a nice guy I am to make such a nice mirror for him. he paid for it, true, but that does not reduce my niceness. And when ever he hears someone talking about mirrors he will suddenly remember my brand name and refer my product to them. word of mouth publicity ! so if 1 person will tell that to 3 people, they will in turn say to 9 people.... hmmm.. we will need to make more mirrors to meet the demand !

agreed, they can put there brand name on their product.but where ? what size ? Have you seen Ashok Leyland buses, they have it written in big bold font in the front. Why dont they put their name in small font some where at the back ? Are the customers bound to give them free publicity ?
If you take your car to a service station, they will, even with out asking for permission, put their sticker on to it. Even If i leave special instructions, "no stickers on my car", it will have a big sticker in the prime center, when it comes back. I promptly clear it with a blade.

Like wise in computers, some people think we turn on the computer just because we love to use their products. for eg M$. have you seen that dirty messy toolbar which comes on the top of ur desktop ? with links to office apps ? Which will take all troubles to stay in place even if you are playing a game in full screen mode ?

if you try to close it, they will conveniently provide you with a small confirmation message. If you answered that correcly at the first trial, may be you should take a test for Super Brilliance !

Even yahoo messenger. If you sign out, they suddenly will prompt you with a sign in dialog box !
Do they think the user accidentally signed out ? you signed out ? and you Dont want to sign in again ? you should be kidding ! how long can a person survive without logging into our messenger ?

its high time the applications gave some respect to the users. and the manufacturers to their customers.

photography

Yesterday I was handling a photography workshop in my office for the photography enthusiasts. Only when people started asking me doubts i knew that i really *knew* something about it.

i somehow had this impression that everyone knew about photography. I thought it was kind of a knowledge that u get from your surroundings, like the things that you learn as a kid- somthing like you should respect your elders, you should wash ur hands before and after you eat ( i have found an alternative to this when i grew older, Now, I wash my hands two times after food so as to avoid the before- eat wash:-) )
From my 5th std, i have been playing around with cameras, film rolls, development, darkroom, bromide papers, enlargers, photo finishing etc. Its customary in our family for any kid to spend their summer vacations in my grand fathers studio.
When we ( me, my cousins and gang) attended a wedding function sometime back, there was this photographer who was showing off too much. He was trying to take a group photograph of ours in an open place. You can imagine his shock when my 11 year old cousin suggested that he should try a different angle or use a flash since the back light is too bright!

I discovered that when I am caught in a traffic Jam I can park the bike in the road, cross the road and buy a pack of cigerettes and come back before the lights change, with out creating a block to other guys. it requires some time sense to do that, but there is enough and more time.

This traffic is getting too much on my head i guess. I have started making PeeeeeeeeeeeeeeePPPeeeeeee or KiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiKKKKiiiiiiiiiiii noises if the person ahead of me in the lunch queue at office does not move. Man, you should have seen that lady's face when I did that !

A rather not very exciting trip to Kerala

Basic info

There are hundreds of private luxury buses plying between Bangalore and many cities in Kerala. The buses start between 5 pm and 11 pm and reach the destination in around 8-12 hrs depending on the city you are traveling to.

They have different types of buses, Volvo, semi- sleeper, sleeper, a/c, etc

They are a good choice for last minute travel decisions as tickets are not that hard to get. Though in the weekends you will need to run around a bit.

The whole story

Your troubles start right from the point of boarding. Normally it will be the travel’s office, on Hosur road in madivala, or in kalasipalya which is a filthy market place.

Your ticket says reporting time as 8.15 pm and departure time as 8.30 pm in a barely readable handwriting. You reach the place on dot. (which I never do, you will know why soon..)

The office is a place where you find 50-60 people waiting with tired and bored faces. They are all around, inside the single room office. Outside on the pavement, with luggage. You make way through the crowd and see a bunch of people behind the counter each of them with multiple phones in their hands. You wait patiently till they finish the conversation on the phone, which never happens. They just switch between the phones. Time is running out.. its 8.17. you haven’t reported yet. The counter people are not at all in a hurry. Finally after some frantic attempts, you get one’ s attention. He looks at the ticket and tells you to wait.
“The bus will come.”

You, being a good citizen, wait. You become one among the bored tired faces in the crowd. At around 8.30, Suddenly there is a rush to the door and people are moving outside with their luggage including kids. By natural instincts you know the bus has come. You too join the rush. After boarding the bus, luckier of the lot even before, know that this is not the bus which you are supposed to board. The door assistant will tell you that “This is the 7.30 bus, your bus will come.”

My bus will come, you hope when u continue your wait. Finally after multiple trials you successfully board “the bus”. You find your seat, settle down. The time is 8.50. “20 minutes delay is not big deal, after all I live in India !” you think to yourself.

…to be continued.