HIP-HOP

            When the beat hits, I can’t help but want to bob my head and start flowing along with the music. The aggressive, poetic, passionate, rhyming words put together against a heavy hitting bass beat makes me lower my hat and my eyes disappear into the shadows of my hat. I sink into my comfort zone and listen to the lyrics consume my body; I listen for the competition, I listen to the raplete attack the beat and flow like a river, I listen for the metaphor and word play, I listen for the triple entendre, I listen for the stories and sometimes, I listen just to hear some nonsense. For the most part, I like hip-hop. I’m drawn to the amazing sound of the DJ. The sound of hearing a DJ mix well with some good music is pure bliss. The flashy style of hip-hop and the art, oh how I can’t forget the art of hip-hop.

            There’s something amazing when I see graffiti, not gang tagging but real graffiti. The graffiti you see in Queens NY on the side of the trains, the graffiti I see in DTLA when I’m on my way to art walk, you know what I’m talking about. The bold, bright lettering, the abstract drawings that turn into something else, that turn into an actual painting, that graffiti is the art I’m talking about. Oh how I love being at an art bistro and hearing some real good hip-hop spinning while taking in the sights of artist. The atmosphere is a really intelligent/urban feel. I love it. I think a lot of people forget what hip-hop is. Most people think hip-hop is only the music they hear on the radio. Once you delve deeper into hip-hop, you find all kinds of interesting artist who tell stories, you find producers who make entertaining beats, you find all kinds of creativity and sometimes, one may find hip-hop in different cultures.

            I love seeing and hearing international hip-hop. It’s insight to culture and it breaks down’s race barriers. Who cares if you’re German, Japanese, Australian, Nigerian, Mexican, Samoan, Arabic, Indian, or Alien, Can you spit? Can you flow? What kind of story do you have to tell? Can you dance? Are you a DJ? What kind of art do you have? What do you bring to the table out of the five elements of hip-hop? I know Hip-Hop to most is this aggressive music, this angry music and it is; hip-hop was born in Da’ Bronx in the late 70’s.  However, hip-hop comes in many different forms. If anything, hip-hop is an uplifting music and if the mc and DJ are a perfect fit, it can get the crowd moving. If you’ve ever been to a club, you’ll notice the dance floor packed when the right song comes on. In today’s world, hip-hop is not as aggressive but it still has the elements and it exuberates this using bragging rights or boosting this arrogant attitude. If you take anything from this, remember this: Hip-Hop is friendly competition, its fun, it’s loving, it’s storytelling and it makes move you when the beat hits. On that note, I’m going to leave you with a nice song and video by a rapper name Ike Nice. He’s a local rapper from out of Los Angeles and rep’s the Hip-Hop culture well. He’s one of the few artist on the radio who could actually spit and this song is the tip of the ice berg. I present to you, “I get it in”. Enjoy.

Mean Customers/workers

                                   (All of these images were found on Google. Not my pictures)

Working in retail can be one of the hardest fields to work in; not because one has to be super intelligent to work the job, most of the things that are done in retail are everyday things. Adding and subtracting, using a computer or at least word, putting items back or keeping the store organized, using a microwave or using simple measurements, or even just pushing a basket or loading someone’s items up; mind you, all of this has to be done in a timely fashion, one can’t just do it when one feel's like it; well sometimes it comes down to that but for the most part, the work itself is not hard…what’s hard is everything around it.

            Sometimes one’s hours may not feel equal to one’s pay, some places are open on holidays and sometimes one may work so much, you never get time to see friends or family. When working in retail, one works eight hours shifts. Some people close at night, just to turn around and be at work early the next morning. I’ve had times when I get off at 10, just to be back at 6 in the morning. I know other people who were off at 12 and had to be back at 5 in the morning. The hours can really suck sometimes but someone has to do it. Then there’s the people on the opposite spectrum; the part-timers which is me as well. The one’s who hardly get any hours. I’m at a cool balance but I’ve heard of some people getting 12 hours a week and they don’t have a second job. 

            The pay is everyone’s biggest complaint. I’ve come to the conclusion not everyone can be a millionaire or well off, someone has to struggle or nobody has to struggle; could you imagine a life were everyone had one million dollars in their account? Some of us would still be struggling because of poor money management, but could we get paid more? I’m sure we could but this post is not about that. This post is about the hardest part of working retail and that’s customer service.

            Customer service can be hard sometime because people are people. The word service means the act of helping someone or doing work for someone. Usually that title comes with a lot of…..entitlement for customers. Usually when something is out of stock, or we don’t sell a certain item, or maybe you can’t find an item, my job is to aid you and help you, my job is to not magically pull the item from out my arse. As a customer, put yourself on the receiving end; when you ask us to do something that’s against our policy or act unethical, you’re causing a problem for me and others. The job of a CEO and his team is to oversee how the business is being run and what changes they can make to insure the company’s future, so we people at the bottom still have a job, and all the customers can continue to shop without any inconvenience. When one disrupts that and sends an angry letter or e-mail to a corporate office about a place having bad customer service, what you are doing is causing a threat. The person will not get fired because of your letter. They get thousands of letters from angry customers all the time. 

I’m pretty sure they don’t read all of them, but I’m sure they’ve read enough to know that customer service has become a problem. Have you been to stores and seen the self check out’s lately? I’m not saying those are due to customer service complaints but CEO’s have the mind frame of killing two birds with one stone; this means they want a speedier check out and the complaints to dwindle. They don’t want to fire anyone because they know for some people this is there means of living. As a customer, you have to look at that as a sign. These companies are what control our country to some extent. Do you realize that they could get rid of a department altogether by replacing cashiers with self check-outs? Think about how many people would be unemployed. I’m not saying they would do it in one shot because that would throw our economy even further out of whack, but the unemployment line and welfare offices would be PACKED. This means more taxes come out of your check, mean customers. Check yourself before you go to the register. The same goes for workers, check yourself before you clock in. 

As a worker in retail, one deals with hundreds of people a day. On an eight hour shift, one’s energy level depletes, get’s replenished, falls again, one goes through mood swings because maybe one is not getting the right amount of nutrition, maybe stress is the issue and all of one’s nutrition is going to fighting stress, maybe one just doesn’t want to be there and feels they have no way out, which is why network marketing is flourishing so well; so for those of you who hate MLM companies, you can thank your mean customers for that. The same thing applies for customers; customers are people and face these problems as well. When does it stop? Feel free to state your own opinion in the comments section below. I would like to hear your response as well. And feel free to Roam around “No Title” and check out the popular post section. Hope you enjoyed and have a nice day.