Thursday, November 29, 2012

They sold the shopping mall entrance - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The late mall entrance, recently replaced by a shop
In Bukit Bintand, right in the heart of the city, there is a shopping mall. Like any other shopping mall this one also used to have its entrance, with large automatic glass doors, fancy lights and stylish floor. Those who run the mall decided to sell it. Yeah, they sold the entrance. The mall is still open, as usual, but the entrance was replaced by a clothing shop, that you have to walk through in case you wanna go in or out of the mall. With its smaller doors, aisles and the typical shop-feeling to be an intruder.
Let's try for a moment to go back in time and imagine the following scene. The steering committee of the company that owns the mall is having a meeting. An important client is willing to open a new outlet and wants a lot. 
"We've got nothing to offer him."
"What do you mean we got nothing? The upper floor is half empty!"
"You don't give this kind of clients the upper floor. They want the first one, possibly close to the entrance..."
"Moreover we don't have any rental contract expiring before the year 2020."
The room is suddenly wrapped in silence. Nobody has even the slightest idea of something to say. A young assistant, a recently hired graduate, rather bored leans over the map of the structure and points a finger at it. Then, almost to himself, he mutters:
"There is a vacant space right here.."
The boss quickly looks at him, starts to laugh in an arrogant way and dismisses him with a scornful remark:
Idiot! That is the entrance! HA HA HA"
The boss is laughing therefore everybody laughs along. "HA HA HA". Honestly you can blame them: that really sounded like a lousy comment. 
After a while though the boss starts to frown, scratches his chin and wears a pensive look. His closest partners realize that change and quickly put on a serious and deferential expression, trying to conceal their puzzlement the best they can. The others, being equipped with less experience and promptness, keep laughing, but not for long. One by one everyone falls silent. It's a very different silence from the one of few minutes earlier. 
"To be honest this is a great account, an excellent deal. Besides that all the customers getting in and out of the mall would have to walk past his clothes, it's a fantastic marketing move, we could ask him to pay anything we want!"
The one who just spoke is the boss. Now everybody is nodding: they suddenly seem to understand, god knows what. Replacing the entrance with a shop is an idea that doesn't make anybody laugh anymore. It has actually been promoted on the spot to the rank of stroke of genius, although unintentional.
The young guy will become the boss' right hand man, his salary will grow five-fold. Starting from the following meeting all the other suckers will propose the weirdest ideas hoping to be as lucky as their colleague was. Obviously the company will soon go bankrupt, due to overwhelming stupidity. Steve Jobs will be proved wrong, regarding the "stay foolish" part of his speech at least. As for the "stay hungry" one though, he was spot on. Hunger is exactly what those bunglers will experience after losing their jobs. One also has to feel sorry about that but, what the fuck, they sold the entrance...the entrance! Not to mention the exit. 

No comments: