With Christmas coming in 6 days the retail business is booming. Unfortunately the employees at these retail stores for the most part do not make much and work strenuous schedules.
I’ve been working in retail for a little over 2 years at Burlington Coat Factory. This is not a very long time compared to most. But for me anyways it has been 2 years to long. Basically what my job is at Burlington is assisting customers in the baby section. The main part of my job is selling baby furniture(cribs, dressers, changing tables) and things like strollers, car seats etc. I actually like doing this. A lot of times I will get couples who are having their 1st child and it is great to help them out and inform them on certain things.
So if I like selling baby stuff why do I want to get out of retail? Well the first thing that irritates me is the scheduling. You are working weekends, nights and on holidays. I can not imagine how people with children do this. During the christmas season you are getting out sometimes at midnight and then scheduled to work the next morning at 8am. If you follow my tweets you will see that I stink at waking up early.
The other thing that really irritates me is messy customers. People will come into the store and just trash it. You spend your entire shift just picking junk off the floor. So I’m no longer selling stuff to people. My main purpose is just picking up isle after isle of clothes. Retail is not for me and I need a change quick.
The guys over at The Richter Scales have put out a gem of a music video. It is sung to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. From the 1st couple seconds I knew I was going to enjoy this video just from the music. The lyrics are also pure genius. They even have a little Justin.tv thrown in to the video. Take a look! It is sure to become a classic. Also yes I am blogging about this music video.
The AWS Startup Challenge is almost over and 7 startups are left. AWS is letting the people vote on which startup should win. The votes and results of this poll will be used by the judges when they decide who will be crowned the king of AWS startups. Justin.tv is currently in the lead of the poll which is no surprise. Even though I would love for JTV to win I personally think that having a poll influence the judges decision is a bad idea. Justin and crew have an unfair advantage because of the social aspects of the site. One of the startups that I’m interested in learning more about is Brainscape. It is just amazing what can be done with technology.
Brainscape, a product of the Neuroinformatics Research Group, is an engine for measuring the networks in the brain. Researchers are using Brainscape to discover new brain networks and measure the effects of new drugs in clinical trials. Soon, doctors will be using Brainscape to diagnose disease and aid in treatment. The team at the Neuroinformatics Research Group is building their tools entirely on Amazon Web Services to meet their computing and storage needs.
So what does the winner of this challenge get? Well the grand prize winner will receive $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS credits, and an investment offer from Amazon. Looks like Justin will soon have more drinking money. I’m not sure on what the prizes are for 2nd and 3rd though but you can bet it will most likely be some AWS credits. The poll currently has Justin.tv in the lead with 39% of the vote and a tie for 2nd place with both Ooyala and Milemeter having 20% of the vote. Each company also has a little video showcasing what their startup is about and how they are using AWS. You still have time to vote. Voting ends on December 6th. So if you haven’t voted please do at http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/amazon_startupchallenge.jsp?
