Archive for the ‘People&Society’ Category

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Attracting Clients

Friday, January 29th, 2010

I was surfing on the internet and just out of curiosity I have entered a site with real-estate businesses. There have been a few interesting offers, but they all had a general flaw, which I personally hate about the new flats that are being built in Cluj: almost none of the flats have underground parking. A few levels into the ground would really not hurt, if nothing else, it would add extra stability… but no… not in Cluj…
Home
As I was surfing among the offers I have stumbled upon one which said it had underground parking… wow… I was amazed, could this be possible? I checked the pictures and the floor-plan: quite good. It was a one-room apartment for €38.500 in a very good area (Zorilor) and the ad said that a garage comes with it also. I did a quick calculation and I realized that with the new house-loan program that the country has (“prima casa”), the monthly rates would be a bit more than the rent I am paying right now. I decided to take a look the next day.

The second day I called the real-estate agency. My first question was if the garage was really in the price of the apartment: this is where the first surprise hit me… the answer was NO, an extra €6.000 is charged for that. Well, I thought no problem, maybe I’ll pay the extra. I decided to arrange a meeting to see the apartment. When I got to the agency I had to sign a paper which said, that I would have to pay the agency an additional 2% of the flat price if a deal would be made… interesting… another €800 or so… On the road we picked up another agent who was supposed to show us around. In the car the two agents immediately started to talk about how well business went and how few apartments were left for sale… yeah right I thought (Nice move however from the agents 😉 ).

We got to the flats and had a look at the apartments: there have been various arrangements on different levels, but I was told, that there were only 5 flats left… (nice move again…). The apartments had a pretty decent quality, however they were not really impressing. The isolation was however really good: no heating and in the -10 degrees, which was outside, nothing could be felt in the apartments… The down side was, that the apartment which had the price tag from the ad was actually quite small, on the top floor and nothing like the one described in the ad. The apartment described in the ad was actually €42.000…

I asked the agent to have a look at the garage also: nice, but dusty and seemed like a construction site (although it was ready for more than a year). The really big problem which appeared however, was the fact that I could only pay for the garage with cash down:€6.500 for one spot in the underground parking area, or maybe if I have cash at the spot when paying, I could get it for less:€5.500…
OK, I said… I’ll call you tomorrow with my decision…

I was really determined to go on with the arrangement, but all day long something was bugging me and made me uncomfortable… something was not right. I stepped back and analyzed again the problem: now it did not seam like it was a good idea anymore: the full price got up to €49.300 and I had to pay around €8.000 as an advance… I said NO: this would eat up all my salary and practically I could not save up anything for 30 years… not nice…

In general it is quite easy to get into the fever of buying something and agents are on a hunt for that. They almost had me, too. I think when buying something this big, it is wise to step back and re-analyze everything with a clear mind: just imagine that you do not want to buy it and you hate the flat, no matter how good it is. It might seem that it is a once in a lifetime opportunity, but it isn’t: there will always be good opportunities and flats will only get better and better in time. Who knows, maybe one day there will be also in Cluj flats with proper underground parking…

—==[#3]==—

Posted in Cluj, People&Society, Romania | Comments Off on Attracting Clients

Gambling?

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

In the past year I have never written about something that I do almost daily: I gamble… or at least, that is what many of my relatives and friends say. The general idea is the same: I supposedly put money into something I cannot control, and pray to God that I win. Most of these people of course haven’t got a clue of what I am on about. Those people generally just get terrified by hearing the word: stocks.
Gambling
Our country has a very short history in trading. During the time of the communism this way of making money was nonexistent of course. After Romania has met capitalism, however, things have changed: those who had the spirit and moreover the mind, opened up a whole new chapter in some of the citizens life.

Over time more and more people started to join this “mysterious club”, soon people of all ages gave in their money in the big pool and tried their luck. Before the crisis this was an almost 100% guaranteed winning-game. Almost everyone had a 50-100% growth of their investment yearly. In 2007, a new phenomenon appeared on the Romanian stock market: the stocks started to lose value. By the year 2008 the game turned into a 100% losing-game. Most players simply got fed up and got out.

Last year hope reappeared: the stock-exchange grew and people started to win again. However this time, it seemed to resemble more to a simple party of Blackjack: people knew, that they could win or also lose.

So what can be done? Is this like Blackjack then? Honestly: YES, it is like Blackjack… and like in Blackjack, also here, people can count cards, only here, it is not illegal. Actually counting cards when playing with stocks, should be a required skill: read the news, draw the correct conclusions. Simple, isn’t it? So then, what should be read? There are thousands of news written (or not) circulating daily. Even the smallest detail, like what kind of credits banks are giving has to be taken into account… (as most of us now know…). It is a challenge to keep up with them, not to mention draw the correct conclusions. But then again counting cards in Blackjack isn’t an easy task either…

To everyone who is out there and wants to join the game then: yes it can be done, yes it is controllable and yes you have to be very very prepared. One thing to note: the tendency is when someone is winning in the stock exchange, someone will lose… try to stay more on the winning side than on the losing 🙂 …

—==[#2]==—

Posted in Finance, People&Society | Comments Off on Gambling?

A purple shirt

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

Just to get things up-to-date: I have moved back to Romania and I had a lot of things to do. The last three months have been very busy for me, that’s why I was unable to update my blog regularly. Our project at work just got… well, more interesting and demanding and the little spare time I had, I have spent it with occasional trips here and there, so I have a lot of interesting things to write about, that is not an issue. 🙂 . About those trips: I’ll describe them in future posts… right now I have something interesting to share:

I went today for a drive in the city, and stopped at one of the local malls to do some shopping. I needed a pair of new jeans, so I went to look for one. I went in a lot of shops trying to search for the best items to buy. Everywhere the shop-keepers just said hi (in some places not even that) and let me look at the stuff myself. To tell the truth I wasn’t even in a chit-chatting mood, so I was trying to avoid them with a brief “No thanks, just looking”. The keepers pulled back politely, I guess trying to avoid “hurting the client’s feeling” 🙂 … and after a few minutes I walked out of the store without buying anything…

There was one shop (I will not write the name, my blog is not an advertising panel 😛 ), where I actually found the “jeans of my dream”, the keepers seemed a bit more cunning… after the usual “May I help you?” she informed me about a promotion they had:
buying above 250 RONs would bring a price reduction of 100 RONs. With the jeans I have selected, I was short with 60 RONS from that. basically I could get something for another 100 RONs, and I would have payed the same price as for the jeans alone. I got a little confused… there was nothing really I wanted to buy from there apart from the jeans… I went back to look around, and found a shirt which looked good, but it was white and I already had two which were similar. There was a dark blue shirt also, but that seemed too dark… I was looking at both of them silently for a brief moment of time, when suddenly the shop keeper popped up again next to me: “We have also a purple one”. Well to really understand this, it is better to note here, that I hate purple shirts… I don’t know why, but it seems too fancy for me. You can imagine the look on my face when the shop-keeper showed me the purple shirt… “Well, yes…. nice… but…” “Just try it on” she replied kindly… well, I went to the fitting room to try it on: it was ok, it was not too dark… and I certainly did not have anything like that among my shirts… and now… it hangs in front of me on the side of the wardrobe 😀 . It was actually obvious that what I was really searching for was a purple shirt: just between white and the dark blue, the golden middle path… I was just too stubborn to see it for myself…

I am not sure if the shop-keeper really understood my confusion and provided me purposely the right solution, but if she did, then she did an excellent job. This certainly is a rare thing to stumble upon. She managed to sell me one more thing and I still think I was not fooled, although I payed a little extra… Generally this way of providing help/solutions should be really easy: just pay attention to what people really need, see where the real problem lies and provide a useful solution. The problem is, people generally do not care of what others want, they just provide ONE solution, not THE solution, which would actually be needed. Paying attention to a customer should be a key thing in selling products. However shopkeepers are people too and unfortunately most of them cannot overcome the primordial instinct to keep their point of view in mind, although maybe a little more attention would be much more beneficial both for the sales and the customer… (maybe I would have bought my first purple shirt a long time ago, too 🙂 )

Posted in Cluj, People&Society | 3 Comments »

Horrid houses

Monday, June 1st, 2009

The economical crisis is upon us. We all felt it and feel it continuously. In Romania, Cluj-Napoca to be more exact, people find more and more interesting things to do in this situation. There is a local newspaper, Clujeanul.ro which tells all sorts of stories from really stupid ones to some (a few) interesting ones. Sometimes I really do not know why I bother reading it… I guess because of those very few cases when it tells important news also, I just give it a glimpse now and then.

The other day I have discovered, that there is a new article-series going on, written by a local reporter (I guess he is a reporter… I am not sure). The series is called “insectarul arhitecturii clujene” (roughly translated the “bug-tracker of the architecture of Cluj-Napoca“). Since the articles are in Romanian, a brief description is I think required for anyone who does not understand the language (not sure if there are any):
The guy goes around in the city and takes photographs of houses he doesn’t like and writes long articles describing their “disturbing architecture”. He calls these buildings the terror of Cluj and keeps on yanking around why they have a bad design and all…

Click here to see the pictures of the houses he criticizes. Some have too many pillars, some too many spikes in their fences and some are just utterly ugly…

Now I may have a very bad taste in design, but I personally do not find these houses that disturbing. Surely they are not the best ones I have seen, but I do not feel that they are so bad… 😕 … I sometimes visit freshome.com to see interesting design ideas… well now, those are REALLY out of the ordinary and funky… and what do you know: people do not complain about it. Civilized people seem to recognize the art in something different, something out of the ordinary… Just to make things clear some of the editors of freshome are also Romanian so thankfully there is hope for us 🙂 .

I think this is the most important problem of some citizens in our country: they simply can not accept that not everything is the way YOU like it. I feel that these people tend to hold back any type of development in a country: after all, development means changing and change means difference. Maybe I am wrong and the guy is right… but then PLEASE: tell us how a house should look like? What are we ALLOWED and what are we not to do with our houses? I personally have not found anything about this issue and to tell the truth, I do not think that the guy really knows…

To the owners of those “horrid” houses: yes, the houses are not masterpieces, but be proud, YOU have achieved something (I do not care how), the reporter never did (and judging by his attitude he never will).

So: my question in the end is are the houses really that horrid? (Please respond, I am really curious 🙂 ).

Posted in People&Society, Romania | Comments Off on Horrid houses

Napoli trip

Monday, May 4th, 2009

Because our company was closed for the working days between April the 30th and May the 4th, we have decided to make a long-weekend trip to visit the southern part of Italy, namely Napoli (Naples). Napoli is located in the volcanic region of Mt. Vesuvius, so there are lots of things to see there and also it has a very old history (2800 years).
Napoli Picture
Already before departure we have encountered our first problem: there were no more seats available on any train on our planned departure date. We had to buy standing tickets (for the same price as the ones with reservation 😕 ) which was very bad news, because the train ride took around 7-8 hours from Genova to Napoli. We tried to have fun, but still, time passed away very slowly until we arrived to Rome, where suddenly a lot of seats freed up, so we could sit down at last and enjoy our remaining 1.5 hours of the journey the Napoli.

We have arrived to Napoli at around 11 P.M., so it was already dark. Our first impression? Well, honestly it was not a very good one: the city’s streets are either under construction/repair or very-very dirty. Napoli seemed like a city of endless graffitis ruining most of the splendor of its monuments. Our first contact with the local people, however, was nicer: a girl from a car shouted ‘Bienvenuti a Napoli!’ (Welcome to Napoli) at us 🙂 . So far things were looking acceptable: we have easily found our hostel (a very nice hostel: Hotel/Hostel ‘Bella Capri’) which was just across the street from the Neapolitan port. We checked in and had a well deserved good night sleep.

The second day of our trip to Napoli & surroundings was dedicated to the city itself. The city has a lot of attractions, but as I mentioned earlier, everything (really everything) is full of graffitis. We tried to look past those tasteless pieces of art and enjoy all the landmarks of the city from Castello Nuovo (just next to the hostel) then Piazza Plebescito, the Palazzo Reale, Castello dell’Ovo and the Villa Comunale (a seaside park). There was a lot going around in the city on that 1st of May, when we were there. Every street was full of police officers, luxurious official cars going back and forth in the city: the president was in town. This was actually bad news for us in a way, because we could not enter Palazzo Reale for this reason 🙁 . But no matter, the sun finally came out so the city was flowing in a very nice shining, which gives it its real ‘mediterranean sea-port’ look. The park filled up with people. The children were playing around. It seemed like everyone was on a holiday enjoying the sunshine.

After our initial in-depth view of the city we ended up in a local bar (at the end of the park) to have some refreshments. The waiters, the owner and generally everyone was very friendly, constantly asking us: “Tutto a posto?”, “Tutto bene?”. Some pedestrian walking by asked us curiously where we were from? I guess not many tourists like to visit that part of the city as it seems to be a little dangerous 🙂 . Nevertheless I think it was a nice experience and deserves a stop when visiting the city.

After our fast refreshment we started climbing up the hill to get to Castel Sant’Elmo. We were lucky to find the entrance to a ‘funicolare‘ (a train climbing up the hill) which quickly took us up the hill. (€1.10 for a 90 minute ticket). The most amazing view of the city is definitely from Castel Sant’Elmo (and we only paid €1.00, a special May the 1st fee). One can overlook the entire city with Mt. Vesuvius in the background; it is definitely worth the effort climbing up.

From the top of Napoli we went down with the funicolare to the bottom of the hill and from there we took the subway to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (National Museum of Archeology). It has a lot of things on display mostly found in the ruins of Pompeii (also €1.00 entry fee). It was nice, because we were allowed to take pictures inside (without flash). After the museum visit we walked down to Piazza Dante and then to Piazza Gesù Nuovo. Here we ate a tasty original Neapolitan pizza. I must say the pizza in Napoli is really much better than any other pizza that I have eaten. They are delicious.

The second day of our trip was about a planned trip to Pompeii/Mt. Vesuvius (which I am going to treat in another post). After arriving back to Napoli from the trip, we decided to go out in the city and try to enjoy some of the nightlife. We started by a visit to Greenwich pub (just to take a brake on the pizzas and all the Italian stuff we have been treated with lately). After a few beers we went out on the streets. I have to say I have never seen such a crowded nightlife in any city before. The Piazza Gesù Nuovo was filled with young people talking and just having fun. Everything was on the move, something like India: people crossing the streets everywhere, cars slaloming between them. It was a very chaotic world which is hard to understand. We have spent almost half an hour just by watching (and laughing 😛 ) as cars went up&down the streets in a total chaos in every direction, and we were amazed, that nothing, really nothing dangerous has happened. Truly amazing 🙂 .

All in all it was a pleasant experience. I am not saying that it is better than the northern part. It might have more soul and be more fun, but to actually stay there for more than a week could be too much for me. Now I really understand the difference between the northern and southern part of Italy (and Napoli is not even the ‘real’ south). The gap between the two parts is really huge: the calm and organized northern part seems to be only a distant cousin of the partying/chaotic south.

I have uploaded some images on my Picasa account.

Posted in Italy, People&Society, Travel | Comments Off on Napoli trip

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