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Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Opinion Who we are The Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows TIMES newspaper is a division of LMP Publication Limited Partnership. We’re located at 22345 North Avenue, Maple Ridge, B.C. The TIMES has a CCAB audited circulation of 29,950.
Spencer Levan
slevan@mrtimes.com Publisher
Bob Groeneveld
bgroeneveld@mrtimes.com Editor
Roxanne Hooper
rhooper@mrtimes.com Assistant Editor
Livia Mior
lmior@mrtimes.com Sales Manager Editorial
Maria Rantanen Sylver McLaren Troy Landreville Advertising
Ralph De Adder Nick Hiam
Anne Gordon Sheryl Jones
Distribution Supervisor
Wendy Bradley Administration
Rebecca Nickerson
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Our View
Satisfaction best choice Every business is a team effort. Naturally, teamwork between employees and management is essential in any successful business – at least, that’s the case if the goal is to maintain business success over an extended period. But to be truly successful – to truly develop a business’s potential consistently, with a view to a long and prosperous future – the customers have to be a part of the team roster. And those customers need to feel welcome in the team lineup, to feel that they are valued contributors to the business’s success. The business that Scan this operates on the basis page with that its consumers are in the store, or at the salon, or calling the tradesman just to buy a product or a service – just to spend money – isn’t properly developing its potential for success. A truly successful business develops a relationship with its customers. A truly successful business knows that the key to future success lies in the too-often-forgotten concept of “customer satisfaction,” a tenuous commodity that isn’t just about having the right widget stocked on your shelves, or cutting hair to the right length, or eventually getting around to fixing a leaky pipe in the basement. Customer satisfaction goes beyond “doing the job right” and includes making your customer feel good about the job that’s been done – so good that he or she will regale friends and acquaintances with your business’s pleasant and efficient service. So good, in fact, that he or she will automatically think of your business when filling out a TIMES Readers’ Choice ballot. Congratulations to all the businesses that have proven their ability to satisfy. – B.G.
This Week’s Question Are you tired of the provincial political advertising yet? ■ Your View Last week’s question, results… Will you miss the Haney Zellers?
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No. Target will soon be here.
43.59 %
Yes. Staff was great.
23.08 %
Never shopped there.
12.82 %
Thought it was gone a year ago.
15.38 %
Prefer ma-and-pa shops.
5.13 %
VOTE ONLINE: www.mrtimes.com
Opinion
And the award for bullying… It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it, that way. Schoolgirls, especially, like Oscars happen so close to Pink to find fashionable reasons to Shirt Day? ostracize their classmates who After all, Pink Shirt Day (this are not deemed worthy of incluWednesday) is about raising sion in “the group.” The wrong awareness about the negative clothes, or the wrong hairdo, or effects of bullying, and maybe the wrong make-up (or no makeeven doing something about it. up at all, god forbid!) make the And the aftermath of the odd one out an easy target for a Academy Awards is just about bully onslaught. the biggest, universally sancThe guys, too, can sniff out a tioned bully-fest going. failed trip to the barber, or an by Bob Groeneveld Kids who stop to think about unfortunate choice of sneakers, it will immediately recognize although they’re more likely to the fashion-bullying that fills pick away at a brain too full of the entertainment “news” channels and yellow intelligence and not enough manly sporting aptijournalism tabloids, and overflows into suppostude. edly more legitimate news venues, including top And why not? television news stations, news magazines, and Why wouldn’t kids pick away at each others’ national and regional newspapers (and some scabs like too many chickens trapped in a tiny community newspapers will manufacture a way coop? to dip their toes into this foetid pond, too). Our entertainers have somehow become our I was flipping through the news channels early most influential and socially powerful class. Monday morning, still too early for all the Oscar And it sometimes seems that they and their winners to get to the hangover stage from their publicity machines veritably exist to bully each awards partying. other, with fashion-unconsciousness often the I caught the tail-end of one “news” item in weapon of choice for the females of the species, which Jennifer Aniston was being raked over the and a shallowly questionable choice of a mate coals for wearing a dress that “shouldn’t have often the wimpy male entertainer’s soft underbeen at the Oscars.” belly. And her hair was apparently not up to snuff, Meanwhile, we, the viewers and consumers of either. Not properly styled in the latest fashion. their entertaining antics, pile on, bullying them The comment went something along the lines all into anorexia and a variety of other debilitatof “yes, we like the ‘Rachel hair’ [an allusion to ing neuroses that too often result in fatal selfher role as Rachel in her previous life as one of medication with illicit drugs. the stars on the hit television sitcom Friends], And then we cry for them. but she could have done something with it.” Oh! how we shed those tears of grief for a life That snide delivery was followed up with a list lost too soon… before they could give us a few of derisively helpful suggestions. more wounds for our seemingly unlimited supply Other channels were filled with comments of salt! about the “losers” who were judged by the If you can’t wear something pink on Motion Picture Academy to be only the secondWednesday, then at least turn off the TV when to-fifth (or sixth) best achievers in their categorthey start gushing about someone’s “wonderfully clever” backwards necklace while condemning ies in the entire entertainment industry. someone else for a hairdo. Children just love to pick on each other this
Odd Thoughts