Thursday 26 November 2015

Numbers

I've been thinking about a few things lately. I know, I know - thinking is a somewhat dangerous job I take on, but don't worry, I try not to do it too often!

There's a few things I've been wondering about, one of them - clothing sizes. It may be a slightly weird topic to talk about, but I really want to question this: why is every item of the same piece of clothing, in a range of sizes, the same price?
Take this for instance, Dad, Nick and I all wear overalls on a daily basis, they're all pretty much the same - overalls are overalls, the only difference is that I prefer to have half length sleeves and the guys don't. The sizes are a little, odd I guess you could say. Mine are like a size 5 in comparison to Dad being around a 10 and Nick somewhere in between us. We all pay the same price.
It's the same with gumboot sizes, three out of the four of us wear the same gumboot brand, all different sizes - again, mine are quite a bit smaller, but alas we all pay the $70 odd for a pair. I dunno, it just really, confuses me? (Don't get too concerned, I admit to being easily confused) but quite seriously, surely this is just slightly odd?

In this scenario, I'm kinda getting a bit ripped off money wise, getting the physically smaller product yet I'm paying the same price as everyone else and it seems they've got the better end of the deal. I'm somewhat wondering whether I pay the higher price, which therefore covers the cost of making the bigger product of other sizes?
Sure, it doesn't happen all the time - more often than not I'm pulling the slightly bigger item off the rack and thus getting that cheaper deal than what someone the size of a pixie would be paying (absolutely no offense intended to smaller framed people). I'm not saying that the bigger you are the more you should be paying, more so that it should be perhaps a little more relative? And yes, typically clothing and footwear and all that is within a certain criteria of sizes - you wouldn't see a size 5 on the same rack, for the same price as say, a size 20. It's all sectioned out to make it appear a certain way. You wouldn't usually find a t-shirt design that was outside of that S to L range, but still. Do you get what I'm getting at?

Definitely not really wanting to walk myself into a discussion on size differences and all that, but the whole concept of my original argument has been playing around in my mind as of late....


Next on the topic of numbers, is it just me, or is it common for others to constantly see the same number? I'm talking dates, times, actual figures, anything to do with numbers. For me, I always see the same time - 9:11.
I have absolutely no clue on this one, other than the fact it's been happening for at least a year. It's a typical situation, if I'm going to look at the time around about the 9am mark, more often than not it'll say 9:11, even if it's only just changed or it's about to change over again. If I see it in the morning, I'll see it at night too. I never see it once in a day, it's twice or nothing.
I find it a little bit strange, in the beginning I was thinking - is this some sort of sign?! What's going on? But now it's just normal, I sorta get used to it. The thing was that my car clock used to be the wrong time, always an hour ahead because I didn't know how to change it, so even though it was really 8:11, I would see 9:11. Then an hour later at home I'd see the real "9:11" time, and then see it later that night at random.
So yeah, it's a slightly odd situation - I'm not completely sure what to think of it. But you know, these days I see it, smile in my head and I'll know I'll see it later that night too



Finally, I went along again to youth group last night. They've started watching these videos by an American guy, Chad Daniels. I think it's called "Into the Deep", he talks a lot about all the important stuff and I found it quite interesting.
Anyway, last night he was talking on counterfeit and the use of our tongues (how our tongues are like the rudder on a ship, they'll either steer us north or south depending how we use them - quite a good analogy).
With regards the counterfeit subject, he spoke on quite a bit of how to tell if something is real or a fake and how to work out what exactly it is by the clues you can get from it. Jo, one of our youth leaders then moved on to speak of how, in China as a tourist you go into the country with Chinese currency, but if you walked down the streets in the markets it's easy to be deceived into swapping your currency for another type of Chinese currency. However, tourists don't realise that the currency they've now got can only be used in certain stalls - so they're getting pretty jolly ripped off there and it's hard to swap it back.
But she brought it back to the original concept of as a person, being one and only one currency. Don't be anything but yourself because otherwise you may not be able to go places and do things if you keep topping and changing between currencies - when you really consider it, it's quite an interesting way to think about life, isn't it?

9 comments:

  1. Hmmm, never noticed that about clothe sizes tbh, althopugh I've never paid attention to that either. I'm going to start now though, darn you. Every shop I go through, looking through the racks at every item, just to see... :P I guess if you see it from the perspective of they just want your money, they probably don't care, they'd excuse it as not a huge difference in material and the time taken makes up for that, but yeah, it does seem a little dishonest I must admit...

    The time, that's weird, it seems to happen to me a lot, too. I think part of it comes from doing things regularly, ie, you might always set the alarm for 6 in the morning (well, you probably don't, but just for the sake of an example... :P), then you might take 2 minutes to wake up etc, and just take roughly the same time to do each thing each day, so you have a roughly similar schedule for everything you do, meaning you start and finish jobs at roughly the same time, even without realising it, and then you get into the habit of looking at your watch at a certain point each day... I dunno, but that's just what I've wondered, because for awhile (during school especially), I was noticing it a lot. Now I look at my watch a lot less, but even still, it seems to happen a lot...

    Hmmm, that's an interesting concept of being yourself. Definitely not one you can really argue with can you?

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    1. Lol don't worry, you don't get out much so next time you do you'll probably have forgotten all about it :P


      Hmm, I don't know how I'd cope having a daily "schedule", here if things are gonna happen they will in their own time lol, but yeah it's pretty random aye?

      Nope, definitely can't argue with that :)

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    2. Lol, I read that about 30 minutes before going to town... :P

      Yeah, it sure is random... I don't have a "schedule" either, but I just get up at a roughly regular time, so wan't sure if things naturally "slotted" in afterwards of their own accord...

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    3. Lol seriously?! Wow, haha :P

      Hmm yeah I had a sleep in yesterday, first one in weeks....couldn't sleep past 6:30, so totally annoyed -_-

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  2. Yeah I've wondered about clothing sizes too tbh. Too some degree it seems a little unfair that those of us who are smaller have to pay more than an item is really "worth", but then a person doesn't get paid more or less depending on size, so it also seems somewhat unfair for someone who is naturally larger (I can't think of a PC way of saying that lol...so just understand what I mean ;P) to pay more for an item. Clothing bills could easily become excessive for people of larger sizes through no fault of their own, leaving less money for food and such, you know? Idk, that's just been what has occured to me.

    Lol that's funny about always seeing the same time! I'm not sure I've noticed that a whole lot, but if I'm tired I'll sometimes look at the (analog) clock and think "$9.20" or something random...haha

    Youth group sounds good! For how much longer will you be considered a youth? :P

    (PS: I finally managed to comment!! *confetti and streamers* hahaha :P)

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    1. Exactly yeah, it's a little unfair like if someone was naturally taller of course they'd need bigger clothes, so paying more in that respect would suck. But glad I'm not the only one thinking about it!!


      Lol, I stopped going in like, June? I was feeling too old, but I've been back s few times. Still the oldest there but it's refreshing to go aling every so often :)


      Yaaaaaayyy!!

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  3. Remember that the manufacturing cost is a lot less than the retail price. (Once you add warehousing, shipping, profit margins/markup, business expenses, etc.)

    Out of the manufacturing cost, you then have raw materials (which changes between sizes) and process costs (machines, etc.), which doesn't change between sizes. So the difference between the two prices would be quite small.

    However, let's say that they did change the prices. L = $75, M = $70, S = $65. We’re assuming that the retailer sells each of the three sizes equally, so their income is still the same.

    The retailer is happy (because they get the same amount of income), the manufacturer is happy (because they get the same amount of income) and the customers are happy (well, the size S customers are happy. The size M customers don’t mind and the size L customers aren’t too happy but they can see that it’s fair). All is well.

    But not really.

    You see, the retailer now has three times as many different types of products to deal with. (Actually, more like six or more once you add in XS, XL, XXL, 3XL, 4XL etc.). So does the manufacturer, wholesalers, and shipping companies. To manage all their profits & expenses, they’re going to need to add overhead. Let’s say that’s $5.

    Now, we have: L = $80, M = $75, and S = $70. So the size S people haven’t actually saved anything from the original cost, and the size L people and the size M people only have to pay more.

    (The extra money is going to more staff for managing more different products - not profit for the companies. So hey, you’re giving people a job.)

    Also, I mentioned that the size L customers could see that it was fair. But maybe some of them choose not to shop at that particular retail store and from that particular manufacturer. They’ve then lost customers.

    I don’t actually know how close this is to reality, so don’t quote me on this, but that’s one way of thinking about it.

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  4. Yeah it's kind of an awkward age aye, feel too old at youth events, but too young at adult events...in general anyway. lol

    Ikr. Now to get around to posting on my own blog haha

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