Worried about Weight Watchers’ demise in fat SA

WHENEVER I hear of a company going out of business I try to work out why it collapsed. I don’t pretend to be a business expert or management consultant, but very often it’s not difficult to find the reason. Sometimes it’s a simple matter of not enough convenient parking spaces.

I have seen many restaurants in this part of the peninsula close down in spite of having provided good food at reasonable prices.

Customers just didn’t want to walk half a city block from the nearest safe parking place.

Quite a few local businesses have folded simply because of bad service. You can often predict this quite far in advance. You go into a shop and there’s a bored “assistant” yapping on her phone and not even giving you a welcoming smile. After hearing her describe her night at the movies for a while in great detail you realise you’re not particularly welcome and walk out vowing never to return.

It happens depressingly often and I wonder why store managers don’t bother to mention it to their employees. I was rather puzzled, though, to learn that Weight Watchers was about to close.

That’s one business I thought would thrive in this country. You only have to spend half an hour people watching in your local shopping mall to see that there’s no shortage of potential clients.

If you read the advertising supplements in the weekend newspapers you’ll see there’s a huge market for weight-reducing potions, powders and pills. Obviously, not everybody is content to remain “traditionally built”.

Maybe Weight Watchers missed a valuable business trick and should have taken over the premises vacated by the restaurants with parking problems. They might have turned the lack of parking to their advantage.

“Lose unwanted inches and gain healthy muscles simply by joining us. You will walk 200m just to get here. We’re helping you even before you come in.”

Maybe it’s just a sad lack of business enthusiasm sweeping every facet of our country. Why should we try harder when we see our leaders growing fat and rich by simply stealing from people?

This greedy philosophy has seeped into all layers of society. Our national motto used to be “Unity is Strength”. But it has gradually become “We Demand”. We want it all free. Maybe the Weight Watchers clients wanted it free too. And if the students get the free tertiary education they demand, maybe our universities will go the same way.

Last Laugh

A housewife walked into a butcher’s shop and asked how much his sirloin steak cost. “It’s R80 a kilo, ma’am,” he said. “That’s very expensive,” she said. “The butcher across the street is selling sirloin for just R60 a kilo.”

“Well, I can’t beat that price, ma’am, so I suggest you go and buy your sirloin from him.” “I can’t, he’s sold out.” “Aha! Well, when I’m sold out of sirloin I only charge R50 a kilo.”