DS Rough Draft: Too Lighthearted?
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:35 pm
So I have this for the rough draft of DS. My PS draft is on the serious side, so I did not want to do the whole rough-life thing with my DS. However, I am not sure if this is too lighthearted for a DS. I have been a long-time lurker of TLS and would like to have some insight on this matter.
I will pull this down in a few days, so please do not quote my DS in your reply. For detailed/grammatical critiques of my DS, please PM me. Thank you for your time.
....
Bargain-hunting taught me frugality, detailed analysis, and negotiation techniques during a time when our family income increased from well below to just slightly below the poverty line. As a child, I often accompanied my mom to the mall, wading through the clearance isles for post-season clothes. Because department stores carry weak brand prestige and high residual inventory, they offered better deals for similar quality clothes than discount stores like Wal-Mart and brand-name stores like The Gap. Plus, they offered free exercises on mathematical heuristics.
My mom spoke English with a broken Vietnamese accent, so I handled communication at the cash register for her. Sometimes, the clothes on the clearance isle are mispriced or misplaced, so I would negotiate with the cashier for the lower price. In a typical exchange, I would begin with an appeal to flattery and then follow up with an appeal to pity by briefly mentioning my financial situation. If this failed, I would request to speak with the manager and complain about poor service. As the American business principle emphasizes building symbiotic relationships with its customers, these negotiations seldom took long, and I always received the desired price reduction.
Once my mom registered for membership cards, we began receiving weekly coupons. American retailers are clever; they entice the buyer with flashy percentages, but the fine print reveals that many coupons do not apply for clearance or specific brands, not to mention better coupons usually implies a clearance price markup on the sales date. As a bargain-hunter, I saw through their little tricks. I taught myself to skim through coupon fine prints and weekly sales catalogs to determine the best deals and purchase dates. This strategy proved successful; on one of those dates, my mom and I purchased new clothes for all the women in my extended family at a grand total of $150, saving 85%.
My family now owns a cozy house with two cars in a suburban neighborhood. Comfortably upper-middle class, we can now afford $12 jeans and trips to fancier restaurants than McDonald’s. Nevertheless, I remain a bargain-hunter. Thanks to opportune markdowns and the “free” section on Craigslist, my dormitory belongings total approximately $1000—half the price of a Macbook Pro.
I will pull this down in a few days, so please do not quote my DS in your reply. For detailed/grammatical critiques of my DS, please PM me. Thank you for your time.
....
Bargain-hunting taught me frugality, detailed analysis, and negotiation techniques during a time when our family income increased from well below to just slightly below the poverty line. As a child, I often accompanied my mom to the mall, wading through the clearance isles for post-season clothes. Because department stores carry weak brand prestige and high residual inventory, they offered better deals for similar quality clothes than discount stores like Wal-Mart and brand-name stores like The Gap. Plus, they offered free exercises on mathematical heuristics.
My mom spoke English with a broken Vietnamese accent, so I handled communication at the cash register for her. Sometimes, the clothes on the clearance isle are mispriced or misplaced, so I would negotiate with the cashier for the lower price. In a typical exchange, I would begin with an appeal to flattery and then follow up with an appeal to pity by briefly mentioning my financial situation. If this failed, I would request to speak with the manager and complain about poor service. As the American business principle emphasizes building symbiotic relationships with its customers, these negotiations seldom took long, and I always received the desired price reduction.
Once my mom registered for membership cards, we began receiving weekly coupons. American retailers are clever; they entice the buyer with flashy percentages, but the fine print reveals that many coupons do not apply for clearance or specific brands, not to mention better coupons usually implies a clearance price markup on the sales date. As a bargain-hunter, I saw through their little tricks. I taught myself to skim through coupon fine prints and weekly sales catalogs to determine the best deals and purchase dates. This strategy proved successful; on one of those dates, my mom and I purchased new clothes for all the women in my extended family at a grand total of $150, saving 85%.
My family now owns a cozy house with two cars in a suburban neighborhood. Comfortably upper-middle class, we can now afford $12 jeans and trips to fancier restaurants than McDonald’s. Nevertheless, I remain a bargain-hunter. Thanks to opportune markdowns and the “free” section on Craigslist, my dormitory belongings total approximately $1000—half the price of a Macbook Pro.