The Logistics of Campaigning.

For the past few days, a number has been continuously calling me. I am not one who NORMALLY answers phone calls from strange numbers, or quite honestly even from numbers I do know, and usually expect the caller to leave a voicemail so I know why they are calling and I can then return the call if necessary. This number, however, kept calling me while I was in class, or in the library, or various other places where answering phone calls isn't quite socially acceptable, and never left a voicemail.

So I get home, and I ask my roommates if they recognize the number. I try to text the number back, as it is late, and get the response saying it is not a mobile number. So we CALL the number, and receive an automated message. What does the message say?

"You have reached the Bloomington Office for the Barack Obama Campaign for Change..."

Blah Blah Blah. I hang up at this point.

REALLY!? I mean come on. Let me start off by saying that NEVER throughout this entire election process have I expressed any interest into the Obama campaign, with the exception of hoping he beat Senator Clinton in the primaries. Not ONCE did I sign anything, stop to talk to any campaigners, or do anything to reveal any personal information about myself to these people that would suggest I was interested in receiving phone calls from them.

Let me go on to say that, even if this had been a call from the McCain campaign, I would not be any less irritated! It is beyond my logical reasoning why any person would suddenly change their mind and decide to vote for someone simply because they were being harassed via telephone by that particular campaign. We have also had countless people knock on our door, spout off several minute long speeches about their position with the Obama campaign and trying to register voters and etc etc, ending with the question of whether we know who we are voting for and if we mind if they ask? Our most recent reply "Yes, and NOT Obama, thanks anyways." (A reply which most often shocks them into speechlessness in a town made up of a majority of very liberal college students). Or there are the e-mails they are constantly sending, to which I finally unsubscribed. After navigating my way through the maze of a route to the unsubscription button it asks me why I would no longer like to receive the e-mails. My response to this? "Because I am NOT voting for Obama, have never expressed INTEREST in Obama, and DO NOT KNOW HOW I ENDED UP ON THIS MAILING LIST!" I think they got the point there.

Standing on the street, or inside a building, or anywhere else, stating who you are with, and providing yourself for questioning and the supply of information about your candidate and their policies is great, but when it comes down to people calling me on the telephone whose number they somehow obtained, I find it absolutely ridiculous.

At this point, despite who wins the election, I am completely and utterly ready to rid myself of this nightmare they call campaigning. Is this really how it should feel to have the freedom to vote!?

Crashing Economies and Job Clarification

Ever since I decided to come to the Kelley School of Business, I knew I wanted to do something along the lines of Marketing and more geared toward advertising. I have always been attracted to the creative aspects of life, and while Business as a whole interests me, it is no different. When asked what I want to do with my degree, I'll often joke around and say "Oh, I was thinking I'd like to be Chief Marketing Officer for Absolut Vodka." Why wouldn't this sound like a good idea to any student at one of the best Business Schools in America that also happens to serve as one of the top party schools?

Why would this job be appealing? It has nothing to do with consumption of alcohol by any means. Let's be frank: one would generally get the impression that working for an ALCOHOL company would not be quite as uptight and restricted as many typical "desk jobs" in the business world. The thing that really attracted me to this idea was the presentation of the advertising done by Absolut itself. Anyone who has ever seen a People or Cosmopolitan magazine has seen an ad for Absolut... the sleek black background, a single bottle of the particular flavor of vodka being advertised, and some other element representing the flavor: a long green snake which appears to have swallowed a Pear, Spotlights for the Absolut LA flavor featuring Acai berries, pomegranites, and other fruit. They market themselves as a very sophisticated, sleek, and elegant vodka. Not something that is going to cause an immediate party to burst out around you and send hoards of beautiful women or attractive men home with you that night. Their entire campaign is very tasteful.

Now why would this ACTUALLY make a logical choice for employment? We are currently living in an economy that seems to be crumbling around us. Many people are facing retirement delays, 401k cuts, lay offs, drops in prices of stock, and SO much more. With all of this steps in the concept of elasticity of demand. Your company has a bad year, your bonus is not as big... you may not be able to take that extra vacation to Florida you have been planning for your family, or you may have to cut back on your previously allocated budget for the new family car you had planned to purchase. These things are all largely elastic, things that you can give up when money gets tight. However, plenty of things have an inelastic demand, things that you just can't quite give up, things that may not have available substitutes. Examples? Gasoline, and as history has proven, Liquor and Tobacco. When times get hard, when the economy falls, not only do the sales of these goods not face a reduction, but they may even rise.

So while many people my age, particularly those in the Finance sector, are facing the realization that the job market is inevitably not at its best right now, where do I stand? My prospective career seems to be thriving. Surely a nice thought to get through the day.