First week completed, whew!

What an exciting week it has been. Getting to know everyone at Mr. Price, getting oriented in the city, learning how to adapt to a new culture, and doing a little sightseeing has really wore me out this week. Everything has been absolutely amazing, though. The people at Mr. Price, really the people in South Africa, have been overly friendly and helpful to Jason and me as we get settled in.  Before I get into the details about this week there is one thing I need to: Happy Father’s Day!

Below, is the most recent picture I have with all of my family.  It was taken last winter around Christmas time. From left to right: Me, GF - Lindsey, Mom – Liza, Dad – Chuck, and Brother – Chris.

So, the week started off with a tour of Mr. Price’s Home Office. It was cool to be able to see all of the different departments and learn how they contribute towards the overall goal of the company. There is a lot of work that has to be done behind the scenes that as a customer you never know about (That is, as long as everything goes as the consumer believes it should. Only when there is a problem do consumers learn about all of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes).

While we are talking about hard work behind the scenes, it’s probably a good time to introduce Justin Bodill. Justin is the New Talent Specialist at Mr. Price and has put together the entire program for our summer abroad. You can tell that Justin has put a lot of thought and effort into the program and I look forward to all of the adventures we have in front of us.

Thanks for all the hard work, Justin!

As I mentioned before, I am working with the Sheet Street (SS) Division of Mr. Price Group. The environment is great to work in. There is a young, energetic feel to the team and it seems that everyone’s input is taken and considered when making decisions for the company. Roger, the MD, has a passion for retailing and has led the SS team to completely turn around their business.  It will be great to learn what steps were taken to have this success. Below, are a couple of pictures from work.  The first, is a picture of my desk. The second is a picture of Joe, he sits catty corner to me. The last, is a couple of other co-workers, Shaun, Laurice, and Ndumi in the back.

On Tuesday, Jason and I took a tour of Mr. Price Group’s Distribution Center. It was really neat to see how similar the DC was to one of Walmart’s that our MBA class was able to tour before starting the program. Yes, Walmart’s DC was a lot more automated, but that only makes sense with the high cost of labor in the U.S. With relatively inexpensive manual labor, Mr. Price employs a lot of people to unpack, sort, pick, and load the trucks to allocate products to specific stores. However, the overall flow and idea of moving products in and out of the DC remains the same.

On Wednesday, I was able to sit in on one of SS’s product reviews for the upcoming summer. This was just a dry-run for the actual run through that will occur next Thursday, but you could still tell that there was a lot of tension in the air. The buyers have spent a lot of time travelling the world to analyse the current trends and after a long process of determining what they think will sell in South Africa it comes down to this one meeting to see if the company’s leaders agree with them. The run through went really well and to celebrate the majority of the team decided to go out for drinks at a pub called Billy’s. It was really fun to see everyone outside of the work environment just relaxing and not worrying about work. William, the National Operations Manager, made sure everyone was having fun. He is definitely the life of the party and a little dangerous to be around some times. haha. I am really looking forward to our next night out! Below, is a picture of the team at Billy’s.

Thursday was a public holiday, so Justin, Jason, and I took the opportunity to do some sightseeing. The first two pictures, below, are of the Moses Mabhida soccer stadium. Some of you might notice this from the South African World Cup. It was a great tour and really cool to see some of the behind the scenes areas such as the President’s Box. I am going to return to the stadium in a few weeks to jump off the top of the arch. Cross your fingers that I make it through alive! The last photo of Jason and me was taken on the SunCoast beach just North of Durban. It was a beautiful day and there was a ton of people out walking the beach.

On Saturday, Jason and I decided to take a trip to Ushaka Marine. This is a great area for families to come and spend a day. They have tons of water sports, a Sea World, and a water park. We decided to spend the day at Sea World and really had a blast. The picture below is from the seal show.

To finish Saturday, Justin’s family invited us to their home to have a braai and to watch the Sharks play their rival rugby team, the Bulls. The game was packed full of action and had a great outcome, the Mr. Price Sharks won! This means that they will move on in the playoffs next week. it's only been a week, but I am really starting to understand and like watching rugby. For those of you wondering what a braai is, it is the Zulu word for barbecue. The food was great and the company was even better. Pictured below are Justin and his wife Claire sitting in the middle, Justin’s parents standing above, and Claire’s parents sitting to the left.  It was a great night and a real treat to see how crazy South African’s are about their rugby. Thanks again to Justin and his entire family. We had a great time!

Wow, this was a long post. In the future I will try to post more frequently so I do not have to write about the entire week at once. But, if you can’t tell I have had a great first week.  Next week will be a little more work and a little less fun, but I’m sure it will be another adventure.