Selling the unsellable

Urban centres are a hive of activity. Scores of people flow out of compressed subway platforms and heaving buses, spilling onto the street, frantically scrambling towards their destination. It is a chaotic place where the societal rules of personal space, courteousness, even concern for the welfare of others, are often discarded in the pursuit of progress. The sayings, ‘time is money’, ‘time waits for no man’ and ‘time is precious’ have never been so true and adopted into behaviour by so many, as in the inner city cauldron. It can be a brutal place, built for the wise and determined, not the weak or uninitiated.

The upside to this office tide that washes people into the city’s bowels is for the multitude of businesspeople that line these city streets, enticing the passing crowd with an infinite variety of products and services. For the owners and operators of inner city businesses, the working crowd are their lifeblood; without them the closed sign is swiftly nailed to the front door.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a business as:

1. a person’s regular occupation or trade.
2. work to be done or matters to be attended to.
3. commercial activity.

You can apply this definition to a number of the businesses in the inner city, established international fashion stores that sit aside independent family owned businesses, each serving a niche. This definition becomes more clouded when you venture away from the noise, colour and crowds, into the periphery of the inner city, where a ‘business’ can consist of an upturned milk crate and a collection of hand made braided bracelets.

This is where the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well. Akin to a market stall, these operators sell anything and everything, their ‘wares’ only limited by your imagination. On my travels this lunchtime I saw a lady selling magazines, and a man selling lighters and mobile phone covers.

Occasionally though there are people selling goods or services that strike the passer-by as strange. No scratch that, flat-out odd.

Today I was lucky (?) enough to stroll by two such ‘businesspeople’.

The first guy I came across was selling ‘Advice - $2’. I stood across the road from this guy, pondering exactly what advice he could provide and what do you get for $2? I thought he may need to clarify his area of expertise a little, narrow it down for the customer so that there is a clearer indication as to whether the $2 investment would be worthwhile or a huge waste of time. Unfortunately I was all out of gold coins and a suitably pressing question so I bid this gentleman farewell and continued.

I had not ventured another hundred metres before I came across another man who caused me to pause and stop, in bewilderment and mild confusion. The second chap was also offering a service, one that I was not interested in from him and I’m not sure many would have taken him up on. He was a little scruffy, your average-joe, similar in looks to Bob Dylan, maybe a 20-something year old version. He was holding a piece of white card with the following emblazoned across the front ‘Kisses - $1’. Thinking I had misread, I turned and had a more focused look. Nope, I hadn’t misread, he was selling kisses for $1.

I am all for entrepreneurial pursuits and salute the endeavour of businesspeople. However this was something I could not process.

Before I continued on my way I was sorely tempted to walk over to the man selling advice and tell him that the guy selling kisses down the street was in desperate need of $2 worth of his best stuff.

Who knows, he may have got a kiss for his troubles?