Of windmills,
bookstores
and a serious
man named
Fred . . .
Continued from I’Mgr I
The last time I saw Fred wait outside the ('<M>p in the
ram, after the Co-op held a gripe session that only one
student showed upat He said to me then. "Maybe you're
right Maybe we can't do anything Just let it ride " He
walked off toward the I .aw Schiail and he walked a little
slower
Well, anyway, Fred, when I first was going to in
terview him about the Coop, asked if he could just say
something and me take it down word for word and print
it that way That shows how much we journalists are
trusted
I said I would try to.
"No, I mean, could 1 just make a statement and you
run it that way?"
"Why don't you just write it up Fred, and we ll run
your opinion "
So Fieri said he would, and did
Fmrrald didn't Man! run
Hut the Kmerald didn't want to run it because it was
(no dry and it was right It was really a position paper
and not appropriate to a newspaper style After all, no
one would read it And I think that is one defect of lioth
newapajiers and their readership So 1 wrote it up into
journalese awl it looked like an interview and that was a
lie or maybe just a slight distortion of the truth It was
still boring liecausr business is txirmg So 1 am rewriting
that now
1 told Fred that 1 would quote w hat he had to say and
mi 1 am going to do that I can only hope people w ill read
it tiecause Fred iloe* have something to say
Here is what Fred wrote
"The duties and responsibilities of the txuird and the
manager seem to be confused. (He cited the Co-op's
bylaws in those areas to prove his point.)
"Even the most casual observer of the Co-op’s
management will recognize that in practice the
manager operates autonomously with respect to the
board The board seems to feel that exercise of its power
of supervision and control will somehow suggest a lack
of confidence in the manager The board does no
checking or investigating on its own and is quite content
to routinely accept the manager’s analysis of the mat
ters which he brings before the board
Information not presented
"Relevant information and data concerning the’
operation of the store is not presented to board mem
tiers The manager has yet to issue a meaningful report
of the store’s situation since I have been on the board
"The general attitude of the board members is one
of apathy and indifference Once elected, board mem
bers are content to sporadically attend meetings At
least half of the board members have failed to contribute
anything, thus far, that indicated they have spent time
outside of the meetings working to improve the Co-op
The board, however, is just a reflection of the
lack of concern of the membership in general Members
an- content to grumble about the Co-op, but they are not
willing to take the time to change it. Perhaps when the
rebate is eliminated entirely
Fred also suggested changes in the Co-op
operations
"There is no good reason why Co-op members
should have to wait until the end of the year before they
are given any indication of what the rebate will be A
forecast should tie made during each term so that the
actual rebate will not be a total surprise This will also
encourage more responsible management throughout
the year
No evaluation
"Currently, there is no meaningful way to evaluate
the performance of the Co-op management- there is
nothing to compare it to We are expected to
unquestionably accept the manager’s own evaluation of
his performance. We know how the management per
formed, but we don’t know how it could have performed
"To acquire some standards of comparison it will be
necessary to gather and analyze data from our
bookstore as well as similar stores (perhaps at other
west coast campuses' When this data is obtained we
will have a meaningful basis for determining the
strengths and weaknesses of our own operation
"Currently, the manager receives a fixed salary
come hell or high water Perhaps it would serve as an
incentive if a portion were to vary proportionately to the
rebate or to another standard of performance This
would serve to help maintain the manager’s interest in
his performance and allow him to share more directly in
the fruits of his labor
"If the trend of decreasing profit (and rebate)
continues is may be in the best interest of the Co-op to
investigate the possibility of leasing the store to a
private individual at a fixed percentage of gross sales
"Ixisses from internal theft and shoplifting deserve
immediate attention All losses not otherwise identified
are presently attributed to shoplifting No losses are
categorized as due to intemul theft The layout of the
store may have to be -hanged and internal security
measures adopted to curtail future losses
n»c l » »>$> hat Ihr lirjr*! artrction at lilkt al an> twokklorr in i>rrjju*i
G. L. Henson: caught in the bind
Frank McCarthy: b.s. for the press
f mm mm
Dave Hytowitz: gets report from Henson
w
Kred llugi: walks a little slower
“Generally, the store does not have a favorable
image among those with whom it deals The store must
become more responsive and communicate this
responsiveness. Errors must be acknowledged and
corrected The textbook ordering process must be
simplified and facilitated so that errors in the process
can be accurately pinpointed, not routinely blamed on
the next link in the chain (the publisher).
“Business school expertise should be solicited and
utilized Practical applications of modem business
management procedures can be made on the Co-op by
business students through the Co-op board
"Business students and professors should be en
couraged to use the Co-op as a laboratory to apply
modem business theory.”
1 will get back to Fred later, but next 1 talked to
Frank McCarthy who is the new faculty advisor to the
Coop board
Frank McCarthy is an assistant professor of ac
counting Well, anyway, 1 told him what 1 was doing—
these articles on the Co-op and asked if I could in
terview him in connection with them
He says sure
I say all right
Right away he says, as 1 am starting to ask my first
question: "Now is this between us or is this for print?"
For print
"For print," 1 say
"All right,” he says
1 can set' there is going to be some distortion of truth
here I am at that point of being no longer interested in
wasting my time to get the suffering truth But I start the
interview anyway, discouraged and bored, play mg my
role as a journalist, knowing I'm going to have to turn
something in to print
Eventually we decide that McCarthy, too, will write
a position paper like Fred
But unlike Fred's, McCarthy 's paper turns out to be
the usual bs for the press words, but no importnat
content (my value judgement entirely'. Unlike Fred
McCarthy has not been on the board long He has been to
only one meeting —no one can tell anything from just one
meeting Unlike Fred McCarthy does not have the
frustration with his role on the board McCarthy is not
likely, in m> opinion to gam the same degree of
frustration, if any at all. as Fred because his role is
different Fred is one of the active participants in the
board with all of the obligations and responsibdities
thereof while McCarthy is just an advisor His role is
one of talking through glass Fred is encased in the glass
McCarthy is very important to the board, though
Fred’s face reflects it when he talks of him. “Now that
McCarthy is here things should start moving." Fred
says. "McCarthy knows about these things He knows
what the manager is talking about "
McCarthy has told me that he hopes the board does
not rely on him too much since his role is that of just an
adv isor McCarthy stressed his role of raising questions
What some members of the board need are answers
And so it goes
The person involved here who is the one caught in
the bind is really G.L. Henson, manager of the
bookstore
Flak catcher
Henson catches flak from everyone
1 get the impression that if any student were asked
about the Co-op, he or she would go into a tirade about
how somebody is ripping somebody off, etc And almost
invariably that first somebody would be G. L Henson
and that second somebody would be the student asked
All this flak flies around and,of course. Henson gets
defensive. He points out that even though the Co-op gave
only a six per cent rebate last year, it was the first year
in over twenty that it has been less that ten per cent
He points out that the Co-op has to get book orders
from all of the faculty, process them and send them off to
over 150 publishers and then get the books back If
anything happens to the books during the whole process,
the Co-op gets all of the blame The cause could be
anywhere
He points out that college bookstores are constantly
concerned with their public relations He will be
available to all students at nearly all times who wish to
voice complaints 1 personally have seen him take notes
when those complaints are voiced and get an answer to
the student within a day But not that many students
visit him
He is proud of the fact that the Co-op has the largest
selection of titles—over 16,000 of any bookstore in
(>regon
Yet still the flak flies
Somebody better put their finger on exactly what is
the matter If anything is really the matter
Just for the record this is generally how the Co-op is
operated. (Facts provided by Henson )
The Co-op is one of three per cent of cooperative
bookstores out of over 2,000 bookstores 80 per cent are
institutionally owned 17 per cent are private institutions
such as at Wisconsin or Berkeley
Sixty per cent of the Co-op's two million dollar
volume is in the textbook trade
The mark up on texts is 20 per cent and the Co-op
pays all of the handling.
In other words, the publisher does control the price
of texts A S7 paperback costs $7 because the publisher
says so
Most publishers allow a return of only 20 per cent of
the original order
It is a recession year and students are not buying as
many books Normal returns usually barely exceed 10
per cent of the order and now in some cases exceed 30
per cent Stanford had a return factor of 50 per cent on
all of their texts
Shoplifting is on a steep upward curve Ixwses come
directly out of profit and thus rebate
Inflationary spiral
The inflationary spiral has hurt the college book
store trade cxpectally because they do not have the
profit margin to absorb rising costs of postage, taxes and
wages.
The Co-op has six or seven permanent full-time
employes
There are 18-22 part-time student employes Student
wives and other University community employes fill out
the staff of about 100 Textbook trade at the Co-op is a
“loss-break even" proposition
Profits come in the general merchandise trade and
in paperbacks
The Co-op had a net profit last year of 173,000 which
they turned back to the students in the rebate 57 per cent
of the students turned in their receipts The rebate was
6.18 per cent.
The Co-op gets a break by being a member of the
College Bookstore Association Through the Association
the Co-op gets its filler paper, typing paper, binders,
notebooks, etc An example of the savings is a spiral
notebook that has 100 pages costs 50 cents at the Co-op
at Safeway, one with 48 pages costs 49 cents Another is
plain index cards—100 for 20 cents at the Co-op, at
Payless, 100 for 29 cents
Well, now, let's get back to Fred's statements
The manager does operate autonomously of the
board in some matters—that is in the actual running of
the store But what can we expect? As yet there has not
been expertise on the board to operate the store The
manager is hired to provide that expertise, and he does
The real problem is that the board directors have a
feeling of impotence The Co-op is run on exactly the fine
line that will provide a profit and continues to be run on
that line The board feels impotent because they don't
have any real decisions to make and they feel they have
to.
The nature of the business is such that present
policies are geared to maintain that profit, or at least
some profit.
To make a decision to alter the present policies has
so many ramifications for the stiye Will the decision
increase the profit and thus rebate or could the decision
blow the rebate all to hell7
Here’s where the business expertise enters What
will happen7
The board directors don't have the expertise
Frustration Will a student board ever have that ex
pertise7
Frustration
Now another possibility that Fred raises is maybe it
is in "the best interest of the Co-op to investigate the
possibility of leasing the store to a private individual at a
fixed percentage of gross sales ” Maybe?
But then again the gross sales of the Co-op were
around two million dollars To get even a 10 per cent
return would entail a rent rate of about $200,000 Since
the net profit was around $73,000, it is highly unlikely
that this is going to be a real winner
a
In other words, if the students persistently feel that
they are being ripped off by the "student’s own store
then instead of npping ourselves off, why not let
someone else do it'
Another possibility is letting the store go to the
University In the bylaws it says "in the event of
disolution or liquidation of the cooperative all surplus
shall be distributed to the University of Oregon " The
University will have to run the store because the store is
vital to the operation of educational process Maybe that
would be better’’
What happens here is that the school could run the
store like we re doing it (no savings over present con
ditiona) or they could run it with higher price* with little
restriction trip off) or conceivably they could run it at a
loss They could run it at a loss anti pass the savings on to
the students because they have at Hither source of in
come, namely the taxpayers, to make up for that loss
Hut selling that proposition to the taxpayers would be no
easy task
I will leave these and the rest of Fred s comments up
to the consideration of the reader
l<et us consider this paragraph of Fred's statement:
"The general attitude of the hoard members is one of
apathy and indifference Once elected, hoard members
an* content to sporadically attend meetings At least half
of the board members have failed to contribute
anything, thus far, that indicated they have spent time
outside of the meetings working to improve the Co-op "
That's true.
How can we rank down people for only being
human’’
Fred Hugi, of the board mem tiers, appears to 1h* the
most concerned
Phil Hamhart, near as 1 can tell, presides over the
meetings
Steve Cassani is very eloquent but has the
frustration that he doesn't know how to fix his
frustration He has a dog that comes to the meetings and
snores
Dave Hytowitr is the treasurer and reads the
treasurer’s report which he gets from Henson He seems
exasperated at times
Jeff Weller is new to the hoard and appears to me to
be impressed with Cassani's eloquence
Steve Baker has said very little except that he would
accept tin* leadership of the book committee* or
something like that Anyway, the book committee* hasn't
been heard from since
Colleen Swanton once said "second "
Darcy Warburton records the minutes
If I have forgotten any of the other board members
they had better reevaluate their existence
Personally, I think we ought to forget the whole
thing or else take one last quixotic charge at the wind -
mills
iiufimt'ii
llugi ii\>, "iMtn from inlrrnal IhHt and thopllfling dmrvr Imnirduk a Ur niton