Don't Get Me Started: December 1, 2017

Sometimes I want to teach how to run a small business. How does this relate to the fact that my trophy wife spent yesterday on top of a pump house? All day. With me steppin’ and fetchin’ tools and cutting up roofing shingles?

It’s like this. Out where our farm is located, you can’t hire anyone to do small jobs. I’m not even sure you can hire anyone to do big ones that easily. Oh, let me revise my premise. You might find someone if you are willing to ignore multiple stays in prison, severe meth addiction, and the stickiest fingers this side of Las Vegas, in the hiring.

We’re a little choosy.

Oh, we asked around and were referred to a man who “just loved” to do small jobs. He actually made it out to the farm to look at the job on the second try at an appointed time. He said he would check some material prices and get back with us. That was nearly three months ago.

So, we finally “backed our ears,” as Sainted Mother would say, and did it ourselves, my wife and I. We succeeded, she serving as “La Jefa” and me as “Jimmie Gofetch.” It’s done now and we can move on. To hell with the local contractor.

Honestly, I don’t know how people expect a business to succeed like that. I could have understood it if the man had said, “that’s not really my can of beer.” Disappearing, though, strikes him off the list for any future work or referrals. Consider too, that between my wife and her family, they know practically everyone in the county. It doesn’t take long for failure to overtake a person. Ask the former politician who lost an election by a dozen or so votes after she was rude to the Lady Hazel, my mother-in-law.

I think about small business success sometimes when I’m travelling the back roads of the state and come across an abandoned diner or retail shop on a road that maybe handles 100 vehicles on a good day in an area with a population of one person per square mile.

What has gotten into people? Has the act of contemplating reality disappeared from our national psyche? Never mind. Don’t answer that.

On the other hand, someone very close to me asked me once about going into business for himself. He was highly skilled, honest, dependable, hard-working, and well-liked, so we could avoid the initial threshold requirements. Also, the market was there. My advice?

- First: retain an accountant and pay attention

- Next: Pay your taxes,

- Pay your subcontractors,

- Pay your employees,

- Pay you creditors,

- Pay yourself last, and

- Do what you agreed to do, maybe a bit more.

It’s fairly simple. Long story short: He’s working on his second or third million now. I’m not sure which. He still lives in the same house he and his wife bought when they first married, when he was working on salary. Sometimes in my envy, I wonder if my advice was too good, or whether he just had a knack for it. I do know that he’s done two jobs for me at a bit more than two-thirds the figure the competition quoted and his crews arrived a bit early (from an hour and a half away) and finished before the estimated time.

I have people stop and ask me if we are related. Guess.

Too bad he doesn’t fix roofs. Maybe we wouldn’t have had to spend all day yesterday fixing one, and at our age at that.

Sure

Don't Get Me Started: October 21, 2017

I’m the world’s worst at purchasing a power tool that existed as a model for a week and then discontinued. It once was the very best. The salesperson said so. “Our most popular model. They’re selling like hotcakes. In fact, that’s our last one and someone is supposed to be coming back for it later this afternoon.”

But … there was hope.

“If you think you want it, I’ll see if the manager will let me sell it to you. We can order the other guy one, although I think they’re back-ordered everywhere, a real popular model.”

A few years later, and how the conversation has changed.

“I don’t see that model listed. Are you sure it’s an Acme?”

“Yes, I’m sure it’s a *#!%$^& Acme. It has the word ‘Acme’ right across the front of it, with a picture of a smiling Wiley Coyote.”

“I don’t see the number. We have a model number right in front of the one you say, and a model number right behind it. Nobody here has ever heard of your model number.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite, and I can assure you that we don’t sell the part you are looking for. They went to a intralinkedgyrosynchronized system about that time. Have you tried eBay?

“Oh, yes. I found one on eBay.”

“Well there you go.”

“For two hundred, thirty-eight dollars and forty-five cents, plus twenty dollars shipping.”

“You could make a down payment on our latest model, the D4507 for that. It’s the industry standard, and I think we have one left. They are selling like hotcakes. Sir … please put down that crowbar.”

Is it just me?

Sailing To Oblivium: September 2, 2017

Did some informal research last evening while watching a little television. Discovered that I know very little about modern business, nor care to. That’s what happens when one strays from PBS into The Wasteland. I formed some amazing conclusions, to wit:

- In over 35.6 percent of the TV commercials displayed, I had no idea what product or service was being advertised.

- Unlike in my youth, when movie trailers (we called them “previews of coming attractions” in those days) made you, by design, want to see the movie being featured, today’s trailers are warnings that a normal person should not allow themselves to be dragged to see the film by a team of horses.

- The chances of a modern drug (A) curing you, or (B) killing you, are 1 in 25.

- In this modern world, a patient seeing a physician must be warned, for some reason, not to forget to tell their physician if they are pregnant or have had an organ transplant. Has the concept of “top of mind awareness” fled our modern psyche as did the ability to utilize cognitive logic?

- Every cell phone service is the cheapest with the broadest service area and the most doodads. A few even still offer the ability to call someone up and talk by voice, although this feature is considered arcane and increasingly unnecessary.

- The female models in TV commercials are all beginning to resemble, to a marked degree, the president’s wife or daughter.

- The primary purchasing factor in a new automobile is its ability to transport the driver via public streets at speeds far beyond the legal limit or within safety regulations.

- Americans have grown weak. Unlike my wife or me, or millions within our age group, they cannot quit smoking by simply ceasing to smoke, they must have some medication to help them. Sad. I simply can’t imagine another physical benefit that would require pharmaceutical input to produce happiness.

- Self-mutilation, or worse, resulting from a poor credit rating may be the next crisis in America.

- To earn the title “feel-good hit of the summer,” future films will probably be forced to include multiple gunfights and at least one car chase exceeding 45 minutes in length.

- The future of America will largely be guided by a long-standing academic relic that academicians refer to as “Miles Law,” originated by a high-ranking bureaucrat during the Truman era. It states that “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” There is a slight variation to its modern definition: the phrase “where you sit” has been expanded to include “what TV news channel you watch.”

I think I’ll go read some Charles Dickens.

Nobody asked me, but …