Most Viewed Business Blogs (303)

I hit a few appointments today where one was at a construction site and another the service entrance to a large condominium. It's become normal to have NOW HIRING painted on the work trucks.
Why the constant advertising for tradesmen ??
I suppose when times are good, businesses are expanding and always have the word out for more help.
I cannot say, times are good right now, so my realistic thought is the working conditions with those companies is so bad that they have a constant turnover in help, thus requiring hiring all the time!

That reminds me of a company I worked for 35 years ago where the owner didn't have to fire many people... they usually quit after a month or two.

I think at one point, he had employed every cabinet maker in the county.

For a few reasons, I left a job at the end of February 2020 I had been working there for nine years. Short retirement, I was to start another the following Monday in March. Pandemic hit and we all took extended vacations. Coming back, lots of potential leads had drifted away and sales were below monthly quotas. Not ready to be retired, I gave it another shot and another shot but I wasn't happy there doing bathroom renovations.

The owner tried to convince me to stay... several times actually, but I wanted to be elsewhere. I promised to finish my projects and not leave him hanging (as 2 of his last designers/salesmen did) and to stay until he found and trained a replacement.

The new guy wasn't fitting well and his top salesman was scheduled for back surgery. COVID-19 came through the office on three occasions knocking out 6 of the 8 people working there. Thankfully, I was spared but my exodus was delayed a few times.
Every week, I checked a placement site for positions available in any related field. Some came up and I interviewed with a few companies, but nothing materialized.

I teamed up with a coworker and surprisingly, our success at closing jobs improved. My plan to leave hadn't changed and at some point I needed to refuse any new projects.
Currently, I'm finishing 1, starting 3 and have a large renovation in July.
All the detail drawings are done, materials have been ordered and I'll have to appear on a few jobsite meetings over the course of 2 months. Hopefully, nothing more.

The owner is going away for a few days this Easter weekend so today I turned in commission reports and got a check. He knows where I stand to project manage the last group of jobs and said it was great having me work there... even if it wasn't profitable for either of us. The part that impressed him was my calm demeanor and high standard of professionalism. I handled everything they could throw at me.


I didn't 'burn a bridge' and know if I ever wanted to try there again, the opportunity is always available. Not 100% finished, I have to go back tomorrow collecting some furniture a computer station and have a short meeting with the field manager to pass needed information for the difficult projects.

A year out of my life and I learned many different things about that facet of manufacturing and supply. The goodbyes included thanks from both sides... as expected I'm carrying one less key tonight...

I knew car dealers would have a tough time selling cars this month but I didn't know they would be making crazy offers. One local dealer is offering no interest loans with 7 years of payments and no money down.
That roughly works out to $357 a month on a $30,000 transaction.
If you are keeping cars longer and purchased one from an 'off lease' dealer you would be getting into a deal with a 2 year old car and your last payment the car would be 9 years old.

You can shop from your cellphone and they will deliver the car to you.
Something to consider?

That scares me. It does.

I heard of a song Stormy Monday and I heard of an adult model Stormy Daniels, but today the New York courtroom Stormy Wednesday... or was that Stormy Donald?
Not a good day for Donald J. Trump as he was fined $10,000 for violating a gag order by speaking to reporters outside the courthouse.

After, Michael Cohen was on the stand and said Trump never directly instructed him to inflate the value of his assets. Trump's lawyers asked the judge to issue a direct verdict in Trump's favor on the grounds that their case had been proved. The judge denied the motion.
It was reported Trump threw up his hands, said "I'm leaving" and walked out of the courtroom.
Out side, he told reporters "The witness just admitted that we won the trial... and the judge should end this trial immediately.

That said, It won't surprise me if another fine for gag order violation is forthcoming.


Link:

Once the jewel of the Middle East, as a state only a century old, and has known the high life, along with low wars. Seems like the real problem is the evolution toward a total lack of accountability, on the part of corrupt Pols, the rapacious banks, and the people themselves. All blame each other, and when that no longer brings modest results, they seem resentful that the IMF and other loan brokers, no longer have open wallets for them. As was the usual modus operendi there for generations. Money down rat holes gets gobbled up by the most adept rodents.
Depositors can't get their dollars back from banks, hospitals (almost all private) are closing---complaining there are no more subsidies from Beirut. Imagine that? Currency devalued some 70%, with fewer paid in "fresh money", ie, foreign cash. Few jobs left at all. Infrastructure failing, or just no longer extant.
The second hand clothing/possessions markets thrive, where mid fashion was formerly the mode. Soup kitchens are packed, as are food banks, but supplies are low. And emigration, especially among youth, and the better heeled, is way up. Government officials have mostly given up, in a funk all, except when protecting their ill gained loot. Even the black markets have quit. Long forgotten friends/kin are being hit up for help of any sort. Food, rent, medicines.
We rightly think of Dark African States as being in this shape, but the blight has moved to Little Libon. Power and refuge had been available and shared among the three main religions, but after the last war, suspicions remain high.
Regional neighbors have meddled or tried to intervene, depending on perspective, and as with government officials, all have given up.
Can anyone say it's THE prototype of a failed state?

Trump hasn't acknowledged he lost the election and Joe Biden will be the next president. In the past 2 months I've blogged about him needing to relocate and his inability to seek residence at Mar-a-Lago. Contractually, he is limited to 21 days per year. It been reported by media he abused that by visits of 130 days this year.

I also mentioned he would likely take (rent/buy) some luxury home nearby Mar-a-Lago.

Entertainment Tonight aired a story this evening saying the Trump's were shopping real estate in Palm Beach because their suite at Mar-a-Lago was much too small and seeking something else in the area.

Correct me if you think I'm wrong. The size of the suite is irrelevant... He cannot stay at Mar-a-Lago.

They did interview the listing realtor who said they were looking at some nearby places including Lago-a-Lago. We are talking about $20 million and up.

Too small huh? If that's the real issue, no problem... I did some quick research on the area and found 2 beautiful possibilities in the range $41 million 10,500 square feet to $64 million 15,200 square feet on A1A facing the Intracoastal Waterway, only 5 blocks from Mar-a-Lago.

Better now?

.....we fabulously wealthy racists and homophobes, who moseyed into cash a while back,---out of both fixed and equity assets, many ever Trumpsters, ---just whatever shall we do? Well, I'm also filling the oil/petrol tanks, for starters. Patience and discretion. Timing as well. Works with wealth, and with the more grounded hottie tarts. James Brown, "It's a Man's World". Wish I was clever enough to find and to post the song.

Sure would be a welcome thing in my personal thoughts someone inventing a Virus like conora only to effect those dictators (greety dogs) of big oil manipulators

...or at least Italians and Persians? At the fastidious Vierk Institute, we have our own environMENTAL and infectious disease epidemiologists, broad thinkers, all. For some time now, this group has been warning about a world pandemic possibly beginning, at least in regions of the world that really count (ie, where I live), with micro epidemics. Using sophomoric pseudo sophisticated biostatistical techniques, such as pioneering transformation of Poisson distributions to select high powered sample sizes and study populations in nested case control designs, multiple control groups, and dose effect parameters, we see worrying initial results. The case fatality rates in both countries exceeds even that in SARS and viral outbreaks in countries that really don't count as much, as in parts of the sub Saharan Dark Incontinent. And careful contact tracking shows many cases with no identifies sources of infection. Our multivariable ANALytic methods to control for potential confounders (such as daily consumption of pasta and cannolis, and praying six times daily, after some old bearded guy in a high tower), and to estimate measures of effect, paint a grim picture indeed. We have solutions, to head off such threats in these two countries. In fact, our Chiefs of Financial Operations, Messers Dewee, Cheatem and Howe, in our shameless division of Raking It In, sent personal letters on this offer of assistance to high government and even religious leaders, (including bearded homies of Allah himself, peace be upon all), we are quite confident on our chances for success, as we relied heavily on both Presidents Trump and Bubba Bush as consultants, both men clearly somehow at the bottom of the growing epidemics, as all will know. We are making this pubic heath offer as with our proven remedies for Trump Derangement-Hilary Deficit Syndromes, ie, dollar fees with lots of zeros, and on a cash upfront only basis. Trust us, we are not like all those others. Stay tuned.

From 1975 to 1982, I was working for one of the largest cabinet manufacturers in South Florida. The factory would turn out more than 350 cabinets per day. The most popular door style was flat with a plastic laminate face with a material referred to as Formica.

Similar to the way people call tissues Kleenex, Formica is the name brand of plastic laminated products

While this may not be 100% accurate, I've always heard the history of the name came from Micarta, one of the first companies to manufacture melamine resin laminates that had several layers of impregnated brown papers with the top layer being a decorative paper. The process involved heat and pressure and to created sheets of material that could be glued to boards to create countertops and cabinet doors.

During the war, Micarta switched to making products for the military that included helmets. Instead of fabricating flat sheets, the process involved fitting strips of the resin papers into curved molds that were shaped for the helmets.
After the war they went back into the manufacture of laminated sheets using the name Formica that comes from 'formerly Micarta'. Good story... yeah?

There were several housing corporations in Florida that built condominiums. Business was booming and often we had contracts to provide cabinets for hundreds of units. I recall many years of this type of work.

Recently, I received a sales lead to one of the condo communities with a name I recognized. The owner had some water damage and wanted to replace the cabinets. The condo was built in 1980 and I'm certain I was working for the original manufacturer of that kitchen. It had mica doors and a decorative scoring they had popularized. We made zillions of these doors.

The guy buying the kitchen is in his 80's and not the original purchaser of the unit, but he enjoyed my story about his 40th anniversary kitchen!


Thanks for reading my blog!