Last Commented Business Blogs (303)

My partner in crime just sent me a picture of a tattoo which in itself is not remarkable. What is though... is that it's a design that I created for our t-shirts and our 'brand'. It also wouldn't be remarkable if it was one of us that got it tattooed on our skin, but this is a customer who is now wearing it on his arm!

What started out as a somewhat whimsical venture has grown and evolved through persistent nurturing and an undying belief in its potential. That's on him though. I just draw what I find amusing and make it printable. He's the tenacious gardener.

I think we make a good team.

Inspired by a comment on the silver bullet blog, a company we get solid surface tops from has always used the 'template method' of manufacture. They send a technician to the jobsite right after base cabinets are installed. He brings 1/4" thick strips of wood that are 3" wide by 96" long and lays them over the cabinets to simulate the finished size of the countertop they are going to fabricate. With a hot melt glue gun, all the pieces are joined. He carries the finished template to his factory where they lay the templates on the slab(s) of stone to decide how they are to be fabricated. If there is a special grain or pattern in the stone slabs they may ask the client to visit the factory to 'map out' the cuts, especially if any of the pattern needs to be matched. An example would be a diagonal stripe in the slab could be continued into the backsplash. That often requires additional material and the customer would have to approve changes.
We recently updated one of our vignettes and the technician was there today to template for a new countertop. Instead of the normal template, he had a laser scanning device designed to replace the template. At the corners where the top was to go, he attached some brightly colored tabs that reflected back to the scanner and the image of the top appeared on the screen. Newly implemented less than a month ago, the technician checked and rechecked physical measurements against the scanned measurements.
It was a simple straight top with a farm sink cutout. It probably would have been 10 minutes with the strips. Today, it was easily 45 minutes with the laser scanner.
I researched the price of the scanner with software and it's $12,000. There are other modules needed control computerized cutting. Full implementation of a computerized scanning to cutting system could be in the $100,000 to $200,000 range. Obviously, they need to work on the details of being cost effective and replacing the archaic system of saws and templates. Especially in small to medium companies who don't have the volume to justify such large purchases.
Over the years I've heard success and horror stories about implementation of (emerging) technology. The same machinery in one factory makes them successful and in another factory go bankrupt.

So ends my counter blog...

....and Mars is going to pay for it. Well not immediately because it's not populated or anything, but in like 243 years after it's colonized by tax-paying, genetically-modified human/ferret hybrids.

Also, with the money saved by not paying useless park rangers, we can afford more tax breaks for the 0.1 percent. MAGA!

I'm used to getting lots of scam emails, but this week is very special. Someone has been creating a few fraudulent profiles of 20ish women from the New York area.
This scammer is promoting a webcam business and the emails I'm getting are IDENTICAL. They invite me to join their site to see her and her girlfriend.

Thanks, but no thanks!

I do give special thanks to the moderator(s) at CS for quickly deleting these parasite profiles.

Poof!! they're gone...

The company I work for is behind in service. The manager of that department has to analyze every job, what parts are available and what manpower is needed to complete a list of tasks.
Some jobs need our best technician and too many right now cannot be done by a lesser skilled craftsman.
A cracked door covered by warrantee doesn't carry the same weight as the countertop fabricator unable to install a farm sink that wasn't on the job 2 weeks earlier when we were there to make the proper cutout. The sink cutout, countertop installation, plumber, electrician and tile installer are all held up and so is the completion of the job. We cannot ignore priorities like that. The replacement door to one customer may feel like their world is crumbling down, but they have to wait.
However, we have clients who cry and want to be at the top of the list. Many call the owner who gets angry as he feels it's a weakness on all of us in middle-management.
"Just get it done" he says... like we can snap our fingers and make two weeks backlog go away.
We had our installer scheduled on one of my projects that has some decorative panels to be installed. The man we had there ready to wrap things up but the homeowner stopped him requesting we come back when all the construction dust has been cleaned. Okay, I got the call for him to return and everyone is busy. The customer cannot accept that we have other obligations and wants us to 'drop what we are doing' to run over there to install the panels.
I'm in the middle as I get the calls when the service manager doesn't call the customer and schedule an appointment.
Not much I can do but listen to them cry, cry, cry...

The end of the year and, as usual, the stupid US border patrol has deemed that everyone has to file an electronic manifest. Okay, that's not a problem. The problem?

They use Internet Explorer! No one uses that out-dated browser anymore. No one. Oh, but the US government does. And you can't even get into the site without it. No wonder the government gets hacked.

I use a Mac exclusively. I don't do PC - ever. I hate the stupid things. So now I've had to get a pc just so I can file a manifest. I'm beginning to think it'd be cheaper and easier just to mail the stuff from Canada and to hell with customs.

My sister gave me an old laptop of hers with some pixels missing but good enough to still use. So I open it up this morning, and 3% of 76 updates pops up. Oh great. So now it'll be who knows how long for the thing to update before I can even use it! And yes, I have to go south with a manifest today. What a major pain in the a$$.

So I guess I'll go with the old paper manifest and just bite the bullet on going in. I cannot believe that the government would be so far behind that they'd still use Internet Explorer - which Mac doesn't even support anymore.

What a stupid system that people HAVE to have a PC in order to file a manifest. I've never seen anything so backwards in my whole life. The entire business world makes their sites compatible with all operating systems.

If the US government wants to be the greatest, try stepping into this century.

Emails, Texts, Phone Calls, Portal reminders...
Every day I've had to stop what I was doing to attend to some important action on my part for the purchase of a condo. Last night they asked me to provide a statement from my accountant that the money I have in savings used to pay my deposit and closing costs won't adversely affect my business. This week, I had to pay for the appraisal fee, pay for the windstorm mitigation report, e-sign acknowledging a list of companies who checked my credit, upload my W2's for two years, send proof that I'm over 55 so I can shop for a senior discount on insurance. I had to laugh on the last one as it's a 55 and over community. I already had to jump that hurdle last month to prove I'm old enough to live there.

Bring me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the South and do it before the end of the month!

It would be unusual for any large company not to have a website with links to social media like Facebook or Twitter. I mentioned in a previous blog about a 'service' called Yelp where people can give unsolicited reviews of restaurants. Some are good and some are bad. The problem with some is they go directly online, often without giving the company being reviewed a chance to make good on a complaint.
I believe, If the food wasn't right or service took longer than expected, the complainer should see management first for a resolution and not run to Yelp. I recall a viral video of a woman caught on security video negatively 'Yelping' while in a take-out restaurant because her order wasn't right.

Oh, and be real... don't eat 85% of your meal before complaining to see the manager!

Before the internet, people often relied on The Better Business Bureau to check if a company had complaints against them. Much slower than social media BBB typically stored real complaints and not vindictive reports for someone who didn't get any napkins in their bag when they left the drive-thru at Jimmy's friend chicken.

In my business, there is Angie's List, a service for negative reporting of contractors. I recall one customer who had purchased a new kitchen and bath from us. If she didn't like something (including wrong choices on her part) we were back to replace whatever it was to avoid her threats on social media. Her business involved travel and she had specific dates when she would be out of town. If we were unable to complete a repair, it had to wait until she returned to continue our scope of work.

The woman selected glass tiles for her kitchen backsplash. The manufacturer specified 1/8" (3mm) gaps between grout. She didn't to see the grout lines and convinced the salesman and tile installer to place them for 1/16" (1.5mm) or less. One problem. Grout doesn't stick to glass tile and 1/16" is insufficient width for the grout to bond to the backing. It was a recipe for failure and we ended up crediting the client for the work.

We itemized many credits she requested and closed out the order. I wrote into the final invoice that she signed there would be no warrantee to any of the credited items. To my surprise, she gave us a bad report on Angie's List stating it took us months to finish the work. Considering all the credits, I was able to negotiate her to remove the complaint.

It's been 5 years and we have been back several times now. The latest complaint is the base on her island is opening at the seams. We're sure someone washed the tile floor and water soaked into the toe kick causing it to swell. The new base has a slightly different color (dye lot variance) and she's insisting we replace ALL the doors on the island to match the toe we replaced. No... I told the service department, no. Enough is enough. It was her neglect and if she wants new doors, it will be at her expense. I don't want to hear the threat of social media anymore!

I never run out of ideas to blog. Most of the time I write notes or comments on the back of envelopes or sticky notes and put them on my do list. The list is growing and for lack of free time (and not wanting to annoy other bloggers with more than one blog per day) I'm unable to put these thoughts/ideas to electronic retrieval, as in a collection of my thoughts to be shared with others.

It's my belief that a blog should or could be a complete thought, story or idea that can stand on it's own. While comments are allowed, a blog that asks questions or solicits comments or opinions of readers (according to the rules) would be better suited on a forum for discussion. That doesn't mean you cannot have lots of comments and enjoy a blog, it means that in concept, blogs aren't supposed to be streaming live conversations like social media. Sure, you can dispute this, but I'm speaking in terms of the posted rules for this site.

Dating sites have rules and blog sites list rules for the user to see BEFORE posting a blog. I remember one site made you click a box agreeing to their terms of use before your blog got posted. Most have a word filter that will block words that are deemed offensive. I've had some blogs denied until I removed things that didn't meet their requirements. Sometimes it made little or no sense, like the time I was listing prices and statistics and the moderator blocked me thinking I was giving out my phone number. I had to rewrite some parts to get it published.

I am curious why the CS 'blog rules' are below the 'submit blog' button., as if to say... here are our rules, do as you please. As a recent member, I've refrained (as best I could) from participating in blogs about 'blog wars' and the problems encountered with the Connecting Singles site... not parts but the entire site.

Unable to comment or blog in my probationary first week at CS, I read lots of blogs and forum posts. Trust me, those comparisons to the defunct Matchdoctor has/have ConnectingSingles ahead by a landslide. The insults run 10 to 1 over MD and the members here are still active. Anywhere else the moderator would close the profile, delete all the blogs and posts where the member had commented.

I thought about that today and felt my opinion was going in the wrong direction. I've changed my mind. Don't boot them out. Do it like the Medieval days where offenders were made a spectacle for public viewing! CS could create a Purgatory page where the person who was offensive would have their photo posted with a list of charges and how long they are expected to be in Purgatory. Public flogging at it's finest! The profile would be locked so the member couldn't delete their photo or information and unlocked when their time in Purgatory had expired.

Seriously, if there's an opening for a moderator (raises hand) pick me... pick me !!

I'm getting a warm fuzzy feeling about this...