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One of my sales associates left the company last week. He may have told the owner sooner, but I heard about it on Wednesday, he was gone by Friday noon.

I won't miss him.

As sales staff, we all have a list of responsibilities. He wasn't pulling his weight and it's been going on for a long time. The 2 managers before me bumped heads with this guy that ended up in arguments. They were right and he was wrong. I've asked him to follow his jobs more closely and he said he would but the same problems came up over and over. Basically, he over-designed layouts making the installations difficult. His drawings were always lacking notes and interpretation how his projects were to be installed sometimes often failed. It always took more time and materials to finish his projects and get paid.

Getting him to have his clients choose hardware when they selected doorstyle and color never happened. It was always after cabinets were installed and required an additional trip where we had to pay the installer to go back.

Our IT administrator was out for a few days and as soon as he returned I had the password to this guy's account changed and all his mail gets forwarded to me now.
I haven't looked at the history of emails on the computer that was assigned to him, but the new stuff had lots of spam and BS subscriptions that were not work related. I'll get to his old emails in a few days. It won't surprise me to find a stack of complaints from his customers.

Other than personal, there was no stated reason why he left, but I suspect is had something to do with his clients no longer wanting to work with him. One contractor said he was pleasant to work with in the beginning, but didn't listen to his customers needs/wants and always steered the design to what he wanted and not what they wanted. Hearing that from several unrelated sources was unusual. The same pattern over and over.

I was more concerned with the 'bottom line' in that, he wasn't selling enough to justify his salary. Add the number of mistakes and reworks of his designs... The company didn't profit from having him. I have other sales people who can share the projects he was working on and it won't be long before he's just a memory.

....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!

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...

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!

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!

I was in multi-tasking mode today. Lots of interruptions. More than any normal Monday.
Working hard to close a deal, I sent revised drawings and prices to a client Friday so she and her husband can review. The call came early with 4 important requests... something that would take an hour or so got started several times, but I had to resolve a few emergency complaint requests. I got back on it around 7pm and worked a few more complaints until 7:50pm when my wife summoned me to head home. Here it is 10:50pm and I'm taking a few minutes to digest dinner, do a blog and get back to work to finish what I planned to do this morning.
I'm getting good at resolving complaints but not good at getting any of my work done.

A bad one I want to keep distance on is an order that took 2 weeks to process and the factory acknowledged 8 weeks to complete. Their acknowledgement isn't accurate as they are running 2 weeks behind, so that makes a total of (counts on fingers and toes) 12 weeks when the salesman told the customer 8 weeks.
They (the clients) are 'freaking out' as they sold their previous unit and won't have a working kitchen or bath when they move into the new place. The client is angry and doesn't want to talk to the salesman... he want's a 'higher-up' to call (clears throat) and that would be me, but since I know nothing about the order I'm expecting the factory to make some changes and complete the order on the acknowledgement date.

I thought by going home the complaint desk would be closed. My boss texted me to complain about something else that needs to be resolved tonight.

That said... The complaint desk is now open!

Before heading to the office, I checked my corporate email yesterday morning and received a message from a client who was asking about receptacle outlets on a kitchen island.

(side note: I'm in the kitchen business)

Yes, they are required by local code. Although most customers don't want holes cut in their cabinetry, it's not my choice. If the electrician needs cutouts made, we do it as a service. Point where you want the holes cut and we make it. The liability is on the electrician and not the cabinet guy.

The husband wanted them on the back side where they are obscured by chairs. That's bending the rules... will it pass inspection? I don't know. Ask the electrician.

What I do know is, the message titled 'quick question' involved several back-and-forth emails and three phone calls. I'm not done... now I have to revise the drawing that we all reviewed last week.

More than an hour yesterday was spent dealing with my client's 'quick question'.

Flush when you are done. If you see skid marks, flush again.
A local morning radio talk show had people call in tell the most annoying things about their coworkers. They OVERWHELMINGLY said their coworkers neglected to flush the toilet when they were done with their business.

I heard an advertisement on the radio last week that said the newest way to get around delays and TSA inspections is to join their flight club and charter your own private jet.

South Florida has many private airports, some within 20 miles of each other.

I thought private jets were only for Rock Stars and ultra wealthy businessmen. Obviously, times have changed. Pull up at the gate of an airport, show some ID for clearance, drive to the plane and unload from the trunk of your vehicle directly to airplane waiting to whisk you to your destination.

Just like you see in the movies... no waiting. Just go. On your arrival, no waiting. Just get in your taxi that's waiting and off you go.

One of the worst things about computers & cellphones are updates. There is absolutely too much lost time waiting for updates... especially with Windows 10 and their forced updates.
I have a laptop I often carry with me on sales presentations. I turned it on at a meeting once and it went into an update. My presentation was over (without the use of the laptop) and it was still doing updates. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE in business.

Between home, home office and remote office, I'm running several desktop computers on Windows 7. I was able to buy a few refurbished computers that I keep in storage. In the event one of my main computers fails, I have some W7 computers for backup.

I do have a few running Windows 10 and know at some point I'll have to abandon the older ones when support of W7 is no longer available.


Last year, I retired my 4 year old Samsung cellphone. I had a replacement warrantee plan and whenever one malfunctioned they would send out a refurbished model. The screen lifted on one I liked and the replacement was in worse condition. They couldn't get it to boot... it was DOA and I had to wait another week for the replacement of the replacement. They told me parts were no longer available for that model and the service center must have been cannibalizing other phones to make replacements.
That was the reason for buying their newest model. I've lost count of the number of times it forced updates. Thankfully, I'm able to stall a few updates... email app for example. There aren't significant changes that would justify updating it.

I'm running Firefox and heeded the notification my browser was outdated. I did an update and 10 minutes later I received another similar notification. This went on a few times and the last update has changed Yahoo's opening screen... yeah, those bastards have added code that allows a drop down banner I'm unable to block.

When it comes to 'getting the update' I'm not interested.