Business Blogs (303)

Part of my job used to be field manager for projects I sold. That means visiting construction sites... places where construction boots are required by OSHA. Optionally, hard hats depending on the work being performed.

As the workload increased, it became more difficult to visit every project as much of the time was spent traveling to and from the office to each project. Last year, we hired someone to handle the field operations. His responsibility (in addition to taking measurements for the cabinets we were contracted to provide) was to make sure the other trades did what we needed for a smooth project.

My guy is on vacation and two new projects of mine are moving along quickly. The general contractor needed my help as the electricians and plumbers are at the 'rough-in' stage and needed direction. The means I had to be there in his place.
I keep tools for the job in my car... measuring tape (several) laser level, angle finder, red spray paint, heavy black marking pens and steel toe work boots.

I arrived on the jobsite around 9am and had a set of cabinet drawings for each room. I went around marking lines (usually on the floor) for the center of the sinks, make notes where they have to put wood to support the cabinets and drop wires for electrical connections. Most everything went as planned with the exception of a few pipes coming up from the concrete slab that were nearly a foot off the mark and interfered with the location of the dish washer and sink cabinet. That's when I got out the red spray paint and marked the correct location.

Considered a normal adjustment in this business, the General Contractor will bring in a company to cut away some of the concrete so the pipes can be moved. I met the electrician and plumber to show them what I needed to change to make the layout work.

By 11am I had answered all their questions, measured everything I needed and marked all the locations for cabinetry. It was 97 degrees Fahrenheit when I got to my car (dripping with sweat) and I didn't bother changing back to regular shoes. I clumped clogged and stomped around the office all afternoon and didn't get those boots off until I got home around 8:30pm. My feet were aching from that ordeal and this morning I can still feel some pain from those steel toe work boots.

For those who don't know... OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) is a government agency that sets standards for worker safety. Most jobsites are strict about workers following safety regulations established by OSHA.

A few years ago I stopped to see an old friend. He commented that I was driving a Korean car. My reply was "Korea is the new Japan"
If consumers can purchase less expensive products from another source, they will. Maybe with hesitations at first, but eventually... they will.

I remember cheap Japanese transistor radios. It wasn't the fault of the Japanese. It was the American companies designing/engineering inferior products and having them shipped here. They only made what they were instructed to make.

Same with all the low-end products made in China. They were brought here by American corporations and now the markets are flooded with low-end products made in China.

I'm in the kitchen cabinet business and have to deal with competitors who provide products made in China. Recent tariffs on Chinese made products will soon affect what and how many of those Chinese manufacturers will survive.

We are already hearing stories of Chinese companies who are relocating manufacturing facilities into their neighboring country Vietnam. Everything goes... all the machines, finishing materials, hardware... all the way to the processing of lumber... grown in Vietnam!

What once was Chinese cabinets will now be Vietnamese cabinets... without the tariffs.


"Vietnam, it's the new China"... and you can quote me on this.

After a lot of teeth gnashing and hair pulling, I finally broke down and phoned my bookkeeper to ask her to do my books for the past 18 months.

Yes, I'm way behind. No I haven't filed my taxes for last year. I absolutely hate bookkeeping and have had lots of good intentions this past year to input everything. So many, in fact, I have a personal road to hell, already paved, I'm sure. ("The road to hell is paved with good intentions"). Don't know who said that.

After sitting down in front of my bookkeeping program and trying again to figure out what goes where, I finally broke down and phoned the bookkeeper to ask her how much she'd charge to get me caught up. It wasn't nearly as much as I thought it'd be. With a huge sigh of relief, we agreed she'd come and get my stuff next week, take it home and get my books done. Right up to the current date. YES!

And after that, she'll do them on a monthly basis, because I just don't want to be bothered with it. For the cost, it's well worth it for her to do it. And then it leaves me time to do the things that I'm good at and like to do.

The only things I have to do from now until next Tuesday is print out all my bank statements, and download all the reports from Amazon and PayPal.

That's another thing I finally made a decision on yesterday. I closed my seller account on Amazon, fed up with their heavy handed bs on how I run MY business. I've told them numerous times, I don't work for you! With not only monthly fees but now they say 15% fees on every item sold, which seems to be more like 25%, I finally had enough and closed my account. I have my own website, and if people really want the product, they'll do a search and find my website. If not, I don't really care. I'm into other things now.

I have no problem paying PayPal the fee they charge to accept payment, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay Amazon for them to dictate to me. Some other sellers have said the same thing about Amazon. They might be good for the buyers, but they treat their sellers like garbage. So bye-bye Amazon.

I've managed to get some small things caught up that have been nagging at me for weeks. I still have a bunch of photos to edit from the week I was with the architectural photographer, but now that these other things are done, I can do that without the pressure of "I should get this other thing done".

Yay! Now I can refocus on the things I like to do, knowing that these other things are taken care of. Yippee!

..pR } pattern Recognition, McPeeps.

Pivot point of American History: 12/25/1776........ Trenton, battle of
.. Batter UP ! Elysian Fields................. 1846....... Hoboken
Samuel Colt goes into production.........1836...... Paterson
Strong Concordance debut................... 1890..... Madison
Jackson's Proper Names....................... 1909..... Neptune
..[ augmenting Strong ]
Light bulb, phonograph........................1886ish.... Menlo Park
kinetoscope, kinetograph, k..-phone.. 1890 ish... Orange
motion picture One } ........................... 1903........ Milltown
..[ great train robbery) budget; $150
Radio Astronomy born.........................1930ish....Murray Hill
.. fake ] Alien Invasion............ 10 /30/1938........ Grovers Mill
Point Contact Transistor invented...... 1947..... Bell Labs [ Murray Hill
[ nerve cell of the modern world ]
... Gun control baby arrives................. 1957.... Milltown
who in 3 short years bec0mes agent bob........ South River
.. IDEAL X [ oil tanker stuffed w/ 58 trailers*
of goods ] maiden voyage ) ) .............. 1958..... Newark to Houston
* the logistics of 'containerazation' now supplies 90%
of everything Amerika uses.
...OVER 600 Diners [ the League Leader.
the state bug of New Jersey: Ye honeybee } obviously......
...1588. Garden
...3027. State } Strong radio net.
.. 4615. deep... ) standby, eYe have not yet begun to write.

I know there is a rock band with the name Nine Inch Nails abbreviated NIN where the 2nd N is backwards, kinda like the backwards R in Toys "R" Us. Anyway, with all the music videos I've seen, I have no clue what they look or sound like!
The catchy logo and sound always stuck in my head. (note to self: do some band research)

This blog is about excessively long fingernails.

I remember reading a news story (a few years ago) seeing a woman's photo where her acrylic fingernails were at least 3" long. She had some amazing paint job that looked like an airbrush technique you'd see on a customized racing motorcycle.

The woman had a job working for the county and was cited for the (excessive) length of her nails. Aside from the constant distraction from customers always commenting about her nails, they were a hindrance to her getting her job done. She refused to cut them and risked losing her job.

There was no medical reason nor 'handicap' that would legally allow her to have nails so long, she was seeking an attorney to defend her case against the county.

Unfortunately, I didn't see a followup story to her plight, so I never got to hear about the outcome. Either way, it 'could' have been newsworthy so others would understand the power of dress codes, especially when working for government agencies.

Two weeks ago, I was in downtown Miami having dinner at a restaurant and saw a woman with a 'Medusa' braided hairstyle that could easily have been 20 pounds of hair down to her butt. She was wearing a uniform with the ID 'County Corrections'
Logically (in my mind) that was a hazard and shouldn't be allowed. She puts herself in harms way should an inmate decide to tug on her (fake) locks and make a break to escape.

It's my thought and my blog, but I'm surprised the county would allow her to have such a vanity style that could be devastating to her and put the liability on the county for allowing such a situation.

Next blog subject: Fat cops, fat cops... whatcha gonna do!
(sung to the tune of bad boys)

Life has it's ups and downs and sometimes (on good days) I feel like the organ grinder where I'm orchestrating things to my tune.
There are days when my workload is too much, especially when I get BS calls like the guy who has water damaged kitchen cabinets and wants to salvage the doors and drawers and only buy new boxes. I told him it's not worth the labor uninstall the old boxes, take out all the old parts and inventory them, install new carcasses and install the old doors and drawers to the new boxes. It's faster at the same price to purchase new.
I'm trying not to be the monkey and getting involved.

He's stopping by the office to show me what the existing doors look like and explain his part in the inventory.

Some days I feel like the grinder... and some days...

How does this work ?

I recently purchased a camera adaptor for $45 plus $7 postage from an online store...

I needed another and as the last one got lost in the mail and took over a week due to delivery problems to get to me I looked online on ebay

I can buy the same item(both generic no name brands)with free shipping direct from China for $1.45 each

Ok the delivery time may be 2 weeks but I have bought 4 adaptors for a total cost of $6 which is less than the postage cost here

From experience, I see there are usually three sides to every story...

1) He said
2) She said
3) The facts obtained when you do your own research.

Last week, I received an angry email (who copied the boss) from a contractor complaining we sent him the same drawings twice and no changes were made. Obviously, the owner doesn't like to see angry email and I had to followup with my people. After some fact finding, I see we visited his jobsite, made notes and submitted drawings showing what areas needed to be revised to fit the kitchen layout.

The contractor claimed to have revised our drawings, sent them back to our design department and we never made the changes. It appeared he didn't respond to our mail so it was sent again. Receiving the previous set with no changes annoyed him. His 'marked up set' of drawings didn't reach us. That happens as our mail server is on high alert status for spam and hackers. Could a phone call from either party have avoided this? Yes.

While I dislike 'being in the loop' for every communication through a staff of 10 or so, sometimes it's necessary. Between the emails, phone calls and playing diplomat, It can easily suck a few hours out of my day...

A deal for you...


Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Capt. SB Davies, of the Engineering Unit of the Artillery Regiment Division, a US Army division here in Damascus, Syria. I have good amount of Money which I want to move out of this Country at earliest although this may be hard for you to believe but we stand to share (Nineteen Million USD) between us in a matter of days.

Please grant me the benefit of doubt and hear me out. I want to inform you that I have in my possession right now the sum of (Nineteen Million USD) recovered from ISIS hideout and the United States Military will soon pull out completely from Syria , therefore, I have to act very fast before time runs out.

President Donald Trump Inauguration message were focused on letting us know that our mission in Syria is ending, and it is time to come home.  He said that by the end of this year, America’s role in combat will be over, and the war in Syria will come to a responsible end.

We acquired these funds during one of our normal Military raid in one of the Taliban’s hide out here and we decided to share the money among ourselves as our reward for all the sufferings we are going through in this evil land.  It is better to use this money to better ourselves, help our respective families and also helps the poor and less privileged in our societies than to leave it for these terrorist ISIS to use it to acquire more weapons to continue their atrocities and killing of innocent people. At least it’s better to use these funds to save poor women and children who are dying of Hunger on daily basis, than to allow these ISIS to use this money to sponsor their terrorist activities.

To escape military awareness, I decided and deposited the money in United Nations' Military Base Vault pending when I get a reliable Partner who will receive this Fund on my behalf. While depositing the money I declared the real content of the TRUNK BOX (Consignment) as Family Valuable Treasures. Everything is legal. I have made a concrete arrangement to move the funds out of Syria as a Family Treasures to your door step in your country. The most important Question is, Can I Trust you? I will offer you 35 percent for your assistance, then you have to find a safe place to keep my 65 percent share for me before my arrival to your country, I have a good diplomatic means to send it to you safely.

If you are interested, I will furnish you with more details upon receipt of your response and contact details. I need a straight answer; YES OR NO. If yes, then let's work, and let me have your contact details, because there is no time to waste. I must complete this before we the (US ARMY) complete pull out process from Syria. Already we have started pulling out slowly.

GET BACK TO ME WITH YOUR COMPLETE INFORMATION:

1) FULL NAME :

2) AGE :

3) MARITAL STATUS :

4) MOBILE PHONE NUMBER :

5) OCCUPATION :

6) PHYSICAL ADDRESS :

7) COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

Your information is 100% secured and will be used exclusively for the purpose of this transaction only. If this Notification Email Letter hits your Junk/Spam folder, simply move the email from your Spam/Junk folder to your inbox for better viewing and easy accessibility.

I have confidence that you will give your consideration to this proposal and respond positively within a short period of time. I am available to discuss this proposal with you and to answer any questions you may have in regard to this deal. I will never let you down.

 Yours Sincerely,

Capt. SB Davies