Business Blogs (303)

Of how the population is becoming smarter


NOT !

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...

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...

....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!

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.

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!