The island job was my first experience in manual labor on a construction site, I was 15. My cousin Bruce would pick me up every morning at 5:30 and drive us to my uncle Jim's house to ride to work with him. Bruce was preparing for medical school and seemed to just put up with the insanity to get a paycheck. The trip from North Miami to Homestead took about an hour each morning. From Homestead, we would take a boat to the job site on Elliot Key, where we were building a pavilion on the island.
From Jimmy's house, we would pick up his friend Bill around 6am. Each morning began and ended in the same manner. Jimmy would go into Bills house and drink a 2 oz shot of whiskey, I joined him on a couple of occasions, then learned that drinking in the morning was not for me. From there, Jim and Bill would stop at a convenience store and buy a six pack of 16 oz Budweisers for the ride to Homestead. The beer was almost finished as we stopped to pick up Alex near the toll booth on the interstate. Each morning, Jimmy would criticize the way Alex, (a black man), looked, (monkey, ape and other select racial slurs), then smile and greet him as he got into the car. Jimmy was perfectly civil to Alex on the way home also, then repeat his offensive litany after we dropped him off. The drive from picking up Alex to Homestead was about a half an hour. When we got near the marina, Jimmy would stop and get a case of beer and several bags of ice for the day.
Upon arriving at the boat ramp, Bill and Jim were typically 3/4 drunk and ready for work. The mornings usually began with a lot of shouting and general arguments about who was doing what and who had various equipment for the job. I had to consciously hold myself back from laughing because it was truly crazy. I usually got yelled at for not tying off the boat properly or for loading supplies incorrectly. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters and laborers were all aboard each morning, anywhere from 8-10 people per day were on that boat. Jimmy claimed himself to be the 'Captain'- and let everyone know it..It was a nice ride to work every morning, aside from the general insanity.
The job site was hectic and frenzied. Since it was on an island, everything had to be remembered for each trip. The beer, ice and tools - in that order- were hauled off the boat and carried to the pavillion we were building. The job site was actually two sites, the pavillion and a concrete structure of some type down a path seperated from the main area. My job was to pick up all the used boards and debris and haul it around and to dig holes and move dirt. It was unbearably hot. the mosquitoes were thick and the work was hard. We had army issue insect repellent and used it daily. The electricians smoked weed. Rocky, the plumber , brought his own beer - Piels Light in the can. Rocky had a son named Junior, whom Jimmy termed "..big as a house and dumb as a box of rocks..." According to Jimmy, Junior like to drive the front loader because it made him feel important. He got it stuck in the mud twice and was summarily yelled at by Rocky and Jimmy. Junior was an endless topic of ridicule and amusement for Jimmy who seemed to live to insult him. Juniors life long ambition was to "..fly jet planes.." this really got Jimmy going - he wanted to fly jet planes yet he couldn't drive a front loader.
The typical day started off with cool breezes and ended with searing heat. Everyone took a 15 minute break at 10 am and and 3pm and we finished at 4:30. It was so hot that conversation was minimal. Once, during lunch, Jimmy seemed to enjoy repeating himself over and over about "...the fucking onions for the hot dogs. Then it was the fucking mustard, over and over , the fucking onions and the fucking mustard! Luckily we had the fucking onions and the fucking mustard. By lunch, the beer was well hit into and a general fog and laziness seemed to settle over everyone. Decisions seemed to be made slower and there was less shouting but more grumbling and general negativity. Jimmy's diatribes and rants really pissed people off at times. He almost got into a fight with Charlie Moon, one of the electricians on the job site. Jim seemed to enjoy teasing him about his sidekick apprentice, Richard who he said was a burnout and not worth a damn. He also berated him for his name, 'Moon' and the shape of his head "..It looks like a fucking moon..!!" Jimmy would endlessly repeat it. Jim's friend and drinking partner, Bill, would occasionally lapse into crying jags while working. Bill would be hammering away, then all of a sudden start crying. The crying didn't interfere with his work, it was just weird. I later found out that Bills' wife died and he was still getting over it.
My big confrontation with Uncle Jim came during the afternoon of a scorching summer day. I was spreading concrete with a rake for a section of patio. Jimmy commanded me to "..spread it proper.. don't make love to it boy- spread it around!" He must have noticed I was getting upset because he kept on and escalated. Each comment was louder and more aggressive. He was building in intensity and thinking I was getting upset. I wasn't, I was just bewildered as to why he was so pissed. I wasn't old enough to realize that he was drunk out of his mind and this is the type of behavior that lends itself to that. Uncle Jim then stepped it up a notch and said "..you're thinking of swinging that shovel at me not aren't you boy..!!!!" He then repeated "..Go ahead, swing it..!! I just backed up and stared at him. I threw the rake down and walked away. Jimmy was screaming at me as I left the scene, "..you're a cherry boy!!..that's why you didn't swing it at me..it's cause you're a fucking cherry...boy...!!!" I told him to fuck off and went to the other side of the job site. The whole thing was forgotten about and we carried on like nothing happened.
Jimmy got stranger and stranger as my tenure with him continued. A couple of times we took the boat to the mainland for lunch and he told me he once quit drinking for ten years then just started back again.
He said he had it all under control and didn't have a problem. The reasoning went something like this.."I only drink beer, for the most part, I don't drink whiskey like I used too, only in the morning and the afternoons and its just a shot or two.." At this time in my life , it seemed normal to me, Jimmy just liked to drink. After all, he never had a DUI, never been arrested for drinking and he was up and working every day. I later learned that he was what is known as "functioning" alcoholic. I even attended an AA meeting with him once. He was super critical of everyone in the meeting before we went and afterward. He wouldn't speak in the meeting however he encouraged me to "..get up there and tell your story like the rest of the drunks.."I told him that he needed to, I didn't have anything to say. His response was "You won't catch me up there, that's a bunch of bullshit". Uncle Jim once asked my cousin Bruce if he thought he was an alcoholic. Bruce hesitated, then said, " yes, I think you are.." Jimmy's standard response was "..bullshit.. I aint no fucking alcoholic." He was in complete and total denial - everyone else had a problem- not him.
Every day ended the same. We would drop everyone off and stop at Chi's food store on the way home for a cold Heineken. Jimmy appreciated the fact that they were very cold. Uncle Jim did have a good idea for an invention though. He proposed a blinking sign that would sit in the rear window of the car that could be programmed what to say. He said that you could have a keyboard on the dash and type messages to drivers as you passed them. The message would blink and they would then understand how you really felt about their driving skills. His favorite message would be "asshole",- blinking in the rear window as you passed. ..I thought he was on to something....
Uncle Jim was an intelligent person, he just couldn't get past the drinking.When sober, he was fun to be around and was a good family man. He had a quick mind and was pretty smart. He liked to have fun - maybe a little too much. I didn't see him much as his health deteriorated. His liver just stopped working. He was 54.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Engineering Quotes
Engineering Quotes and random observations – Direct quotations from my company, after 2 years of effort and a $3.9 million investment.
“We’ve got a box full of crap right now, that’s better than a truck load of crap…”
“Instead of spending $400 on a production table, he ,(The 2nd CEO to be fired,), spent it on a dinner!”
“ I wouldn’t sign off on manufacturing until we had 100 systems in the field for a month”, Statement made on June, 27th, 2011, 30 days before projected end of company, 30 in field, 15 working thus far – sort of…
“Engineer 1 has had the software calibration solution for months, however he is so overwhelmed with putting things into X-Tuple, he has not been able to utilize it.”
“Producing 25 units per week is where we need to be, whatever happens after that happens, otherwise we only have a picture of a prototype.”
“90% accuracy sounds pretty good however put it with twelve sensors, your lucky if you got one out of twelve.”
“There is only one thing that is saving us – we have 2300 units worth of components.”
“We are burning our relationships with our suppliers, if we pay them, we will be out of money. We owe $160K right now and what we are on the hook for is huge..”
“I’m getting lost in the minutiae of it”
“We’ve always known the sweet spot, unless this is out of your permutation”
“ You’re climbing a hill and you’re gonna fall off if you don’t reach the next plateau”
“ We are going to a new currency, you know.”
“ What typically happens, is as you do this and get details to put the project together, you get it done over the weekend.”
“ I have spent zero time on testing and it is a major thing…”
“ We just lost 1/3 of our senior engineering staff, that was a major hit..”
“ There is a higher level thing, forget about all the details, from top level management, there are still the external reviews, we are at a product review date…”
“What are we testing, what do we need to test?”
“We’re never going to meet the deadline, so why don’t we just go home now.”
Head engineer answering the question from the primary investor - ‘When is the product going to be ready?’ answer -“Between now and never…”
Engineering -“ The reason we haven’t met our goals is because we don’t have a plan” answer from VP – “ You had a plan last November and you fucked it, you had a plan last March and you fucked it, you had a plan this April and you fucked that”
Customer support speaking to engineering “You know our product just shut down Brighthouse cable service to an entire block?” Engineering response, “Awesome”
“I’m not really concerned about our accuracy, I’m just concerned if there is consistency to our inaccuracy”
“One of these plans is going to be zero”
Standard answer for question of “when will the product be ready?”
6 months in - “Three weeks”
12 months in -“Three weeks”
18 months in -“Three weeks”
Number of official launch dates since company inception = 7. Number of successful launches = 0.
Number of employees hired and fired in 18 months = 10
Number of people in company = 12
Quote from office manager “…I wish they would just lay me off”
“We’ve spent $112,000 in burn or scrap, that doesn’t sound right…” – our accountant
“You’re not gong to make it…” – our accountant speaking about our future success.
From the 2nd fired CEO, “It’s The Founders'’s fault”, The Founder is the lead engineer and one of the inventors of the system.
“Those boards that came in last week, we never built any of those right?”
“Phone calls are an incredible waste of time, texting is the only way you should communicate unless it is urgent”.
“I get confused easily”
“What are the tasks that we have?”
“When you tell us what not to do, you don’t tell us what to do”
“The only real value of anything is what you collect a month, that’s all that matters”
“Real estate values are going to collapse – again”
“Our money is based on nothing – you can’t just keep printing it”
“ We ,(United States), are headed for collapse, it is just a matter of time”
“I’d rather be home writing software code – that’s what we need to get done”
“We’re better off just starting over”
“I think we need to go back to the drawing board, the product is not ready to ship and only works in 1% of the homes”.
“We’ve got a problem, we now have a reset issue – the units will not start up”
There is something going on very , very strange here…”
“Have you seen the new Star Trek episodes, they’ve re-mastered them all in HD!”
“In the laboratory you can always get something to work”
“We have readings, we don’t have storage or handshake accountability”
“If everyone turned their power off at the same time, you would have a major outage”
“If you can make it non random, you can make it do anything….”
“When we see the water heater turn on, we have a delta in the mains, that gives us enough information to calibrate those sensors against each other, so all of the load deltas can be confirmed” – this ground breaking insight was realized 2 weeks before cash zero (end of business) …call me stupid however it seems that it would have been useful a year ago, unless you’re just eternally tinkering in the lab….
“The inaccuracies are in both directions so they cancel each other out”
“Averaging out is a function of the law of statistics”
“As long as it’s not systematic and it’s random, not linear – that’s how the power company gets away with sloppy meter readings ”
“The thing to do is to mine the data, process the data and remove the anomalies”
“The word ‘release’ has been use out of context, who wants to create the product release document?”
“By the end of the month, we are supposed to have some sort of product specification – we will not get money until that is done, we have enough money to run one last payroll.” -VP speaking to engineering
“What does a product specification look like?” – engineering…
“ I am beginning to hate engineers” –business development
“Realistically we have not been operating in engineering mode, we have been operating in a ‘quick spin’ start up mode….”
“I think one of our scenarios needs to include configurations”
“There is a huge difference in US residents and ‘target markets’, we need to define the details, what do those homes look like?”
“If we don’t work in 90% of the homes, we are by nature, problematic”
“If, if…if”
“I think we have made some good and useful conversation”
“We have to have good, working hardware and I think we’re getting real close to that” (..said 2 weeks before cash zero day…)
“It’s behavior, the button activates the behavior, then the behavior ends”
“The biggest thing that’s wrong is the sensitivities, inherently the biggest number you’re going to be wrong is zero”
“We can alternate it and complicate the issue or we can make the adjustments”
“That’s part of the gimmick, right - trying to prove the box works…”
“All this talk about signal rates and noise ratios, you need an error free rate of .995%”
“There has been no significant progress”
“Unless there is a miracle, we’re probably done in a couple of weeks”
“I’ve been in companies whereby if you were employed for at least a year, they had to go through five levels of management to fire you”
“We started out being synchronous but when we tried to track the frequency it was a nightmare”
“…crap...”
“Our detect ability was much lower, the linearity looks pretty good, I’m going by the waveform that I saw”
“It was working, I don’t know why it quit, it is rather scary”
“By next year, the reliability of the power grid is going to zero”
“The Chinese bought an entire years supply of corn last month – 550 million metric tons”
“The power companies cannot maintain the network, they are failing at the rate of 2 hrs per month, that’s a terrible failure rate.”
“They, (utility companies), can’t meet the demand at the price, so they just take the failure”
“When the bombs fall, the windmills will just get blown way”
“The earth is a big place, people can withstand anything except the stupidity of government”
“Typically, what happens is that there is a discontinuity in the error rates, when they reach .995% they are 100%.”
“What we are seeing with the box is not representative at all, we are trying to do real time, the system is transferring in 15 minute intervals”
“When you can hear each other, by definition, you can hear each other”
“Time can drift… we need to slip or gain a cycle… depending on where the real time is”
“ There are no engineers left in the power grid, they have all retired”
“They, (the company), wired the last payroll to the wrong account, luckily the account was closed, otherwise they would have never got it back”
“It’s only the impedances that are appearing on the whole panel, but I don’t think that’s killing us…”
“What happens is, we’re so lucky, that you get out past 120, you then get resonances”
“You can’t put RF in the box, there’s no way you can get away with that”
“This company was dead a year ago”
“Well, we might be able to string them along with conference calls to potential investors-to keep the payroll going…”
“I see some signal there….it all comes down to are we gonna be plus or minus ten percent accuracy or not…”
“The first 20 systems we get back from the contract manufacturer will not work”
“Federal employees’ income tax should not be counted in the GDP”
“Are we talking..?.. this is continous…”
“The patents are in pending status, Galtronics would just shelve this thing if they don’t go forward, they’ll just bury it…It happens all the time, more often than not”
“The trouble is that I cannot amplify my signal, I’m recognizing it, we’re just not controlling it..”
“I think we’re really close. .we need to kick up the gain a little bit and look at the new software…”
“You’ve got a 50% chance of being within 50%..”
“In reality, nothing ever is continuous”
“All of this code and these branches are just garbage and need to be thrown out”- (mentioned 4 days before the end of the company…)
Direct quote from the founder of the company when asked about status of product-
“…I’ll have to meet with you and the office manager separately because when I speak with engineering there is probably going to be some F-bombs and people might get fired…”
"There is a hurricane coming.. we could tell the investors that we can't work in these conditions, maybe it'll buy us another week or so..."
delayed product launch, engineering problems, funding, mechanical issues, out of funding, product design issues, product development, start up, failed start up, problems with engineers
"There is a hurricane coming.. we could tell the investors that we can't work in these conditions, maybe it'll buy us another week or so..."
delayed product launch, engineering problems, funding, mechanical issues, out of funding, product design issues, product development, start up, failed start up, problems with engineers
Friday, August 12, 2011
The Car
Being fourteen and naive is no crime however heisting a vehicle is - especially when you don't know how to drive.
Every time Harveys father drove us to school we were given a demonstration of the full faith and power of the 1977 Plymouth Fury III. The Fury was a V-8 and a beast of a car. It was used as a police vehicle from 1975 - 1979. Harvey's dad had a unique driving style that utilized both feet. Mr K taught us that you need to have one foot and the accelerator and one foot on the brake at the same time. Every time he drove it was like an amusement ride, either full out acceleration or a frightening stop. I don't think he ever maintained the same speed for any amount of time. Maybe it was because he was English, who knows...
Harvey launched the scheme with the idea of taking the car out for a quick drive.This turned into a systematically planned action of Grand Theft Auto for a night- or maybe a day. Harvey knew that his parents would be out of town for a week, so the planning had begun. We schemed and planned for over two weeks, every day we would discuss our strategy. We got busted talking about it in Tommy's moms car in the way home from school. We were giddy with the thought of heisting this vehicle and would look at each other , barely able to hold in the laughter and repeat over and over again "...dude.. the car.. the CAR!!.." Tommy's mom caught on and told Harveys dad. Mr K then had a long talk with Harvey about not borrowing his vehicle and moved the car to a friends house 10 miles away. Not to worry though, with a little re-con work we found it . We FOUND the CAR!!! We were roiling with delight...The plan was still on!! It was only a ten mile bicycle ride over the interstate connector and into North Miami Beach.
Next, I had Harvey spend the night at my house when his parents were gone. Everything was coming together. I'm not sure but I think my mother told me "..no sneaking out.." -something we were inclined to do at that age, to steal pastries from Winn Dixie at 4am. Our newspaper delivery baskets greatly helped in this endeavor. That night we sneaked out. It was a long ride but eventually we found it. I felt like we struck gold. The Car!! We left the bicycles in the bushes and started her up. The Plymouth Fury III came to life and we were transformed. We got real quiet and had big grins on our faces. Harvey drove and we headed back to the neighborhood to pick up David. He had a difficult time staying in the lane, I guess because he never drove before. Harvey was constantly over correcting and barely missing parked cars on the side of the road. I attempted driving however i couldn't and let Harvey resume his drivers ed course. Turns were big, long sloping events that made us unsure of their outcome...When we reached Davids' house, I got out of the car and tapped on his window, our signal to come out." Dude ..We Got the Car!!"...David was wiser and did not want to go. We eventually broke his will and he came out. David got in the back seat and we headed for the Junior High School. Harvey seemed to be gaining confidence so we felt a little better. David was a nervous wreck in the back seat, we kept telling him to shut up and enjoy the ride...hey, maybe we'll pick up some chicks!! Upon arriving at the Junior High, Harvey had the brilliant idea of driving on the PE field behind the school. I said "Go for it.." Of course, that wasn't enough..."Do a donut..!" Which he did, over and over again until our sides hurt from laughing..We dug some monumental circular tracks in that field which we were proud of for weeks to come. At this point, Harvey seemed truly crazed. He was beside himself with mad glee and reckless abandon. We were all laughing hysterically- completely out of control. We left the field for fear of cops and drove down a side road near the school. Harvey's inhibitions left him entirely at this point. Approaching a stop sign he yelled "..Fuck the Stop Sign..!!" I looked over at him and thought it wise to fasten my seat belt quickly. I then felt pinned back in my seat due to the rapid acceleration, I glanced at David and yelled "Hold On..!"As we approached to turn, I saw the speedometer go past 50 mph. Oh shit...Harvey pulled hard to the left and I thought we would make it until I saw a parked car in a driveway and a giant tree looming up to meet us. We hit the tree at 45 mph and it was like time stopped. The hood of the Plymouth was bent in half and up in the air... I remember saying "..back it up, back it up.." We backed up and the car died. Steam was gushing from the radiator, the windshield was demolished, the car was totaled..We all jumped out.. David's nose was bleeding and he was yelling that it was broken. We told him to shut up - we need to figure out what to do..
All of us stood there,staring at each other in dead silence. then, just like in Monty Python, someone yelled "Run Away!!" and we did. We ran at top speed for at least a mile. Once again, Harvey thought we would prevail. His stroke of genius was to concoct a story of how the car was probably stolen. this made us feel a little better, I mean, with the crime rate in Miami it was probably inevitable! We would swear that it was stolen! Blame it on the Haitians! They were out of control anyway... We would have to get our bikes out of the yard were the car was parked though and we began to calculate how long it would take to get them out of there. Then we would be free! After our brief moment of clarity, Harvey stared to wail and moan. "Dude, what's wrong.?" He responded "My watch.." we said "screw your friggin watch.." Harvey replied "No man, when my dad finds my watch in the car, he'll know..!!" David and I began to distance ourselves from Harvey at this point. We actually walked further away from him and began to rally for our own causes. We reminded Harvey that it's not our parents' car...and you, Harvey did plan the whole thing...we were just along for the ride! This made David and I feel much better. We were still in trouble however nowhere near the nightmare Harvey would have to face. He kept mentioning his fathers favorite punishment method. "He's going to beat the shit outta me..!!"For Harvey, it was like the Battan death march in WWII. Slogging along, half conscious, traumatized from a near death accident, repeating to himself over and over "..he's gonna kill me.. he's gonna beat the shit outta me..."David and I thought about damage control in our own lives, no need worrying about Harvey, he was a dead man.
Feeling a little more optimistic , Harvey and I sneaked back into my house and my mother was waiting, we were busted at the door. Back to an unsettled rest and a very uncomfortable morning.The eagerly anticipated event ended with a ride to the Police station the next day. All parents were 'fully involved'. It was like the cold war with Russia. Family meetings ensued and I was grounded for a very, very long time. Davids parents grounded him for a decade- or at least it seemed that way. We didn't see or hear from Harvey for at least two months. I think his father had him extradited to be tortured. So much for driving, I put it down for a while.
Midnight cruiser, teenage drivers, auto accidents, grand theft auto, stealing a car, underage driving, running stop signs, unlicensed drivers, totaled vehicles, auto accidents, plymouth fury, leaving the scene of an accident
Every time Harveys father drove us to school we were given a demonstration of the full faith and power of the 1977 Plymouth Fury III. The Fury was a V-8 and a beast of a car. It was used as a police vehicle from 1975 - 1979. Harvey's dad had a unique driving style that utilized both feet. Mr K taught us that you need to have one foot and the accelerator and one foot on the brake at the same time. Every time he drove it was like an amusement ride, either full out acceleration or a frightening stop. I don't think he ever maintained the same speed for any amount of time. Maybe it was because he was English, who knows...
Harvey launched the scheme with the idea of taking the car out for a quick drive.This turned into a systematically planned action of Grand Theft Auto for a night- or maybe a day. Harvey knew that his parents would be out of town for a week, so the planning had begun. We schemed and planned for over two weeks, every day we would discuss our strategy. We got busted talking about it in Tommy's moms car in the way home from school. We were giddy with the thought of heisting this vehicle and would look at each other , barely able to hold in the laughter and repeat over and over again "...dude.. the car.. the CAR!!.." Tommy's mom caught on and told Harveys dad. Mr K then had a long talk with Harvey about not borrowing his vehicle and moved the car to a friends house 10 miles away. Not to worry though, with a little re-con work we found it . We FOUND the CAR!!! We were roiling with delight...The plan was still on!! It was only a ten mile bicycle ride over the interstate connector and into North Miami Beach.
Next, I had Harvey spend the night at my house when his parents were gone. Everything was coming together. I'm not sure but I think my mother told me "..no sneaking out.." -something we were inclined to do at that age, to steal pastries from Winn Dixie at 4am. Our newspaper delivery baskets greatly helped in this endeavor. That night we sneaked out. It was a long ride but eventually we found it. I felt like we struck gold. The Car!! We left the bicycles in the bushes and started her up. The Plymouth Fury III came to life and we were transformed. We got real quiet and had big grins on our faces. Harvey drove and we headed back to the neighborhood to pick up David. He had a difficult time staying in the lane, I guess because he never drove before. Harvey was constantly over correcting and barely missing parked cars on the side of the road. I attempted driving however i couldn't and let Harvey resume his drivers ed course. Turns were big, long sloping events that made us unsure of their outcome...When we reached Davids' house, I got out of the car and tapped on his window, our signal to come out." Dude ..We Got the Car!!"...David was wiser and did not want to go. We eventually broke his will and he came out. David got in the back seat and we headed for the Junior High School. Harvey seemed to be gaining confidence so we felt a little better. David was a nervous wreck in the back seat, we kept telling him to shut up and enjoy the ride...hey, maybe we'll pick up some chicks!! Upon arriving at the Junior High, Harvey had the brilliant idea of driving on the PE field behind the school. I said "Go for it.." Of course, that wasn't enough..."Do a donut..!" Which he did, over and over again until our sides hurt from laughing..We dug some monumental circular tracks in that field which we were proud of for weeks to come. At this point, Harvey seemed truly crazed. He was beside himself with mad glee and reckless abandon. We were all laughing hysterically- completely out of control. We left the field for fear of cops and drove down a side road near the school. Harvey's inhibitions left him entirely at this point. Approaching a stop sign he yelled "..Fuck the Stop Sign..!!" I looked over at him and thought it wise to fasten my seat belt quickly. I then felt pinned back in my seat due to the rapid acceleration, I glanced at David and yelled "Hold On..!"As we approached to turn, I saw the speedometer go past 50 mph. Oh shit...Harvey pulled hard to the left and I thought we would make it until I saw a parked car in a driveway and a giant tree looming up to meet us. We hit the tree at 45 mph and it was like time stopped. The hood of the Plymouth was bent in half and up in the air... I remember saying "..back it up, back it up.." We backed up and the car died. Steam was gushing from the radiator, the windshield was demolished, the car was totaled..We all jumped out.. David's nose was bleeding and he was yelling that it was broken. We told him to shut up - we need to figure out what to do..
All of us stood there,staring at each other in dead silence. then, just like in Monty Python, someone yelled "Run Away!!" and we did. We ran at top speed for at least a mile. Once again, Harvey thought we would prevail. His stroke of genius was to concoct a story of how the car was probably stolen. this made us feel a little better, I mean, with the crime rate in Miami it was probably inevitable! We would swear that it was stolen! Blame it on the Haitians! They were out of control anyway... We would have to get our bikes out of the yard were the car was parked though and we began to calculate how long it would take to get them out of there. Then we would be free! After our brief moment of clarity, Harvey stared to wail and moan. "Dude, what's wrong.?" He responded "My watch.." we said "screw your friggin watch.." Harvey replied "No man, when my dad finds my watch in the car, he'll know..!!" David and I began to distance ourselves from Harvey at this point. We actually walked further away from him and began to rally for our own causes. We reminded Harvey that it's not our parents' car...and you, Harvey did plan the whole thing...we were just along for the ride! This made David and I feel much better. We were still in trouble however nowhere near the nightmare Harvey would have to face. He kept mentioning his fathers favorite punishment method. "He's going to beat the shit outta me..!!"For Harvey, it was like the Battan death march in WWII. Slogging along, half conscious, traumatized from a near death accident, repeating to himself over and over "..he's gonna kill me.. he's gonna beat the shit outta me..."David and I thought about damage control in our own lives, no need worrying about Harvey, he was a dead man.
Feeling a little more optimistic , Harvey and I sneaked back into my house and my mother was waiting, we were busted at the door. Back to an unsettled rest and a very uncomfortable morning.The eagerly anticipated event ended with a ride to the Police station the next day. All parents were 'fully involved'. It was like the cold war with Russia. Family meetings ensued and I was grounded for a very, very long time. Davids parents grounded him for a decade- or at least it seemed that way. We didn't see or hear from Harvey for at least two months. I think his father had him extradited to be tortured. So much for driving, I put it down for a while.
Midnight cruiser, teenage drivers, auto accidents, grand theft auto, stealing a car, underage driving, running stop signs, unlicensed drivers, totaled vehicles, auto accidents, plymouth fury, leaving the scene of an accident
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
My Day In LA
Our meeting with Glendale Water and Power was a unique experience. Half awake, Ostrich boot wearing, cowboy belt buckle, New York haircut wannabe actor types should not be allowed on the premises of any self respecting utility company. Aside from that, the meeting went fine. Our amateur actor friend reminded us that he "..came in on his day off..", we wouldn't have minded if he stayed home. People need perspective and our hero definitely delivered, it's good to know how many different ways an appointment can go sideways. The most astounding thing about him was the complete void of human emotion of our "Marketing Manager". Mr Manager let us know with great certainty that "..he had the job that everyone else had the sense to pass on.." , which inspired pure confidence on our part. I was verbally put in my place when I asked if he was involved with Member Services. From then on, I let a colleague handle the rest of the appointment. My associate, Josh, was glad when it was over, so glad he needed a beer afterwards.By the end of our meeting, we noticed a stirring of humanity in LA rodeo boy. He was gracious enough to agree that our energy monitoring solution was unique although it was a direct challenge to his prior ineffective and costly attempts at home energy management. Yes, we were calling him out and saying, "Look cowpuke, you're an idiot, you've spent money foolishly looking for something that doesn't work and you don't give a damn because you're chasing a Chippendales LA fantasy that involves ostrich boots and a bad haircut". Have a nice day.
The meeting with the City of Pasadena utility dept. fared no better although it was more challenging and downright bizarre. Engineers are typically well versed in technical issues, these guys were not. Their main concern was RF , (radio frequency),poisoning from in home energy monitoring devices. Never mind the fact that it would take 3,000 years of smart meter RF to equate to 10 minutes of cell phone usage.. that didn't matter. And never mind the daily bathing of RF all throughout the City of Pasadena, that didn't matter either. These misguided technocrats deserved an extra slathering of RF targeted at every granola crunching, lettuce smoking ear ring wearing freak in LA! After hearing of their genuine, heart felt concern for their customers, they went on to say that "...eventually we will have to control all of their, (utility customers), power consumption. How kind of them. An associate of mine commented that we could all just go back to candles and they looked as though they actually considered it. The engineering team continued babbling their perception of their customers. They mentioned that if they so much as touched a breaker panel in a home, a class action lawsuit against the utility company would begin and require a complete upgrade of every breaker panel. They went on to say that the City of Pasadena in 2010 has a 50% internet usage rate in the community. A blatant lie. Their main concern was in measuring water. that being the case, maybe a tsunami would help alleviate their water concerns once and for all.
The swirling vortex of insecurity, despair and downright ignorance should be marked with a road sign at the city limits of Glendale and Pasadena that says "Turn back now or sink into an inescapable nightmare of idiocy and despotism from which you will not return." these people deserve home energy mis-management. All appliances should be left in the 'on' position. All light, toaster, hairdryers, X-boxes, vacuum cleaners , left on -purposely. This will cause the system to overload, create a massive implosion and blackouts within the city coverage areas. This would then cause them to start over, with a clean slate! A return to sanity for the utility company and all of their customers! Our company however will never have anything to do with them. They are permanently etched in our history as a place to stay away from, a land of Nod, if you will, a vanishing point, just over the event horizon that no sane individual ever dare go...
LA, engineering problems, engineers, utility company backlash, utility company, Pasadena business , City of Glendale Water and Power, sales meetings, bad haircut, wannabe actors, back to candles, RF, RF poisoning, Frequency, RF pollution
The meeting with the City of Pasadena utility dept. fared no better although it was more challenging and downright bizarre. Engineers are typically well versed in technical issues, these guys were not. Their main concern was RF , (radio frequency),poisoning from in home energy monitoring devices. Never mind the fact that it would take 3,000 years of smart meter RF to equate to 10 minutes of cell phone usage.. that didn't matter. And never mind the daily bathing of RF all throughout the City of Pasadena, that didn't matter either. These misguided technocrats deserved an extra slathering of RF targeted at every granola crunching, lettuce smoking ear ring wearing freak in LA! After hearing of their genuine, heart felt concern for their customers, they went on to say that "...eventually we will have to control all of their, (utility customers), power consumption. How kind of them. An associate of mine commented that we could all just go back to candles and they looked as though they actually considered it. The engineering team continued babbling their perception of their customers. They mentioned that if they so much as touched a breaker panel in a home, a class action lawsuit against the utility company would begin and require a complete upgrade of every breaker panel. They went on to say that the City of Pasadena in 2010 has a 50% internet usage rate in the community. A blatant lie. Their main concern was in measuring water. that being the case, maybe a tsunami would help alleviate their water concerns once and for all.
The swirling vortex of insecurity, despair and downright ignorance should be marked with a road sign at the city limits of Glendale and Pasadena that says "Turn back now or sink into an inescapable nightmare of idiocy and despotism from which you will not return." these people deserve home energy mis-management. All appliances should be left in the 'on' position. All light, toaster, hairdryers, X-boxes, vacuum cleaners , left on -purposely. This will cause the system to overload, create a massive implosion and blackouts within the city coverage areas. This would then cause them to start over, with a clean slate! A return to sanity for the utility company and all of their customers! Our company however will never have anything to do with them. They are permanently etched in our history as a place to stay away from, a land of Nod, if you will, a vanishing point, just over the event horizon that no sane individual ever dare go...
LA, engineering problems, engineers, utility company backlash, utility company, Pasadena business , City of Glendale Water and Power, sales meetings, bad haircut, wannabe actors, back to candles, RF, RF poisoning, Frequency, RF pollution
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Active Non Engagement
In a results oriented world where everyone is trying to get something done, be on time and meet objectives, it’s sometimes better to just do nothing – nothing at all.
You are not required to respond to anyone for anything – ever. Think about it. You don’t have to say “hello”, “good morning”, “have a nice day” or anything of the like. In fact, you’ll feel better if you don’t. You are not required to participate in meaningless conversation of co-workers, you don’t need to call anyone back if you don’t want to and you certainly are not required to explain yourself to anyone unless legally required to do so. Someone is calling you that you don’t want to speak to – don’t answer it, they’ll leave a message, if not, it wasn’t worth calling you in the first place. You will truly see the meaningless drivel we all participate in each and every day when you empower yourself through Active Non Engagement.
It begins with the little things you don’t even notice. Like thinking you have to recognize someone else’s presence in a room. You don’t have to and you’ll feel better when you don’t. They are grown adults, they can deal with it. Be polite however do not engage. Simple stare straight ahead and watch them squirm . A funny thing will now happen. Most people cannot stand silence and can’t deal with not talking incessantly about absolutely nothing. That’s their problem, not yours. Enjoy the silence, most people don’t need to be running their mouths anyway. You will save your energy and feel an inner joy when you realize the power of silence.
Practicing Active Non Engagement in the public space requires more effort and planning. When dealing with bank tellers, simply stare at them and fill out the required documentation. They will try to break your will with “..how are you today sir?’ don’t respond, just nod and hand them the forms. You avoided falling onto their trap of fake empathy and shallow repeated phrases. You have been actively non engaged! They will think twice and wonder why you are not a zombie like them. Not verbalizing things that don’t need to be verbalized is a truly liberating experience! Use this technique at the Post Office, the grocery store or any other service provider you come into contact with.
If you must speak during the day, do it with as few words as possible. One or two word answers spoken clearly in an elevated tone will suffice. NEVER repeat yourself. 99.99% of the time when people say “What..” or Huh?” or what’d you say” – they heard you the first time., they are just trapped in the ‘I repeat myself like a retarded moron all day long’, mindset. Don’t repeat it. Let their idiotic babbling hang in the air. Their slow minds will recall what you said – don’t worry, they heard you the first time. Not repeating yourself will elevate your consciousness to new heights. You have not expended extra energy to repeat something you have already did – for someone else! Think about it – they are demanding that you repeat yourself. They are telling you what to do and how to do it. No, don’t let them. You will gain more respect and let people know that you don’t chew that shit twice – listen up dumb ass!
You are not required to entertain people. You are not a cruise director or a day care manager. Let them find someone else to do tricks for them. You are not a barking seal entertaining children and paying adults, let them go to Sea World for that.
Enjoy the practice of active non engagement. Notice how some people cannot stand gaps in conversation. They are always running their mouths. Let them, just stare straight ahead and wonder when they are going to shut up. When they do, say nothing. Observe how uncomfortable they become. Now you are playing by your set of rules, not theirs. You have now stemmed the tide of stupidity and noise pollution and have made the world a better place to live. You are a liberator of the mind and an escapee from the mental asylum of endless diatribe and ceaseless blathering – you have raised the bar for human interaction and left the rabble perplexed at their insanity.
talks too much, shut up, idiots, moronic babbling, chanting, stupid people, nothing to say, mindless, diatribe, dialogue, talker, talkers who talk, active non engagement, texting, facebook,myspace, social media
talks too much, shut up, idiots, moronic babbling, chanting, stupid people, nothing to say, mindless, diatribe, dialogue, talker, talkers who talk, active non engagement, texting, facebook,myspace, social media
Mr Magazine Man
I was in between jobs and looking for a way to pay the rent and catch up on the phone bill. My options at the time were limited and I was barely surviving with a courier job delivering small packages throughout the city of Jacksonville, Fl. I heard through a friend about a job in the 'publishing' and magazine business. I began to think of the high profile world of publishing and writing for magazines, traveling the world and meeting important people - this couldn't of been further from the truth.
I met John, the owner of the company in a telephone interview and he assured me that the Jacksonville market was 'wide open' and all needed was someone to 'take the ball and run with it', to help his magazine business grow. We set up a time to meet and discuss opening the Jacksonville market. John was the typ of guy who liked to throw money around and try to impress people - this was evident at our first meeting where we ate at a five star restaurant at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fl. After dinner we went back to his suite to talk about how to approach the Jacksonville market. Upon entering the room, John began to talk about titles his company offered and the legitimacy of his publishing business. Then came the truth. He opened a briefcase and out spilled several pornographic magazines. "this", he said "is what we sell the most of..." although we carry all the major titles like Sports Illustrated, Cosmo, Field and Stream, etc. All right, I thought, how bad can it be? I sell and distribute all the major magazine titles and some 'other' titles as well, I needed the job. John explained that I would have a van for delivery and store maintenance and that he had two stores to start with. The two stores were owned by Syrians and their family network of store ownership extended to over 50 locations in Duval County. The potential was there for a quick start and a possible distributorship of my own.
We arranged to have the magazines drop shipped to my house as the new titles dropped. I separated them and organized bins with each stores delivery in it. The first six months were the most difficult. The language barrier and the Syrians' distrust of me seemed impossible to overcome at the time. I felt that these people truly hated me for some reason. They were very foreign and extremely weird. The store owners had makeshift efficiency apartments behind the counters in their stores. they slept on the floor, covered in brightly colored blankets, they sipped yerba mate tea through a device that looked like a hash pipe. Their eyes would glaze over when they drank that shit I swear they were getting high off of it. My foreign comrades smoked incessantly and they always thought they were being ripped off..Middle Eastern music was played in the background. I felt like I was in Marakesh! The Syrians always kept loaded weapons behind the counter in obtuse places. I once reached into a magazine rack and pulled out a loaded .45. I once asked one of the store owners how he liked owning a business in the Untied States, his attitude was best summed up in the following quote "... both countries fuck you, at least over here they give you a kiss while they're doing it!" I was able to gradually warm up to the Syrians and slowly acquire more of their business as they saw me week after week. Every now and then I would hear them say "..you call my cousin he have three store on Westside..." or "...I open new store at beach, you go there next week and talk to Sam.." Over eighty percent of these guys were named Sam, John or Saieed, pronounced 'Sod' or 'Si-eed'. A sa lama laka! I was learning their language, Shukrahn! All of my accounts were independently run convenience stores, none were corporately owned. None were the same however they all sold the same endless stream of completely useless items. Anything they put on the counter would sell and rack and counter space was always being fought for. Every square inch of the counter was covered with keychains, roses in small tubes, lighters -just about anything they could fit in there. You could barely walk through some of the stores, they were so crowded. I remarked to one of them that you could probable take a dump in a box, out a $1.00 sticker on it - and someone would buy it.
After about a year or so I had 75 stores on my route. I was regularly stopping at every store each week as new titles came out. The mainstream magazines like Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan barely sold. They were just a front for the real business - porno mags. I put them out then picked them up. the publisher would give a credit to the company if the magazine was returned when the new edition came out. Hustller, Penthouse, Playboy, etc accounted for 99% of the business. Selling these magazines in a pre internet environment was like selling drugs to junkies. It was like a feeding frenzy. Every month, people would wait for the new editions to arrive. I had no idea of the appetite for this type of material. It was sick and these people needed help. I regularly carried an additional 5 - 10 bundles, (50 in a bundle) of Hustler, Penthouse and Playboy - and regularly sold every single one of them, I could never keep enough in the van. "Hey Mr Magazine Man" become my calling card and the mantra of the store owners. Not every store was able to sell them though. The really poor stores in the worst areas of town couldn't sell them. When I asked the owner of the Blue Front store on Moncreif Blvd, his response was "...Steve...why would they pay $5 for the magazine when the hit of crack is $2 and the girl is $2,,, why Steve, why they pay for that?" That was a defining moment and we laughed about it for weeks.
No wonder John was able to throw around money like he did, he was a direct arm of organized crime in the pornography business. As a result, my business continued to grow and I saw more and more of the seedy downside of life. Stores got robbed. A crackhead was shot and killed in one of my stores, thankfully I wasn't there at the time. One of the Syrians shot him on the way out the door of an attempted robbery on the Westside. A store owner near my house was stabbed in the throat after being followed home and robbed. He died at the seen, left behind a wife and two kids. Another one lost his six year old son to an accidental shooting after the kid and the kids cousin found one of their loaded weapons and it accidentally went off. Add all of this to the fact that most of the stores were located in bad parts of town and it was a cash business. It was nothing for me to regularly collect over $10K a week, more than half of it in cash. I rented a small warehouse and the magazines were coming in upwards of 5 pallets a week.The business was starting to get big. John would fly me to Atlanta for the weekend to go to his cabin on the lake and ride jet skis and party with the other employees. He had all the toys - new cars, ATV's, jet ski's - he was living the life - of a porno pushing gangster. I got raises every year and continued to expand the business, all the while feeling nauseous about the whole ordeal. I really didn't like what I was doing and wanted to get out.
My income continued to grow as we expanded into video sales. The law in Duval County at the time stated that any display of pornographic material could be deemed offensive and the offending party could be arrested for it. In other words, selective enforcement. This was ramped up considerably during city and county elections. The local authorities began to focus on my venue of video sales. Luckily I was never caught up in one of their dragnets however I dealt with store owners that were. I was too quick for them. I was in and out of those store in a flash, typically in the morning so I was never caught. The store owners however were sitting ducks for selective enforcement. One of them was ticketed and fined, another hauled off to jail. The guy called screaming at me that we owed him bail money. I told him to take it up with the local authorities, they are the perpetrators here, not me. I was shouted at and threatened however I continued to sell them, the money was too easy. The wholesale cost of a typical video was $2. I got them for $5 and sold them for $20. the store owners then sold them for $25 - $30. I sold what we called 'Tear off's' or 'rips'. for $2 each. These were back dated issues with the cover torn off. As long as the publisher got the cover back, the business got credited for the magazine. I would routinely make an extra $2-300 per week from the tear off's and more from the video sales.The money was getting better however I still wanted out.
The end came right after I secured a deal with the largest newsstand in the county. They had five outlets throughout the city and would generate over $10K in revenue. This would put gross weekly sales somewhere near $25K per week. If I kept 1/10th of that, I would make over $100 grand per year! I was literally praying to God to get me out of this awful business and at the same time thinking of the money I could make being a porno gangster. I thought about running my own warehouse, buying a computer system, hiring employees - and I even hired one! Gave him a van and set him up in Ocala and Gainesville, Fl. After getting a tacit agreement with the newsstand outlet to carry our product, one of the supervisors came down to ride with me for the day. After lunch, he informed me that I was being fired. My prayers were answered! I was angry initially however that faded. I had no job and no vehicle yet I felt better than I had in a long time. At least I was away from the daily sale of a bad habit to a weak public. The company never got the newsstand account and the rest of their business dried up except for a few stores that were drop shipped each month. I think the mob got to John for something, to this day I can find no reference of him or his company. It's just as it should be - like it never existed.
Magazine sales, porno sales, bad habit, route sales, convenience stores, magazines, mr magazine man, syrian store owners, syrians
I met John, the owner of the company in a telephone interview and he assured me that the Jacksonville market was 'wide open' and all needed was someone to 'take the ball and run with it', to help his magazine business grow. We set up a time to meet and discuss opening the Jacksonville market. John was the typ of guy who liked to throw money around and try to impress people - this was evident at our first meeting where we ate at a five star restaurant at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fl. After dinner we went back to his suite to talk about how to approach the Jacksonville market. Upon entering the room, John began to talk about titles his company offered and the legitimacy of his publishing business. Then came the truth. He opened a briefcase and out spilled several pornographic magazines. "this", he said "is what we sell the most of..." although we carry all the major titles like Sports Illustrated, Cosmo, Field and Stream, etc. All right, I thought, how bad can it be? I sell and distribute all the major magazine titles and some 'other' titles as well, I needed the job. John explained that I would have a van for delivery and store maintenance and that he had two stores to start with. The two stores were owned by Syrians and their family network of store ownership extended to over 50 locations in Duval County. The potential was there for a quick start and a possible distributorship of my own.
We arranged to have the magazines drop shipped to my house as the new titles dropped. I separated them and organized bins with each stores delivery in it. The first six months were the most difficult. The language barrier and the Syrians' distrust of me seemed impossible to overcome at the time. I felt that these people truly hated me for some reason. They were very foreign and extremely weird. The store owners had makeshift efficiency apartments behind the counters in their stores. they slept on the floor, covered in brightly colored blankets, they sipped yerba mate tea through a device that looked like a hash pipe. Their eyes would glaze over when they drank that shit I swear they were getting high off of it. My foreign comrades smoked incessantly and they always thought they were being ripped off..Middle Eastern music was played in the background. I felt like I was in Marakesh! The Syrians always kept loaded weapons behind the counter in obtuse places. I once reached into a magazine rack and pulled out a loaded .45. I once asked one of the store owners how he liked owning a business in the Untied States, his attitude was best summed up in the following quote "... both countries fuck you, at least over here they give you a kiss while they're doing it!" I was able to gradually warm up to the Syrians and slowly acquire more of their business as they saw me week after week. Every now and then I would hear them say "..you call my cousin he have three store on Westside..." or "...I open new store at beach, you go there next week and talk to Sam.." Over eighty percent of these guys were named Sam, John or Saieed, pronounced 'Sod' or 'Si-eed'. A sa lama laka! I was learning their language, Shukrahn! All of my accounts were independently run convenience stores, none were corporately owned. None were the same however they all sold the same endless stream of completely useless items. Anything they put on the counter would sell and rack and counter space was always being fought for. Every square inch of the counter was covered with keychains, roses in small tubes, lighters -just about anything they could fit in there. You could barely walk through some of the stores, they were so crowded. I remarked to one of them that you could probable take a dump in a box, out a $1.00 sticker on it - and someone would buy it.
After about a year or so I had 75 stores on my route. I was regularly stopping at every store each week as new titles came out. The mainstream magazines like Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan barely sold. They were just a front for the real business - porno mags. I put them out then picked them up. the publisher would give a credit to the company if the magazine was returned when the new edition came out. Hustller, Penthouse, Playboy, etc accounted for 99% of the business. Selling these magazines in a pre internet environment was like selling drugs to junkies. It was like a feeding frenzy. Every month, people would wait for the new editions to arrive. I had no idea of the appetite for this type of material. It was sick and these people needed help. I regularly carried an additional 5 - 10 bundles, (50 in a bundle) of Hustler, Penthouse and Playboy - and regularly sold every single one of them, I could never keep enough in the van. "Hey Mr Magazine Man" become my calling card and the mantra of the store owners. Not every store was able to sell them though. The really poor stores in the worst areas of town couldn't sell them. When I asked the owner of the Blue Front store on Moncreif Blvd, his response was "...Steve...why would they pay $5 for the magazine when the hit of crack is $2 and the girl is $2,,, why Steve, why they pay for that?" That was a defining moment and we laughed about it for weeks.
No wonder John was able to throw around money like he did, he was a direct arm of organized crime in the pornography business. As a result, my business continued to grow and I saw more and more of the seedy downside of life. Stores got robbed. A crackhead was shot and killed in one of my stores, thankfully I wasn't there at the time. One of the Syrians shot him on the way out the door of an attempted robbery on the Westside. A store owner near my house was stabbed in the throat after being followed home and robbed. He died at the seen, left behind a wife and two kids. Another one lost his six year old son to an accidental shooting after the kid and the kids cousin found one of their loaded weapons and it accidentally went off. Add all of this to the fact that most of the stores were located in bad parts of town and it was a cash business. It was nothing for me to regularly collect over $10K a week, more than half of it in cash. I rented a small warehouse and the magazines were coming in upwards of 5 pallets a week.The business was starting to get big. John would fly me to Atlanta for the weekend to go to his cabin on the lake and ride jet skis and party with the other employees. He had all the toys - new cars, ATV's, jet ski's - he was living the life - of a porno pushing gangster. I got raises every year and continued to expand the business, all the while feeling nauseous about the whole ordeal. I really didn't like what I was doing and wanted to get out.
My income continued to grow as we expanded into video sales. The law in Duval County at the time stated that any display of pornographic material could be deemed offensive and the offending party could be arrested for it. In other words, selective enforcement. This was ramped up considerably during city and county elections. The local authorities began to focus on my venue of video sales. Luckily I was never caught up in one of their dragnets however I dealt with store owners that were. I was too quick for them. I was in and out of those store in a flash, typically in the morning so I was never caught. The store owners however were sitting ducks for selective enforcement. One of them was ticketed and fined, another hauled off to jail. The guy called screaming at me that we owed him bail money. I told him to take it up with the local authorities, they are the perpetrators here, not me. I was shouted at and threatened however I continued to sell them, the money was too easy. The wholesale cost of a typical video was $2. I got them for $5 and sold them for $20. the store owners then sold them for $25 - $30. I sold what we called 'Tear off's' or 'rips'. for $2 each. These were back dated issues with the cover torn off. As long as the publisher got the cover back, the business got credited for the magazine. I would routinely make an extra $2-300 per week from the tear off's and more from the video sales.The money was getting better however I still wanted out.
The end came right after I secured a deal with the largest newsstand in the county. They had five outlets throughout the city and would generate over $10K in revenue. This would put gross weekly sales somewhere near $25K per week. If I kept 1/10th of that, I would make over $100 grand per year! I was literally praying to God to get me out of this awful business and at the same time thinking of the money I could make being a porno gangster. I thought about running my own warehouse, buying a computer system, hiring employees - and I even hired one! Gave him a van and set him up in Ocala and Gainesville, Fl. After getting a tacit agreement with the newsstand outlet to carry our product, one of the supervisors came down to ride with me for the day. After lunch, he informed me that I was being fired. My prayers were answered! I was angry initially however that faded. I had no job and no vehicle yet I felt better than I had in a long time. At least I was away from the daily sale of a bad habit to a weak public. The company never got the newsstand account and the rest of their business dried up except for a few stores that were drop shipped each month. I think the mob got to John for something, to this day I can find no reference of him or his company. It's just as it should be - like it never existed.
Magazine sales, porno sales, bad habit, route sales, convenience stores, magazines, mr magazine man, syrian store owners, syrians
Monday, July 4, 2011
The Leader That Wasn't
How is a leader judged? What inherent qualities must a leader have to successfully lead people to a desired outcome? Is past success in a different time and place any indication of present ability?
All of these questions come to mind when taking a look at the most recent events that have transpired in a strange corporate reality of uninformed decisions, misplaced priorities and just plain bad actions.
Money is the fuel to make a business run and when someone siphons fuel in the middle of the night or by proxy, the business eventually grinds to a halt. The recipe for disaster is complete when a struggling start up is funded for a year and a new CEO is hired and is paid over double what the prior CEO made. The situation gets worse when Mr. Spendhappy hires, travels, prints and otherwise burns through cash like there is no tomorrow, comes up empty after four months and has grand dreams of acquiring investment capital with 10 days left to a board meeting. Is a leader judged by the amount of cash he burns through in the shortest period of time? Is the justification of outrageous budget expenditures an inherent quality of genuine leadership? Since our hero has raised large capital in different industries decades ago, does this means it’s reproduceable in this day and age? The answer is a resounding No.
Giant egos from past successes are probably an unavoidable fact of life however when Sir Egomania speaks incessantly of his decades old accomplishments, it makes one cringe as it scorches your hearing for the umpteenth time. Enough already! My God man, even the office manager has heard enough of your “I am Gods gift to the universe” speeches! Please, I am begging you to shut the fuck up about yourself! Along with giant egos comes a haughty eyed disgust for the “little people” as he calls them. The snarky comments are tiresome and loathing especially when they are untrue. Our fearless leader can’t even distinguish between bandwith and a fiber connection and has to make shallow, stammering remarks in regards to it. The only people that act like that are men that have never been in a fight and people you don’t trust because you cant have a beer with them. Must all leaders have giant insatiable egos and does their past behavior beget more abuse for future underlings, the ‘little people’? The answer is a thunderous No.
Teamwork and departmental communication are stalwarts of business success and must be ever present in a business environment. Apparently no one has informed Our Dear Leader of this. His method runs contrary to this universal principle. Captain Chaos chooses to hide away from engineering, (the creators of our product) and is more comfortable asking other employees about “..what is going on back there..?” He has been here for four months and has had one meeting with the entire staff. This meeting was heavily prefaced with “…We might not continue on as a business… We will definitely run out of money and we’re looking for outside investment… and – (my favorite) – “ ..don’t worry, all of you are very talented, I’m sure you will all find your passion in a new place to work, you don’t need to go jumping out of buildings or anything…– direct quote” Thank you Superman, for setting us all straight . Maybe you can take your jumping out of buildings advice and show us how its done! Do effective leaders hide away from the critical tasks at hand?
Do successful leaders have insular and elitist attitudes towards the people they are trying to lead? Has this game of hide and seek and debasing commentary worked for leaders in the past? I dare say No, not now nor ever.
Science fiction, fantasy and pipe dreams have their place in the world of literature however not in the world of business. Unfortunately, our Alpha Team Hero lives in this realm. Maybe Mr. President has a hearing problem because when engineers and inventors of the product scream to him that the product is not ready, he replies with “…why do you wanna rain on my parade..?” Let’s ship it! It works!. No sir, it doesn’t. And by the way, thank you for making me look like a horses ass for the fifth time by telling potential clients we are shipping and the product works – and the fact is, we are not shipping (again) and the product doesn’t work. Don’t worry dear reader, it gets worse! The actions listed above were used to create revenue schedules and yearly numbers! Out of thin air. To compound this atrocity, Mr. Revenue Man was dead sure that we would get another $1.15 million from the primary investor, one month ago. Oh he had his reasons, his false justifications and his phony projections. He really believed this heaping pile of manure and honestly thought it would go over without a hitch. He could not have been more wrong. Needless to say, the primary investor was enraged and told him absolutely no. Do leadership qualities include sociopathic tendencies and an abject denial of reality? Are these acceptable leadership traits that have been applied in the past? A most resounding and vociferous No is the answer here.
Hidden agendas, ulterior motives and duplicitous actions should have no place in a successful business. To the contrary, our Dishonest Abe doesn’t think so. When a meeting is set to speak about the product we are working on and the conversation is diverted half way through the meeting to speak about something entirely different and beneficial only to the Head Corporate Spy, the definition of ulterior motive is achieved. As usual, I asked our leader, “how do you want to handle this meeting, who will speak, when and what about,” his response was ,“ I can handle it”. Handle it he did – he completely shanked our intended presentation, then went headlong into his “solution” that has nothing to do with why we were there in the first place. He asked me to “close my ears”, with a snarky, haughty eyed smirk and proceeded with his hidden agenda. It got stranger after we left when he practically teared up as we passed the hotel he lived in for a while when he moved to Mobile, Alabama. Thank God he didn’t drive me by the Azaleas he so happily proclaimed as a necessary viewing… Are all good leaders duplicitous in their actions? Are hidden agendas and ulterior motives a necessary requisite for leadership? God, I hope not.
Our brief examination of leadership has more so defined what a leader is not and should not become. The kingship of the above mentioned individual is coming to a bad end. We will run out of money, he will not secure new investment and our future is a question mark. It is a sad state of affairs and could have been avoided if our anti- hero was not ensconced with extraordinary spending power. I know this to be true because he told me that after next week, he will be “working from home”. Yeah, right – translation – looking for the next blood bag to attach himself to and drain in the middle of the night.
(Update: Our Dear Leader was fired, for cause – conflict of interest- universal laws do exist!)
leadership, bad leadership, incompetent leadership, corporate fraud, corporate graft, abuse, conflict of interest, fired CEO's, fired
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)