2395. Excuses excuses

Angus was a sales representative for a large chemical firm. He was constantly getting invited to attend this and that in the weekends by clients. “Come to dinner!” “We’re having a barbeque.” “Just a light Saturday luncheon with co-workers from the factory.”

Angus’ weekends were never his own. He had two children; a boy and a girl. He started by saying he could not attend because it was Algernon’s birthday or Gwendoline’s birthday. After several months of this he realized that that he had used seven or eight birthday dates for each child. What if the client repeated the invitation several months later? And which child’s birthday had he used for that client?  He could hardly have each child born twice!

There was only one thing for it; Angus began to keep a notebook. It worked perfectly.

These days he has six grandchildren. There’s no need for names. There’s no need for notebooks. It’s simply, “I can’t come sorry. It’s a grandchild’s birthday.”

2270. On a mission

Laurie was the grumpiest man on the street; in fact he was possibly the grumpiest man in the town. He grew strawberries in his garden, and one thing was certain: none of the sweetness of strawberries had rubbed off on him.

He would sell strawberries at his gate in little plastic containers. There was an honesty box. Some people thought he under-charged but he said if the price was too low then people were welcome to go to the supermarket and purchase the more expensive, sourer, inferior strawberries. The supermarket manager resented that Laurie had labelled his strawberries as inferior. Laurie was undercutting business.

Further down the road, in fact on a nearby but different street, lived Velda. She would buy quite a few of Laurie’s strawberries apparently to make jam. She didn’t make much of a profit with the jam she said but it was an interest. It fills in a rainy day – as she was wont to say.

Laurie didn’t like Velda making jam with his strawberries. Adding sugar to his carefully grown fruit was a sacrilege. One day he saw Velda coming with a pram (she always brought an old pram to load it up and push the strawberries to her house). He rushed out to his gate and informed Velda that he didn’t like her buying so many of his strawberries. “There are other people in the world that might enjoy some.”

“Oh,” said Velda, “I was just coming to tell you that I heard several of the fruit in your garden have been injected with poison. I wouldn’t touch a single strawberry for the rest of the year if I were you.”

And Velda sauntered off to the supermarket where she triumphantly announced to her husband, the Manager: “Mission accomplished”.

2013. Don’t count your chickens

Maree was trying to instil into nine-year old Vincent a sense of the value of money. He must learn to work and save and spend. Since they lived on a small life-style block Maree came up with an idea based on their living conditions: if Vincent fed and looked after their poultry she would buy the eggs off him. It was quite simple: Maree and Vincent’s father would continue to buy the feed for the poultry, but the rest was over to Vincent. She would pay him thirty cents an egg. There were only three hens, but with careful saving money over a reasonably short space of time things could build up into a handy little nest egg.

Three eggs a day! Not quite a dollar a day! Almost seven dollars a week! Roughly 27 dollars a month!

For two months Vincent acted as a faithful chicken farmer.

“Have you spent anything of your savings yet?” asked proud Maree.

“Nothing yet,” said Vincent. But he had learnt and done a few things. He had gone to a local poultry farm and they had given him an old rooster.

“Is that crowing I hear coming from the hen house?” asked Maree.

“When there’s no rooster,” said Vincent knowledgeably, “sometimes a hen will start crowing like a rooster.”

After several weeks Vincent started going to the grocery store and buying a carton of eggs. He would sell his mother three eggs a day. In the meantime his three broody hens were sitting on a dozen eggs each!

When his money ran out, Vincent announced that his hens were moulting and not producing eggs, so Maree began to buy eggs from the shop.

Within a few months there were more than thirty hens and roosters scampering around the life-style block.

“What’s all this chicken food I’m having to buy?” asked Vincent’s father.

Within a few weeks more Vincent was able to sell his mother a dozen eggs a day. Not that she needed that many eggs, but she passed some to her sister and some to her mother. Now and again Vincent would get a bonus – five dollars for a freshly killed and plucked rooster.

“Well,” said Vincent’s father to Maree, “I think your little money education plan worked. From now on he can buy his own chicken feed.”

By the age of eleven, Vincent was selling fresh eggs to fifteen different households.

2006. Online business meeting

Well! What an unbelievable mess! Olga, who lived in New York, had been asked by Hector, who lived in South Africa, to organize a meeting online. The two of them were to discuss an important business deal with Jack, who lived in Scotland.

The meeting was to seal a multimillion dollar transaction. Jack in Scotland had the money, Hector in South Africa had the imagination, and Olga in New York had the drive. It was easy-peasy! All three knew it. A deal could be struck so effortlessly that possibly a deal could be struck even before a deal could be struck!

The business of different time zones was easily solved; as was taking into account Summer Time and all other unnecessary foibles of modern time-foolery. Such a thing was simple arithmetic. All three came online at the same time. That was when the confusion began.

Not a single one of the three had the slightest inkling as to what the other was saying. The accents caused total muddlement. It was all Double Dutch. Olga, Hector, and Jack might as well have spoken in turn in Njerep, Kaixana and Paakantyi.

The meeting was worse than a waste of time; it was a disaster. Afterwards, Olga jumped off a bridge (in fact it held up traffic for quite some time). Hector took his elephant-hunting gun and went for a walk (he has never been seen since). Jack went and dined as usual in a fancy restaurant. (He had so much money he didn’t give a hoot about some silly failed transaction).

And that is why the antidote for the common cold has never been made available.

1884. How to succeed

(Apologies today for two postings; this monologue here, and then a poem in an hour’s time. I normally like to do only one posting a day, but I’m “slightly” neurotic about not messing up my story numbering system and wanted to get the poem out of my head… anyway… thanks for your patience!)

You can’t pamper to everyone’s needs. You can’t pussyfoot around. You’ve got to be bloody-minded and go for it. Remember, if you want to make money, you’re number one.

Let me illustrate this with a story. There was this guy I knew called Dale. He was a plumber. He came to me and said, “Look Lincoln,” he said, “I’ve got this little old lady who’s not getting any hot water in the house. Probably she has accidentally flicked a switch off or something. She asked if I could come and look at it, but she said she couldn’t pay until next week when the pension comes in. What should I do?”

I said to him, to this guy Dale, you tell her to jump in the lake. It’s a dog eat dog world out there and if she can’t cough up then she can’t get the job done.

Later my mate, Dale, he said he did just that and she went for a week without hot water. And when the pension came in he contacted the lady to ask if she still needed the job getting done. She said it was getting urgent so he went round to her place two days later and charged her double for hounding him. Of course he didn’t say the hounding bit; he said he was charging double because the job was urgent. Also, it was just the switch turned off but he wasn’t going to tell her that. So he fiddled around for a while with some tools.

That’s the way to go about things if you want to earn a living – in fact more than a living – that’s the way to go about things if you want to live reasonably comfortably.

My motto for my business is KINDNESS LIVES HERE. People love it.

1194. Pub corner

Yeah. Well. I was sitting unobtrusively in the corner of this pub having a think and having a quiet drink and smoking a cigarette which I had just taken up again after eleven years off them. And this guy comes up to me and says, hey, have you ever thought of doing something useful with your life?

And I say, yeah, like what?

And he says, I dunno. Get married and have kids and do something useful, instead of smoking and drinking on your own in a corner.

And I say I’ve got a wife and kids already.

And he says, well how come they’re not here or at least your wife? She might enjoy a night out.

So I stood up and socked him the biggest punch on his jaw I could muster. He fell down and I kicked him in the crotch and left.

Some people don’t know how to mind their fucking business.

979. Increased profit

It’s a fact of life: most people can tell the genuine from the false. People know when the waitress is genuinely interested or just trying to be nice because “that’s what she’s paid to do”.

Good service, kindness, compassionate benevolence, helpfulness – these are qualities that will bring customers back again and again. People are quick to condemn, and quick to praise. Word gets around. Self-interest and greed bring about the death of a business.

So how can we help? Let us show you how you can use these positive qualities in your business to attract more custom and make a greater profit. Teaching businesses how to make more money is our business.

Listen to the story being read HERE!