The saddest thing in my book is that it usually takes more time, people and money to say ‘no’ than to simply fix the problem.

Firms that focus on a 3% margin also build their policies around the 1% of customers who might do them wrong. This massively disadvantages the rest of us who must struggle with ossified, precedent-averse procedures.

Thank you for dropping by, Stephen. Always nice to see you!

Nonetheless, having spent most of my adult life working in and around IT (including a fairly lengthy stint in distribution), your experience comes as little surprise to me. Sadly, there are too many ‘cowboys’ who add no value, and compete solely on price. Stupidly small margins are all too common, and developing good customer service is something these folk cannot afford, even if it occurs to them that it is a good idea.

Thanks for taking such time and care to add delicious new layers to our conversation cake. P.

Paul, I had a toner dispute – real and virtual – some months ago, the former as consequence of the latter, neither of which resulted in the desired outcome. The online experience mirrored yours. Being somewhat at pains to be environmentally responsible and not line the pockets of greedy OEM manufacture’s, I then opted for a refill at a franchise establishment a couple of miles away (’scuse the exhuast pipe emissions en route), my retail experience also mirrored yours. F***ing non-OEM powder-coating coagulated and stuck to the drum, trashing my laser printer. Talk about environmental mashup. There’s me guiltily off to the recycling centre with two toxic toner cartridges, a defunct un-biodegradeable printer and the additional petrol fumes (unleaded, Lord have mercy) as karmic bonus for me to atone (pardon the pun) for next time. At that juncture I was reminded of why I hate poets.

John Ruskin’s assertion from the turn of the 19th Century: “It is unwise to pay too much. But it is worse to pay too little. When you pay too much you lose a little money — that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot — it cannot be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run; and if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better”

Y’see, it’s always a poet we should respect, who for the most part, gets paid the least. Well, until the posthumous royalties arrive anyway. I’m a late developer and that’s my excuse. Which is a suitable late developed toner ink denouement…

Stephen: I FEEL ya man. Thank you, truly, a great exchange the other night..morning…damn, we transmuted the timezone, huh?! Honoured by your humbling comment here too, bless your gr8, nay, huge light-filled Osstraalyan heart.

I do specialise in translation/interpretation. As stated on my website, I am fluent in Ownerish: “fiercely independent-thinking perfectionist (penniless) business owner with a dream” as well as in Lenderish: “investor with deep pockets whom take no risks”.

For those of you watching in black and white, Stephen and I share virtually carbon-copy (print-scan theme there, heh heh) perspectives on how money really works, why the economic system is evidencing its immiment fall, what will replace it (history repeats if lessons ain’t learned; just gotta go back far enough to the earliest chapters, in fact before what most consider to be Chapter One, but in this instance, Chapter Two, fourth paragraph, the bit where Phoenicians built a civilisation, global industry and business ethics without money) and the role we motley mutinous crewmembers on the good ship Earth can play a part in steering us all away from needless reruns.

Stay tooned. Loved your Jesus visa line Paul. Seems to me there might just be something in the adage: where two or more are gathered in my name…

I had a long talk with a good friend from the UK last night. He is also a prominent management consultant and an inspiring speaker, writer, trainer and genuinely great human being. He also graces these hallowed annals on occasion too.

Our conversation helped me to crystalise some ideas that have been cooking in the background…many of them for years.

I’m old enough and ugly enough to know that the Universe (that I love to rail against , always puts in front of us exactly what we need to get to the next step…even if that step looks like a backwards one to us.

Suffice it to say that I’m feeling more inspired, and now that the shock and dismay of yester has subsided somewhat (venting here and on my blog helps with that ), my current strategy is this:

Screw everything, I’m taking a few days off!

I know creativity gets blocked by stress. I’m gifting myself the time to relax, regroup and recook my business. My good friend Michael knows me well enough to know that my inclination is toward thinking big (which I have purposely not been doing…I like to try different things )…and, as one of my favourite bits of the Universe (that I do not rail against, so much , he is a great speaker on behalf of it. And though it may seem otherwise, I do have my own weird way of listening.

So without building any false expectations or setting myself up for failure, suffice it to say that I’m inspired and not giving up…stay tuned and thanks folks for your encouragement…won’t it be a great day when our culture values that enough to bank on it?

Cheers

Stephen G

I wonder if there are any bankers in our audience. I’d love to get their take on this matter.

Thank you for contributing.

But ‘the System’ is made up of people, isn’t it?

Hehe! So you did do the T-Shirt thang? Amoizing!

How does one ‘metaphorically’ lose their family? I know I’m not the only one that has experienced such things…but it still hurts, and it is difficult starting again from nothing in mid-life…but plenty of folks have done it, and I am another one of those…

Like I said mate…like all things, it will pass. I’m hardly ‘throwing the towel in’. Often what looks like crap has something great behind it…I don’t want to set myself up as some kind of pathetic drama queen here…or is saying it how it is the same thing? If it is, then we’re all in much deeper ‘doo-doo’ that even I thought…:-P

Funnily, I thought I was up and running for a while there…but trying to run a proper business on a shoe-string, isn’t running a proper business at all…it’s just doing one’s best with what one has.

Onward and upward

Cheers

Stephen G

Fortune favours the brave, but The System does not. Perhaps you should choose your least helpful fiscal friend and send them one of these: http://bit.ly/3APpqI

I don’t know how you lost your family, or whether you’re speaking literally or metaphorically, but I’m dreadfully sorry for your distress and I remain keen to help you any way I can.

I have to ask…after all of the Gov’t approved stuff, and business planning and, and, and, that I did…how the bluddy hell does one actually get inside ‘the box’? Or do they just keep shifting it…or do we just think it’s there and it actually isn’t?

It would appear that my only recourse is to see exactly how unemployable, discreditable and otherwise untouchable I am (I certainly feel like that right now), by regrettably venturing out into the employment market…I have to tell you, I’m not all flushed with excitement about that prospect right at the moment…

You know, I thought I might have finished crying all of my tears in the years during and after I lost my family and all that. I haven’t cried for a long time…but I cried this morning…and just between you and me, your kind words have me welling a tad now, but at least these are the good kind

Thanks mate…really

Cheers

Stephen G