Tag Archives: business

Safety Is Number One Priority

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The statement echoes the typical corporate response following a catastrophic event, reflecting a carefully crafted narrative that may or may not align with the full truth. While potentially genuine, such communications often serve to mitigate reputational damage, leaving listeners to discern the nuanced layers of accountability and perception.

The disclaimer serves as a strategic legal shield, reflecting a calculated approach to risk management. Legal practitioners view such scenarios as potential goldmines, positioning themselves to represent clients with an eye toward lucrative contingency arrangements. Corporate leadership often opts for expedient settlements, recognizing that the financial and reputational costs of prolonged litigation can far exceed the immediate monetary outlay of a negotiated resolution. it megabytes the need for an outright win in court.

The most significant risks arise when false statements are exposed, potentially revealing deliberate corporate negligence. Imagine the catastrophic consequences if evidence emerged that leadership consciously prioritized efficiency over worker safety, creating a scenario fraught with legal and ethical peril. Such a revelation would demand an extraordinarily challenging explanation that could fundamentally undermine organizational integrity and trust.

The potential revelation of underlying issues could bring to light significant concerns within an organization. While not necessarily leading to immediate legal or financial repercussions, the implications might still be substantial for leadership. The practice of selecting personnel based on personal connections, physical characteristics, or arbitrary factors rather than merit raises serious ethical questions. It is worth recalling that during a recent presidential administration, such preferential treatment was not only tolerated but seemingly encouraged by federal policies. The memory of these practices remains vivid for many observers who witnessed such systemic approaches to hiring and promotion.

Wouldn’t it be something if we found out that the incident was the result of a lack of qualifications by some technician chosen by the color of his skin.

I don’t know. What I do know, I am much less likely to fly these days. There seem to be a number of accidents these days that are the result, not of mistaker, but rather just being sloppy.

I know the argument. Flying is still safer. Still, I’m going to drive, take the bus, or maybe just walk.

Two Reasons, Same Decision

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It appears that the President has decided to implement tariffs on imported steel and aluminum in order to protect the domestic industry and its workers. While the reasoning behind this decision is not entirely clear, the aim seems to be to support American jobs and businesses in these sectors.

Our strategic position is a matter of national security. In the event of war, ensuring access to critical resources like steel and aluminum is crucial for our ability to manufacture the tanks, planes, and other military equipment needed to prevail. Our past success in defeating Germany was largely due to our capacity for mass production of these vital assets. Maintaining this industrial capability is essential for safeguarding our nation’s defense.

Nonetheless, let’s put both these reasons aside for a moment. Instead, let’s examine the concept of a monopoly. The typical approach to establishing a monopoly is by aggressively lowering prices to drive all competitors out of the market.

If China had any desire to do such a thing to the US, it would never happen as long as the competition was industry to industry; steel factory against steel factory. However, when the Chinese government helps to finance Chinese steel factories, it makes it impossible for the American factories to compete.

Then, when the American plants cease to operate and the US no longer has skilled steel workers, China can charge whatever it wants. Moreover, if China decides to wage war against us, we will be completely at their mercy. The Chinese government is not known for its mercy.

Maintaining a strong steel and aluminum industry is not an option. It is absolutely essential; that is, unless we do not mind learning Chinese.

As for me, I prefer American English.

Customer No-Service

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I heard one time that J.C. Penney once said something to the effect, “Please give me the privilege of your complaint.” I’m not sure if it was Penney or someone else who said it. I have spent many hours looking, trying to find the original source.

Nonetheless, it is logical. You take a critical diner. The waiter places the flatware before them, and it has a few water spots on it. The diner does not complain. Perhaps they will use their napkin to wipe the spots off. There are people who have such obsessions. I have personally witnessed them firsthand.

Then, naturally, the diner enjoys his meal and leaves without so much as one complaint. However, he never returns due to the water spots.

Perhaps some of you have seen people like this. On the other hand, some of you might be as this diner, maybe in some other way.

I’m not nearly that picky, though sometimes, I must admit to cleaning the spots. I guess the obsession might have come from my days of working in a restaurant. However, I would neither complain about such things nor would I cease visiting the dining facility.

There is a dual purpose to my writing. Always provide the party you are doing business with your genuine complaints, to the greatest extent possible. Secondly, always seek customer complaints, even more than the accolades. It always hurts more to hear the complaints, but the complaints just might help your business succeed.

And then, of course, you have businesses that provide no way for customers to complain. Can these businesses really expect to succeed for long? There was a talk show host who had a name for a department in such businesses. He called it the “customer no-service” department.

My best guess is likely also your best guess as to why. Obviously, he was tired of getting the runaround from some company that did not value customer complaints. Somehow, I suspect most of those reading this know exactly what I mean. Certainly, if you are half the age I am, you have likely had experience with a customer no-service department.

If so, I would welcome your short, polite comments. In fact, I’d love to see a few hundred of your comments. But please keep them G-rated.

Are Mergers Good?

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I haven’t done a lot of research on it. However, it seems to me that whenever one corporation buys or merges with another, the result seems to be a smaller or less effective a corporation than either of the companies. Consider, Boeing and McDonald Douglas. I might be wrong, but it seems that Boeing is not anything like either original company. The latest version of the 737 has been struggling since it left the drawing boards. Moreover, I don’t think the old Boeing would have put up with the apparent coverups attached recently to the plane and corporation. Don’t know so much about others, but I am beginning to think walking is a so much safer than flying. And most of incidents seem to be with Boeing aircraft.

I am open to suggestions. Am I just looking for something not there or have I stumbled onto something. It seems to me that I have stumbled onto several instances. I mean, American Motors bought out Jeep. Then American Motors started having problems and it was bought out by Chrysler. Then Chrysler was in a hair of going under. Well, that might not be such a good example. At one time, all of the big three were having big problems. There might not be a GM had we tax payers not have bailed them out. I kind of remember that one. In a way, I paid for my 2008 Chevy twice: once as a customer, once through my taxes.

I am sure that at one time, Oldsmobile merged with GM. Now there is no Oldsmobile. After Chysler bought AMC, the only part of American Motors left, near as I can tell, is jeep. The rest kind of disappeared. No more AMC cars at all. My question is, is Chrysler any bigger than it was when it bought American Motors. I don’t know. Can hardly manage a guess. However, it does seem that Ford and GM individually have more and larger dealers. I guess I could look up the sales. However, as I have mentioned before, I am lazy.

Just thought I would toss it out there. Something to think about, if you are as me and like to consider such things.

Incidentally, if you are in a position to consider a merger, you might want to think about twice, or maybe 4 times.

The Benefit of a Plan “B”

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Somewhere around 2010 they shut down the shuttle program, in essence discounting the most of the space program.

To most of us, it was a small thing. However, it was then that thousands discovered that they had no plan “B.” Many had families. The vast majority had bills, big bills. They likely had a little savings, not nearly enough. Many panicked. Many went down to the local hamburger place and found out that that plan “B” wouldn’t work. They weren’t hiring. Worse, the restaurants were making their money off the those that were were working for NASA. …And now, very few were working for NASA. And it was even worse. Had they got hired on and worked 60 hour weeks, they would not make the house payment. Just can’t do that on minimum wage.

It was something of a local depression. They all would have gladly sold apples but no one was buying apples. They would have gone into construction, but there were suddenly many vacancies. There was no need to build new homes. People were leaving by the thousands. It would have been a real good time to have a bunch of money to invest in real estate. The depression of land values was short. A person with a little spare change in his pocket had the chance to buy low and sell high.

Nonetheless, back to my point. It was those who had the good Plan “B” that did well. Unfortunately, there were not many. I mean, where does an aeronautic engineer go to find a job. They had one possible employer and there just weren’t many other places hiring.

I don’t know, but I would guess that most of those who had houses left. In many cases, they likely simply abandoned their homes, unable to sell them. I don’t know. It might have been one of those times it would have been better to rent. That way, it would be landlords who would be the losers when everyone started moving out.

I don’t have any idea what they all did, but I can guess it was whatever they could find, even if it was digging ditches. There is no telling how far they move from their former homes before they could find someone who would hire them.

It was worse than the catch 22. No one wanted to hire someone they knew would have to train, and then lose the instant someone starts building rockets again. It is the perfect example of being overqualified. So, suddenly, they wished they learned how to build houses, did plumbing or air conditioning in their spare time. At least then, they could go to an employer and say I already know how….

I was one of those who didn’t have a Plan “B,” though not part of the space program. I was making good money repairing computers. Then one day, I was called into the boss’s office in the late 1980’s. Need I say more.

In one day, the corporation of UNISYS decreased its employees by twenty percent. It was devastating not just to me, but to the rest of the20%. But I did see it coming. I hoped to avoid it, but hope just does not always work.

Oh, and by the way, my oldest son just started college. Wish I had had a plan “B.” They come in so handy when things suddenly happen, even when it isn’t so sudden.

The Daily Walk

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It had developed into a regular thing. At lunch, after eating, we used to take a short walk. It was an area of town that had many shops. Of course on each door was a something that identified it, though frequently there was no clue as to what the purpose of the shop was.

It had become something of a guessing game as to what this shop or that shop did. Many of them we never figured out. Then, one of the guys I worked with came up with an interesting idea. Maybe we could lease one one of the places and put a name on the door. Then, if someone came in and asked what we did there we could answer, “I don’t know. What is it you would like us to do?”When I saw the daily prompt, it brought back the memory and I had to have a short laugh. I know, it did not warrant a long or hard laugh. Really, it was a too many words for too short a laugh. Moreover, it didn’t answer the prompt.

When I was 14 or fifteen, I went to visit my brother during summer vacation. He owned a TV shop. Back then, people paid to have TVs repaired instead of just throwing them away. Even back them, I had a pretty good knowledge of electronics and I was a lot of help to him, especially when it came to putting up antennas. Strange as it might seem to people today, that was a large part of the business in the day. It was very common to put up 50 or 70 foot antenna so the customer would be able to pull in five, maybe six stations.

After working on computers for almost 12 years, I really did consider opening up a computer shop. I was good at fixing them and I knew a few others who might have thrown in with me. Then I thought back on my brother’s TV shop. He told me a couple of times, to run a TV shop, it is more important to know how to run a business than knowing how to fix TVs.

I have thought about what he said many times. When I thought about opening a computer shop, his words echoed in my mind. There are many who have started businesses to have them fail on them, not because of a knowledge of the craft but because of a lack of knowledge of how to run a business.

I think before I open any kind of business, I would want to make sure I had some kind of degree in business. Even so, the main reason I was so reluctant to go into the business of fixing computers is because of my fear of coincidence.

You see, electronic components work real good, sometimes for decades. However, they are full of smoke. If the smoke ever gets out, they never work right again. I know it for a fact. I have seen it first hand. So a customer brings in a computer with a problem but still working. He walks out the door and suddenly, the computer he leaves with me lets all the smoke out. Now what do I do? Not only do I have to replace the guy’s computer, but he is angry at me for losing all his data. He gets on the internet and tells the world not to come to me because I am a bad computer tech because I let the smoke out of them.

There are those who like taking risks. If I were single, I would have. However, I had three more to feed besides myself. It was just too much of a risk for me.

It is a real shame I did not open my little shop. I would have made a lot of money at it, until computers became throwaway as TVs.

I don’t know. Maybe I could start a shop making custom shoes. Could I make shoes that people would be willing to shell out $200 for. I’d likely not be able to give them away. It would still be interesting to try it. Who knows. I just might be good enough at business to run a business.

It would be better to take on a partner with a business degree, I think.

Daily writing prompt
If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?
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Computers

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The small business owner was asked over and over why he didn’t computerize his business. He kept replying that he already made mistakes fast enough. He didn’t need the help of a computer to only make them faster.

There is some truth to story, even though someone likely made it up. Computers are fast. If you don’t do things right when you set up a computer, most likely, you will make the man’s words come true. And, I have seen it happen a number of times.

At one time, computers were big and expensive. Worse, they were slow. Well, they were fast but not nearly as fast as the computers today. So, even the big businesses had one computer and it was put in the hands of a few people.

The hitch is that the owners of the companies knew a lot about business, but little or nothing about computers. The salesman came along telling the owner of the business that the computer will solve all his problems, even some he doesn’t know about. Of course, no one mentioned that the computer salesman knew only slightly more than the owner of the business owner.

Worse yet, the salesman didn’t actually know what the owner of the business could use the computer for. With those three things being true, it amazed me that anyone got anything right. What I write, I have seen firsthand. However, more than that, I have read many articles in computer magazines that have said the same thing. Therefore, I think I can say with a reasonable amount of proof that I was not the only one to notice it.

So it is, that many computers were purchased to do things the computer was not intended for and those who knew how to use the computers couldn’t.

Then, in come the programmers, those who know how to make computers do what they do. Naturally, they got busy writing programs that served little or no purpose. Let’s face it, they have no idea what the users need the computer for so they make programs that they think will be useful.

Then the owners of the companies discovered something about computers that they liked. They served the purpose of “big brother.” They permitted the boss to look over the shoulders of those on the line doing the real job. Granted, it did help the company run a little more efficiently, but it would have run 3 times better if the computer would be used for their proper purpose.

I saw it all happen and it really rubbed me the wrong way. When I was in the Marines, they had computers keeping track of all I did. I also worked for two civilian companies that did the same. In the Marines I spent almost as much time looking up codes as I did doing the work.

Ask the doctors. They spend 10 minutes with a patient and he pays a secretary for 20 minutes work to make sure it gets documented right. Then, if it not documented right, Medicare or the insurance company kicks it back and the doc doesn’t get paid until it is documented right. And you wonder why it is that medical costs keep sky rocketing.

One of the biggest advantages of the PC is that it brought control of the computers to the folks who can really use them and they know what to use them for.

Well, that’s not totally true. If the owner turns his back for a minute, his employees get busy surfing the web or playing games. I heard of one company that had to send out a message for every one to stop watching the Super Bowl on the computers as it was slowing down internet response.

I only heard of the one instance, but I am sure it still happens a lot. Only now they use their phone instead of the businesses internet. Well, at least they can get their work done in between touchdowns.

The Problem With Ordering Online

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Whenever, I order pizza online to be delivered, I order through Domino’s. It all works out good. The pizza is hot and the soft drinks are cold. The one delivering the pizza is friendly.

Then, suddenly I have advertisements show up daily on my e-mail. I know the e-mail has a little box to check to turn the ads off, but why.

It may seem strange, but when I want a pizza I know how to do that. I don’t need help. And I do find it annoying to have my computer used for their ads. It just rubs me the wrong way.

I would tell them personally, but I doubt it would help. Companies like that seem to have mindsets, and not just Domino’s. It seems I order a widget and suddenly there is an onslaught of ads for widgets. I just bought the one. I don’t need anymore for a long time. You know, they do last years.

Well, I am getting a little off the intended path, but I suspect I already have a few folks agreeing with me.

But here’s the hitch for Domino’s and the outfits like them. Instead of going to Domino’s to order my next pizza, I am more apt to go to Three guys, Marco’s, or even Subway… who makes a really good personal pizza by the way.

Instead of the ads drawing business in, they just might be driving people away. I consider it the unintended consequences of doing stupid stuff. And here’s the hitch, they think what they are doing is smart.

It’s a Shame I Don’t Have a Spare Dollar or 2

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Back in the 60s or 70s McDonald’s without doubt had the fastest service. It was simple why. They cooked it all in advance. While the customer put his money on the counter, the employee put the order in a bag or on a tray.

No matter how long the line got, it moved right along. Waiting time was minimal.

Okay, sometimes the food wasn’t piping hot, but it was good and, let’s face it. it’s where we went when we were in a hurry and we didn’t want to pay so much.

I have no idea the reason or who’s idea it was but McDonald’s decided to change. Now those that go there wait, and wait. More, the food is not so hot. Literally, it is luke warm, at best.

I guess that many followed McDonald’s, but I wonder just how many would like the old way.

So. If I had a spare dollar or 2 to spare, maybe I could start a restaurant based on the methods of the old McDonald’s. I am sure many of the folks would stay with the new McDonald’s but maybe I could make a living off the old methods.

That way, when someone wants to wait, they could go to McDonald’s. When a person wants their food in a hurry, they could come to my restaurant.

Incidentally, I would not have those ridiculous ketchup machines that never, ever work. Also, forget going through the drive through. There would be none. I would insist you come in and say hello. As you might expect, I would provide faster service than the drive through anyway.

It does make me wonder just a little. Just how many would leave the new McDonald’s model to go to the old model.

By the way. I don’t have any name for my old idea. Maybe I could solicit a few.

Can Our Society Afford Lawyers

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When we first moved into Desoto County, there was a nice pool in Southaven we went to regularly. It closed. The cost of insurance made it prohibitive to remain open.

There was a nice spring that was converted to a lake over near Olive Branch. They even shipped in some nice white sand. For some the spring water was a bit cold, but for us it couldn’t be beat on a hot summer day. It closed. The cost of insurance was to high.

I guess after a while they will need to close the lakes and streams. Those insurance bills, you know. Then too, there are those pools they have at hotels for their guests. They have to pay insurance companies too.

I have singled out but a small segment of a very wide industry. Trucking companies, railroads, airlines all must carry insurance. Retailers, doctors and even private motorists must carry insurance.

Every time someone makes a claim it cost the insurance company. When the claims become too high or to frequent, the insurance company must raise the rates, cancel customers or go out of business.

I hear ads every day, effectively saying, let’s go after the insurance companies. They have endless supplies of money. If that attitude continues, insurance companies will go bankrupt and businesses will have to shut down. Then, of course, we will have to give up driving. We won’t be able to buy insurance at any price.

Besides, auto manufacturers will go out of business. They won’t be able operate their factories, or ship their cars if they could build them.

The grocery stores would have to close down and the druggists will have to lock everything up. Retailers cannot operate without insurance. The first big lawsuit would take ever penny from them.

It does beg the question, can our nation afford the money hungry lawyers? Or maybe I should ask the question, how long can we afford them before our society collapses?