Working for a company that has filed for a chapter 11 bankruptcy

Thesis Statement:  Working for a company that has filed for a chapter 11 bankruptcy was one of the most stressful things I have done.

1^st point:  I had to call my customer and tell them that they will be getting a letter in the mail that we have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protections. 

How would I phrase it?          

How would the customer react?

                        What am I going to say if they want out of their contract?

2^nd Point:  Telling my customer that our accounts have been frozen and the vendor will not release the materials for his job.

            Vendor would not allow my customer to pay them directly for the materials

            Vendor would not accept a check written jointly from customer to us and them.

My customers customers’ business was scheduled to have their grand opening on     Monday today is Friday and I don’t have their carpet to install.

3^rd point:  I found my assistant that afternoon sitting in his cubical crying, he had cracked under pressure.

He had to call on every single order to be sure it was on order and was being shipped.

We where days behind on installing jobs and getting product shipped to keep upcoming jobs running on time.

He was being bombarded with call from the onsite formans wanting answers to why we were not out their installing.

It is important to have a support group when quitting smoking

Thesis Statement:  It is important to have a support group when quitting smoking to help keep you on track.

            1^st point:  Bosses’ kids brought me candy to eat instead of smoking.

Not letting a little kid down

Sucking on hard candy took the place of sucking on a cigarette.

I was getting pressure from my boss to succeed in my goal to quit smoking. 

            2^nd point:  Talking to my coworker Michael about addictions.

Was able to relate to what I had set out to do because he to had struggled with quiting smoking and other addictions.

Took a walk to show me how he copes when he is craving a cigarette.

Talking about what sets off your cravings.

            3^rd point:  Telling my family I was trying to quit smoking.

I didn’t want my wife to know in case I could not quite she might think I was not strong enough.

Had two small children at home and wanting them to grow up without the worries of the possibility that their father would die of cancer.

My grandmother has lung problems do to smoking.

The Pines

It sounds like the point to his writing was to describe his trip to the pines forest to see for himself whether or not it had been touch by man.  He didn’t believe that a forest untouched by man could still exist so close to such a large city.  When he traveled through the pines he discovered that this forest had been touched by man.  Two gentlemen had taken up residence in theforest and were thoughtlessly leaving a path of destruction.  The two men felt that they had a since of entitlement to live as if they didn’t have any responsibility to keep their trash picked.  Instead of finding a pristine forest McPhee found it littered like it was a junk yard by the two men.  His description of the house, yard, and how they lived proved his point that the forest had been touched by man.  Even though the two men may have felt that their way of life was non intrusive to the forest and excused their behavior by saying that this was Gods by referring to the water as gods water.  I believe McPhee supported his point well.

The Porch

The porch blog was a fun read.  It reminded me of a house that I used to rent in NE Portland.  It had a great porch with a swing that hung from the rafters. My neighbor used to stop by often and have a smoke.  We would sit for hours and talk about nothing.  I could relate to his contrast about the porch and the living room.  He is right; on the porch there is no obligation to make small talk.  You can just sit there and do your own thing.  In the living room it seems much more confining and you feel you have to entertain your guest rather that just let them relax.   He uses great detail like “sorry bunch in the living room /see how hard they work to keep up a steady dribble of talk.”  It is the detail he uses that kept you flowing from one idea to the next.e He

Sandwich

I think the thesis was the 1^st sentence, that the L.A. Langer’s pastrami sandwiches were the best in the world.  But found the article hard to follow because she never really gave much supporting detail until the last couple paragraphs.  She rambled on about other Langer’s restaurants.  Made a comment about the decorations and a brief description about the surrounding neighborhood and possibly scared you off from buying a sandwich from them in the evening hours.  I was not convinced until the last paragraph that their sandwiches were anything special.  If I saw the article in a news paper and said to myself “let’s read this article and see if Langers is worth going to to buy a sandwich” I would have stopped reading by the 2^nd paragraph.

Anticipating Change: Staying Current with Your Business Plan

1^st pod cast selected was “Anticipating Change:  Staying Current with Your Business Plan”.  I chose this pod cast because writing a business plan is where I am currently at in my life.

Point 1.  Financial transcripts. 

 He talked about how important it was to maintain a balance sheet, profit and loss, and a cash flow statement.  He explained how you can use these to since market change and adjust to it.  The example he used was the restaurant trade and how when they noticed that the average ticket was down they needed to make decisions on what to do about it, such as Introduce specials, cut administrative cost, be sure that their service people where suggesting add-on sales.

Before going to point #2 find your zen spot and check out these beautiful cherry blossom paintings

Point 2 communicating your business plan to your employees.

Once you have determined to make a change and you update your business plan to reflect these changes you can’t stop there.  Just because you wrote it in you business plan does not mean that it is going to happen, you need to act on it.  You need to be sure to tell your employees what the new direction the company is going and lead them in that direction.  Without the support for the new direction you will not go anywhere. 

Point 3 Growth and expansion.

Some of what a business plan is supposed to accomplish it to test out new ideas; to see if they are profitable or feasible on paper before launching the idea into your business.  If you want to grow or expand your business it is a good Idea to test it out in your business plan 1^st.  You want to make sure that you have the labor recourses and the financial means to launch an expansion.  You also want to make sure that you market can support your expansion.  Test driving this expansion in you business plan before launching it can save you and your business a lot of heart ache in working out the bugs. 

 

The 2^nd pod cast I chose was “Is Entrepreneurship for You?”  I choose this because there are times when my kids want my attention or I am just out of energy and ask myself what I am doing working more than a full time job, going to school, trying to turn a profit in my own endeavor, and making time to spend with my family. 

Point 1Decision making

When you own your own business you are the decision maker.  You don’t have a boss to fall back on to make the tuff decisions.  If you are having a hard time deciding what do to you don’t have anybody looking over your shoulder to keep you motivated and help.  When an employee does not show up for work you are the one that has to deal with the desition on how to handle it.  Not only in discipline for the employee but what your game plan is to get through the day being short an employee. 

Point 2.  Finances.

Many small businesses use their own credit card to finance their venture.  You need to stay on top of the billing so you don’t have to pay exurbanite finance charges.  Many small businesses barrow from their family, it is important to have a good agreement between you and who you are barrowing from to be sure not to hurt any family ties if something goes wrong with the business.

Point 3 Free training.

They talked extensively about the free training programs at www.sba.gov/training.  They have courses set up to help you apply for financing & accounting, submitting product for sale to the US government, survuvubg a slow economy, Marketing & advertising, as well as how to write a business plan.  They also offer free counciling.

 

The best pod cast was “Anticipating Change:  Staying Current with Your Business Plan”.  I found it helpful talking about staying current in you business and in you business plan, that you have to take an active approach to stay on top of what is going on in your market.  The 2^nd one was help full for future reference but was more of an advertisement of their services than actually learning something from it.  

Why do vendors never want to take resposibility

I ordered about 28 boxes of tiddlywinks for a customer that was going to install them on his floor. He wanted all sage green tiddlywinks. The customer worked all night to install the tiddlywinks and in the morning when he looked at his new floor he noticed that there was a discoloration throughout the floor.

If you are tired of reading this blog post maybe check out this one on building a chicken coop.
It looks like it was written by a furniture design co.  Why they would build a coop who knows, but I guess if you have the skills why not.  Maybe I will follow them to see what else they post
Any how, back to our regular scheduled blog post. 
 
He called me all up in a tizzy pissed that now in the light his tiddlywinks were discolored and wanted me to do something about it. I suggested we place a warranty claim against the manufacture for the discoloration.
I called the manufacture UStidilys to place a claim. They told me that because tiddlywinks grow naturally that each one is its own special color so there was no defect. I UStidilys that this color variation was in their finish and that it was defective. I had to force them to fax over their claim form for my customer.
We filled out the claim form and faxed it back. I followed up in 2 days and it was like taking to a different company. They accepted some responsibility and said they wanted to send out an independent tiddlywinks inspector to be sure. My customer agreed to this and waited the tidily wink inspectors call. 3 days went by and no call, so I called US tidily back and talked to the same person and he pretended not to have ever heard from me and that they have not ever see our tidily wink claim form. So I think they are play to see if we will give up. I'm here to tell you than gnomes do hold grudges and if they want to play that game I will have my cousin Chris the leprechaun break his legs.