simplerich

So, my Kindle Fire developed a weird screen thing where the screen would shoot vertical lines through it and then go black. In the dark you could sometimes see it was half the blacker-than-black from between scanlines on a TV and the other half was a dark gray. But the screen wasn’t viewable. Just the slightest tweak, or holding it ONLY on the left side would fix the problem stutteringly. Then it would stay OK for a while. Other times it’d be touchy and seemed not willing to stay on at all. Still other times it would go a negative so white was black and black was white. blue was red, etc. It was a negative… you know what that is. It got worse over time. I didn’t have a lot of time so I didn’t do much with it.

Finally tonight I went through the steps on amazon to do a return and got a message saying, “Can’t just return this item punk! You gotta talk to someone in a foreign country who is awake this late.” or words to that effect. With great trepidation I called the 800 number and got someone whose name I didn’t understand but his name was NOT “Peggy” and he did NOT tell me I couldn’t turn my airline miles into cash.

It was a guy, with an accent yes, but he was super friendly. Very helpful and never once asked if I’d dropped it, thrown it across the room, left it in a car overnight when it was eleven-degrees outside, shipped it across the country twice in a shoe box or anything else that might cause problems. He simply apologized for the problem and asked where to ship the replacement item. I told him and while we were talking an e-mail showed up with a link to print a shipping label. When the new one arrives I’m to put the broken one in the box, hand it to any UPS driver or store and toddle off to enjoy the replacement item.

No muss. No fuss. Free 2 day shipping to me. They couldn’t have been nicer, more solicitous, helpful, cooperative, or excellent to deal with. Seriously. I can’t imagine anything he could have done to make the experience more pleasant.

To answer your unanswered question: Would I still recommend someone get a Kindle Fire? The answer is absolutely YES if you have wi-fi at your home or work. If you don’t have wi-fi it’d be a harder sell for me. But with the wi-fi I have available to me at home, work, and the coffee shop it’s as good as always on for me.  I love it for movies, facebook, comics, and reading websites. I don’t love it for books because the battery doesn’t last 2 weeks like my Kindle 3. But I like it for books at night when the lights are out and I don’t want to turn on a table lamp.

Thank you Amazon.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Google+ lately and am finding the conversation over there excellent. I’m getting a lot more traction there than here. Funny how that works. One of the things I’ve noticed over there, and the Internet-at-large honestly, is a lot of people claiming to be entrepreneurs as their job.

I call foul. If a person is truly an entrepreneur they’re starting up a business. They have a stake in it and they are trying to get it off the ground. I would think if they were engaging in a social network they would want to advertise their business, you never know when you’ll find someone interested in helping a fledgeling business take off. These people aren’t talking about a business though. They’re talking about a mindset and that mind set isn’t a job.

There are entrepreneurs I look up to. Myspace Tom is one. He was Myspace for a lot of years. He didn’t say he was an entrepreneur. He said he was Myspace. Today he says he’s retired but he continues to look for an idea he’s passionate about that he’ll do next. He doesn’t call himself an entrepreneur. He recognizes that it’s not a job to be an entrepreneur. It’s a calling. It’s a way of life. It’s the way you’re wired. It’d be like saying you’re a Libra (well… except that Libra isn’t all that real but you get my meaning.)

Imagine you’re an entrepreneur starting up a new business selling widgets and you’ve got three employees in your start-up. You’ve invested all your money in it. Mortgaged your house, cashed in your 401k and your wife’s 401k and you’re making a go at it with all cylinders. Would your business card say “Entrepreneur” or would it say “Widgetopia!” My guess is it would say “Widgetopia!” And that’d be in 20 point type.

What’s it mean to your employees, those three people you stay up all night with working with to get things done by a deadline, what’s it mean to them if your business card says “Entrepreneur?” It means to them as soon as you can get the business off the ground and sold for a profit you’re going to hit the road. You’re not in it for the long haul. You’re in it until you can monetize them and run. It’s one thing to have the entrepreneurial spirit or to think like an entrepreneur. It’s another to claim to be one all the time.

I wonder if they’re really entrepreneurs or if they’re dilettantes? If they don’t have the attention span or commitment to do the running of a business. Or maybe they’ve got an idea that’s good enough to sell during a bubble, but not sustainable and they hope to get out before anybody notices? Or maybe they’re unemployed and don’t want to say that. I don’t know what it is. But I don’t know if “entrepreneur” as it’s used today by those people calling themselves “entrepreneurs” means what they think it means.

I get that it’s today’s go-to buzzword way for a person to indicate they’re creative, think outside the box, and are able to do a wide variety of tasks to get things done. But it’s not at all indicative in it’s spirit of sticking to a project. It doesn’t portray to an employer, a person who is in it for the long haul. If you want to be thought of as creative just use that word, and then show it. BE creative. BE thoughtful. BE civil. BE polite. BE the person you’d want other people to think you are.* Don’t just say it. And, if you DO say it, use the word correctly.

I was training a new employee at work today. Today was her first day. She used to be a customer and would only come in when I was working because I made her feel welcome, comfortable and special. She said she wanted to work at a place that employed that kind of person. She and her mother came in almost weekly for about six weeks. They wound up sending me a thank you note and bringing me a plate of goodies after they were done doing their party they were doing. It was VERY nice.

At shift change today my clerk that’s been there six months and the new girl were talking and the six month employee said, “Rich is the best manager I’ve ever had. You know some places have like good cop assistant manager and bad cop manager? Well Rich is totally good cop and he’s the best manager I ever worked for. He really cares about his employees and it’s awesome.” The new girl said, “Whose the bad cop?” The six monther said, “You don’t need a bad cop when everybody looks out for each other. The assistant is more gruff or short or rough around the edges, but he’s not a bad cop. Rich likes to think he is but he’s totally not.” I was counting my drawer down while they “girl-talked.”

I interrupted from my counting, “Don’t believe her, I’m a jerk if you mess up.”

Six-monther said, “You won’t want to mess up. It’s like you let him down and he doesn’t yell at you at all, he just goes all quiet and talks about how he knows you can do better and how did he mess up in the training or the communication of what he wanted and by the end of it I’m all, ‘Just yell at me! I’m sorry!‘ He’s great. I don’t ever want to work for anybody else. I wish I could have trained you one day, but I’m not management though.”

I interrupted again, “If the schedule had worked out I’d have totally let you train her. You’ve got an excellent work ethic, you do your cleaning really well, the customers really like you. I’ve got total confidence in your ability to be an excellent example to anybody I hire.”  That’s true too. I wasn’t just saying that. She’d have done an excellent job.

“See! Isn’t he great? Now how awful will I feel if I mess something up tonight?” Six-monther laughed, “I won’t though. He makes it easy to do good.”

Now, I’m not saying this because it makes me look good or makes me look like a push-over. I’m not… but there are a LOT of ways to manage and expecting good things, encouraging good things, and rewarding good behavior works for me, a LOT better than just punishing bad behavior. Which I DO do when it needs it. But it’s nice when an employee is bragging about how great it is to work at a place. I’m super excited for my crew and for the new employee being excited to join a crew that’s excited to have her and doesn’t see her as a threat to their hours.

Back to work after a week of vacation and I think… no, I know I could have done with another week and still not wanted to go back. Mostly that’s because the weather is absolutely beautiful now and I don’t want to be inside because I know Old Man Winter is shuffling his way this direction.

If any of you manage anything/anybody I want to recommend a friend of mine, a super nice lady from Hawaii, Rosa Say. As the economy does what it’s doing and seems to steadily ignore what we want it to do Rosa’s post are encouraging. (When I say nice in this context I mean that as a compliment. She’s been encouraging and friendly to people all over the Internet and takes time from what I know is a busy schedule to encourage people whether she’ll ever meet them or not. This is a hugely good character trait in my book.)

http://talkingstory.org/2011/10/3-job-options-of-merit/

I am in favor of encouragement in the face of adversity for a couple of reasons.

1) If looking down the barrel of a bad situation being defeatist or negative won’t help at all. Just the opposite, hope, optimism, and mutual encouragement can make the going smoother even if they don’t address the problem at hand. Attitude is everything.

b) Sometimes weathering bad times isn’t a function of anything we do at all… sometimes big giant things happen to us, hurricanes for example, that we can’t really do anything about and we just have to wait for it to go away and there are times when being open to new ideas, optimistic, and encouraging foster and create an atmosphere where the community going through it all comes out the other side stronger because of the relationships or ideas formed during the hardship. It may be that sitting around a campfire in the devastation of a tornado brings up conversations that “When this is over we should…” and those things, those building blocks actually come to pass.

iii) Encouraging small behavioral changes, things we CAN do helps build things in areas we can change. I can’t personally impact the nation’s economy. What I can do is help my employees with savings and maybe with opportunities to increase their pay with sales incentives and bonus programs. I can’t help everybody, but I can help those I can help and just because it doesn’t stem the tide it does start a ripple that can add to other ripples and maybe that will be enough to change things… or at least moderate things a bit.

IV) Being pleasant to be around is a good thing.

There are a lot of opportunities out there to tear people down for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s just fun to be an ass. I’ve met people who sincerely believe that by bullying or threatening they can help a situation. I happen to really enjoy a debate online as long as nobody resorts to name-calling or takes it personally and starts acting bat-poop crazy. Can all situations be dealt with by applying a healthy dose of Pollyanna-juice? Not all, not all the time. But I can’t think of a situation where being a jerk or making threats was more helpful than being supportive or helpful and encouraging. Maybe it’s time to start a random act of kindness campaign if nothing else.

Take a minute, go check out Rosa’s blog and http://talkingstory.org/2011/10/3-job-options-of-merit/ think of what you can do to help the situation of yourself AND someone else.

Once upon a time there was a digital music service that would provide corporate music with commercials sent to the stores on a monthly subscription service so there was some sort of corporate identity thing along with the sound of the shopping experience. If you’ve ever been to a Fazolis you’ve encountered it for sure.

So, I’m at a store not listening to the background music… that’s what it’s for. It’s in the background… and then I heard it… they lyrics to Bob Dylan’s Hurricane:

And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger

Do you care to guess what the first word I heard was and what the next words were? Just on a guess?

Now, the song’s about… I’ll let songfacts.com say what it’s about:

This is about Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a boxer who spent 19 years in jail for a murder Dylan felt he did not commit.

That’s the short version. The longer version is a black man was convicted (his conviction was eventually overturned) of killing some white people and his jury was made up of all white people… in 1966. Bob Dylan didn’t think he did it and wrote this song to draw attention to the injustice of the situation and hopefully do something to get Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, out of prison.

That’s all very cool But that’s not the part of the song anybody who has heard it today hears. What they/we hear is,

“crazy nigger No one doubted that he pulled the trigger.”

So, I’m not asking if it’s legal to play the song or if it’s a good song. I happen to believe protest songs and such are a powerful tool for change. I happen to think this song is NOT a bad song. It’s not all that entertaining or anything, but it’s a protest song it’s not supposed to be fun. I’m not even going to debate if it’s still topical today or applicable, especially when crap like this is happening where power-crazy police attack minorities (disabled lady in this article) just because they like the power. (no implication of racism here for obvious reasons.)

What I’m asking is, just because someone CAN play a song does it mean they should? What does it say about them when they do that? Does it say anything? If I were listening to the lyrics from the start of the song it wouldn’t be shocking. If it were a contemporary song getting enough radio play that I’d recognize it if I came in during the middle of the song it wouldn’t be an issue… but no radio station is playing this song with any regularity in 2011 and almost nobody 40 or under is going to recognize the song at all even if they’re told the name and who younger than thirty would know who Bob Dylan is/was?

Is it good judgement to play that song? Is it OK for the employees to sing along with the music on their corporate radio? Is it OK for them to sing at the top of their lungs the names of this song? If it’s not… should they choose to play that song? Bob Dylan’s use of the words is protected as freedom of speech. It’s being used artistically. But the same word can be used during the course of a crime and change it from a simple assault to a hate crime… when a word carries that much baggage with it is it a good idea to identify one’s self with it or, if someone complains about it, to defend it’s usage?

I’m a big advocate of the freedom of speech… some battles though I ask myself “are they worth fighting?” What is gained by their insisting on playing this not terribly entertaining song in their stores?