Before Kicking In The Doors And Bursting Into A Meeting...

It’s funny…when I was in my mid-20s, I was working for a boss that was promoted from being just an engineering manager to actually sitting on the executive board of the company.  My colleagues and I were all gangbusters at the idea because we thought that with him sitting on the board, we could work with him to get all of our initiatives pushed through much more quickly to approval.

Needless to say, my young ambitious ass marched right into his office as soon as I heard the news and quickly laid out all of the fantastic initiatives that my team and I were working on that he could now help ram straight through to approval!

He sat there quietly and kind of smiled and after pausing a second proceeded to tell me that his plan was actually to spend about the first three months or so that he was sitting on the board just observing the meetings and the other executive team members to get a feel for how the meetings went, how topics were brought up for discussion and how things moved through the process from discussion to actual serious discussion and then on to talks about approval.  He said that he was definitely going to take things slow and not make any waves, taking a very strategic approach as not to jeopardize his or the department’s standing in the eyes of the board.

Sitting here today, writing this, now the age that he was at the time, his approach sounds so reasonable.  His approach was very thoughtful, very strategic, and above all, probably very smart.  What I marvel at today is how absolutely insanely ridiculous this approach seemed to me at the time!
Why not bust into that first board meeting, take charge of the room and throw down on the table all of the great initiatives that your team is working on and take advantage of the situation immediately and furiously to get what you want?

Like I said, it’s funny…it’s funny to see now how much of a hurry I was in back then and how little I understood about tact, corporate culture and above all, being reasonable.  Today, I must say, that I have slowed down and calmed down a bit, and while I have maintained my passion for work and for loving what I do, I have recognized the importance of pausing a minute or two to observe, take mental notes, and develop and implement a strategy before bursting into a meeting.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that each of us needs to be bold and take risks to advance our businesses and our careers, but we have to remember that when it comes to risk-taking, we also have to be thoughtful and patient.

Image via Gerd Altmann via Pixabay

Journalists Finding A New Home

I remember us worrying…worrying that all of those poor journalists would be out of work once those environmentally-unfriendly newspapers started boarding up their windows and chaining their doors like something out of an old black and white movie about The Great Depression (or a Michael Moore movie).

But it turns out, the ones who have not already found a second life writing for websites on the print-newspaper-killing internet, actually have a pretty good chance of being hired by large enterprises to serve as storytellers in their very own corporate newsrooms.

That may sound odd and leave you wondering why in the world America’s enterprises would need their very own journalists, but, as consumers are evolving, so must the marketing department and the ad agency. Consumers fast forward through ads on TV, change the radio station as soon as a commercial comes on, ignore a-hell-of-a-lot-a online display ads, and things are only going to get worse for marketers and advertisers.

While this all seems scary for companies that rely on advertising to help generate revenue, many are finding a silver lining, a light at the end of the tunnel. While consumers simply don’t care to be bothered with advertising anymore, apparently, they are still interested in a good story, even if it is published by the very same companies whose advertisements they are ignoring throughout the day. In fact, not only did marketing web magazine CMS Wire call 2014 the year of storytelling, but based on what they’re seeing so far, 2015 might turn out to be…you guessed it…the year of storytelling.

And who better to research, develop, and tell the stories these consumers want than the folks that were classically trained in gathering and disseminating stories in a way that makes people want to listen…journalists.

Needless to say, the journalist at a dying newspaper or the barely-hanging-on-by-the-skin-of-their-teeth news site is going to jump at the chance to translate their skills into some real big, evil corporation money.

So, gone may be the days when our top journalists are working for newspapers, online rags, magazines, and the evening TV news. We just might be witnessing the dawn of the age of advertising and storytelling where our top journalists are reporting on the historic ties between Coca-Cola and Santa Claus, reporting on the philanthropic efforts of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet for either Microsoft, Berkshire, or the Gates Foundation, or maybe even compiling a seven-part series on the history of Mercedes-Benz Racing for mbusa.com. It’s a brave new world out there, people…

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Pick Your Moments, Take Stock, Then Take Action

That was an amazing year! There really is no other way to put it. I don’t mean to talk about the hot butter on my breakfast toast by any means, but I am truly hoping that each of you had the same fantastic 2014 that I did and are also looking at an even better 2015.

I know that each of us take moments in time to take stock – for some it is a day like December 31st or January 1st, for some it is a birthday, or an anniversary of some sort. While each new day can always bring new possibilities, we all know that these moments in time – these milestones – somehow make it easier or more poignant to reflect, take stock, and hopefully, prepare an action plan.

I, for one, am very thankful for this particular part of our human nature, though I will be the first to admit that there have been times when at these moments of taking stock I have not been better off, or necessarily happier, or maybe even better off financially than I was at the previous moment of taking stock. But, I will say this – I have definitely not let too many of these moments of taking stock pass me by without at least trying to make some type of change. I encourage each of you to do the same. By regularly reflecting and taking action, you will find that over time, you’re going to be happier and better off in so many ways.

While you can read the titles on my LinkedIn profile and clearly see that I don’t consider myself a life coach or a Tony Robbins of any sort, I do know that some of my greatest successes in life have come from simply observing and learning the course of action that others in a similar situation have taken, or not taken. For that reason alone, coupled with the fact that I know a large number of you are using today and tomorrow to take stock, I thought I’d share my method of reflection with you. There is nothing groundbreaking, nothing that you don’t already know yourself, but sometimes seeing it in writing can really help you get started. And, if I can humbly be a part of any positive change in anyone’s life by simply sharing my experiences, then I feel I am using my talents for good.

So, to break it down, there are only three steps: Choose your moments of reflection, take stock, then do something about it.

You can choose moments that occur annually on the calendar, such as your birthday, your wedding anniversary, etc., but I recommend that you conduct this reflection more often than just once a year. Maybe choose the first of every month, or the first Monday of every month, or find some reoccurring event in your life that can act as a great point in time for you to reflect.

Every six weeks, I get my haircut - like clockwork, every six weeks. My appointments are scheduled three deep and no matter what happens in the world and in my life, I know that if I’m still able to get out of bed in the morning and I’m still conscious, I am going to need a haircut. This makes it very easy for me to take a quick moment while I’m driving to my haircut, while I’m sitting in the chair, or at any time that day, really, to take a look at where I am and determine if I am better off that day than I was during my previous haircut. Find your haircut – find your regular rhythm with some regular event in your life and at every interval, you have a perfect opportunity to remember to reflect, take stock and then, take action.

Once you’ve chosen your moment, then every time it rolls around, you can take stock of the relationships in your personal life, the relationships in your professional life (including your job or your business), the relationship you have with your finances, or any other relationship in your life that needs attention. If you’re on the right track, this might not take long. It could be just a few moments of reflection to know that you’re in a better job than you were last year, or that there is more money in the bank this year than last year, or that there is less debt weighing you down than last year, or that you are closer and not more distant from the loved ones in your life. Granted, you may find yourself in a spot where some of these reflections are not going to be just a quick moment, but might take some actual in-depth thought and analysis. Either way, make sure that you take the time that you need to sort through what needs to be sorted out.

Lastly, once you’ve reflected, it is time for you to actually do something about it. Hopefully, you will find yourself in a spot where all you need to do is keep doing what you’re doing. Hopefully, you can just stay the course because everything is going great and you find yourself better off than you were at the previous moment of reflection, and hopefully, a number of consecutive previous reflection moments as well. But, if you don’t find yourself better off in any way, it is the perfect time for you to do something about it. It is as simple as creating a plan and then following through with it.

While it may take you a little while to get in the groove of conducting these regular reflections on your relationships, your career, and your finances, I can only suggest that you give it a try and see how it works out for you because those haircut moments have worked wonders for me.

Photo by David Mark via Pixabay

Back When You Had To Lick Stamps To Mail Checks

I’m laughing at myself because I just had what I would call a senior moment (can we still say that?) and wanted to share it with all of you. So, you know how you get solicitations for donations to charities in the mail and they’ll include a nickel or a dime or some other object to try to keep you from just throwing it away? Well, I got one of those a couple months back – honestly can’t remember which charity it was from – but that particular charity’s object for that particular campaign was a postage stamp. They say, hey look, we included a postage stamp so that you don’t have to pay the postage to send us money, all the while I am sure thinking that you’re not going to just toss the envelope because you’ll want the stamp, and maybe, just maybe, once you’ve opened the envelope, you’ll actually take a look at their stuff and feel more compelled to make a donation.

Now, needless to say for any of you who know me, I opened that envelope, took out the stamp, shredded the rest of the contents and went about my day because while I do make contributions to charitable causes, it has to be to a place I know inside and out and definitely would never be to one that I have only heard of through a letter they sent to my house.

I know some of you may be thinking hey, wait a minute, is it OK for us to use the stamp, the coins, or the return address labels these charities send to us if we don’t send them any money? Well, you can all make your own decisions about that, but I have it on good authority from the folks at Money magazine that it is perfectly reasonable financial etiquette to use the items that have been sent to you without providing a donation because the items were sent to you unsolicited without any form of obligation from you to said charity. So I say, use those coins, use those stamps and use those return address labels to your heart’s content!

So, anyway, now on to my senior moment:

You youngsters out there may not know about two things. One is that we used to have these things called checks that we used to pay for stuff. It was a piece of paper not much different in size from a dollar bill that was issued by our bank that had our checking account number – see, that is where the name checking account comes from – printed on it and when we wanted to pay for something, say a bill that came in the mail, or for groceries at the grocery store, or to pay a friend you owed some money, we took out a pen and we wrote a date, the name of the person or company we were paying, the dollar amount in both numbers and in words (yes, we had to actually write out One Hundred Forty-Six Dollars and Seventy-Two Cents), a memo about the check if we wished and our signature all on this piece of paper. We then handed it to the person we were paying and they took it to their bank and then their bank sent it to our bank and our bank sent the money to that person’s bank and then that person’s bank gave them the money. This all usually took a couple days, sometimes even longer if there was a weekend in there, especially back in the days when banks weren’t open on Saturday mornings like they are today.

The other thing you all might not know, or remember, is that postage stamps used to not have that convenient sticky backing that they do today. Stamps didn’t used to be stickers, they, in fact, used to be stamps. They had this adhesive film on the back and what we used to do was actually have to lick the back of the stamp in order to activate the adhesive so that our stamp would stick to the envelopes that we were mailing. We did this stamp licking quite often back in the day, especially when all of our bills would come in the mail and we would write out checks to pay for them and have to lick upwards of 20 stamps a month in some cases.

So, don’t worry, I’m getting to that senior moment, I just felt that I needed to explain all of this to you so it would all make sense, especially if checks and licking stamps pre-dates you.

Fast forward to today and I have one bill – only one bill – that still comes in the mail and that I still, for some Godforsaken reason cannot pay online like every other single bill I have. It is the association dues to the city of Aliso Viejo and to top it off, it only comes once a quarter, so I am writing literally only 4 checks a year at this point. I had no idea when I got that book of 50 checks from my online bank for these crazy unforeseen eventualities of having to still write checks that it was going to end up providing me with over 10 years worth of checks!

So, this morning, I tear off the perforated slip at the bottom of the bill, reliving that nostalgia of the days before your ATM card was also a Debit Card, before you received your bills in an email and long before you could just go online and pay for everything and anything under the sun straight from your checking account. I find a pen, write the amount that I am paying on the slip, find that check book, write out the check to the association, stuff it all into the envelope and put the return address label that I sure as heck didn’t send any money to the charity for on the envelope and then grab that free stamp I got two months ago.

It’s a single stamp, one of the Purple Heart ones that says “Forever”, unlike the days of yore when your stamp only had the value that you paid for it at the time, forcing you to drive to the post office when they raised the rates and buy a slew of 1-cent or 2-cent or 3-cent (depending on how bad the post office was doing at the time) stamps to compliment the stamp you had already paid for before they raised the rates.  Remind me to tell you kids sometime about how I used to mail my tax returns to the state and the fed with a check using well over 30 1-cent stamps on the envelope.

This stand-alone Purple Heart Forever stamp is cut perfectly with the serrated edges, just like the stamps I grew up with – the ones that you had to lick – so, guess what I did? That’s right, I licked the back and pressed it against the top right corner of my envelope and guess what didn’t happen? It didn’t stick! So, I licked it again and I pressed it again. And guess what? I didn’t stick!

Had the adhesive somehow become ineffective during the stamp’s travels from the charity to my home in their envelope? Had it somehow dissipated or become inactive while it was sitting in my drawer for two months? This didn’t make a lick of sense! So, naturally, I flip the stamp over to investigate. It is then that I see the little curved swirl that is cut into – you guessed it – the thin paper backing that covers the sticky sticker backing of the sticker stamp. So there’s Old Man Savastano, licking the back of a self-adhesive sticker, trying to mail out his check because the damned city is the only entity left on the planet that will not let me pay their bill online.

In my defense, it looked just like a real stamp.

Image via United States Postal Service

A Little Insight Into How Government Spends: Widening Of The 405 Freeway

Here in Southern California, we have this wonderful monument to the achievement of the humans called the Interstate 405, or “the God-damned 405” to the locals. It runs from mid-Orange County right up through Los Angeles County into the San Fernando Valley. It was originally designed to be a bypass to the heavily congested Los Angeles-area portion of Interstate 5 that runs from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon and Washington. But, if you know anything about Southern California, you know there are two cars for every person and a God-given right to never carpool so we have congested the crap out of the bypass artery too. As a result, we are continually widening the 405.  In fact, since the Orange County section of the 405 opened in 1969 as an actual Interstate, the 405 has been widened time and time again. It literally seems like as soon as we finish adding a lane, we start adding the next lane. Adding a lane in each direction one at a time, each new lane basically becoming obsolete by the time it is finished.

Each time a widening is needed, there is wrangling among Orange County officials, transportation budgets, city councils and citizens. The most recent widening project proposals even included the possibility of adding toll lanes to the 405. Pulled from a recent newsletter from one of the County Supervisors, here are the options that were being considered:

Option 1: Add one general purpose lane in each direction between Costa Mesa and the County line in Seal Beach (14 miles from SR-73 to I-605) at a cost of $1.3 billion that is already fully funded.

Option 2: Added two general purpose lanes in each direction with an approximate $100 million funding gap that raises concerned that trying to find $100 million could potentially jeopardize other scheduled freeway projects, such as upcoming I-5 improvements.

Option 3: Add one general purpose lane in each direction and one high-occupancy toll (HOT) lane in each direction. In addition, the current high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane would have been converted into an HOT lane to create a two-lane toll facility (“managed lanes”), similar to the 91 Express Lanes. Toll revenue bonds would have helped fund this $1.7 million project.

So, government, in it's infinite wisdom, has decided that Option 1 is the way to go. Our existing toll roads and toll lanes are not turning out to be as profitable as everyone thought they were going to be, so I can understand their reservation about Option 3, though I must admit that when stuck on the 405, I sure as hell would be willing to pay $5 to get into a lane that is actually moving.

So, even with Option 3 tossed out, when you look at Option 1 and Option 2, I find myself a little surprised, yet at the same time completely not surprised, that government is going with Option 1.

Government is going to add one lane in each direction to the 405 from the 73 to the 605 at a cost of $1.3 billion with the entire cost completely covered.  For just $100 million more – that’s $1.4 billion dollars instead of $1.3 billion – government could add a second lane in each direction at the same exact time.

I think all of us, as well as our County Officials, are familiar with the concept of a volume discount, where by buying more at the same time, you save money over buying the same amount at two separate times. One lane for $1.3 billion or two lanes for $1.4 billion is a hell of a volume discount!

I understand that the $100 million is not funded right now, so government would need to come up with the money somewhere, but government seems to be able to find billions and billions of dollars to waste nationwide each and every year. I am sure one of the most lucrative counties in the country could come up with a mere $100 million, right?

The worst thing about this lack of desire on the part of County Officials to try to find this $100 million is that if history is an indication of the future, as soon as this lane is done, we’re going to need another lane and within a matter of a few short years, we’ll be building that additional lane under a new construction project that is definitely going to cost a hell of a lot more than the $100 million that we could spend now. 

So, a government that seems to have no problem spending and spending, and spending frivolously at that, won’t spend $100 million today to save $1.3 billion, or probably even more than that, ten years from now. In what world does this make sense?  Definitely not the world that we idiot taxpayers have to live in!  We, unlike government, have to make sound and common sense financial decisions because our future income is not guaranteed by law or and ability to jail someone for refusing to provide us with our income.

The single largest threat to government is a lack of government growth and the single largest threat to government growth is efficiency and common sense. I believe, whether intentional or not, this is why government opts to spend 13 times more money down the road on a future project than make a sound financial decision today.

Respect The Military, Peace-Mongers, They Make Your Existence Possible

Despite the fact that in the 60 years that NORAD has been tracking Santa Claus on Christmas Eve each year Santa has received a fighter jet escort through Canada and the U.S., the animations this year actually show the fighter jets, and the peace-mongers are all up in arms about how seeing the fighter jets are going to traumatize America’s children. Oh, the children….Won’t somebody please think of the children!

First off, when you wake up tomorrow morning in the safety of your secured home on land that is privately owned by you or the person you are renting from, and you use your running water and on-demand electricity, then put on your nice or comfy clothes and your warm jacket either before or after you get into your automobile that you own or the bank has leant you the money to own, and either drop the kids off at school or go straight to your job, just remember one thing….None of that would exist without the United States Military.

So if NORAD wants to give Santa Claus a fighter jet escort in its animations, then NORAD should get to give Santa Claus a fighter jet escort in its animations. NORAD is not crazy for using its military might to protect Santa Claus. These peace-mongers are crazy for not recognizing that their right to whine about Santa Claus having a fighter jet escort has been secured for them by well over two hundred years of the United States Military.

Peace-mongers, be thankful that you have a military that lives in the shadows of your life; one that stays on its bases and airfields and is not roaming through the streets picking people up and bringing them in for questioning. Be thankful that you have a military that fights overseas and never here at home among us, or with us. Be thankful that we have the damned fighter jets to protect Santa Claus (and you) in the first place!

Trust me, America, your kids know guns exists. They know we have a military. They know there are fighter jets, and the role they play in this world. They also know there are threats out there in the world to their safety. It is not a foreign concept to them. They do what you tell them because they are afraid of you – either what you will do to them, or what you will take away from them. There are challenges in their young lives of which they are afraid, and there are bullies at their school that strike fear into their little hearts. They might not tell you about it, but trust me, there are things of which they are afraid, so a fighter jet escort for Santa as a security measure is very practical and non-life-altering concept for your little ones to understand and process, despite what you might think or choose to believe, peace-mongers.

If you have not yet leveled with your children about Santa Claus, and they think he’s real and visits the house of every good child in the world in a single night, then do you not think it is a very practical measure with all the threats to our safety out there in the world, that the United States Air Force protect Santa Claus as he flew over the United States? I bet your kids would think it is a good idea.

If any one even sneezes the wrong way on a commercial plane these days, we call in a fighter jet escort. If Santa Claus were real, would he not be a fantastic target for a terrorist organization? Think of the damage to the economy and the mental strife shooting Santa out of the sky would have on all of us if he were real.

So, if your kids think Santa is real and they are going to hear about Santa being tracked by NORAD this year, take comfort in knowing your kids are going to know Santa is completely safe with the highly-sensitive, bomb-detecting, gift-scanning x-ray machine all the presents go through before they get put on the sleigh, the top-notch security screening and background checks all of the elves and supporting personnel have gone through before being allowed to pass through the metal detectors and body scan machines at the entrance to the North Pole Compound, and two of the most deadly and accurate aerial weapons ever created by man escorting him through the sky.

I, for one, am just glad we have the ability to track Santa Claus and his fighter jet escort throughout his journey right on a website. Maybe once they are done tracking Santa for the year, the people who are running www.noradsanta.org could go to Washington to help President What’s-His-Name with that Don't-Name-It-After-Me-Anymore-Care website.

Guess What? Less Than 1/3 Of You Are Going To Get To Keep Your Plan You Liked.....Whoops!

Here is the bottom line - Obamacare said over and over again that if you liked your current plan, you got to keep it, right? I know I am not the only one that heard him say that. We all know that we all heard him say that.

Here is the thing, though: the only way that you can ACTUALLY keep your plan is if you have a plan today that has not changed in any "significant" way - deductible, co-pay, benefits - otherwise, your plan becomes subject to the new Obamacare minimum coverage requirement, and if it does not meet those new minimum requirements, guess what? You don’t get to keep that plan after all.

Original estimates that were out while Obamacare was still saying that you could keep your plan stated that up to 67% of you were not going to get to keep your plan. Today's estimates are now stating that it could be as many as 80% of you who will get a policy cancellation notice within the first year of Obamacare.

It is what it is, and we are where we are now, but you have to admit that whole “you can keep your plan” line was a complete and total lie for over 2/3 of the people who were supposedly going to be able to keep their plan, and maybe even more people than that. Oh, and to make it worse, not only are you going to lose your plan, the plan that you have to buy instead is going to cost you up to twice as much. Welcome to Obamacare's America.

Oh, and for anyone who wants to brush this off as being the reporting of crazy right-wingers, here's an excerpt from an NBC investigation:

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”  

That means the Obamacare administration knew in July 2010 that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them. 

Yet President Obamacare, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”

“This says that when they made the promise, they knew half the people in this market outright couldn’t keep what they had and then they wrote the rules so that others couldn’t make it either,” said Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a consultant who works for health industry firms.

Taxation Without Representation Across Time

We continually hear from politicians and political commentators that they are worried about the debt and other problems that we are currently creating for future generations.

I was thinking today that while that is a valid concern, we ourselves are already part of a “future” generation that is saddled with the legislation of the past.

I didn’t vote to elect the people that passed the laws that enacted things like the income tax, social security, and medicare, yet I am impacted by those laws every other week when I send a nice chunk of the money I have worked for to the federal government to blow a good chunk of on stupid, wasteful spending.

The biggest problem with this is that I have no way to go back in time to see how things were before income tax, social security, and medicare were enacted.

Is the country a better place with these things in place? I’ll never know firsthand and for sure, will I? Well, at least not until one of us builds a time machine and starts selling tickets.

Just as I am sure that a baby born tomorrow will feel taxed without representation when they are forced to have healthcare coverage whether they like it or not when they roll off mommy and daddy's plan at the young age of 26, I sit here today, feeling that I was taxed without representation when the income tax, social security and medicare were passed long before I was born.

A Message To Print Media...Get With The Times Already!

I just wanted to drop you a line, print media. I just wanted to tell you to get with the times already! And coming from slow-to-change Old Man Savastano, that is sayin’ a lot!

As my loyal readers will tell you, print media, I have this long-running (since 1998) obsession with posting articles for others to read, originally in my e-newsletters, later on blogs, and now on social media. Marketing and business articles across the board go on my personal and business sites and pages, and funny stuff and political ranting go solely on my personal sites and pages (as to only offend my closest friends).

So, guess what is really annoying to me, print media?  While 98% of what I read and deem to be post-worthy comes to me by electronic means, every once in a while, I actually pick up a piece of, you guessed it, print media. And believe it or not, quite often I find an article that I really like and would like to post.

But, when I pick up my electronic device and set out to find the article in your antiquated and dying medium, guess what I have a really hard time finding, or never find at all? That’s right! The article in your printed piece of media that I wanted to share with hundreds, if not, by Facebook’s friends of friends or LinkedIn’s connections of connections calculations, thousands of people.

I get that it costs money to produce your printed piece that is riddled with advertising, but at the same time, in today’s age of digital sharing, not posting the same articles that are in your printed piece to your website as well so that people who find them interesting can share them seems crazy to me. We all know that you should be transitioning as much as you can to digital right now, print media.

At a time when my hundreds of magazines per month has dwindled down to just a few print stragglers, at a time when I have decided to never again renew another print magazine subscription, and at a time when the last thing in the world I would ever tell someone to do is to buy a copy of a magazine so they could read an article that I liked as opposed to just posting it and giving them the ability read it instantaneously, it is time for you, print media, to get with the times, otherwise, next time, I will remember that I cannot find the articles that are in your print version also in a digital version online, and immediately, without bothering to look at it, put your piece of print media right where it belongs…in the recycle bin.

What Abercrombie & Fitch Should Be Teaching Us About America

There’s been a bit of a fabricated buzz in the news about Abercrombie & Fitch that has been going on for a while, and I thought I’d chime in, because, hey, if there is anything I am an expert on it is hip (is that word cool again? – Sorry, still cannot bring myself to use the word “sick” because frankly, I am too old to use that word) fashion for teens, young adults, college kids, older people trying to look younger, etc.

First off, let me say that the biggest and only role Abercrombie has played in my life is the raised eyebrow I gave to how close and friendly the dudes in their ads and those huge pictures at the entrance to their stores always seemed and how hard I laughed when Saturday Night Live finally made fun of them for those ads and pictures. I have never stepped foot in one of their stores (frankly, they are too loud and smelly), would never invest in the company (unless it was in a fund, of course), and honestly would never want to do work for them, but I am here today to do something that you might not have thought I would do…defend them…defend their right as Americans and an American business to sell whatever they want, market to whoever they want, not sell whatever they want, not market to whoever they want, and to be as biased and condescending as they want to be.

Get to 315 pounds and then go out and try to find clothes, worse yet, clothes at a reasonable, non-full-retail price. It is not easy in the least bit! Now that I am back down to about 260, it’s still not that easy, but trust me, it’s getting easier as I get smaller. But, where does it say that I have a right to find what I want in my size, and it is up to society, the government, activists, and whiners to force businesses out there to manufacture and sell the clothes that I want in my size? I believe it does not say that anywhere, nor should it.

We have a wonderful free-market system that allows you, the consumer, to buy what you want, and the businesses that you buy from to sell what they want as long as it meets certain safety standards, and I personally think that is a great system. If Abercrombie doesn’t sell clothes in my size, then hey, they don’t get my money. If Abercrombie wants to come out and say they don’t want fat or unattractive skinny people in their stores, then they have a right to say it, just as you have a right as a fatty or unattractive skinny person, or any person for that matter, to not spend money in their stores if you don’t like what they are saying. You also have a right, like I am exercising here, to open your mouth and get the word out about what you think of it so others can get on board and be aware of how a company like Abercrombie actually thinks and the values that the company represents.

Does Abercrombie have a right to sell only sizes “God, you look like a skeleton, please eat something” on up through “Holy crap, you’re a size 10 and the size of a house so you should never eat again”? Yes, they do. Does Abercrombie have a right to say that they only want certain types of people in their stores? Here in America, I honestly think they do, and should have that right. Do they have a right to sell shirts that say, “Blondes are adored, brunettes are ignored” or “Do I make you look fat?” They sure do, and they should. Do I have a right as fat and someone who prefers brunettes to never shop there, and ask other people to never shop there? I sure do, just like I still have a right to tell everyone in the world to never buy anything from Jennifer Convertibles because they hosed me on some tables I bought one time.

Do I have a right to loop Abercrombie in together with a guy that is selling t-shirts that say, “Hitler is Great!”? I sure do. If you’re concerned enough that you want to stand outside an Abercrombie store and hand people walking in a copy of a news story or transcript from the CEO’s interview in which he said, “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely,” should you be able to do so? Absolutely, you should be able to – just remember to bring a filter mask for that horrible cologne-y smell and some earplugs if you don’t like club music! Does their CEO have a right to say what he said in that interview and steer the business in that direction? Here in America, he does, and he should.

Now, I know where you are going, loyal reader…You are about to quote Helen Lovejoy and say, “Think of the children! Won't somebody please think of the children?!” I think this Abercrombie story and the company’s stance is, in fact, a great lesson for your children. It is a lesson in the rights of individual liberties, diversity, economics, morality and the free market system.

We should be using this story to teach children that when you grow up, life is not necessarily going to be fair. Not everyone wins, not everyone gets a trophy, and not everyone gets to wear #1 on their jersey – only one guy on the team gets that number. It is a lesson that some people are skinny, some people are fat, some people are tall, some people are short, some people are considered to be gorgeous and some people are considered to be far-from-gorgeous, but that all of these judgments can either affect their lives, or not affect their lives.

It is a great lesson that some people are kind and considerate to everyone, and other people are frankly, just self-centered asses. It is a lesson in being responsible for your own life and not forcing people to live your way, or feeling that you have to be responsible for and control the lives of others. It is a lesson in the fact that we as consumers have the power to use our dollars as we see fit, and we as Americans have the right to free speech, no matter how hate-filled or stupid, or benevolent and intelligent the things we might say turn out to be. But most of all, it is a lesson in the ideas that America was founded upon, and the rights that we as Americans are assured by the greatest combination of liberty, democracy and capitalism that the world has ever seen.

So, shop at Abercrombie if you’re small enough to fit into their clothes and don’t mind their philosophy and values. You won’t get any flak from me for doing so. Hey, more power to you. But, when you’re wearing one of their shirts and the uglies, the fatties, the non-trendies, the un-cool moms, the un-cool dads, the old-folks, and the like, are snickering at you, don’t get mad at them. They have just as much of a right to protest against Abercrombie as you do to shop there.

A Perfect Waste Of A Damned Good Shark

I know that most of you, especially the ones who live in Southern California, may have already heard about the recent harvesting of an 11-foot shortfin mako shark that weighed 1,300 pounds from the ocean off Huntington Beach by a group of fishermen from Texas, but I wanted to use this occasion to once again get up on that proverbial soapbox that this wonderful invention called the Internet has given us. Thank you, Al Gore.

As some of you may know, I spent a period of time as an amateur marine biologist, taking courses, working at aquariums, and heading out on research vessels from time to time. Some of you may also recall the story I love to tell about the time I got to see a 17-foot great white shark that was caught by some fishermen off San Pedro while I was working at the Cabrillo Aquarium, where I helped care for a number of much smaller and less sinister sharks. To this day, I still donate money to some of our Southern California aquariums and oceanic causes I believe in.

That being said, quite honestly, when I read this story, it really bothered me. Let me explain. While you won’t catch me passing up on the wonderful meat products that nature has to offer us humans on very many occasions, it’s not like we’re running out of cows, chickens and pigs any time soon, but things like whales and sharks are a different story. While some populations are rebounding, others are still in decline and under threat of extinction, so killing them just for fun might not be a great idea. Wow, now I sound like the Greenpeace people.

Don’t get me wrong, I at times think about, perhaps even struggle with, the fact that my chicken sandwich, cheeseburger, and the bacon I put on them or eat as a side dish, used to be a living, breathing creature, but I handle it. It is much easier when you never have to go out and meet the animal that you’re eating or actually see it in any way, shape, or form that is close to being alive because of grocery stores and restaurants, and living the life of readily-available food here in the grand ol’ US of A, isn’t it?

But where I do start to draw my own personal line is when it comes to hunting, fishing and things of those sorts. Now, before you take away my Conservative card, again, let me explain. Mountain men up in Alaska hunting so they can eat? While I wish we’d figure out a way to get them some pre-packaged food so they didn’t have to kill their next meal, all right, I can live with that. Killing a wolverine because it’s hungry and trying to get at the food you’re storing for the winter? I have a harder time with that. It’s not the wolverine’s fault you have to live in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. Native people killing some whales every year for food and tradition? I kind of have a problem with that in this day and age, but OK, I can live with that. Killing a big bear, elk, whale, shark or other animal for the quote-un-quote fun, sport, or thrill of it? Yeah, I have a problem with that. Hunting just to hunt, killing just to kill? Yeah, that, I believe crosses the line, especially when it is an animal whose numbers in the wild are just not what they used to be.

Japan killing whales? Completely pointless, and a waste. People out in the woods or on the ocean just out killing? Completely pointless, and a waste. These people killing this shark while out here on vacation? Completely pointless, and a waste. Though these fishermen did donate the dead shark to since, I just do not believe there is much science could learn today about this shark they don't already know, or could have learned by capturing then releasing it.

It all boils down to one thing. Some people just enjoy killing things. Some people step on spiders. Some people pick them up with a napkin and put them outside. Some people will go their entire life without killing a bear, elk, whale or shark, and some will not. It is the nature of the human problem. Some people will go their entire life without killing another person, and some will not. There’s billions of humans. But each one of us is an individual, right? Spend some time with an animal, any animal, and tell me they are not an individual with their own traits and behaviors.

I’ll let you stew on that for a bit. Either way, this particular shark is now dead and on its way to be hacked up for science so that some humans on vacation could have a thrill and have a story to tell, and I personally think that is just sad, completely unnecessary, and a perfect waste of a damned good shark that quite frankly, the world and its inhabitants needed more alive and swimming in the ocean than dead on a lab table.

Leave Me Alone, Greenpeace...

On any given day, you may find me walking across the street from work at the Irvine Spectrum, just out for a stroll, then all of the sudden, there they are…the Greenpeace guys and gals…carefully positioned at a precise bottleneck in the walkway as to maximize their ability to bother passers-by.

“Do you like the ocean?” they ask. “Nope,” I say, shaking my head as I pass by. “You look like you care about the environment,” they say. “Nope,” I say, smiling, but walking fast. “You look like an activist,” another tries. “Yeah, but I am sure you don’t like the causes I support,” I retort, still briskly walking, and of course, always smiling.

My biggest issue here is not necessarily Greenpeace, per se, but, much more the fact that people are at the Spectrum do to one thing…enjoy themselves. Whether it’s a walk, a movie, a meal, or just spending time with people they care about, bottom line, they are there to enjoy themselves. I believe the last thing they want to do is be bothered by money-hungry activists.

My secondary issue is that the root of their presence is to not get an actual heat-of-the-moment donation, but to get you to hand over your precious account information and make a recurring donation. From what I have heard, if you try to offer them $20, they won’t actually take it. No cash, please. What they want is your personal financial information so that you can make a recurring gift, each and every month.

Now, you won’t catch me out on a Sea Shepard boat, though you will catch me rooting for the whales if I am watching Whale Wars. You won’t catch me down at the beach picking up trash any longer, though I am annoyed when I see people littering while we’re down there. You also won’t ever catch me giving money to Greenpeace because every day when I am on my walk and I get to where they are stopping people, even if just for a few seconds, I am quite literally forced to avoid them.

I know there are probably things Greenpeace does that I might not necessarily agree with, and I am sure there are things they do that I would probably support, but I also believe that each of us has a right to donate as we see fit and not be pressured into donating money we do not want to, even by the most well-meaning organizations.

When I see Greenpeace folks at the Spectrum, trying to corral people that are just there to spend a few moments away from whatever stresses they may have in their lives, quite frankly, it bothers me. And once you have bothered me, the last thing you are going to get is my money.

How A Small Change Makes A Big Difference

So, loyal reader, what do you know about me? I work across the street from the Irvine Spectrum, I like to eat on the cheap but never bring my own lunch to work, and I do not like change. These three things recently came together in a perfect storm that got me thinking about how in business, sometimes what we consider to be a small change for the business can make a big difference to our customers. Let me explain:

Once or twice a week now for the past five years, I have patronized a local-to-the-office Rubio’s for their Street Taco Plate. I grew so fond of the meal that it even worked its way into our dinner rotation and some of the employees at the local-to-the-office and local-to-the-home Rubio's locations have come to know my order by heart: Street Taco Plate - All chicken tacos, only meat, with the customary cup of beans and side of chips for $6.43.

Today, however, on my foray out for lunch on cheap at the Irvine Spectrum, I was met with change…a slight menu change and price increase. I still got my same Street Taco Plate, but today, not only did it cost me $7.10 instead of $6.43, it came with a cup of rice instead of my side of chips. Credit goes to the wonderful employee at Rubio’s for informing me of the change before I finalized my order, but caught off-guard, I went ahead with my Street Taco Plate order. Naturally, I was offered the side of chips for an additional cost, but that would have been an even bigger price increase, wouldn't it? You know Old Man Savastano isn't going to go for that.

Trying to remain optimistic about the change while I ate, I sadly soon found myself coming to the realization that the cup of beans was just not the same when eating it with a spoon instead of the side of chips, and while good, that little cup of rice amounted to about five bites. I felt just as full at the end of the meal, yet somehow found something was lacking…and that is not a feeling I should have after I’ve just had an addition 67 cents taken from me by a retail establishment I frequent so often. Let the good times roll that I can be so concerned about such a slight change and my 67 cents, but nonetheless, the conclusion I reached was that between the price increase and rice instead of chips, I was highly disappointed with the change to my Street Taco Plate.

Even though it is a small change and a small price increase, I can tell you that without a doubt, while I will surely still patronize Rubio’s, I will modify my order by looking for something comparable at a slightly lower price (maybe ditch the rice and beans and just get more tacos?), or perhaps not be as apt to go there as often in the near future. I was set in my little routine – Go to Rubio’s and order the same thing – Now, Rubio’s has jarred me from my lull, making me change my order, and charging me more for what I was already getting, thus opening up the window for me to really change the routine and go somewhere else instead.

I am sure there is a whole team of people at Rubio’s somewhere who did a whole bunch of research about this change and price increase (at least I hope there is and this wasn’t done on a whim), and I am sure most people won’t bat an eye at it, but keep in mind that sometimes, just sometimes, a small change is enough to make a big difference with your customers. Ask Bank of America about their $5 a month Debit Card fee, or Verizon about their $5 Paying-Your-Bill fee, and they will tell you that a small change can make a big difference.

With More Workers Planning To Never Retire, It Is Time To Reform Social Security

You’re going to have to keep working, America! At least longer than you had planned, anyway. A recent survey found that one in five Americans now say they plan to never retire.

While some of that 20% is surely the people like me who just don’t plan to stop working at any point as long as they can help it, I am sure there is a good percentage that are not going to be working straight to the grave by choice.

With a growing number of Americans facing this same choice, or fate, maybe it is time for us to take a good, long, hard look at our socialist retirement system.  

By the time I am at retirement age, there will be huge segments of the population that will not be able to survive on the gub’ment checks alone, and will be forced to keep working. What’s wrong with that? Well, the way the socialist retirement system is currently set up, the more you earn in a year that you receive benefits, the less of the social security money you paid into the socialist system you get to keep. You can even earn so much in a year that you get absolutely no social security money at all.

I hope to be in a spot where I have this problem one day, but I am also going to be really pissed off that all of the money I paid into social security over the course of my life will not be making its way back to me, which was the fundamental promise of the program.

Regardless of where I may end up in the year 2041 (the year the socialists want me to retire, at least for now, anyway), I really think now is the time to reconsider all of this socialist retirement program craziness.

Perhaps there was a time in this country where we needed to ensure that people retired by penalizing them for earning money once they reached social security age, but I think the landscape of America, her economy, the world’s economy, and life here on planet Earth have all changed so much that we need to rethink this antiquated nonsense about incentivizing people to stop working when they get to a certain age.

I am paying money into Social Security right now, but if I choose to keep working, especially if I am in a spot where I continue to earn more and more with each passing year as long as I am of sound enough mind and body, I will be earning the most in my lifetime, right at the time that I am supposed to start getting back all of the money that I will have paid into Social Security for 52 ½ years.

The more I earn, the less I get back, so how much is that going to suck? I get it – once I’m destitute or disabled, and what not, it will be money off of which I can live, but let’s say for instance, I keep working, keep earning money, keep living life like I am planning to do right up until my number is up (it does happen, people)… I may be in a spot where I don’t ever get a dime of MY social security money back. And despite what the government and all of those liberal politicians out there want us to believe, it is MY money, not theirs. That means I will have been one huge benefactor to the U.S. government and its socialist Social Security retirement program.

I get that most of you are going to retire – some of you may even take the hit financially to retire early – and more power to you – but me, the crazy nut-job who wants to keep working ponders….shouldn’t I have a choice? Shouldn’t I have some other option rather than giving all of this money to the socialists in Washington, DC. Especially when you consider the very real possibility that I may get only 85 cents on the dollar back if I actually do stop working, and possibly, no cents on the dollar back if I actually do keep working? Don’t penalize me for working, America! In what world does that make sense?

Happy Two Days Before Black Friday!

You know when I don’t work? Nights and weekends. Well, actually I do, but I’m not required to go into the office at that time. You know why, America? Because I found a job that doesn’t require me to go into work on nights and weekends. You know why I found a job like that? Because I used to have jobs that required me to go in on nights and weekends, and I didn’t like that so much.

Yet, as Black Friday grows near, I am seeing news reports and reading articles about a lot of the folks who work in retail during the holiday season complaining about having to work long hours, nights and weekends, and in particular, during the later hours of Thanksgiving Day, and frankly, I am puzzled.

I’m not trying to be heartless here, but the plight of these folks takes me back to my thoughts on the debate about working part-time at Wal-Mart with no health insurance. At any point when you were applying for the job did they tell you that you were going to have health insurance, then all of the sudden, take it away? No, they did not. I am sure they told you all along that your part-time job at Wal-Mart did not come with health insurance. So, why, then, are you sitting there with a part-time job at Wal-Mart, surprised that you do not have health insurance?

You work in retail. That is the job you have. For whatever reason, that is a fact of your life. And in case you are wondering, I spent the first three years of my working life in retail, full-time while going to high school, and even had to join a union for my first job, so that’s where I get off talking about working in retail.

The store at which you work is open on Black Friday. You can’t, at this point, sit there and be surprised that the store wants you to work crazy hours on Black Friday. Are you going to honestly tell me that you didn’t see that coming? 

You work in retail, yet somehow do not understand what Black Friday is, and never took notice that the starting gates open earlier and earlier each year? You are still somehow surprised? Really? The 5:00 AM sale that became the 4:00 AM sale that became the 3:00AM sale? You didn’t see where that was going?

Ask all the folks who are not in retail about a job that requires them to work crazy hours once or twice a year, and trust me, you probably won’t get a lot of sympathy from them. Just to clarify what I am getting at, most of us non-retail employees, especially those on salary instead of hourly, end up having to work crazy hours more than once or twice a year.

Ask us about overtime pay and our 15 minutes breaks throughout the day too, so we can laugh at you. Do I even need to bring up the whole you work in retail and are lucky to be one of the 85% of people who do that actually still have a job in this economy?

And don’t get me wrong, I get it’s a holiday. I missed many a holiday, birthday, etc., when I was working retail, but I also understood that it was part of the job I had at the time. Again, you can’t take a job working retail and be surprised when you are working nights, weekends and holidays.

And while I’m on the soapbox, I have a little message for the consumers who are complaining on behalf of these retail workers. Really? So, year after year, you buy into the whole Black Friday concept, allowing these retailers to bait you into the store in deplorable, dangerous, and in some cases, deadly conditions, allow them to bait you into stampeding over each other to save some money on let’s face it, crap you don’t need to survive anyway, yet you draw the line at the store making employees miss part of Thanksgiving Day so they can work that night? If there was no one willing to show up to shop at 10:00 PM on Thanksgiving, the stores wouldn’t be opening at that time, so consumers are in no position to complain about when the stores are opening.

Again, America, we cannot sit here and be surprised that this year some of our largest retailers are opening as early as 10:00 PM on Thanksgiving night, expecting their employees to work, and expecting consumers to come in, risking life and limb, to save some money on all the stuff that they simply cannot live without. Like you didn’t see that one coming, America.

How Dell Changed A Brand Loyalist's Mind...

Customer loyalty boils down to personal experience. No matter what a business’s size, who is on its executive team, its market cap, etc., etc., consumers become loyal to a brand and company based on their own personal experience.

I recently read an article about Michael Dell that starts off with his story. Dell founded his computer upgrade firm in his dorm at U of Texas when he was 19. At 27, in 1992, he became the youngest CEO ever on the Fortune 500. The company started with personal computer upgrades, moved to selling personal systems, moved to customizing those systems, then into selling personal systems over the net at the same time as expanding into servers. Now, in 2011 with $26.6 billion in market cap, Dell Computer is getting ready to expand into the Cloud and software markets.

That’s a great story, and I’m not knocking Michael Dell for his success, but the fact remains that before I could even finish reading the article on Michael Dell, I found myself typing my own article on an HP Compaq laptop that I had to buy when my fifth and final Dell laptop took a crap on me during its manufacturer warranty period.

So, regardless of Dell’s success, and regardless of Michael Dell’s fantastic, successful story, I am a customer who purchased five Dell laptops from 2001 to 2011, yet I am also a customer who went out in 2011 and bought an HP Compaq instead. Why?

Well, because I finally had it, that’s why. I truly believe that my Dell Inspiron 8200 that I bought in 2001 would still be going today had I not spilled a bottle of water in it. I only wish I could say the same about the subsequent four Dells I purchased.

Each time, the screen failed on me, once at three years, once at two years, once at a year and a half, and now, this last time, after nine months. So, in a decade, a decade that saw immense growth and expansion for Dell, my personal experience has been the opposite – the other direction – my laptops have been lasting a shorter and shorter period of time – a reduction, not an expansion, in my own personal experience with Dell.

Top that off with two other things I have a problem with, and I have made my case for why, while being one of the strongest brand loyalists I know, I have changed my laptop brand after 10 years.

Thing #1 – Customer Service. When I first started calling Dell customer service back in 2001, it was a pleasant, easy experience. “Yes, sir, no problem, sir, right away, sir, we’ll get that fixed for you immediately, sir. That power cord failed under warranty, we’ll send you one out at no cost immediately and I apologize for the inconvenience, sir.”

Ten years later, while the customer service people did their best, I could also tell their hands were tied by new policies that probably didn’t exist ten years ago. “Well, while your laptop is in warranty and covered, I can only send someone out to look at it if you pay for an additional year’s warranty, or pay for the service call. Other than that, you are going to have to send it in to us, but the good news is that it will only take 10 days!” Ten days? In today’s business world, I am without a laptop for 10 days? Thanks, Dell.

Thing #2 – Dell’s Philosophy. This philosophy changed, and I think that is the reason for the dip in quality and Thing #1 above. Every Dell laptop has the Dell logo on the lid. My first and second Dell both had the logo positioned in a manner that when the laptop was closed and in my lap, the logo was right-side up for me, but was upside down to the person walking by or standing in front of me (the person who had not purchased a Dell laptop yet). My third, fourth and fifth Dell laptops were the opposite – the logo was right-side up when opened and being seen by the non-Dell-owner-passer-by and upside down to me, the idiot who had purchased the laptop when it was sitting closed in my lap. What does that tell me? Somewhere along the way, Dell became much less interested in servicing the customer who had already purchased their product and much more interested in selling the next laptop to the person who had not purchased one yet.

As I said…Personal experience. Ten years ago, I was so excited to buy that first big $2000 laptop from Dell that was just as fast and robust as a desktop. The day before I spilled water in it, I would have told you to buy nothing but Dells. Yet, two years later, after Dell #2 crapped out on me, I was a little bit less vocal with my praise for Dell. By Dell #3 and #4, I had stopped talking about the brand. And now, as Dell #5, freshly back from the repair shop and its 10 day vacation sits collecting dust as my back-up machine, and I sit typing on this HP Compaq, I am singing a very different tune. Guess what I am going to say now if someone asks me if they should buy a Dell?

Upon Constantly Working's 11th Anniversary

Today, Constantly Working quietly celebrates its 11th anniversary. It was 11 years ago today that I made the decision that in the coming three months, I was either going to start a business or leave my job at the time for a new job.

As fate would have it, I ended up going down the road of starting a business with a business partner and would be relying on that business as my sole source of income in just seven short months. Then, in just another 5 years and 9 months, I would determine that it was time to go back to working for someone else. That was not an easy decision to make, and quite frankly, I put it off for about two years longer than I should have. Today, I can say, however, without any doubt, it was the right decision to make.

Constantly Working, after a name change, a couple of address changes, and a pretty significant officer change that I can only equate to something along the lines of an extremely amicable divorce, still exists, and while it’s a very tiny amount, is set to turn a profit for 2011, the first time in eight years. While I am only serving two customers in my spare time at night and on weekends, this small, profitable year has been very therapeutic. I own a very (very, very) small business with my wife that has an 11 year history, somehow (miraculously – no thanks to a good volume of personal funding by me) has a perfect, albeit small, credit history, and as long as I can make a solid $900 a year, will be profitable.

Needless to say, my actual income earner, my job, remains my complete and total focus for about 50 to 55 hours a week, and Teresa continues to put in more hours at her job than I do, but as I sit today, our bills getting paid, the business being a pretty sizable debtee, as opposed to the pretty sizable debtor it was 4 ½ years ago, I am looking to the future with great promise. Naturally, we, like all of you, worry about the state of the U.S. economy, politics, and how long it will take to see economic prosperity again, but when I look back at how things could have gone for us over the past eight years, I think we are still sitting pretty, regardless.

While I could probably fill an entire book with the lessons I have learned on this 11 year journey (and maybe I will someday), there are a few quick points that I can make.

First, never tie yourself financially on a personal level to your business or to anyone that you go into business with. I imagine you can see the reasons why. Secondly, while you may have always done everything yourself in the past, when you start a business, you cannot continue to do everything yourself. You need to rely on experts and you need to rely on expert staff to help you build and grow. My job has definitely helped to drive home that message. You cannot start a business with the intent of it being your sole source of income and then try to do everything (sales, marketing, accounting, management, delivery) with just two people. And most importantly, whatever the cost, no matter what, handle yourself in a manner by which at any given point you could sit down across the table from any given person and be able to know that you did the right thing.

So, as I look to the future, I am honestly quite happy. Happy to be constantly working, earning a good living, and happy that this very, very, very small business is once again a positive source of joy in my life as opposed to the burden it was when it was what put food on the table; happy to have such a wonderful wife, wonderful family, and wonderful friends; happy to know that today, in every capacity, my deals are square, my cards are on the table, and my deck of cards is cut every time; happy to have my two wonderful customers that have, without knowing it, renewed my faith in this small, little business; and above all, happy to report to you that tomorrow’s dawn will be even brighter than was today’s.

Why I Won't Be Crossing Picket Lines This Time Around During The Grocery Workers' Strike

Here we go again with the grocery workers’ strike, Southern California.

Grocery workers are set to strike against the very places that are crazy enough to hire union workers: Albertson’s, Ralph’s and Vons. Remember how it was last time? Stater Brothers was packed, the smaller independent stores saw a great uptick in business that they are still enjoying today, and people crossing picket lines to buy food for their families with their hard-earned money, or people who were out of work who were crossing picket lines to earn some money, were being accosted by the people who just weeks earlier were thanking them for shopping at that very store and telling them to have a nice day.

This time around, with higher unemployment rates and company revenues down across the board, it could get even nastier and last even longer. The stores are offering compromises, but of course, the unions exclaim that none of the compromises are good enough for their members. The members have voted to strike and it seems like it is only a matter of time until they do.

I, too, once worked for one of these union shops and was a member of this very union. Granted, it was over two decades ago, and the most I could take working there was six months, but my very first job was working at the Lucky’s at Seacliff Village in Huntington Beach as a box boy, making minimum wage, working full-time at a part-time job without any benefits, bagging groceries, lifting boxes, sweeping and mopping floors, and shoveling broken glass to empty the recycling machines.

I had just turned 15 and needed money for a car, car insurance, not eating at home, taking girls out on dates, of course, and to put some money away to pay for college. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but when they hired me, they told me that I was going to need to join the union, but explained to me that this was a good thing. But, I didn’t think it was much of a good thing when my first paycheck of $137 was in my hand and $84 of it went to pay my initial union dues.

With that initial chunk of my money in the hands of the union bosses and with two trips to Buena Park to vote in mandatory union votes under my belt, working a very laborious job at minimum wage with no benefits, within six months, I was ready to move on. I left that union job at Lucky’s and I never looked back.

I took note when Lucky’s was bought by Albertson’s and I took note every time the grocery workers were rattling their swords at the evil bastards that employed them, but it really wasn’t until the last strike which lasted 141 days over 2003 and 2004 that I really paid close attention to what was going on.

Really, that was the first strike I had any personal involvement in, if you will. I wasn’t on the picket line, and in fact, at the time, was out on my own at an independent shop I partially owned, but I did come in contact with those picket lines and I did hear about some of the nasty stuff that was going on when people were crossing them. It is this legacy of intimidation and scare tactics laid on shoppers by the union and some of its members that I remember most about their last strike.

The six months I spent working at Lucky’s remains my one and only union job to date. So, in 2003 when the last strike began, other than having to see my grandfather who paid into a union most of his adult life have to fight that very same union for his pension money because he wanted to keep working in retirement, and the basic working knowledge of unions that I learned from unionized teachers that weren’t really all that stellar, I still had a pretty clean slate when it came to unions. Over the coming 141 days, however, that would greatly change.

I moved to Aliso Viejo in 2002, and that is when I started shopping at Ralph's. When the strike began just over a year later, we started doing more of our shopping at Wal-Mart and starting buying what we could not get there at Stater Brothers. There were a couple of times early on in the strike that I crossed the picket line to shop at Ralph's to get something in particular that I wanted that only Ralph’s had, and one time, I even drove to Ralph’s without thinking and just said screw it and went inside because I didn’t want to drive somewhere else. I also had a friend who cleaned up, making a lot of money working long hours at a Ralph's during that strike who I went to see at the store a couple of times. I even considered earning a little extra money there myself, though I never went through with it. Admittedly, though, I still felt comfortable enough crossing the picket line in those early days of the strike. Some of the people on the lines glared at you a little bit, but others were very polite.

But, as the strike lingered on and people burned through their savings instead of working, coming to the realization that the strike was going to be a lot longer than they figured when they voted for it, those picket lines started to get a little nasty.

Then, once it was reported that a woman was actually accosted at the Ralph’s I shopped at as she was walking into the store with her children, I learned my lesson - cross that picket line at your own physical risk.

But, I guess that was the point they were trying to make, wasn’t it? That lesson was solidified by a conversation I overheard while I was in line at the bank when a member of the union was asking everyone in line what they thought of the strike, and then verbally attacking anyone who did not support it.

I tried to avoid him asking me, but he finally made his way to my spot in the line. Needless to say, he and I had a little verbal exchange at the bank that I will never forget. Someone at the union should have taught him a better way to earn support for his cause.

So, looking back, while that chunk of the very first paycheck I earned put a sour taste in my mouth for the modern union, I still was very much on the fence with unions up until things started to get a little nasty with that 2003 to 2004 strike. Needless to say, at the time I set out to learn more, to form a much better-informed opinion of unions, and in the past seven years, I have concluded that while the initial intention of the union was good, and that the early unions brought us into reasonable working hours and reasonable working conditions, and took children off of assembly lines and got them into schools, I struggle to see how at the end of the day today, they are actually doing near the good that they used to. Couple that with all the classic union corruption, strong-arming and mob ties from the 1960s and 1970s that supposedly are 100% gone now, and you do not have a very rosy picture of the modern union at all.

In fact, when you look at the plight of non-union workers in America today, many of them are much better off than their union counterparts, even though their union counterparts have a union looking out for their best interest. Look at the unionized auto workers in America, for example, and how their union benefited most of them out of a job.

By the way, I did my own personal reflecting and found myself wondering how in the hell was it that I was in a union, paying union dues, yet was making minimum wage and getting no benefits? You’ll excuse me if I don’t look back fondly at all the union was doing for me at the time.

And now, as we stare down another grocery workers strike, I can’t help but have a bitter taste in my mouth from the last one. This time around, the complaint is that workers are going to have to start paying more of their healthcare costs. Oh, you mean like everyone else in America? I had to do that for a year at my current job when the economy started to turn and I didn’t take to the streets, accosting customers as they entered the building. In fact, I paid it without question, put my head down, got to work, and with the help of everyone at the company working hard together through the economic crisis, a year later, the company turned around and starting paying 100% of my health insurance premium again because it was doing so well. We supported the company and came out the other side better for it instead of attacking the company, blaming it for things that were outside of its control.

I got a job at the grocery store and I didn’t really like it, so I went out and got another job, then another job, then another job, and moved on with my life. I didn’t stay at a job I didn’t like then blame the store owner because I stayed there. By the way, grocery workers in the very worst increase percentage are being asked to pay $92 per month for family insurance; $36 per month for themselves. I had to pay $33.11 a month and I work longer hours and I am salary so I don’t get overtime or holiday pay. To top it off, I negotiate all of my benefits and perks one on one directly with the company myself because I’m not part of a union.

Everyone out there is having to make concessions, and everyone out there is having to work a little longer and a little harder. Why should that not be the case for EVERYONE? What did that last strike accomplish? To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember, but I do know that it did one thing. It completely and totally swayed my opinion in one direction when it came to unions. I am not saying that these grocery store workers don’t work hard and that they don’t deserve the same American dream that the rest of us do, I am just saying that when it comes to supporting them and their disdain for their store during the strike, then immediately transitioning back to supporting their store once the strike is over is a real struggle for me.

Why is it such a struggle? Let’s just say that I think that striking workers should be out taking some business and economic classes because obviously, they do not have a basic working knowledge of how today’s businesses work, even though they work for a business and pay union dues to another business. Striking workers need to better understand where their employer, the people crossing picket lines, and yes, even their union, all stand. I’m not saying that to be mean. I am saying that they need to become better informed on how businesses work and understand that their union is a profitable business and they are a customer that is forced to shop there, even when there are better deals in the marketplace.

Again, let’s look at what happened last time. We stopped shopping at the Ralph’s where the mother walking into the store with her children was accosted. We started shopping at the next furthest Ralph’s from home, but all the stuff we were buying at Wal-Mart and other stores during the strike, we never went back to buying again at any Ralph’s, and this has actually saved us quite a bit of money. We spend far less at Ralph’s today than we did before the last strike, quite frankly, because we were forced by union members to go out and find alternatives during the last strike, and find alternatives, we did.

So, when Ralph’s doesn’t have money to pay for all of these workers’ health insurance seven years later, how do these workers not see that the effects they created with their last strike play a large part in the financial condition of their employer today? How can they not see that this looming strike over somewhere between $36 and $93 per month is going to have any even more adverse effect on their employer this time around? All of the evidence points to the fact that shoppers in Southern California did not simply go right back to their same buying habits post-strike back in 2004, but in fact, are buying less and less at the union shops because the bad taste the last strike left in their mouth.

During the strike, we discovered Henry’s and it’s higher-quality and less-expensive produce. That taught us that we needed to do more than just shop at Ralph’s…we needed to shop around. The grocery workers’ strike and the insight it gave us last time around led us to finding Henry's, and in turn, over the years, Fresh N' Easy and Growers Direct. We have now found everything we bought at Ralph's before the last strike at other stores, and at a cheaper price. I guess I should thank the union in a way, because without the last strike, we would have just continued paying more for less quality at Ralph’s. And one last point before I wrap up…While we were buying less, we were still going to Ralph’s about once a week, but since March when the union first started sabre rattling, we are going to Ralph’s much less in preparation for not going there at all. In fact, I think I may have made my last regularly-scheduled shopping trip to Ralph’s at this point.

So, in conclusion, this time I will not be crossing the picket line – not one single time. This will not be in support of the strike, but will be because the last strike opened my eyes to the options I had at local non-union shops. This time around, I no longer need to cross the picket line. This time, I won’t simply cut back on what we buy at Ralph’s, we’ll simply just stop going there from here on out. No strike in 2004? I’d still be shopping at Ralph’s. No strike in 2011? I’d still be shopping at Ralph’s. Now? I’m done shopping at Ralph’s. Regardless of how this strike turns out, if enough people reach the same conclusion that I did, union members, how do you think that is going to affect the store’s ability to pay for your health insurance?