Tipping point

Another example of how Americans increasingly don’t have a clue as to how to run a business:

If you’re frustrated by poor service at a restaurant, think twice before you decide to not tip. You may be in for a bit more than just a dirty look from the waiter.

“Nobody, nobody wants to be forced to pay a tip or be arrested for terrible service,” Leslie Pope said when her happy hour ended in handcuffs.

Pope and John Wagner were hauled away by police and charged with theft for not paying the mandatory 18 percent gratuity totaling $16 after eating at the Lehigh Pub in Bethlehem, Pa. with six friends.

Pope claimed that they had to wait nearly an hour for their order and that she had to get napkins and silverware for the table herself.

Un-motherfucking-believable!  DUI Attorney sums it up best:

I doubt it would surprise anybody if there will be a vacancy where the Lehigh Pub was very soon.

This dumbshit’s business has been crucified.

Oh yeah, here’s the address and phone number if you want to drop this genius a line:

4 E 4th St

Bethlehem, PA 18015

(610) 868-1313

Jesus!

Video killed the video store

Alright,  I’ve come to accept that I will not be able to get a copy of The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) before Halloween.  It’s a great movie: well acted with beautiful sets and  thoroughly entertaining.  But not one damn video store in town has it.  I know video stores are on the way out.  And I know that changes in technology and economics are the primary factors.  But another important factor is that the selection at pretty much every video store sucks.  Most of the available movies appear to have been made since the early 1980s.  Classic old movies are hard to find.  In fact, the “classics” section of the video store no longer exists.  So do people actually buy the crap they have available?

No.  They don’t.

I went to Barnes and Noble tonight making another attempt to find The Bride of Frankenstein.  Of course, they didn’t have it.  Not much of a call for it, the video clerk told me.  I walked over to a large collection of videos, pulled one out, and brought it to him.  So there isn’t much of a call for The Bride of Frankenstein, but there is a call for The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave?  (The disc was marked at $4.99).  That’s all the guy needed to hear.

He walked back over to the rows and rows of DVDs and conceded that he had sold only 40 of them in the last year.  He was clearly embarrassed by many of the titles which included the 1973 Blaxploitation movie Coffy starring Pam Grier.  The clerk admitted that on the rare occasion he actually sold one of these DVDs, the purchaser was generally buying it for the kitsch value.

As a last-ditch effort, I went to Best Buy.  No Bride of Frankenstein.  But there was a prominent display of Bollywood movies.  Also available was Cheech Marin’s 1987 cinematic triumph Born in East L.A.  Like The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave, it could be had for $4.99.

So I’ll buy The Bride of Frankenstein online.  I might even be able to download it if I looked around a bit.  But there is little doubt that in a few years I’ll be able to very quickly download virtually any movie ever made.  And I won’t have to trek across town, going from one depressing video store to another, each one’s movie collection more pathetic and pitiful than the last.  And then the video store can assume it’s rightful place in the dustbin of history.

Deal with the Devil

So, corporate America, how goes the Faustian bargain?  You remember, the so-called “bailouts” that you asked for from the government the taxpayers after you ran your companies into the dirt?  Well, corporate welfare queens, it looks like your new federal overlords have decided to bring your pay a little more in line with what you’re actually worth.  Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury Department’s special master for compensation, also known as the “pay czar,” is cutting salaries at bailed out corporations by an average of 90%.

Steven Ratter, the Treasury Department auto industry adviser, reminds us of some of the problems with the corporations that were bailed out, in this particular case, General Motors:

From my first day at Treasury, PowerPoint decks would arrive from GM (we quickly concluded that no decision seemed to be made at GM without one) requesting approvals. We were appalled by the absence of sound analysis provided to justify these expenditures.

The cultural deficiencies were equally stunning. At GM’s Renaissance Center headquarters, the top brass were sequestered on the uppermost floor, behind locked and guarded glass doors. Executives housed on that floor had elevator cards that allowed them to descend to their private garage without stopping at any of the intervening floors (no mixing with the drones).

[I]f ever a board of directors needed shuffling, it was GM’s, which had been utterly docile in the face of mounting evidence of looming disaster.

Free markets are supposed to be places where efficiency, hard work, and innovation are rewarded and inefficiency, sloth, and incompetence are punished.  For much of modern corporate America, the opposite has been the case.  If you’re a liberal, it’s fun to see The Man finally getting what he deserves.  If you’re a conservative, the bailout fallout is a cautionary tale about the wages of corporate incompetence and the danger of putting yourself in the hands of the government.

Fill ‘er up

Just got back from a little out of state trek.  En route back home I had to stop and get gas.  The first place I stopped had a plastic grocery bag on the pump.  So I drove around to the other pumps.  They all had plastic grocery bags on them.  The gas station was out of gas!  The next gas station I went to had grocery bags on a few of the pumps, but most of them didn’t so I was able to fill up and go on my way.

Here’s a little business tip: If you’re a gas station and you’re getting low on gas how about getting one of those gas trucks to come by and fill the giant subterranean gas tanks at your gas station with gas?!  You’ll sell a lot more gas that way.  Numbskulls!

Reach out and touch someone

Hey, folks, do you own a cell phone?  Maybe you’ve got one of those snazzy smartphones like a Blackberry or an iPhone.  Whatever model cell phone you use, I’ve discovered a great new “hack” that really helps you get the most out your phone.  It helps family and friends stay in touch with you and increases your efficiency in business.  I like to call it answering the goddamn thing!

Here’s how it works: Your cell phone rings or vibrates.  You put it up against your head.  You say “Hello”.  This puts the person calling you, say, me for instance, into contact with you.  This allows me to answer your question, address your concern, give you a vital piece of information, or otherwise communicate with you.

It shouldn’t be necessary to tell people something this obvious, but it apparently is necessary given how much trouble I have on an almost daily basis getting anybody on the phone.  People don’t answer their phones.  Or don’t check their voice mail.  Or have a voice mailbox that’s full.  Or have a voice mailbox that hasn’t been activated.  Or give their cell phone to someone else so I get that someone else and not the person I’m trying to call.  Or leave a number that is wrong!  Folks, do you not know your own fucking phone number?!  My favorite is when they leave a number that has been disconnected.  Jesus Christ, people, how in hell did you call to leave me a message in the first place if your phone’s been disconnected?  You must have called from another phone.  Why not leave that number?  Better still, why don’t you just not call me at all?  That would solve everything.  Morons.

Out to lunch

Lunch at the office today with a fellow who wanted my business.  The guy called yesterday to confirm lunch for today and was asked to call back today and talk to the office manager to confirm where we could go for lunch or what he could bring to the office.  The idiot never called back.  Unprofessional, but not that big of a deal.  Had a vision of an habenero chicken sandwich running through my head all morning, and since the asshat didn’t call back, assumed he had to back out on lunch.

Then, right before I prepared to leave for the aforementioned habenero chicken sandwich, the son of a bitch shows up…with lunch.  I’m sorry, but how, pray tell, do you know what I or any of my colleagues want for lunch since you didn’t bother to call back as requested?  What if one or more of us is vegetarian?  What if somebody has a food allergy?  Well, jackass, let’s see what you brought.  A container of chicken salad sandwiches, a cheap and flavorless fruit salad, and a bottle of Pepsi.  Jesus!

Say, chief, did you notice how I didn’t pay much attention to your sales pitch?  How about the fact that I didn’t partake of one of those rather pathetic and unappetizing sandwiches you brought?  Surely you noticed how I got up without saying a word, walked out of the building, and drove away?

Let’s review:  Failure to return a phone call?  Check.  Failure to be considerate of your prospective customer’s preferences and needs?  Check.  Leaving said customer with an impression of cheapness and incompetence on the part of your company?  Check.  Destroying any chance that I’ll ever use your company rather than one of your competitors?  Check.

Oh, by the way, when I left in my car I went to the restaurant with the habenero chicken sandwich.  It was fantastic.  Dumbass.