It's Not Asking Much...Is It?

I'm trying to hire. I have a 4 to 6 month training program. At entry level they can easily make $500 to over a $1000 per week. At the end you get to work with a 80 Billion dollar a year client, in your own territory. No special education or experience required although in never hurts. I'll give almost anyone a shot.

All I ask is that you are willing to show up every day. On time. Be a good student and learn our system. (it's shorter than the pledge of allegiance)  Maintain a positive attitude. Know what a good work ethic is. BTW, it's not just showing up and standing around for 7-8 hours. You need to think of your self as an owner, not an employee. Take some responsibility.  You need to know what professionalism means and know how to act like a professional. You need to be polite and excel at customer service.

At the end of the 4 to 6 months if you have learned the system. Mastered it. Taught it to a few others that are willing to work with you. You can become one of our managers in charge of ten or more locations and start off making 80 to 120 thousand dollars a year. That is just the beginning. There are regional, national and international opportunities as well.

In the last three weeks I have gone through almost 20 people. The best of them, lasted a week. Most make it about a day and a half.

Stop Giving The IRS Interest Free Loans...

Now that I'm back on my mission to save the world, its time for me to share my knowledge.
Here is is a little known and often misunderstood fact.

The Government wants you to start your own business. The government will PAY you to start your own business.

It's true. The payment comes in the form of tax savings. For anyone that gets a W-2 form at the end of the year, you pay on average, 20 to 38% of your earnings to the Government. By starting your own home based business(i.e. no over head) you can take deductions that will cut your tax rate to 10 to 17%. Yes, you can get back as much as 50% of what you are now paying in taxes back. Every month you can put that money back in your pocket.

The only requirement is that you spend at least 2 hours a week working your business trying to make a profit. Even if you don't make a profit, you still get the tax deductions. And by deductions I'm talking about things you spend money on every month: Rent, utilities, Cell phones, Internet, gas, mileage and up-keep on your car, dining out, gifts, parties, trips and vacations and  more.

As long as you keep records you can stop paying taxes on the majority of these things. How would you like to have an additional $300 to $600 a month, every month?

It's possible. It's easy. And the Government wants you to do it. So do it already! Ask me how.

This isn't a sales pitch. I don't want anything from you. I just want you to know how much you're giving away that you don't need to.

What are you going to do with your extra money?

There you go. Saving the world lesson one.

Hunting...

Until we can get a gallery organized, up and running, I thought I might try to find a job to fill in some time and make up some money.

The last time I had to actually try and find a job on my own was more than twenty years ago.

Job hunting, when the economy is in the toilet, is challenging. Trying to figure out what I want to be doing is even more so.

Apparently I'm too old for porn, so, back to the drawing board.


Side Bar:

Does anyone have any bright ideas as to where I can find bright red, full body cat suites or bright red spandex work out tops (long sleeved) and bottoms.

We are trying to be the "Incredibles" for Halloween without buying the costumes.

Gallery Talk...

This week in the gallery has been one of the most frustrating ever. Town is packed with tourists. They are more than happy to pay too much for a hotel room, too much for mediocre food, too much on the clothing stores and way too much on candy and ice cream. When it comes to the art galleries, we all hear the same things.

Art is only for the rich.

I don't know enough to own art.

Our decorator wont let us buy art.

I only buy art in big cities.
Is this a museum?

Do you ever sell any of this?

That's more than we spent on our house.

Is bronze a metal?
Most people that come into the galleries assume that, we are just shop workers that know nothing about what we sell. That we are the artist that painted everything in the gallery. That all of the work is local.

There are days when I listen to each of these things and try my best to educate the person. To explain to them why everyone should own art. I tell myself that if they just open their mind a smidge, that they will understand and someday they will buy something.

Other days, I look at them like they are speaking Greek and shake my head in disgust. Knowing that this country is doomed to mediocrity and Thomas Kinkade. Both of which are fates worse than death itself.

We have been in this town for a year now. This is the beginning of our second tourist season. People come from all over the world to visit here. Most of them come back year after year. For the life of me I still can not figure out why. Even though we have signed new leases on the gallery and our house, Precious and I have come to the realization that this is not working. Neither of us have a clue as to what it takes to sell art in this state.

The artists we carry have their works sold all over the world. We hear people talk about seeing them, owning them. But here they only want to look.

We will keep trying new things. Trying the old things that worked for us in other places. Hoping that business will turn around and we can make a go of it here. We like it here.
We will also be looking for other place to put a gallery. Looking for other galleries that might need or want our help. Looking for galleries to take on my work as part of their featured work.

I will keep painting, because it's what I need to do in order to keep a hold on what's left of my sanity.

Call To Arms...

I am declaring War.
If I had a glove I would slap someone across the face and call them a scoundrel.

I refuse to put up with substandard, rude, uncaring, inadequate, inept, and down right piss poor customer service!

Enough I say. What the hell has happened to the service industry? What happened to courtesy? What happened to a job well done?Why do we continue to put up with bad service? Doesn't anyone care about the customer anymore?

It seems that practically every where I go, I get poor service. And by poor I mean: Not being greeted in a friendly manner, or just not at all. Employees who don't know their jobs and or don't care to learn their jobs. Employees that give a half-assed or no effort at their jobs. Employees who are unfamiliar with soap, shampoo and other personal grooming practices. Employees with IQ's lower than my dog. Employees that do not comprehend basic English.
Employees who would rather talk about how cool Paris and Brittney are. Employees who would rather talk amongst themselves than help a customer....I could go on for days with this.

When did being a slacker become acceptable? When did people start thinking that world owed them something? What happened to this countries work ethic? Has the job force really gotten to the point that there are no good prospects left? Or have I just not been paying attention?

If you are thinking to yourself, "Mad William, you're just getting old."
Give your self a good hard bitch slap from me.
This is not a generational thing. This attitude of "who gives a shit" is nation wide, affecting young and old. There is no blaming Canada or the French for this. This is our own doing. Welcome to a country built on "Politically Correct".

One of these days we are going to wake up and the rest of the world is going to have passed us by. The whole "World Super-Power " thing is going down the toilet. Have you never heard of "Out-sourcing"? As much as we want to believe it, we are not privileged by birth or geography. But I digress!

Join me in my effort to take back what we all deserve.
Decent customer service and respect.

Be warned. From now on. I'm calling you on it.

Simple Economics?

Here is another one of the things that confuses me.

Two thirds (2/3) of the United States economy is consumer spending. That is, you and I going about our daily business of buying things. What ever they may be, from food, clothes, cars, household goods you name it. It is what we as Americans do. We buy stuff, and lots of it. It is the driving factor of this country.

Now, what confuses me is that minor events seem to control our spending. When the news says the stock market is low, oil prices are high, unrest in the middle east, a storm some where or an other, what ever it may be.

We as consumers decide that we should stop spending money. Save until things get better. They call it Consumer Confidence, and when it is low they economy suffers.

Am I the only one who is saying "WTF?"

Buy not spending money we are hurting the economy. Every time some number crunching geek in a cubicle says the economy is weak, we stop spending money.

For the vast majority of Americans the stock market, storms and the Middle East have nothing to do with our lives. Nothing!

Why do we pay so much attention to what some boob on the tube says we should or should not be doing?

Hello, McFly....

Consumers...It is what we do...It is what drives our economy...

Why can't people figure out, that when the economy is weak, all we need to do is to continue to be consumers.

If you want the economy to get better, contribute to it!