Tag Archives: Money

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Ice. I hate dumb stupid ice and the asshole who didn’t salt his driveway because “why bother, it’ll melt in a few days anyway. Occasionally I am a real idiot. Conveniently I was summarily punished for it so I feel balance has been restored.

2. Not doing the maths. I don’t even want to guess how many times I’ve watched someone walk to the checkout only to be rung up and announce in what appears to be complete surprise that “I don’t have that much.” Maybe some quick maths before getting to the counter would have been helpful. On any given day I’m keeping a reasonably accurate running total on two different checking accounts, three savings accounts, two brokerage accounts, one e-trade account, two IRAs, a “401(k)” type account, the Dow and S&P 500, and the spot price of gold, silver, and bitcoin. I won’t always know what those numbers are to the cent, but you can bloody well believe I’ll know if I have enough funds available to cover a cart full of whatever it is I’m trying to buy before I get to the point of sale. It isn’t about wealth or poverty. It’s about awareness and knowing the condition of all the resources you can bring to bear on the day. Situational awareness in all its many forms is your friend, kids.

3. Mr. coffee. My venerable 11 year old Mr. Coffee seems to be on his last legs. It’s mostly failing to drip through the last cup of water and when it does, it brings a quarter cup of grounds through to the carafe with it. No amount of scrubbing or spring adjustment seems to make a difference. I’m suspect of change at the very best of times… and changing something as central to my life as the coffee maker feels likely to set all my nerves twitching.

Ten Years of iPhone…

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I’d be hard pressed to point out any of the flagship iPhone versions that I haven’t had on my hip at some point over the last ten years. As our friends in California rolled out their latest and greatest this afternoon, I can only sit in awe of their ability of convincing me to part with a large chunks of cash on a near yearly basis. It’s a pretty slick business model if you can get people to go along with it. Based on the numbers that Apple keeps putting up every year, a lot of us agree with them.

Because I was late in getting my hands on the iPhone 7, I’m a few months out of cycle for my regularly scheduled replacement. It means I’ve got some time to ponder the next purchase – which is rarely a good thing when it comes to “need it now” devices.” Then again $1,000+ on something that’s going to live in my pocket, locked in a metal case at the office, hooked on my belt, or repeatedly fall off the dash onto the floorboard, and then be traded in twelve months later maybe it should be more of a thoughtful process. It’s the very definition of a depreciating asset. 

I’m planning on changing carriers (thanks AT&T for sucking so bad while I’m sitting in my own living room) so I’ve also got that mess to figure out. Based on the estimates of availability, there’s going to be plenty of time to sort out those details too.

A big part of me wishes there wasn’t, because as usual, I’d really like for Apple to just shut up and take my money.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The speed at which you can go from hero to zero and back again. They say no one remembers all the good stuff you did past that one time you do something bad. That’s probably true enough. Good and bad, in my experience, are simply matters of perception though… and the whiplash between one person declaring you a shithead and the other proclaiming your glory is probably something I will never get use to. It’s a good thing we don’t have objective and standard measures of performance against which all things can be judged.

2. People always notice the big things. Tell people they have to work a double shift and that eight hours is as noticeable as a sore thumb. Let that same eight hours slip away in increments of 15 minutes here and 45 minutes there and no one seems to notice much. I notice, of course. I notice because I value my time more highly than just about any other commodity. If I were to start randomly showing up between 15 and 45 minutes late with no notice or explanation, it’s a fair bet suddenly that incremental time would start being important to more people than just me… and I’m feeling just passive aggressive enough to see about putting my pet theory to the test.

3. Home maintenance. I bitch a lot about home ownership. With that said, I should note that I really do love the house I’m in. What’s grating on my nerves at the moment, though is the “systems maintenance” do loop I seem to be suck in at the moment. Water heaters, gutters, HVAC, sundry other appliances all need their fair share of attention – some more than others. As with every aspect of home ownership it always boils down to a simple matter of time and/or money. As both are in somewhat short supply at the moment, I hope I can be forgiven my slightly jaundiced view on the joy of home ownership at the moment.

Learning a thing…

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Well, it’s Tuesday. I spent a small shit ton of money and burned off eight hours of vacation time.

I also learned an important thing. Usually I think of Tuesday as Monday Part 2. Usually it is annoying and I return home in something of a foul mood. Today there wasn’t a foul mood to be seen… and that despite the cash outflow and “wasted” time off. 

The lesson here is that the issue really isn’t Tuesday. Turns out the foul mood isn’t generated by the day of the week, but rather what I’d normally spend that day of the week doing. 

That’s good information to have… but begs the bigger question of what the hell I’m going to do about it. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. People who can’t end a meeting on time. I’m perfectly fine admitting that in consideration for your money, I am perfectly willing to sell you eight hours of my time. It’s a done deal. However, I feel an increasing need to make it clear that level of payment does not include any extras. I know that everyone is busy – and that we’re forced to live within an artificially constrained manpower allowance. All that means is there’s likely to be more work than people available to do it in the time you have purchased from us. As this is not a circumstance I created, it’s therefore important to know that if you want more of my time over and above that agreed to in the basic service package, well, the meter is going to have to start running. Or you can just start ending meetings on time. Either way.

2. People who use my desk as a phone booth. I don’t have any earthly care if someone needs to take a personal call at the office. Life happens and often it happens during weekdays. Please, go take that call if you need to, but for the love of Christ the Almighty Redeemer, can you please take it back to your own desk, or out in the hallway, or anywhere other than hovering three feet away from me while you’re doing it? I know these calls are very important, but I don’t have any need or desire to listen in on one half of the discussion about your latest trip to the doctor, what a shit day your significant other is having, or the baby’s last bowel movement. As it turns out, the concept of privacy doesn’t just protect you, but it also protects me from thinking you’re an enormous asshat.

3. Seeing the cashier. Generally when I pull up to the gas pump it’s because I want to top off the tank and be back on the road in as expeditious a manner as possible. What I don’t want to experience is card #1 being rejected, card #2 being rejected, and then hearing a tinny voice over the intercom letting me know that I need to come inside to pay. No, I don’t. That’s especially true because we’re not living in 1985. If the 20 credit card readers you have outside aren’t working, what on earth would make me think one of the two you have inside would be up and running? Walking inside and then standing in a line fifteen people deep to find “we’re only taking cash” would pretty much just add insult to already wasted time. So no, if you’re not going to make it easy for me to give you my money, I’ll happily drive next door and give it to your competition.
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What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Lawn boats. Every morning I drive past three houses that are literally falling down around their occupants. At least I assume they’re occupied because I occasionally see people coming and going. At each of these three houses there are boats on trailers, boats on blocks, and boats shoved back into the bushes. These are obviously not new boats, but I’d estimate conservatively that each one of these homes has at least $100,000 in boats sitting around it. Now that pesky logical part of my brain is just dying to know the thought process for someone who would let their home fall to pieces hanging on to a personal fleet larger than some third world dictators. While I’d never tell anyone how to spend their money, it seems to me that at some point selling off a boat or two and patching the hole in your roof with something other than a tarp would be a good idea. But what the hell do I know about anything?

2. Help desks. Why do we call them that? It’s certainly not a case of a name that follows a function. Given the sad state of customer service in general I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise. I’m probably just a fool for expecting things to work the way they’re supposed to – or maybe I’m even more the fool for expecting anything at all. But in all seriousness, if the standard is going to be a help desk that is essentially unwilling or unable to provide any help why not just throw them over the side. If the official policy of the organization is to cripple individual computers to the point where the user can’t make even basic fixes to settings it strikes me that the help desk should be able to fix the occasional problem that crops up instead of an 800-number designed to give the illusion that something, someday might happen.

3. Foreign flagged “protestors”. When you show up at a political rally waving a foreign flag and then violently attack people who peaceably attended that rally, you are not a protestor. You’re a criminal whose opinion is unworthy of further consideration. In fact once you’ve decided that marching under the flag of a foreign county and dispensing violence in the street sounds like a good idea, the only two things I can consider you are either a) a domestic terrorist or b) an agent of foreign power intent on disrupting the lawful electoral process. In either case, you have proven yourself unworthy of any consideration beyond how to disperse and apprehend you and your fellow travelers.

Good deeds…

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Ten days ago a friend of mine who I first met as a vet tech at Winston and Maggie’s primary care joint sent me a message wondering if any associates of mine were looking for FullSizeRender (16)a puppy. They had an owner surrender come in to the office diagnoses with parvo. If you haven’t spent any time around dogs, that diagnosis may not mean much to you, but take my word for it that parvo is a nasty bastard. It’s not quite a death sentence, but even with quick and aggressive treatment, survival is something of a dice roll.

Because it’s so often difficult and expensive to treat, a common response across the industry is to let the sick pup go easy. My friend went the harder – and more expensive – route and took this little slip of a puppy home and treated her out of pocket. That’s going above and beyond in my book. I found out  today that instead of placing this pup in a new home or even keeping her, my friend got in touch with the young family who gave her up because they couldn’t make the finances of treatment work.

No one brings home a new puppy thinking that a few days later they’ll be facing thousands in veterinary bills. I know better than most that those bills do crop up though. The family made the right, but a hard decision to give her up and give her a chance at life. My friend made the even harder decision to give her back. I know she didn’t do it for public recognition, so I’ll keep names and identifying details to myself, even so I think this one deserves a pat on the back or a scratch behind the ears, whichever is more appropriate.

Fundraiser…

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I was reading an article today. The subject of the article isn’t particularly important unless you have a particular interest in Antarctic tourism. It was well written, articulate, and humorous. This blogger was ticked off all the appropriate boxes for what make a post enjoyable reading.

As the author regales us with tails of expedition ships and Russian sailors, and researchers who seem ever so slightly “off,” there was a thought lurking in the back of my mind. I wondered who the hell has the time or money to take off on 38-day cruise to the bottom of the world just to have something to write about. The blog itself was a fairly run of the mill affair without many bells or whistles – the kind of think you build when you’re more interested in writing than working in web design.

The answer to most of my questions came when at the end of the post, when the author thanked all of his supporters for donating to his Kickstarter campaign. Kickstarter. Sonofabitch. This guy was crowdsourcing his writing and travel habits by taking online donations. I didn’t know that was even a thing people did, but it is… and it’s apparently far more lucrative that selling short stories $.99 a copy on Amazon.

With trepidation in my heart I sought out the Kickstarter campaign for the blogger in question. I wish I would have let it go, because I can’t unsee what I saw. I’m never going to be able to forget that 900+ people donated a total of almost $38,000 to this heroic blogger to go out and play advanced tourist. I’m amazed and jealous and sunned all at the same time.

It’s given me more than a moment’s pause as I wonder how I can coax 900 people out of $42 a piece – or more importantly can I coax 3000 to donate that much. Is it possible that someone is out there now using Kickstarter as their primary source of income? If there is, can that person please give me a bit of “how to” coaching?

There’s a quiet little corner of beach on St. Thomas I think would make a great spot for writing. Send me there and I’ll tell you all about it.

Plumbed…

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Every time I hire a plumber I’m struck with a moment of wondering why I’m paying good money to have someone do things I could do myself. Then I generally remember that I’ve probably tried, and failed, to do the work myself and that’s why I called the plumber in the first place. Yes, they’re expensive. Yes, they disrupt the household. Yes, there are other things I’d rather be spending my money on. Then again, I do like indoor plumbing so there’s the rub.

With time and practice, trial and error, I don’t doubt there’s any system in this house that I couldn’t eventually learn to repair in its entirety. While I have many skill sets, though, plumbing and electrical aren’t currently among them. Maybe they should be, but they’re not.

In most cases it boils down to the value of time. Some small things are easy enough, can be whipped out in an hour and life can return to normal. Others, well, that’s when it pays to know what your own time is worth and be willing to farm out the jobs that are going to eat up too much of it.

Renewed…

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Based on the email that arrived overnight from my domain registrar, it looks like http://www.jeffreytharp.com will be sticking around for at least another year. I suppose that could be good or bad depending on your point of view.

Taken wholly out of context, the email left me thinking about the issue of renewal in more general terms. It strikes me that this is a chance to evaluate where this blog has been and where it’s going, what’s worked well enough, and where I’d like to nudge it in slightly different directions. None of that is the work of a single day and certainly not of a single post.

Lately I’ve been kicking around the idea that I need to tighten up the focus of my writing a little bit. As you’ve no doubt seen, what shows up here tends to be sort of wide ranging, off the cuff ideas and commentary. That’s one of the aspects of this blog that I’ve always enjoyed. It has occurred to me, though, that in order to make it more than just whatever happens to be on my mind at any given point in the day (and to broaden its appeal beyond people who know me and want to see what I happen to be ranting about), there needs to be some kind of method overlain onto my particular brand of madness.

When it gets right down to where the fingers meet the keys, I don’t know exactly what I want this space to say about me and what I’m trying to do with my small slice of the internet. I have a hard time imagining that I’d be able to stay focused on just one or two main themes after I’ve spent the last seven years blogging about whatever notion captured my interest. With all that said, I want to believe it can be more than what it is currently. You might say I have a passion for this kind of writing. The commitment I’ve made to keeping this page current – now racing towards it’s eighth anniversary – is the longest commitment I’ve ever willingly made to anything in my life. If that doesn’t speak to passion for an activity, I’m not sure what would.

Now if I could just gin up a way to make this work a little less pro bono and a little more income earning, we might be on to something here. Then again that one time when I tried to make my living from history, my first passion in life, it quickly turned into work and a situation other than fun. Maybe I’d be best served by not trying to make a buck off of this one and just keep doing it because it’s what I love.

All of that because Go Daddy sent me an email. Sometimes I really do wonder just how the hell my brain works.