Adventures with lyrical - buying a business

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Cathan said:
But the pros can still duke it out at will? Seems like a double standard.

If people just fought with their fists I think that actually solves a lot of problems. For one, if people could throw down on the spot you work your differences out right there and so long as no one uses a weapon or kills the other person so be it... Solving problems on the spot instead of letting things build until someone possibly brings a gun is a lot better.

Lyrical: What would you do if 2 of your crew got into a fight and it wasn"t on a customer"s property but it was during working hours? If it were me, I think I"d let it go so long as they had worked it out and it wasn"t going to happen again.
so what"s your solution for when a man and a woman get into a fight?

like seriously?

wow.

what I said to a guy I don"t report to was unprofessional but fighting, thats ok.

yeah you"re right there"s absolutely no reason to continue any rational discussion of my circumstances with you.
 

Rune_foh

shitlord
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Etoille said:
no. women get paid less because they don"t assert themselves like men.

proven fact that women are far more likely to accept less because they don"t want to rock the boat or its a bad time - women are much more team player prone.

fact.

as for the rest - as I"ve said its a unique relationship (read back before updates for more info). this guy can call me at 10pm on a saturday with an 80% chance that I"ll pick up the phone. he tells me to fuck off I tell him the same. I get away with FAR more than his direct reports but its nothing to do with men vs women
You"re a woman and that is the only reason you get away with the stupid 12 year old girl shit you pull. Jesus Christ I despise you. You"re blind.

And stating "Fact" doesn"t make it a fact. You stupid cunt. Women rock the boat all the god damn time, just not in important ways. Maybe this is the part of the country I live in, but no, guys do not get emotional at work unless they"re being fired unfairly with zero notice at the end of 30 years. Eomer"s story about Canadian girly men proves my point. Times I have cried on the job, near the job, or after the job: never. I haven"t even gotten angry at work before. If I saw a man cry in the workplace he would be permanently shunned. If one of the people I supervise was crying in the workplace I"d figure out how I was going to fire them. That is the definition of unprofessional, and part of my job consists of comforting people who are dying / watching people die / explaining that to their family. You"re a fucking not-lawyer for the love of God.
 

Eomer

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Etoille said:
TLDR - I know I"m not doing a good job of explaining this but while I agree that being emotional at work is a bad thing the overwhelming majority of the time, I think showing a human side is necessary as well in certain circumstances.
Oh yeah of course you can show emotion. But don"t bring your personal problems to work and/or expect your boss to be a shoulder to cry on. The story you told I don"t have much of an issue with really, you avoided the situation until you were composed.

Cathan said:
But the pros can still duke it out at will? Seems like a double standard.
They"re pros being paid millions of dollars, covered with millions more in insurance, and know how to handle themselves. If someone gets in a tussle in a beer league, cracks their head on the ice and is left a vegetable that"s going to end badly for everyone involved.

If people just fought with their fists I think that actually solves a lot of problems. For one, if people could throw down on the spot you work your differences out right there and so long as no one uses a weapon or kills the other person so be it... Solving problems on the spot instead of letting things build until someone possibly brings a gun is a lot better.
A single punch can kill someone for fuck"s sake, whether by the initial impact or them falling and hitting their head, or having a heart attack/stroke, god knows what. And fights don"t generally settle anything in a workplace setting. There"s every chance that whoever lost gets bitter about it and shows up the next day to off half his floor.

Lyrical: What would you do if 2 of your crew got into a fight and it wasn"t on a customer"s property but it was during working hours? If it were me, I think I"d let it go so long as they had worked it out and it wasn"t going to happen again.
If it came to blows both would be fired and I"d call the police. Assuming both fought willingly. If there was an obvious initiator then perhaps the guy defending himself would be kept on.
 

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Cathan said:
Lyrical: What would you do if 2 of your crew got into a fight and it wasn"t on a customer"s property but it was during working hours? If it were me, I think I"d let it go so long as they had worked it out and it wasn"t going to happen again.
I"d fire them on the spot, we cater to wealthy customers, and they are so finicky that if it happened on their property, they"d never use us again. They might get into a fight after work and off the clock (thats happened), but they know better. We also use alot of special and high end equipment that can kill people, if the guys are mad, someone could die. So if we have guys not getting along, we might move them to another crew, and if they can"t get along with that crew, than we know they aren"t team players, and they are done.
 

Cathan_foh

shitlord
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Etoille said:
so what"s your solution for when a man and a woman get into a fight?

like seriously?

wow.

what I said to a guy I don"t report to was unprofessional but fighting, thats ok.

yeah you"re right there"s absolutely no reason to continue any rational discussion of my circumstances with you.
I support throwing hands because it"s a near instant solution to problems when someone is being a dick. Imo, it puts people in check that are being tools and if more people did it then a LOT less people would be tools. That"s why I support fighting. Generally it"s women that don"t support it because most women don"t see the benefit as clearly as men. Maybe the fights I was in were the only ones that were somewhat productive. I could be wrong about the general population I guess...

And I never hit women. My gf and I were drunk off our asses a few months back. Somehow we got into an argument and she smashed a plate full of food over my head. I sat there calm but if I was ever to hit a woman that was it. I actually grew up witnessing my dad hit women and I hate that shit.

Etoille, you"re just being pissy I called you out. If you"re gonna play with the big dogs be prepared to get called out...

Also, I don"t understand why you rep that avatar? If that"s not you it"s false advertisement that you are some hot chick. And before you start in on my avatar I lost a bet on this board...
 

Cutlery

Kill All the White People
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Cathan said:
Also, I don"t understand why you rep that avatar? If that"s not you it"s false advertisement that you are some hot chick. And before you start in on my avatar I lost a bet on this board...
You and her have similar problems then.
 

Borzak

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Guys in my shop get in scuffles pretty often. Everything from a shove to a fight to someone trying to kill someone else. Normally you can separate them and they work it out even if it means one goes on the night shift. If it persist one of them has to go, but it rarely comes to that. Normally after a day or two they can"t remember what they were fighting about other than looking at each other all day for a while.

You do have to step in right NOW if it goes past push and shove. Ocassionaly someone will pick up something in the shop and it ends there. Too easy for a real fight that persist to end in someone dying from an "accident" caused by one involving the other.\

That"s what I have done and nobody has gone to jail yet and nobody has died.
 

Borzak

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Lyrical said:
LOL, started my week with a ton of emotion from my manager, who came to work late, complaining about his home life. He said his family is falling apart (due to his wife"s ex husband getting strung out) and he"s having a hard time focusing. Since he"s been in charge, things have gotten better, but he is totally unable to separate his home life from work life. I"m being patient since he does a good job, but I know that once every few weeks he"s going to have an emotional meltdown over his home life. Profits are up since he"s come on, customer complaints are down.

I hate dealing with this stuff, fix your home life issues so you can do your job. I never showed weakness to my employers, I always showed myself as strong. Everybody has problems at home. I tell my employees to leave that stuff at home, they tell me thats easy for me because I don"t have any problems with my wife. Like hell I don"t, I just don"t let it show. This guy comes to work with tears in his eyes once a month.
I hear that crap all the time - mostly from shop guys and not guys in the office. I have no desire to hear it and normally shut it down pretty quick.

See my post on loaning money to employes. Everyone wants an advance because XXX happened. It"s always something for some of them.

It"s amazing how 95% of the people can get to work on time, get work done and go thru actual bad stuff at home and only ask for time off when it"s actually needed...and then 5% can"t manage to cope when anything comes up - not just actual big stuff in your life. OH MY GOD THE GARBAGE DIDN"T RUN I NEED TO GO HOME AND TAKE CARE OF IT. The best thing I have going for me is about 80% of the people who work here don"t have acess to a regular phone and the can"t use a cell phone meaning they don"t get 10 calls a day from home about stuff.
 

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole
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So update, we are just about booked until the end of the year. We have $51,400 in backlog, last year at this time we had like 8k. I fully attribute it to the new advertising, we are spending $4k a month versus $700 a month at the same time last year. This is traditionally the slowest time of year for us, and the only time of year we lose money. December is usually the worst month, but we"ll turn a slight profit.

I thought about cutting my ad budget, but the spots we have for billboard are in the richest places in town. I also thought about cutting radio just today, and then 40% of our calls today came from radio.

Other companies in our industry have shutdown until Spring and laid everyone off, we are still running two crews. Hopefully this continues, but we are figting Thanksgiving and Santa, a lot of people are saying they"ll hold off until January because they need to save for the holidays.

Having this much backlog is great, we"ve raised prices 15% over last year because we can pick only the most profitable jobs, and pass on the ones with no margin. Last year at this time we were taking any job we could just to keep the guys working. We used to take $2,000 jobs that just allowed us to break even, now we can take jobs that actually pay a profit.
 

opiate82_foh

shitlord
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Sounds like a pretty good spot for you considering your industry. I have just the opposite problem.

I just got done crunching the numbers and between increasing minimum wage (WA is highest in the nation), increasing L&I and unemployment insurance (despite zero claims in either department from my business) and food costs remaining high (seriously, fuck the price of cheese atm) I have to find an extra $40,000 in 2012 just to break even assuming little to no economic recovery.

Just for reference, $40,000 to the bottom line is like trying to add and additional $120,000 in sales.
 

Cathan_foh

shitlord
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The Millionaire Next Door: Lyrical, did you get the impression from that book that you have to basically live an uneventful life without spending any of your money to be financially independent? That"s basically the level of frugality I got after finishing it and I find that unacceptable. I think it"s possible to save a reasonable amount of money, have fun and to still be financially independent. Just seemed like the people that the book talked about being financially independent were unrolling rolls of toilet paper taking the 2 plies apart and only using 3 squares to wipe their ass... and living closer to poor than what I would consider modest.

I still think it"s a good read, I just don"t think people need to live like paupers to have the chance to be financially independent, unless their income is like 30k/year for a whole family.

1st half of the book was great, 2nd half talking about dealing with kids and eventually divvying up your wealth upon death weren"t nearly as beneficial imo. Important, but not nearly as beneficial as the first half explaining how big spending isn"t the way to go...
 

Shonuff

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Cathan said:
The Millionaire Next Door: Lyrical, did you get the impression from that book that you have to basically live an uneventful life without spending any of your money to be financially independent?
Yup, although we went to the extreme. I did what Kiyosaki said, when I got raises, I didn"t go out and buy a bigger car and house (with bigger payments), I just saved and invested the excess. When I was making $85-90k a year, I still lived in the same house that I lived in when I was making 30k a year. How do you think we got to a 54% savings rate? It got so bad that people I worked with asked me what was up, but I valued financial freedom over all else. They"d get concerned everytime restructurings were announced because they couldn"t go one week without work, but I had like five years of savings on hand, meaning I could have gone five years with no income! When you get up in the a.m. and go to work not because you have to, but because you want to, that is very freeing.

Now that I am 40, I definitely live how I want (lots of excess), but it took 15 years of living under my means to live how I want now comfortably. I guess what I"m saying is that I waited to live like this until I could actually afford it.
 

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole
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As an update, we are having the best Winter we"ve ever had. I spend a ton in advertising, its paying off. We worked every day in December, and we"ll work every day in January with our current backlog. That"s unheard of in this industry, but I made like 30 changes to our advertising that I believe are improvements. Winter is the only time we lose money, with Dec and Jan being the worst months of the year, but we may actually turn a slight profit in January, and we"ll do more this month than in the last two Januarys combined. Once we get past Feb, its all gravy from there. Also, a first is that we"ve worked every day for 11 months in a row, unheard of in this industry.
 

Cad

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Cathan said:
The Millionaire Next Door: Lyrical, did you get the impression from that book that you have to basically live an uneventful life without spending any of your money to be financially independent? That"s basically the level of frugality I got after finishing it and I find that unacceptable. I think it"s possible to save a reasonable amount of money, have fun and to still be financially independent. Just seemed like the people that the book talked about being financially independent were unrolling rolls of toilet paper taking the 2 plies apart and only using 3 squares to wipe their ass... and living closer to poor than what I would consider modest.

I still think it"s a good read, I just don"t think people need to live like paupers to have the chance to be financially independent, unless their income is like 30k/year for a whole family.

1st half of the book was great, 2nd half talking about dealing with kids and eventually divvying up your wealth upon death weren"t nearly as beneficial imo. Important, but not nearly as beneficial as the first half explaining how big spending isn"t the way to go...
The answer to your question depends on your income level and what you consider rich and what you consider "poor". I think the book goes way too far in frugality but they were trying to make a point. If you make $70k a year you need to be a lot more frugal to be independent than someone who makes $200k, or $500k. To me, the important path to independence is to finally break the cycle of spending whatever you have, instead spend what you NEED, and then your money will pile up on the side. Too many people get a raise or have money left over in their accounts and immediately go, "hmmm, what can I buy?".
 

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Cad said:
Too many people get a raise or have money left over in their accounts and immediately go, "hmmm, what can I buy?".
That"s a very good point that shows you are discerning. The book does go to extremes to make this point, but if you missed it, I don"t know what to say. Every raise I got was knocked back to paying down debt, investing and saving, it didn"t go to bigger stuff. At one point, the only debt I had was my house note, but now that I paid almost a million bucks for this business (my note on the business is $5,400 a month), and have a fleet of trucks and cars and equipment, I"m in debt again, but its a good debt because it produces cash flow. So now the cycle begins anew, but with a higher income and more debt, and I"m moving and rearranging my debt like I did before to increase cash flow, so I can reduce debt. If I had the business free and clear, we"d never lose money in any month. The previous owner got to the point everything was free and clear, and boy that must have been easy.
 

Cathan_foh

shitlord
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I got the point about saving money instead of spending it. I pay my car off this month, fiance does also. I just moved in with her and combined we"re at about 150 to 160k annual income. We put together a plan to split the bills and it leaves me with about 60% of my earnings to do whatever I want with. We"re saving for the wedding now, which I plan to keep to a very reasonable amount.

I contribute 5% to my 401k right now, thinking about cranking it up to 10%, chuck the rest into savings until after the wedding and then hopefully find some investment opportunities.

My fiance is pretty good with her finances (she"s very frugal) except when it comes to her daughter. She"ll go out and bargain shop for $1 plates for Christmas family dinner but she"ll turn around and throw hundreds of dollars to some random thing her daughter "needs". I pointed that out to her and told her come wedding time I"m sure I"ll have 2 or 3x the amount saved she has.

Any of yall invest in stocks that you research yourself? A buddy of mine was talking about investing and I was thinking about getting started in looking at long term personal investing myself, not day trading...
 

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Cathan said:
I got the point about saving money instead of spending it. I pay my car off this month, fiance does also. I just moved in with her and combined we"re at about 150 to 160k annual income. We put together a plan to split the bills and it leaves me with about 60% of my earnings to do whatever I want with. We"re saving for the wedding now, which I plan to keep to a very reasonable amount.

I contribute 5% to my 401k right now, thinking about cranking it up to 10%, chuck the rest into savings until after the wedding and then hopefully find some investment opportunities.

My fiance is pretty good with her finances (she"s very frugal) except when it comes to her daughter. She"ll go out and bargain shop for $1 plates for Christmas family dinner but she"ll turn around and throw hundreds of dollars to some random thing her daughter "needs". I pointed that out to her and told her come wedding time I"m sure I"ll have 2 or 3x the amount saved she has.

Any of yall invest in stocks that you research yourself? A buddy of mine was talking about investing and I was thinking about getting started in looking at long term personal investing myself, not day trading...
60% is sweet, I"d definitely pump up the 401k to 10%, or more. Its all tax deductible. You might also consider an IRA (check the rules about that). I"d stay away from individual stocks for now until you develop a good financial base to your portfolio, you can make alot of money or lose alot in individual stocks. I"d also check out any company programs, one company I worked at offered a 15% discount and you could flip it within 30 days of buying it.
 

Tarrant

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I"m pretty close to having the wife and I"s checking accounts seperate. She goes out to eat every single day while I am bringing my lunch, drink only water while I"m there and the only expence I have is gas to and from work, I spend almost nothing throughout the work week.

My wife on the other hand goes out every single day and spends like $100 a week on breakfast/lunch for just herself or her and her friend who is always broke.

Anyways else ever run into this? She gets super pissy when I bring it up and it seriously drives me crazy to the point where I"m about to totally seperate all of our money.
 

Tarrant

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Cathan said:
I"m keeping separate cash for that reason. I plan to save for retirement even if she doesn"t.
So what, you both retire and you have money and she doesn"t....so you don"t support her, feed her and refuse to pay her half of the bills?

That"s hardly a solution.