Another Holiday Lost

When does the "Holiday" season begin these days?  Not the sales days, gee, those start before Thanksgiving now a days.  But why?

I want to congratulate the few hundred people who worked for Wal-Mart and stood up to them.  There is absolutely no reason for holiday sales to begin on Thanksgiving day.  That day is a holiday meant to reflex on what good we have in our life, both past and present.  Not to freak out over trying to save money on a certain item on a certain day.

We are the consumers, and that means we control what we want to buy, and for how much.  Yet, we seemed to have forgotten that years ago.  We have allowed the usual Big Business to tell us when to go to the store and 'save big'.  Really?  Why have we given up our rights to Big Business?  Never mind, it's the same mentality as I have been preaching on here since I started this blog.  Americans have become sheep!

We let others tell us what to pay and when to pay for it.  Not the other way around.  The consumer sets the value of a product, yet we gave that up.  The consumer tells businesses if they like something or not, yet we gave that up.  Consumers can say, "We will not shop on this or that day," yet we gave that up too.  Yes, like everything else, we Americans continue to give things up.  We might as well crawl into a hole and die.  Heck, since I said it, be good sheep and do it!

Ops, sorry, I forgot, I'm not Big Business, only they can tell you to do that.  In fact, they have been saying that for years.  We just don't realise it, because we are too busy stuffing our faces with food full of chemicals that cause cancer.  Or we drive vehicles that cause cancer.  Or even better yet, we pay millions of dollars to watch a sport that promotes physical harm.  Oh, we give up control on so much....baaa, baaa, baaa

Election Day - Time for Change

I know I am not the only one in America who has felt that their vote didn't matter this election cycle.  I mean, can one small state like Ohio or New Hampshire really elect our next president?

Of the 325 million plus citizens in this country, if we are lucky, about 10% will vote today.  That's roughly 32 million who should select our next president.  Yet, a state like Ohio with less then 32 million living in it, can actually be the ones who select the person to run our country for the next four years.

What happen to every vote counts?  Oh, sorry, I forgot, we gave that power away when we allowed Congress to create the Electoral College.  Sorry, but 270 votes does not come close to 32 million.  Nor does it really represent the voters in the states they are suppose to represent.  Did you know, that the full electrical voting block from one state can go to one candidate, even if they only won by the smallest of margins.  How does that represent the peoples interest?

I propose two things:
1 - Completely get rid of the electoral college and let the popular vote really count.  Maybe then, people will actually begin to vote again, for they will know their vote actually counts.

2 - Until the American voters demand #1, I suggest that the states actually change their system and give out Electoral college votes based on the popular vote within their state, so if Joe Blow gets 49%, then he gets 49% of the EC, while Jane Smith who got 51%, gets that much in EC votes from their state.  Again, this may help encourage people to vote.

But sadly, since most Americans don't feel they have the time, energy or feel that their vote counts, the above two suggestions will never happen.  And as we have seen in this election cycle, big corporations, and rich people who can afford to bank roll candidates will ultimately choose who our next leaders will be.  It will not matter if it is in a local election or for the Presidency.  The American people will continue to give up their rights that our founding fathers gave to them, and all of those soldiers who died fighting for them.  How sad.

Big Business Bullying – Biz as Usual

I am a book publisher that has dealt with Lightning Source/Ingrim the biggest POD printer in North America, and pretty much the world.  This is a perfect example of a company that has control of a market and can do whatever it wants to do to its customers.  The customers have to roller over and take the ass f… and enjoy it.  They get to be a Big Bully and they know they CAN and WILL get away with it.  Here is my example of what has happened.

A customer service representative by the name of J. Killebrew had sent me an email telling me that I am too emotional in my correspondence with him and that I need to stop being that way.  Yep, I am a small business man who is struggling to keep his business open.  So when things are not done the way they are suppose to be done, or I am reprimanded by a customer service rep, well, yeah, I am going to be emotional.  It’s my life they are playing games with, not with their life.

This same customer service rep told me that he would fix an issue with my book covers that were not showing up properly on Amazon.com.  I did not ask him to do this; in fact, I had questioned him when would the database updates happen so that the covers would properly show up.  He chose to do this, I thought.  In fact, months later when I saw that they had not been done, I questioned him about it.  Instead of addressing the example I sent to him, he addressed another book that was showing up ok.  That lead I to believe that he lied to me, was caught lying to me and used another book to wiggle his way out of failing to do as he promised he would.

During this time, I found out that Lightning Source was changing information in my ISBN database without my permission.  Removing the fact that the titles were available for sale, and who the distributor was and wither they were returnable or not.  These issues cost me to lose a great number of sales, which thus affected my income.    In addition to the hours of communication with the ISBN database management company to find out what was going on, I lost more time and money.

At the same time, I owed them money, and I had always been clear with them that I wanted to get caught up with payments and had pledged my income from their sales of my books to this debit.  We agreed to make weekly payments, even though it was a hardship to me, I knew that my books would continue to sale well enough to help pay this off quickly.  After the sales were applied, I had a balance of $800 plus owed to them.  When I agreed to payment terms, I was not aware of the above factors playing into the sales aspect of my books.

When I addressed this issue with Mr. Killebrew’s supervisor, a Mrs. L. Pflueger, I received no communication back from her to indicate that she received my email, or that she would look into the mater, absolutely nothing.  Which clearly indicates to me, the poor quality of customer service, and what I am willing to say is the mind thought of Lightning Source to continue their Bullying practices.

When I was contacted by a book store and advised that my books were not available for ordering, I then contacted a Mrs. D. Jackson, VP of Credit who I had been working with to make the payment plan to find out how my payments were going.  It was when she had a subordinate call me and advised me that Lightning Source had closed my account.  My books were no longer available for sale.

Now is this how you handle customers?  They challenge one of your employees and instead of looking into the issue; they choose to close your account.  “Let’s hope the problem goes away, and we will make them look like the bad guy and blame them for their problems.”

I’m sorry, I don’t have a college degree, but I cannot believe that you are taught in business school to treat customer like this.  Blame the customer for the problems and have a ‘We did nothing wrong.’ mentality.

Yes, the actions done by J. Killebrew caused me to lose sales.  Yes, the actions done by Lightning Source to change the database information in the ISBN database without my permission caused me to lose sales.  Yes, I did everything humanly possible considering my homelessness to make payments to them in order to keep my account in good standing and yet, they choose to close out my account because I questioned the behavior and actions of what their employee did.  How is that my fault?  Oh, because I choose to stand up for what was right, that’s how it is my fault.

Fine, Lightning Source/Ingrim, you are the Big Bad Bully and you WON!  My business is not forced to shut down.  I am now going to be sued by a variety of people for failure to meet the contract requirements because I cannot sale the books that were published through your company.  Nor do I have the money to pay for another company to do half of what you can do.  Nor do I have the money to sue you for damages.  Nope, I have to roll over and get f…up the ass and enjoy it.

While I am not afraid to put my name on this, I will not add additional damage to my company at this time. 

And now I can understand why a Presidential Nominee can say that it’s the 47% of American’s who won’t take responsibility for their actions.  He supports big business, thus his previous actions and I believe his future actions clearly side with Big Biz Bullies.

With Respect,

A Client Who Doesn’t Like Getting Screwed!

Sandy's Fall Out

My heart goes out to everyone who lost something due to Sandy.  As a homeless person, I understand what it is like to loose everything you have, so I send my prayers to you and hope others do as well.

Dear Mr. Romney, GET real!  Why is it so important for you to continue to flip flop on policy and speeches.  First you want to get rid of FEMA and now you want to leave it alone.  Really....

I guess the hardest part, is that the people who support you, just don't see you as a liar, or as a person who will say anything to be elected.  You are a perfect example of what's wrong with politics today.  Be real, you may actually win more voters.

Mr. President, On the campaign trail so soon?  Come on, you can do video links to campaign rally's while you stay in Washington and do what you were elected to do...lead!

You did a great job of getting out in front of Sandy and getting FEMA set up.  Now, when 60 million people need you, you are going back out on the campaign trail.  DON'T!  Just stay in Washington and make sure things are getting done to get power back on, to turn off the gas that's leaking, to clean up the water ways that have oil spills.  By you leaving Washington, I suspect you are leaving it up to people who are capable of doing the job.  Well that's what Bush thought and look what happen with Katrina.

Nope, YOU Sir are the President.  Stay in Washington another day or two and do your job!  The American people will respect you more for giving up a few more campaign rally's in order to lead us through the aftermath of Sandy.

More and more, we see what's wrong with politics today...No Real Leadership!