Tough week at the Outpost. Another ad rep gave notice, so we're back down to about 1.2 reps. Pretty tough to make a living that way. It's a tough, tough job.
And I just finished the least appealing of my many tasks: Sending out monthly statements and collection notices. I felt so down that I went over to Daily Pundit and took a shot at Bill Quick -- I know, I keep promising to stop, but it always cheers me to stir up his relentless and irrational bile. I'm sure there are worse bloggers out there, but I haven't found one who is more enraptured by his own self-importance. You can't go read my comments beause he has now seems to have deleted them -- although he left reponses up. Truly a class act.
Anyway, if I ever write my 13-volume treatise on "How to Screw Up a Business," I will certainly have a volume about the one thing that surprised me most about going into business: Discovering how many deadbeats there are out there. The number of people who think absolutely nothing of blowing off an overdue invoice never fails to amaze me.
Obviously, I don't want to paint with a broad brush. The huge majority of customers are dependable, and some, I am sure, would skip meals for a week to avoid leaving an unpaid bill on the table. But far more people than I ever expected will just flat walk away from a bill, never reply to a letter and never return a phone call. And the law protects them, so I have to be careful about naming names.
Ethically, I have a hard time distinguishing between those folks and somebody who walks into a store and steals something off the shelf. Of course, there are an awful lot of those people, too.
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25 comments:
Dave, move on up here to GF. Billings is a scab town FULL of losers, deadbeats, Rethugs, and cheesemerchants! Come to Cascade County, where while the REST of the state fell for the Rethug line, it did not! It was and is the last best stronghold of reason and intellect! We'd love a guy like you. Billings is hopeless.
Why would anyone want to move to Great Falls and have to call Larry "neighbor?"
p.s. Poor billy seems a leetle slow on the uptake. Wish he'd come over here some time where he couldn't ERASE GETTIN' HIS ARSE KICKED IN PUBLIC DEBATE! Course, we KNOW that'll never happen. Billy Slow can't work without a net! Sad, so sad. Course, Billy's really quite well-informed. He's got his finger on the pulse...............OF THE DELETE BUTTON! tee hee!
David, I feel your pain. My clients want immediate turnaround for the work they assign me, but then ignore my invoices for four months. And these are major Hollywood posthouses with more money than Mammon. Makes me want to pick up the last remaining shard of faith in my fellow man and jam it into the viscera of his eyeball.
Todd
Retainers aren't just for lawyers anymore. If you can get away with it.
It's tough to find good people.
You lost the best Rep. you ever had to the State of Montana, when Brad Molnar was elected to the PSC.
Yeah, Coobs! Dereg boy Molnar was great! And I'm damn sure that there's STILL a lot of people out there that would love to thank Braddy for his dereg stance! ESPEICALLY all those people that lost their life savings! What the heck, it was for a worthy cause! For you see, if Booby Gannon get's a three million dollar house on Flathead Lake, can the trickle down effect be far behind?? I mean, I'm still waitin' for mine! Coobs, what reality do you live in?
Still now billy quick here! Guees ol' billy just don't want to play! That's too bad. I understand. If I were a moron, I too wouldn't want to be exposed! Course in billy's case, he probably ENJOYS exposin' himself!!
What is the Daily Puddit anyway?
I see you know nothing about what actually happened with deregulation.
I studied the issue when Brad ran against Denver Doty, and found that Brad did an outstanding job.
Oh, PUHHHHHHHHLEASE enlighten us, Coobs! Did Brad or did NOT Bras support dereg to the fullest extent possible? And does he STILL not? And since he did/does, explain for us, Cooby, how this is a GOOD thing! Sheesh. Come ON, Coobs. Show us what you learned form you "study"!! Can ya do it?
Ooops! That should be Brad, not bras. Although anyone that supports Brad could ALSO be considered to support boobs!
I think it'd be a waste of time to spell it out for you, but if you research it, you'll see that the original bill Brad supported was not the bill that was passed.
And the bill passed with support on both sides of the aisle.
Brad was our OUTPOST Rep., so I know what I'm talking about. He's a good man.
David, You threatened to silence the mouth from GF if he couldn't muzzle his name-calling. I think it's time. Let him stay local. I'm sure the good people of GF would welcome his enlightened thought.
Coobs, you don't know what the heck you're talkin' about. Molnar has defended dereg many times in his column! AND HE STILL DOES! But there WERE NO two bills. Dereg was ONE bill. I NEVER heard Molnar object to the bill, ESPECIALLY in the legislature. Better head back to the drawing board on this one. The dereg bill was introduced AFTER the time limit for introducing bills had expired. There was essentially NO time to even review thoroughly the bill. Kinda sneaky to run democracy this way, don't you think? And YOU want to be a part of government? Sheesh. THAT would be interesting!
Did someone order some whine?
Get a new playbook Larry - the Democrats & Denver Doty ran this issue to death, and nobody was fooled.
Give Kim Gillan (one of your hero's) a call and ask her why she voted for it too.
David - my brothers run a business in a small town and have the same problem. Have you considered tough love? Collections up front for new buys, standard billing cycle warnings and then turnover to collection agency? When clients know you mean business and can affect their credit, they don't move you to the bottom of the list. They are just like all of us - they react to your attitude - they'll never respond to pleas for decency - only to concrete action.
Coobsie, I'M STILL WAITING! Explain even briefly why dereg was a good idea!
Larry the topic has been covered to death here & everywhere else.
If you don't understand the issue by now you never will.
And if you remember, I thought we should have bought the dams, and I never got behind deregulation.
Anonymous 5:40,
That's pretty much how we handle it. Over the years we have been too lax about giving credit to first-time buyers, but we've learned.
The collection agency does scare some people, but on many others it has no effect at all. They've been there, done that, and have no credit worth losing.
Some of the richest people in Billings are the worst dead beats. One local slum lord turned restauntuer/philanthopist couldnt hire a plumber in this town if his life depended on it. He has stiffed every single plumbing shop in town.
Anonymous 8:31,
That hasn't really been our experience, but I have heard other people say that, too. In fact, I know (and believe) a guy who said one of the richest people in town (he never said who) stiffed him on some yardwork. The guy said he told the rich guy that he was certainly well enough off to pay his yard bill, and the guy answered, "How do you think I got this way?"
I really like seeing the places that put the names of bad check writers on their signs right out there for all to see. It might be a good thing to be able to publish the names of those who won't pay their bills too. I have little doubt that it is not legal to do so, but it would probably be very effective. Someone should look into that. I have a few deadbeats I'd like to publish.
Rocky,
You're right. It's not legal. But it's awfully tempting.
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