An Intriguing Tale Of Being An Owner

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I walked passed the Chinese restaurant today and the garbage bin was full of garbage – and I bet there were lots of compost in the garbage bin because that’s what people do out of convenience.  The town had just invested thousands of dollars on getting poop bags for the people who has dogs and let their dogs poop around town without picking up the poop – so I say – to get some composters and have them around town as well.  Now that would be a great investment – I would certainly throw my compost in these composters just to go green and do the eco way.   I would truly love to see the town do something that make sense to me – and to me if they were to take our taxpayers’ money and invest in these compost bins – it would certainly make me happy because at least they are doing something right for once.

A few days ago, the FEDs brought Megaupload and Megavideo to a halt and arrested some of its founders.  Many people who’ve used Megauploads and megavideo were all taken by surprised because some paid good money for a lifetime of unlimited uploads and downloads.  But what does all this means to us at a small business owner for DVDs and blu – ray renters?  Well, with more shut down on other file sharing places like filesonic and a few others – I see more renters if it keeps up. If they can’t download their movies – they would have no choice but to rent their movies right?  so the FEDs might just be doing Independent Video store owners – the small guys a big favor too.  We are going to have to wait and see if our rental sales has increased.

Inspired by a local reporter in this town – I’ve decided that I will also invest on a good beach cruiser with a basket like the one above and some suv bike racks – so that I can ride my bike to work everyday – and then when we pick the kid up from school I can ride home myself for some form of exercise.   On weekends this year, we shall all go to the beach and go biking and keep healthy.  Now the weather is too call but I think I might get some sort of deal if I shop now.

I really do love biking – and I’ve always wanted a cruiser bike but had been too el cheapo to buy a good one – so no more stinging on myself and giving out money this year but first to take care of myself.  I can’t wait to order my cruiser bike from Manser the bike person and of course, need to check out on those bike racks.

Canada’s federal debt is expected to hit $585.4-billion, yes! that was what I read a minute ago while I know that back home we have a reserve of like $13 billion if I am not wrong. 1 billion is already a lot of money – to owe $585 billion – now that can only mean one thing – that the country is going down.

While everyone was worried about the stock market ending up lower – my investment banker outperformed others and made me some money.  When the index when up 0.14%  I was quite sure they would go down again – but nope, my investment banker told me to keep it for a little longer last Tuesday.  So trading ending about 0.32% higher, so for the first time in a long time – I made some money.  So I’m sending him instead of a thank you note – I ordered some cookie bouquets for the entire department = after all, they do deserve something special and I don’t want to give them something ordinary right?   The Thanks a buzzillian cookie bouquet definitely fits the bill.

Yes! It’s time to get new signage for the store.  When we moved to the new location 4 years ago – we didn’t do up a new one – in fact, we had used an old sign and just asked the sign company to paste in our logo onto the old sign.  By the way, the old sign wasn’t even ours to begin with.  We will keep the logo of course, but instead of waiting for the sign store to design for us – I rather do the design myself – since I do have the Wacom Bamboo Capture right?  gotta make use of it sooner or later – so why not now.  Stay tuned for a new signage.

PS :  For those who are wondering why we didn’t do it earlier – it was because we were so busy with making money – and taking care of the kid – so no extra time to do this.

13 years in  business and not much has changed in town – the infrastructure – the look of the town and almost everything seems the same.  Sure, the kids are having a new high school, they also put some fountain at Lake Milo, Christmas lights in Frost parks during Christmas, a new car dealer coming into town and some big boys along the shopping strip.  But on the whole, I don’t really see any changes – plus we lost the ferry, the airport look really non-function able and a lot of small business closed its door and a lot more residents left town in search of work.

Politics we are not into, the town had asked why don’t the people who are so concerned do something but we are not paid to take care of the town.  We worked 12 hours a day both at the store and online, plus raising a kid – and most people who are working are doing the same thing – they don’t have spare time for politics.  Are we not paying taxes, so that in return we have a better living – a better place to raise our kids?

Don’t get me wrong, we are not in anyway doing bad in business nor personally but when I stand on Main Street – on a cold winter day – like today – it’s pretty grey and grim looking for a lot of people.   As for us, we better keep our mouth shut and truck on and work really hard.

The new year just started and 2012 began for us with much business and I’m thankful for it and our customers.  But the boss is buying way too much at this point of them and yes – I can understand that if we don’t buy we won’t have anything to sell but careful investment is the way to go and not letting our money sit too long in the store is my philosophy.  So while the boss is a big spender – which should be the other way round – I on the other hand will hold on tightly and pull back the purse string and remind him constantly about careful investment.   That’s why I tell the boss – I play a very important part in the store – and he doesn’t even realised it – nor appreciate it sometimes.

No ! we are not getting into the pawn license silly but we are watching the show religiously  not only because it’s fun to see what people sell and what they are worth but because we get to learn a thing or two from these guys on how they do business.  And from them we learned to tell people – ” it’s not because we don’t trust you – we just don’t trust anyone”  and that should be the way to go when it comes to doing business.  But unfortunately, the boss is sometimes too lenient – and still goes out of the way to help people.  As for me – I’ve learned my lesson and never to trust anyone.  2 regulars that I had trusted and told the boss too – didn’t come back and pay us – one was like 10 years ago and the other was like 2 yrs ago.  Yes! Losers!  so whenever I trust anyone – around this town – I always get slapped for trusting them – so I trust no one in this town no more.

Everyone must love the boxing day sale – but you would love it more if you could save more with the boxing day sale and if you looked closely at any online store as I’ve found.   Nice to buy things online that is already on discount – yet get an extra discount with the likes of flower coupon codes – pretty awesome right?   We do have a boxing day sale today – and there were quite a number of customers coming in and I think only the independent store like ours are the ones who are opened for business – because we are the only hardworking ones that depends on every penny that comes in.  But that doesn’t meant that we want all the money to ourselves – we just want to make enough money to pay our bills, have money for food and save some for the kid’s college fund.  Not too much to ask for if you ask me right?  So come on in for a fabulous savings at our store.

For the last one year – the entire town has been in debate  – some more actively than  others and some care more than others – some couldn’t care less but some pretend to care for their own gain.  *shrug* but I can’t really blame them can I?  Most people would say – to each his own – we take care of our own first.  Is that your assumption too?  Is that your stand too?

I think the boss must think I’m mad sometimes – for being so passionate about what’s going on in this town – after all – truthfully I’m really not from here.  So why you asked am I sometimes so pissed off?  especially when we are doing a lot better than when we had the ferry and tourists.   Some may think that I’m crazy and spending too much time in trying to make things better but I’m thinking not for myself only but for the rest of the people in town and the kids and the future of this town.  What has this town gotta offer the younger generation?

Christmas is tomorrow – and as I reflect on the many hours I spend reading up the forum and FB pages – I think next year – I’m going to give it a rest and concentrate on what matters most first.  My kid and the store – and the rest is going to have to wait till I’m free.  So for now – debate or not – the above cartoon tells you how I feel about the situation in this town but not at our business or life.  We are doing pretty well – despite everything.  I think the town had ignore the signs for far too long – so this is where we ended up.

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So I’ve been asked by other business owners what I had thought about the downtown promotion – you see they didn’t participate nor supported giving the anything to promote it because they were the ones who had said nothing would come out of it.  We did support the downtown promotion by giving a $50 gift voucher for the draw and also a buy 2 get the 3 game free coupon for the directory.  We had thought it was a coupon book to every household before Christmas – to encourage people to shop downtown with those coupon savings.

i do like the directory and we do appreciate the work done by the 2 employees but I think we might have expected something different – but this is the first time doing it – so I guess we all had different ideas since we didn’t attend the meetings for planning it since we were busy and don’t have any other employees except for Gary who comes and help us as a friend.  I think maybe next year – they should invite the residents to sit in for the meetings as well – because hearing the consumer/s is very important too.

The government or rather the provincial government here never fails to amaze me – while I know that the local hotel here needs money – so do all of us here – the small businesses.  If the government is giving $1 million to the hotel – surely they can spare some change to the small business owners – like the golf store that is closing down and a few others as well.  We are all struggling to stay afloat – so why is the hotel the only one getting any money?  I guess since the hotels have other hotels in the province – the government need to keep their own boys happy right?  don’t worry about the small flies around – they can die and rot for all the government care.

You would think that with birth rate so high in this town – someone would try to bring a  Gynecologist Center into this town.  But nope we haven’t seen anything like that in this town – and we certainly could use one – for I remembered when I had my kid – there was no gynecologist in town except for one.  I was indeed worried and I wished that each time I had to see a doctor – they would have at least the  fetal doppler to check on my baby  even though they didn’t have the ultrasound machine in the pre-natal clinic.  It was really a time when I was so frantic about the health of my baby especially when I came from a country who is so advanced medically.  Back home 3D ultra-sounds were already introduced.

While it was just announced that the provincial government is giving a million dollars to the hotel for upgrades and keeping jobs because of the lost of the ferry.  I think if they would spend it on giving us a well equipped gynecologist center – for the woman/girls here – it would definitely be a plus.  Keeping the jobs is important – but the health of these women having babies and having women problems need to be address too.  I vote for a new Gynecologist center anytime – or an upgrade in equipments like a 3D ultra sound machine and many fetal doppler for the pre-natal clinic.  This Christmas – my wish for this town is a better gynecologist center for this town.

We are indeed blessed every year  – we always get a lot of fruit baskets and presents from our friends of the store and some from the customers.  Chloe is always blessed with a lot of gifts – one for her birthday and one for Christmas.  We have already received a few gifts and yesterday a good girlfriend showed up with fruit basket and gifts for Chloe.  We are so grateful for their friendship – there was really no need for gifts.  Their friendship is already the greatest gift.

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I don’t know about other working moms – but I know how hard it is for me to help out at the store – do my own work yet gotta go home and cook and clean the house.  Some people I know don’t really care what they feed their kids nor if their home is clean but I on the other hand being brought up different – is quite OCD about cleanliness.   When in Asia – it’s easy to hire a maid from Philippines to help you clean and cook while you are out working but in the West – they don’t practice having a maid.  I wished we had residential maid service durham nc here – so that I can get some help with cleaning my home – that way I don’t have to do it on the weekends when I actually want to spend time with my kid and spouse.  Plus truth be told, I don’t really think I clean so well either  – so I do envy those who can get maid service at a reasonable price and who does a great job.

I’ve tried hiring people to clean my house – but they either don’t clean well – or need specific instructions to what I need them to clean.  I don’t have good luck with part time cleaners because they are not trained – and they don’t even come with their own cleaning products.  Why I won’t hire a non-professional anymore is because the last one I hired used one cloth to clean just about everywhere in the house, from the kitchen to my dining table and the other rooms of the house.  And no that cannot be hygienic, so I won’t hire anyone who don’t have a reference have is qualified to clean my home.  When you pay someone to clean your home, you want to make sure they really clean it – and not leave halfway.

Movies have been picking up steadily ever since Movie Gallery closed shop – but to say that we are making thousands every week on movie rentals alone – then you are wrong.  For those who wants to open their own movie rental store now – should re-consider for we too found out that a lot of people are downloading their movies and steadily becoming a pirate.  So rental may be steady – but to say that we are making lots of money – then you might be in for a shock.  For being in rentals for 11 years – we still have people come in and tell us that they didn’t know we rent movies – muahahah!!!

Yes, we went out to pick up more Christmas decor for the store this week – because they are now all on sale – at about 40% discount at the mall.  I can’t wait to get some more Christmas stuff for both the store and home.  This year – we’ve spent more on decor than other years, I think it’s because we are debt free – from credit cards and everything else – so I can spend money on things that I like to pretty up the store.  I loved Christmas and have always wanted the store to look nice and Christmasy – this year – I have to say we are the happiest – with no employees to worry about – and a great help from Gary – who comes in to relieve us when we need to go home for supper.   We really should have done this a long time ago.

Truth be told I’m a little disappointed with how the Anniversary committee promoted the downtown shopping event.  There is no buzz nor any excitement  I had expected to generate from all that was said to be planned.  Instead – this was what I had read a few days ago – that the coupon book that we had expected to see is in a business guide for 2012.  We had expected it to come in a booklet for the Christmas shopping for downtown business – a totally different picture that we were lead to believe  – or a miscommunication somewhere.  Plus the tender for the printing went to someone out of town – so how can this be good for the downtown core?  A lot  of things don’t make sense to me – shouldn’t we keep the money here in this town?  that’s the purpose of promoting downtown shopping not?  and by the way, I’m not the only one wondering where those coupons are – my customers had asked me about it too.

PS :  the above basket contains $2500 value worth of gift certificates from various stores from downtown and around the county.

So we have been very busy – all because of the many phone scams that is happening around town – where people get phone calls from “microsoft” telling the customers that they have a virus in their hard drive and then getting them to do something or click on a certain link – and then hacking their computer or wiping whatever that is on their hard drive.  So yes!  they bring it down to us – all panicky and we take care of them.

For those who don’t know – Microsoft will never call you and tell you stuff like that – when and if you get a call like that – then you either hang up the phone on them – and tell them to f*** off – or call the cops on them.