The Emerald Rose

Yeah, I’m still here. The “Boy King” is a seriously demented young man whose favorite word, pronoun to be exact, is “ME”

          “How could you write a memo to our Health Insurance provider and mention the other two employees are not happ either? That was way out of line, and the memo was rude to boot. You should have come to me. You were wrong.” (Extent of being berated, BUT enough to push me over the edge.)

         I apologized,(as obviously there was nothing else he would even talk about), told him I would write an e-mail to the girl at the health Insurance company I sent the memo too and apologize as well,….end of case.

        So I went back to my office dashed off a half assed apology, “I apologized for being rude and possibly upsetting you, but being charged $300 more than you quoted me, being denied service by my Doctor’s office because there is no record of me having any health insurance, and a severe ear ache,….well you can understand my frustration.”

          I then picked up my phone, called one of my clients and told them “My new firm is open for business June 1 can I count on you moving your account to my company that date? It took the President of the Association less than half a breath to say “Absolutely, what do you need us to do to cancel our contract with the current firm?” We chatted and I told him I would handle the transition personally and all I needed was for him to contact the rest of the Board, do a telephone motion and vote to make the move and letme know the date and time approved and I would write it up as an emergency meeting and we could ratify it at our annual meeting in April. “Done!” he replied. “What took you so long to make the decision to leave that clown?” WE chit chatted a bit more about issues facing the Association in our law suit against the builders and “et al” and that was done.

           Then I got my briefcase, jumped in my car and went over to a meeting with the President of another Association of mine who with her husband who is an attorney were in town just to relax and un-wind.  I started the meeting by saying, “I am leaving the company the end of May and my own Company will be operational at that time. Would you like to move your Association to my new firm and still have me manage your Association?” To which she replied, “Absolutely we are moving with you,…I never did like the cut of that spoiled little kid you worked for anyway” I told her she would also have to have a meeting of the Board of Directors to make the decision and she asked if a teleconference would be valid, to which I said “certainly as long as we ratify it at your next regular Board meeting, and she said “Done. I’ll do it over the weekend and call each member of the Board and it will be done.”

            So fifteen minutes and my Company now has two clients and gross sales of $25,000 a year. I’ll need about another two or three to make some money at it, but they usually come along as soon as folks know you are up and running, particularly with so many associations looking to save money. I developed my business a year and a half ago, set up it’s web site, got all the appropriate business cards, envelopes, stationary, computers, software, pre-printed checks, started moving my accounts bank accounts to the Bank I would be comfortable dealing , and with whom  I have already established a relationship for a year, rented a Post Office Box over a year ago to receive mail, and developed, as posted on my web site, an “a la carte” menu of services rather than the traditional all encompassing general contract which says nothing and has 60 day mutual cancellation clauses. My rationale was that if you get to pick the exact services you want from my firm, and can by pass the rest, then you should be more than willing to sign a minimum of one year contracts with liquidated damages clauses if you want an early cancellation. Seems fair. I’ve developed relationships with the two major CPA firms in the area, particularly the one that does the auditing and tax returns for my two major clients, cultivated relationships with the two separate attorneys who represent both of the Associations (always have two separate attorneys, what one says you can do check with the other before you do it,…just to be sure, afterall they are Attorneys 🙂 .

            So with everything in place I have a couple of months to get the carotid artery blockage taken care without stressing, time to develop a little “marketing” program. (Have a retired friend here who used to head up a whole marketing operation and can charm the skin off a snake, we were talking a few months ago and he said he was looking for a project to do, but the money had to be “under the table”, so I called him as well and he’s up to give it a go. So the target will be a total of six clients by year end , and a gross revenue stream of $100,000, with just my wife doing the bookkeeping and me doing the operations. If we get there on time I will add on an Administrative person next January (that is may major weak point all the administrative paperwork crap)

          Also picked up a program this week that I put on the computer about three days ago, believe it or not it is a “subliminal”  program, meaning it has whole libraries of  categories, i.e. ‘work’, health’ ‘stress and relaxation’, ‘studies’ interpersonal elationships’, etc. You go to the menu, pick a category, look at the dozens of “phrases” under that category,i.e. “I like my job”, “I enjoy doing my best at work”, etc. You set the category, you adjust the speed (like to 1/1000 of a scond, and press “Go” and it’s running. It starts flipping those little statements onto your computer monitor at the 1/1000, or whatever, speed you have selected, and randomly keeps popping up the phrases in different places on you r monitor. you really can hardly notice they are there, you certainly can’t consciously read them or see them, they are just like a “blip”, not even a blink they are so fast, but your sub-conscious mind is seeing them and absorbing them. I’ve got them on the “work” mode this week and I’ll let you know if it makes work a little “nicer”.

         On the “How screwed up is our world” front, I got up this morning at 7am (It’s Saturday so I slept in an extra hour or so), flipped on CNN Headline News, and here are four real topics I was met with instantly;

          1) Rhode Island Senator introducing legislation to establish a “Youth Sports Oversight Council” to settle parent coach disputes about children in youth sports, i.e. “You don;t let Johnny play enough”, and “Mary was clearly fouled on that play,…you are not only blind but stupid”, and “Little Cletus put the kid down didn’t he, so what if he was a liitle rough, the bleeding stopped pretty quickly so you can’t pull him off the field for that.”, and of course, “You play all the Hispanic kids more than Percival, he needs equal time.”    HELLO!!! Give me a break! We are going to waste tax payers dollars on this crap! You put me on the “Council” and the first case that comes up I will settle by putting six bullets in the parent and five in the coach or umpires (saving 1 bullet in case the kid is a “whiner”. We’ll see how fast the “Youth Sports Oversight Council ” lasts with me at the helm!

         2) “Two male authors were arrested by the Saudi Arabian Religious Police for trying to get the autograph of a female author” Just confirms what we all know , those guys are so screwed up I would enjoy force feeding them bacon and Jack Daniels until they passed out and then turn them over for a Playgirl Centerfold Shoot. hit they would probably insist on paternity test on all of us who say the Lord’s Prayer! If we enforced the Ten Commandments that literally “Stone Throwers needed for Adulterer stonings weekly, earn big $$ be home by noon. $500 bonus on ‘headshots’, apply now” would be an alternative career path. It would get to be like baseball! We would have to have “starter’s” , long term relievers”, and “closers” because of the volume of stonings per week, then we would need “stats” like ERA’s, only they could be “stones per fatal hit, or SPF’s, they could develop the “slider stone” that drifts up and away and bounces off the head,….and on and on and disgusting! Grow up folks, even God has a sense of humor, look at the Monk Fish!

       3) Brigader GeneralGary S Patton of the U.S. Army (wonder if he’s any relation to the “REAL” General Patton, the last man that really understood war) and some other General are telling everyone they are having PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) . All I can say is  , a GENERAL? When was the last time you saw a General at and on the front line? One of these “Generals” happened to be in a ‘mess tent’ and a suicide bomber blew it up, the other one had to help medevac a wounded soldier who died in his arms. Did either of you wimps ever think about what a “real” soldier sees every single day as a matter of course in battle. Pity you had to come out of your high command fortified building and notice what was happening. Odds are Iraq was the first “action” you ever saw, aside from hunting for Noriega’spanties in Panama in the 80’s. You are a General, you should be fit to command, Rule # 1 people WILL die in war, that why we should all work to prevent them, but if they happen your job is to allow the enemy to provide his “God” with a record number of martyrs as quickly as possible!

          4) “Drug killings in Rosarito Beach scare American Tourists” again, a “DUH!!!” if you knew they were decapitating folks for being snitches or drug dealers in Mexico, I would wager the intelligent thing would be to change plans and go to the North Pole for Spring Break! 

                I’m really wondering how President “Barry” Obama is going to develop a program for all the free Valiums for our citizens. Maybe they will have Valium dispensers right alongside the paper towel holders in all the restrooms, or a nice basket of them at the Hostess stand as you exit the restaurant, or perhaps at Church they will pass the plate and you can take what you need for the week and just mail in a donation, or better yet, let’s have a mandatory payroll deduction for “Church Support” ,….yeah, another stroke of genius.

              Nancy Pelosi for poster child for Alzheimers care, she can’t remeberanything except her flapping seal imitation. Surely her words give comfort to all of our enemies. (Maybe she is also living proof that God has a sense of humor as well,…hmmmm, have to mull that>

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