Does your guitar stay in tune? THIS ONE DOES:
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Author: admin
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Man does this dude have connections…
Got off the phone with a dude who is the “manager” of a death metal band here. Now, if you’re a death metal band in this town and you have a “manager” you’ve got to wonder…
Anyway, he was explaining to me on the phone today how he “knows about this business.”
And why is this guy such a vast wealth of knowledge about the music industry?
“His x-wife’s dad used to know Don Henley’s old neighbor.”
Man. Does this dude have connections or what?
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Business 101
Part of my business is in the duplication world. I do tons of CD/DVD work. The Christmas season is the busiest time of year for the duplication industry. I’m slammed right now. I’m going through tons of materials and need more.
There’s a company right down the street from me that manufactures an (unnamed) certain material that I use constantly. This material is made out of plastic.
This company is a little strange. They have a several hundred thousand square foot facility for manufacturing and warehousing their “product.” At any given time they can have millions and millions in the warehouse.
Given that this season is the busiest of the year, I placed an order with this company early in November. On my purchase order I specified when I’d be by to pick the order up. When I got there, the warehouse was empty. No product, no humans.
I wandered all through the warehouse and finally ended up talking to a lady I’ve dealt with before there. I asked where my buddy the warehouse manage was. Turns out, he doesn’t work there anymore. She wouldn’t tell me if he quit, or was fired.
I asked if my order was ready and she then informed me that they were out of stock. Now I’m not talking about a big order. I’m talking about 2000-3000 units, where they usually have millions in stock.
She informed me that they weren’t manufacturing the product for about two weeks. The reason? It costs them less NOT to operate than it does to produce their product. What??
I checked in again today (close to 3 weeks after my last discussion with them) and they’re still shut down. They’re not out of business. They’re just not manufacturing during the busiest time of year.
Business 101:
- If you don’t have a product to sell, you can’t sell it.
- If you don’t have employees, they can’t serve your customers or make your product.
- If you don’t operate your company during the busiest time of year, when do you?
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Comcast=bait and switch
I had some pretty hard comcast ranting earlier this year when I had problems with their customer service (or lack thereof). Here we go again.
I moved about 2 months ago into a new place. I needed to transfer my Comcast internet and TV service so I called them. They told me I’d have to get my account up to date before the move. No problem, until the told me the amount…
When I inquired about signing up for their service I told them I was using DirecTV and another company for DSL. My DTV bill was about $75/month and my DSL was only $15/month. The Comcast salesman said they had a package that would blow both of those away at $69/month for digital cable and high speed internet. Wow, sign me up!
But when I moved they informed me that my bill for the last two months was in the $300 range. How the hell can it be $300 when you’re paying $69/month for two months? $69×2=$300? It was at that time (about a month ago) that they informed me my comcast bill was close to $150/month. I nearly lost my mind. They just doubled my price with no notification?
I’m happy with the speed of the internet on comcast, but the digital cable frankly sucks compared to DTV. So there’s no way I’d want to pay MORE for an inferior product. I argued with the billing department for about a hour about what my price should have been. They agreed that they’d switch me back to the $69 as long as I paid about $250 to get my account up to date. They wouldn’t retroactively fix my pricing. They’d only agree to sign me up on a special rate for the next 3 months IF I paid the $250.
Ok, fine… I agreed to do that for the next three months, at which time I’d most likely switch to a different provider.
So I talk to Comcast on the phone today about my service not working. They inform me that my current balance is $245? HOW THE HELL can my balance be $245 when a month ago I got it all squared up and I’m paying $69 bucks a month???
Turns out that they never implemented the f’ing special rate last time I talked to them on the phone. So I’m STILL being billed close to $150/month for services they told me I’d be getting for $69. I explain this to the current billing person and he checks the notes in the computer. Sure enough he finds the notes from the last phone call and confirms that yes, my rate SHOULD have been $69.
I say ok, then knock my charges from last month down to where they should be. He says he can’t go back and change it because the database wouldn’t let him. But he’s willing to sign me up at the special rate of $69/month for the next three months. Is this a broken record?
I raise hell with this guy but he won’t budge. He says I can get the new rate starting TODAY but have to pay the other rate for last month. This is bullshit. I’m sick of these ass holes doing this. And the nerve of the guy on the phone who said “well, you’ll be paying the higher rate in 3 months anyway so what’s the difference?” What’s the difference? About $75/month. I told him that in 3 months I didn’t know if I’d be dead or living in Panama….
Comcast sucks. Their TV quality sucks. Their customer service sucks. Comcast are bait and switch ass holes.
I do a little “consulting” now and then for people who can’t figure out why their recordings suck. This is one of those occasions:
This guy has a home studio and he’s got a TON of killer equipment. His gear is top of the line, worth thousands and thousands of bucks. But for the amount of gear he has, he can’t make a decent sounding recording. (Most crappy studio engineers think buying more gear is the answer, but it’s not)…
He has me listen to one of his recordings and sure enough, it sucks. It takes me about 7 or 8 seconds to figure out what his problem is. I reach down to his console and “do my magic.” BOOM! His mix opens up and all the sudden you can hear everything much more clearly!
He starts to freak out. “Wow! What did you do? That sounds so much better! You’re amazing!” I then inform him what a frigging PAN KNOB is. He had all of his channels panned dead center. $50,000 worth of gear and he doesn’t know what a pan knob is.
Someone shoot me now.