Company vs. employee

I don't know about u, but i'm starting to get a bad taste of the lately business ways.

In the run for money 99% of the companies (and leaders) tend to ignore growing problems, until they come back to bite them ... Now, i'm not an expert but then again, as long as you run a company and you have a hadfull of people (the bigger companies usually hired some poeple to handle the small people they employ :D) it's easier to get the people to work together and involve themselves as long as there is someone up there that tries to keep up and sometimes listen to them. Also as long as there is a team don't ever use the "divide and conquer" in the said team. Use them as a whole and not individuals. If you do the said strategy the result will be disaster. They will not work as a team (because you implied by the method that they are not), and for your company this won't work well in the long run. Then again 1 person cannot keep and eye on all places ( even if he has eyes of the mother-in-law he won't be able to control everything), so you need head-teams. Is hard to let go a bit of the power but think as a challenge: the person you give a bit of it thinks he is going somewhere in your company (even if that is not true :D), and you get an eye on that level (btw the "new team-leader"  should be someone who not only spyes for you but also can actually bring something  - like to stand up for his team with no fear that he will get fired for that. Open-mindedness and cunningness for a manager is the key of success.

It seems that in the lasts 3-4 years, managers have developed a strange mentality ( i say strange, because if u ask me the biggest mistake a manager can do is to say to someone who dares to question his decision (and i'm talking about decisions that involves the said idiot that dared to question)," don't like it, bring your resignation".
Bad move most of the times, because that person will likely give it to you next day (or same day if he/she has the time) and then you (as manager) will have a gap in the personnel and if there is no one that can replace it and untill you teach someone else to do his/her job you will loose : Time, Money and Nerves :) (plus the new person will probably stay for 2-3 months until he gets a wind of the things and then he will leave, and again you will go back to square 1).

Besides the questioning of decisions, most of the time (99,99999...% ) the employs will never do "free jobs" just because you ask them (  if they don't expect something at the end) especially if it involves overtime hours. Rilly now, would you as a manager do overtime for free just because your boss said it (if u have a boss) and you wouldn't expect something for it?  I think not!

So, the company wants more "money" (with less pay on people) which translates to the employee as "more hours worked +  stress ".  In the long run this results to: people leaving the company => company looses money with the coaching of new employees. And the circle begins anew!

In Romania most of the small/medium companies don't even think of coaching/leaderships or brain-storming. There is a director/manager that cuts, hangs and makes decisions and the employees have to say "yes sir".


Right or wrong there will come a time, when these types of "companies" will get a nice Kick in the back part. When that time comes i will be in the front seat with popcorn in my hands!

Windows 7 - or how to make your life miserable

Don't know about you guys, but i'm starting to hate W7. Who the hell was the brainiac that put a security for Admin control. If i wanted someone else to be my admin i would have put him myself. It's my computer and if i want to blow it, i will with no remorse.
To start from beginning:
1. New PC + W7 uninstalled
2. Got up the W7... all good.
4. User - me Admin
3. Update required = OK, let's do it.
4. Restart PC
5. Ups... what u want to use the file... sorry ask for permission right from Admin. Ugh ... hello I'm the admin...what? So now i have to give myself admin rights...
6. Sorry.. u cannot install you don't have admin permission..
7. Boot in safe mode
8. Take ownership of C
9. Play with account settings (maybe i got them twisted ...noo all OK)
10. Restart W7
11. Request Permission
12. Force take over C ownership, delete the system Admin ( witch the W7 makes it by default)
13. Yey it works ... Security center Alert...

Do i need to go on?

It seems that the guys from Microsoft not only forces u to get the god damn pc with the W7 ( the other XP, vista etc are not available anymore to buy... deh W7 costs more), but they also consider themselves Admins on your pc ( i would have been ok with this god damn feature if it would actually help...But nooo).

Also, If you don't have Office ( which BTW now u can only buy 2007 and 2010) and u need email u are screwed. W7 does not come with default email, u have to go and take one from online W Live mail. And of course for the idiots that had Office outlook in the past and want their emails back, thought luck. W Live does not support pst files (ps: their own formats ). The support recommends you to save the files from your outlook in a supported format for W Live.. So before u instal W7, do a s\change o files for the emails to be recognized by W live... Yes.. Of course everybody does that... That's why the forums are full of annoyed people that would try almost anything to get their emails on again).

So, my friends, think twice before you migrate from Office outlook 2003-2007  to W live mail, and the W7 with Admin restriction.. IT sucks.

Something Borrowed

Ok my friends! Expo is out...free again...yey (btw if ever anyone wants to do bussines with AVANZ RO forget it, go get drunk of that money = they suck).

So, considering my weekend sucked, (ok ok i know someone will get my head off... i admit Sunday evening was ok, even if someone fallen asleep before we left :P), tonight got home and got a new movie (at least new for me, never got around to see it:D) - Something Borrowed.

While the movie was streaming, the title got my attention.

How many times either of us, lived on borrowed time?

Living in a fast paced time, we never have time for what is important. We run from one place to another, and when we finally calm down what do we got?
We have to borrow time from another place to get to a coffee with friends. We have to put other plans on hold to make a carrier, believing we will have time later to do them.

But what if u don't have time?

What if u won't be able to take some time from a different place to go get a coffee with your friends?
I've started to realize that some things are rilly so not important in life.

There may not be a tomorrow to do what you put on hold. We loose not only ourselves in the process, but also people close to us.

We miss out so much, only because we don't understand the meaning of slow down...

There are so many beautiful things around us, and we don't have time to really appreciate them. Sunrise over town, the laugh of a child when he is playing, the sound of the wind through the leaves in the autumn..
And i can go on like this..but i won't. And i ask of you to stop for a second, read this and ask yourself - is it worth it?

EXPO

Hmm.... Tomorrow it starts the WellFit Expo at East Center Expo in Bucharest ( somewhere around Obor).

Keep your fingers crossed cause i broken mine.

At least now i know how to set up myself a carpet :)))).
To say that i met a few nice people ( we have a common front - us against the "GOD" ( a guy that i think is dutch that gotten on our nerves all evening - he is a dead meat .... my advice by sunday don't eat anything with meat from there (evil evil grin) ) was the best part of the whole thing...

On a nicer note.... dear all....visit us ( at least we will have a nice coffe and talk :)))) ).

PS: there are some guys with cool stuff at the expo .... deserves at least a look :) .

Night all....

Blue screen of death !

What do u do when u get the Blue screen of death from Windows?
1. You throw away the laptop on the window ( and loose all the things u had on it )
2. Try to shut down and reopen , but same blue screen.
3. Reinstall windows = loose all.
4. Throw away the laptop.
5. Stay till 4Am to fix it, manage to get it up again but you still want to trow it away.
6. Make back-up, that takes forever to do.
7. Get the back-up started, 90% done.... then error = you want to smash something.
8. It's 5Am, 4'th coffee and 3'd Redbull, your brain in override. Start Again. Back-up ... get to sleep ( it's almost 6AM).
9. Wake up at 8Am, have another coffee, open another Redbull and your scared to go and see what is the status of back-up
10. Back-up Error. You take laptop... look long at the window with logging... Go to work :))).

PS: Anybody knows why the hell the back-up fails?

When DR Jekyll appears!

I'm getting tired of false cheeriness. Double faces and personalities. And worse i get dizzy from it.

I used to think that I'm a good character reading, and until a few months ago it was true.
Well lately that was proved wrong.

Bad decisions drag after themselves, if not bad, at least strange consequences.

Day 8 and counting!

Yes, it’s true! I decided ( ok nothing new, my friends know that I wanted this a few weeks ago but failed miserable) to quit smoking. And to make things harder – yes, as someone said to me, I’m a masochist- I don’t use anything to replace the nicotine ( no patches, no gum etc)
For those that never smoked in their life, it will appear strange how you cannot quit easily.
EASY TO QUIT? NEVER!
Nicotine is a drug, and the withdrawal can be painful and a bit like a crazy period for the unfortunates!
So starting Monday morning I said: OK this is it, no more cigars! And so the small hell began!

Day 1
Up until around 12 it was ok, a bit sluggish, foggy brain but relatively ok. By 4PM my brain started to talk to me.
Brain:“Hey you, what’s the deal, no cigar?
Me: “Nope sorry we are non smokers starting today!”
Brain: “You’re joking!”
ME: “Nope”
And so it began. By night my brain was crying, I was moving in slow motion, went to bed at 9PM like never in my life.

Day 2
Woke up with a screaming brain: “Smoke, smoke, smoke!”… me “Nope, forget it!”. The longest day in my life (not even the exams days where not that long). What nobody ever tells you when you start smoking is that: you are free to smoke, but not give up on them! Otherwise no one would smoke!

Day 3.
Worst yet. 7AM almost got up crying. My brain started to threaten me!
Brain: “Hey you! If we don’t smoke today, I will shut down!”
Me: “Sorry, forget about it… we don’t smoke anymore , and this is the nicotine devil talking. You don’t need to smoke to function!
Brain: “Wanna bet?”
Guess what I was doing at 12PM(while normal people where at work ?). Sleeping, brain got a general error, restart was needed. And the same went whole day.

Day 4.
Started to get a bit better. Got up early, managed to get some things done! Brain was still crying in the background but at least it was not shutting down on me. Silent otherwise. But, off the record… I found it hard to concentrate on anything, like someone discovered that night ( when in a serious discussion, I started to talk like: look what a nice sky).. Sorry about that :D.

Day 5
Almost had one. I say almost because I didn’t and I’m proud of it…. My brain still is mad at me but he will get over it!


Day 6-7
The BIG first actual test! Being surrounded by a group (around 9-10 people) of smokers for 16-18 hours is my version of HELL.
Picture this: You are working on quitting and you still dream of smoking and puffing all that smoke out, in –out, in-out….and of course you get stuck in a car for 2 hours with 2 smokers…

I have killed them in my head at least 100 times in those 2 hours ,but since one of them was the driver I couldn’t kill him – I still value my life too much to risk it that way.(PS: sorry guys for the EVIL thoughts, it was the nicotine devil asking me to doing :D).
So for over 16 hours with 10 people that where smoking, and smoking …and puffing…I rose above…and didn‘t smoke at all… (I’m patting myself on the head)…

So my smoking friends if you want to quit smoking, first of all get prepared to all the bad stuff (your brain won’t quit nagging you, bad disposition, low energy level etc).

I hope that I won’t succumb again to the nicotine, so, to all out there, keep your fingers crossed for me!

It happens even to the biggest companies!

I was watching the other day a commercial on TV. Cosmetic product made by L’Oreal, promising lashes with over 60% longer featuring Penelope Cruz. Now I don’t know about you but honestly now, if you have short lashes Nothing will make them longer with 60% over a brush pass like Miss Penelope has.

So, my curiosity got better off me (yes, yes I know the cat died young because of that, but at least she died smart) and I looked up the product on the net. Imagine my surprise, when I found some interesting articles about this.
Seems like someone forgot to mention in the commercial that the lady had false lashes.
So, besides the nice kick L’Oreal got from Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) they also where obliged to put on the screen a to ads whenever models are shown wearing false lashes.
Now that is only a part of the story. It seems that, beside the false lashes, they cannot also prove the 60% length.
Are you surprised? I'm not. To find out why, read more
Advertisements usually uses vague promises to sell a product.
“Use our product and see up to 60% longer lashes” witch could mean that, you can see up to 60% longer lashes, but you can also see 0% and lots of mascara.

Isn’t that nice…

♫ Maggie Reilly singing Everytime we touch...

Love the song :D

What Customers Want

Makes you stop and think. 

Ok, ok , i know it's not easy to keep your temper when you have in front of you a crazy client, but those are not all of the clients.

 If you go to a store and instead of being answered your questions, the seller asks you to leave ( or gets the bodyguards to get you out :)) ) would you ever go back to the same shop chain? I think not! Or if you ever had the misfortune to speak to an operator that was rude with you, at the end you never wished him well?

According to a study ( you can read more about it in here)  from 100 clients unhappy with the customer care , at least 65 will not come back . Of course you are happy if they bought in the first place, but if the don’t? You loose money right?

Customer care is, and always have been, the core of a selling business. Don't take care of that and in the end the business will suffer. And I'm not talking only about sells. I'm talking about  the kind of problems that involve officials  (yes my friends from OPC - we have a love-hate relationship: they love me, i hate them and so on). In the end, if you don’t take care of the internal problems you loose.

So, it’s a matter to sit on if you want to work in sales is it not?