Family Businesses: Good and Bad

Sitting here on hold as I try to get work done for another member of my family in our family business, I'm about as angry as I can be, which is not typical, but does happen from time to time. In a family business, moods seem to be dependent on what people eat for breakfast.

A few observations:
1. Never "bushwhack" someone right away as they come in for work.
2. Never make an accusation and then try to act like you were just asking a probing question to see if there was something you should be worried about.
3. It is unfair to think that when someone works until 11:00 at night doing something for you, they will always want to do this.
4. When you tell someone you want to talk to them, and thus use their time, it is courteous to set an agenda. Blind shotgun conversations are stupid and ineffective, and only very poor leaders waste their time and the time of their subordinates with this type of idiocy.
5. To quote the worn out phrase that everyone should know, but that everyone does not yet know: Failure to plan is planning to fail.

Eat it.

Fender Bender... not in my car!

I had a fender bender this morning and I wasn't in my car... I was in Sarah's! She's been great about the whole thing - she didn't yell or cry. I want her to feel like she can cry to me about things, but she was very calm about this whole thing, which is amazi(ng).

If an insurance company were to repair it I would estimate the damage at about 3k... but I'm hoping to get everything fixed for around 800. Pray that this happens!

What to pack?

I'm heading to North Carolina for the weekend to visit my girlfriend. I'll be staying with one of her friends and know it's going to be a blast - I'm really looking forward to seeing her.

Big fear: Whenever I travel, I'm scared I'll forget something important, whether it be a toothbrush, shirt, etc.

Here's hoping I don't forget everything!

What's The Deal With Numpad and Phone Pad

It is very counterintuitive that the phone keys and the numpad on a keyboard are in reverse order.

I hate this, and am trying to figure out a workaround.

Nortel BCM50 - Interesting Learning Curve

For those of you who are "in the know" I recently purchased a very nice phone system for our company. I've been learning to configure it, and let me tell you, this has been a task. The capabilities of the system are very impressive, but to use them I've had to pour over several 200+ page instruction manuals. To be honest, I enjoy part of this, but what I hate is that to really learn, one has to experiment. If I do something stupid, that risks our entire phone system, and thus our connection to our customer.

And the customer comes first!