Vendor Presentations

Vendor Presentations
We are having vendor presentations at the office this week. We had the first one today and have two more this week. The first one was fairly impressive and they seemed to hit all of the numbers and they drove some long balls out of the baseball stadium, unlike Barry Steroids lately.

We were going to have four presentations but the fourth vendor seemed to continually keep shooting themselves in their collective feet. I was about to recommend that we drop them from consideration when the COO [Chief Operating Officer] showed me a news release this morning that said the company was going to be late with its 2005 audited financial statements and lost over $186 million at least.

That was certainly unsettling to me.

Then, I discovered the company has been hit with eight class action lawsuits in March and April of this year. The lawsuits are alleging a variety of securities law violations.

The COO and I decided to quietly drop this vendor from the competition.

Doug’s phone call
I had a phone call from Doug last night.

Getting a phone call from Doug is certainly not unusual, otherwise notable, or remarkable. He calls me regularly and I call him as well.

Last night, he was calling to vent and rage about his teacher who gave him a 97 out of possible 100 points on his term paper. Now, to his mother and me, we both felt that was a fine grade and that he was getting upset over nothing.

After all, life is too short for warm beer and cheap cigars. They are both evil.

Doug felt he should have received a 100 out of 100 possible points.

I asked him why he was grade down. He said that his children’s television program concept did not have a female lead character. I pointed out to him that I had suggested that he ought to add a female character during one of my draft reviews. Then, I pointed out that probably more than half of the class would kill for a grade of 97 on their term papers.

I guess my brilliant argument logic won him over; either that or the fact that there was going to be no sympathy from his mother or me over the term paper grade. Doug dropped the matter and then we talked about blog traffic.

Sharon
Sharon phoned me twice since my last blog posting.

Sharon phoned last night to tell me that she had a long conversation with the head of Human Resources at the killer job I found for her. She was excited because the HR person agreed with my assessment that she would be perfect for the position. I wished her well because it would be perfect for her plus it is only a ten minute or less drive from her home.

She called me again tonight just before I had my dinner.

Sharon said she had been terminated from her job today. The reasons that were given by her evil boss sounded flimsy to me and I suggested that she might want to talk to an employment law attorney because there may be grounds for a lawsuit based on age and racial discrimination. These are always unfortunate and ugly events.

Our phone call was a short one because she had another call. I am used to being pushed aside for someone else on the other line. The Princess used to do that all of the time when she had call waiting. I will call Sharon later on tonight and encourage her.

Being the optimist, I can find something good out of all of this. To me, it is not a question of whether the glass is half full or half empty but rather where is the person with the water pitcher.
I would expect her health to improve since the stress of the terrible job and evil boss have been removed; better health is always a plus. She can rest and regain her strength and positive attitude. Sharon will probably add a pound or two now that the stress is gone and this is not too bad.


So gentle readers, now you have seen the highpoints in my day. As you can plainly read, I did not have an exciting day.

Be well and stay happy.