Election Day
Election Day
Today was the primary election in California. This means we settle who will run for the various offices in the general election in November. That means we get to go through the whole nasty process again in five months.
On the plus side, we won’t have any of the nasty, dirty, and sleazy television ads until after Labor Day [September for you non-American readers].
This is one of the unique features of American politics.
You have a rich man who spends millions of his own wealth to win the primary election just to get a chance to do it all over again in the Fall. He and his opponent exchange some of the vilest television ads in a long time. If you win in November, you can hold office for four years and then have to go through the process all over again. The job of governor hardly pays much if you are a multimillionaire. The longest you can hold the job is eight years and then you are out of office.
Isn’t life grand in California?
Doug called me from his lunch break at the polling place.
It didn’t sound like he had been very busy so far. He said they had about fifty people vote so far in the first five hours of the voting. He said several of the new computer based voting machines were broken and that is not very good. He seemed to be enjoying himself at his work. I don’t think this is difficult work and it should be the basis of a nice blog posting.
Work
I started working on Vendor Z’s contract this morning.
Vendor Z sent a complete set of documents. There are 25 pages of smallish type to go through. I think the font size is around 10 or so.
I got as far as page three before I hated the contract.
The contract was not what the salesman described to me and the client’s decision makers earlier. There are a bunch of previously hidden clauses that only came to light today. There are some items in the contract that a deal killers. A deal killer is a clause that, unless it is removed or modified, will cause my client to say “No” to Vendor Z and walk away from the transaction.
For example, the other vendor contracts that I looked did not have a specific term to them. True, the initial term was a year but the contract could be cancelled at any time for any reason on sixty days written notice. Vendor Z’s contract is for an initial three year term. That will not go over that well at all with my client.
Vendor Y wins by default; just as if only one team showed up for a World Cup match.
I have yet to finish the review of Vendor Z’s contract. I should finish that my tomorrow. Then, we will sit down, probably on Friday and decide which way to go with the final contract negotiations.
I had previously anticipated that I could conclude the contract negotiations in about a week. Now, I know I will be closer to two weeks and this assumes the other side wants to sign my client and will be flexible.
I suppose we could go back to Vendor X who did not make the final cut and see what sort of the contract they have to offer. We didn’t like their approach to the business but maybe they have a friendlier contract with fewer onerous terms and conditions.
My Friend Sharon
My friend Sharon called me this morning.
As usual, Sharon wanted some information from me. She wanted to know about a company that she was thinking about applying for a job at. I knew the company and gave her my opinion and suggestion. I’m not sure that she will follow my suggestion or not.
Sharon also wanted to know if I had any contacts with some potential clients for where she is working now. I said not at the moment because I did not see a reason why I should provide her with my contact names and sources since I will get no benefit from sharing the information with her and her current employer.
Life moves on and so do relationships.
Alternative DSL Vendor
I tried calling my local phone company to see what they charged for DSL service.
$17.99 a month for the first year and that price continues in the subsequent years if I have the company as my local and long distance carrier. It already is my local and long distance company so I am set for the future.
I can switch to the phone company’s DSL service, keep my Earthlink dial up service and email address, and still have more money left in my pocket at the end of the day.
I did spend about 15 minutes on hold and getting transferred around this morning. This was tolerable since all of the call center people were Native English speakers. That is a nice change from dealing with an Indian call center.
If I do make the switch, I guess I will miss that charming Indian English accent on the phone. I can make the sacrifices; I will save money.
Another good day to be at work, it was cloudy and grey all day long.
Be well and stay happy.
Today was the primary election in California. This means we settle who will run for the various offices in the general election in November. That means we get to go through the whole nasty process again in five months.
On the plus side, we won’t have any of the nasty, dirty, and sleazy television ads until after Labor Day [September for you non-American readers].
This is one of the unique features of American politics.
You have a rich man who spends millions of his own wealth to win the primary election just to get a chance to do it all over again in the Fall. He and his opponent exchange some of the vilest television ads in a long time. If you win in November, you can hold office for four years and then have to go through the process all over again. The job of governor hardly pays much if you are a multimillionaire. The longest you can hold the job is eight years and then you are out of office.
Isn’t life grand in California?
Doug called me from his lunch break at the polling place.
It didn’t sound like he had been very busy so far. He said they had about fifty people vote so far in the first five hours of the voting. He said several of the new computer based voting machines were broken and that is not very good. He seemed to be enjoying himself at his work. I don’t think this is difficult work and it should be the basis of a nice blog posting.
Work
I started working on Vendor Z’s contract this morning.
Vendor Z sent a complete set of documents. There are 25 pages of smallish type to go through. I think the font size is around 10 or so.
I got as far as page three before I hated the contract.
The contract was not what the salesman described to me and the client’s decision makers earlier. There are a bunch of previously hidden clauses that only came to light today. There are some items in the contract that a deal killers. A deal killer is a clause that, unless it is removed or modified, will cause my client to say “No” to Vendor Z and walk away from the transaction.
For example, the other vendor contracts that I looked did not have a specific term to them. True, the initial term was a year but the contract could be cancelled at any time for any reason on sixty days written notice. Vendor Z’s contract is for an initial three year term. That will not go over that well at all with my client.
Vendor Y wins by default; just as if only one team showed up for a World Cup match.
I have yet to finish the review of Vendor Z’s contract. I should finish that my tomorrow. Then, we will sit down, probably on Friday and decide which way to go with the final contract negotiations.
I had previously anticipated that I could conclude the contract negotiations in about a week. Now, I know I will be closer to two weeks and this assumes the other side wants to sign my client and will be flexible.
I suppose we could go back to Vendor X who did not make the final cut and see what sort of the contract they have to offer. We didn’t like their approach to the business but maybe they have a friendlier contract with fewer onerous terms and conditions.
My Friend Sharon
My friend Sharon called me this morning.
As usual, Sharon wanted some information from me. She wanted to know about a company that she was thinking about applying for a job at. I knew the company and gave her my opinion and suggestion. I’m not sure that she will follow my suggestion or not.
Sharon also wanted to know if I had any contacts with some potential clients for where she is working now. I said not at the moment because I did not see a reason why I should provide her with my contact names and sources since I will get no benefit from sharing the information with her and her current employer.
Life moves on and so do relationships.
Alternative DSL Vendor
I tried calling my local phone company to see what they charged for DSL service.
$17.99 a month for the first year and that price continues in the subsequent years if I have the company as my local and long distance carrier. It already is my local and long distance company so I am set for the future.
I can switch to the phone company’s DSL service, keep my Earthlink dial up service and email address, and still have more money left in my pocket at the end of the day.
I did spend about 15 minutes on hold and getting transferred around this morning. This was tolerable since all of the call center people were Native English speakers. That is a nice change from dealing with an Indian call center.
If I do make the switch, I guess I will miss that charming Indian English accent on the phone. I can make the sacrifices; I will save money.
Another good day to be at work, it was cloudy and grey all day long.
Be well and stay happy.
posted by Chuck Reinhardt at 5:06 PM
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