A little background to this topic is in order. I work in a small office that shares a couple of bathrooms. There are two floors in a duplex office setup, of which we occupy one side of the duplex. There is a bathroom on each floor, so the two bathrooms are not gender specific as it would be in a larger office atmosphere. The office personnel includes both genders, so obviously we share the bathrooms.

Before I go further, the topic today is not about whether to leave the seat up or down, which I am sure many of the female readers are primed and ready to rant about themselves. On that topic I have mixed feelings. I am well trained husband and do my part to conscientiously make sure the seat is in fact down before I leave the facilities. I even take this one step further these days because I have a one year old little girl who thinks toilets are her personal water-filled playground. The male occupants of our office are 90% married and all have obviously been well trained and I rarely if ever enter the facilities and find a toilet seat up. Moving on.

As the title so clearly indicates, I am talking about “number 2″ for the subject today, and how some people think they somehow have been blessed with the ability to perform this required bodily function without producing any odor. I assure everyone reading that this is of course not the case. The simple answer is to offer the simple courtesy of turning on the bathroom fan. If you don’t have a fan, spray some air freshener or light a candle. This is not much to ask for, is it?

In a small office it is even worse than most any other. Offices are located right by the bathroom door and the bathroom often is within short distance of the main office entry. Nothing is more embarrassing than having a client show up to experience an entryway that smells like an outhouse. Not only turn on the fan, but please close the door.

I am not sure if it is one answer in every situation either. Some people may just forget or are out of the habit of taking care of the remnants of their bathroom usage, and in their own home they can do whatever they darn well please for all I care. I personally paid extra in my home when building to have exhaust fans installed in every bathroom. There are others, though, that truly must believe they do not stink. I also feel required to make note that the biggest offenders on this, at least in my experience, are the women in the office. Oh, you may jump all over this and give me one example after another of men that are slobs that revel what they can produce, and I wouldn’t say you are wrong. I stick to my guns though and think that there are more women that actually believe they don’t stink.

When it comes to a shared bathroom experience in an office atmosphere, this just doesn’t cut it. Let me tell you now, you stink. Granted, some people stink more than others, but we all stink, it’s a fact of life. Deal with it because I’d like to avoid hitting that wall of stench when I am headed in to take care of my business, thank you very much. I would much rather be barraged with the overwhelming scent of artificial potpourri than the results of your bodily functions.

Hopefully I have not overdrawn this picture for you, it is not one that we all need to have visuals for. There are less than glamorous aspects to life, and this is one of them. Just have the sense to offer some common courtesy and deal with it like we must. Thank you, that is all.

That may come as a surprise for some of the people that know me, but being creative by profession is something that I have learned because I enjoy it.  There is little that tops the satisfaction of a final creative that people enjoy.  Maybe it feeds that inner self that has always desired praise and attention.  I admit it, I like compliments even though they are hard for me to take in person without a sheepish feeling.

Even as a kid I tried to be an artist in any way I could and usually failed.  I took an after school cartooning class which caused me to come to the early realization that I can’t draw to save my life.  I wish I could draw, paint or something artistic with my hands.  I used to use tracing paper over comics I liked to get some satisfaction of feeling like I had created it myself on paper.  Kinda sad really.

This is where computers became a big part of my creative outlet later in life.  Early on I enjoyed being able to make my school reports look better than the next guy with clip art and professional page layout; at least as professional as an 8th grader can make something on an old Apple IIc.  Of course my favorite skill I learned early on was how to change the line spacing to 2.2 or 2.4 to get the extra page I needed on the report without writing another word.  I always wondered if my teachers ever noticed.

Adobe Photoshop has been my favorite program of all time from the day I found it.  I started fairly early in the life cycle at version 2 and have been taking advantage of what it has to offer with every version since.  Photography was something that always interested me too, but my passion for it really took off when digital photography began to really grab hold.

Why do I tell you all this?  Basically to confess that I love being creative, but I have to work at it.  I envy those that seem to just come by it naturally, cranking out new creations seemingly without effort.  My brain seems to reside firmly in the middle with some logic that truly creative guys often lack and a bit of the creative that most programmers figure is useless.

Some days it seems like ideas are easier to come by, but typically I have to really wrap my brain around a new project for a bit, look around the ‘net a long time for similar ideas and work at a half dozen ideas until I come up with something that works.  At other times, I feel like I am perpetually doing the proverbial head banging against brick wall, and usually have the headache you would expect in doing that.

So, I take a few minutes to write my rant so hopefully someone out there can feel my pain and perhaps share their sympathy.  Ok, moment of self-pity over.  Back to work.

 Well, let me tell you, what I thought would be relatively easy, turned out to be impossible.  A Wal-Mart sprouted itself just a mile from my home, so I thought that was the perfect opportunity.  I have a few years of retail and customer service experience, and was not opposed to stocking shelves.  I just wanted something part-time.

The application on the computer in the store took well over an hour, and i “passed” the assessment.  I thought I’d get a call in a few days.  Nope.  Nada…zip.  Not even an acknowledgement of my application.  Hmmm.  Was I too young? Too old?  Too something, I guess.   I can’t quite figure it out.

So now, as I pass through the front doors, I am greeted by someone, who somehow passed a test I didn’t know existed.  It’s an odd feeling, and sometimes I don’t like it.  I still shop there, but there are times, I just don’t want to go in those doors.  I guess they know something I don’t

From what I have read, this is quickly becoming a hot topic to discuss, with strong messages on both sides of the argument.  I can understand this to be seemingly idiotic and business suicide from a customer perspective.  This policy can also be abused by always thinking the company is right – there has to be some balance.  Be willing to be wrong, but also be willing to act when someone else is wrong.  We have all grown up hearing that the philosophy “the customer is always right” is the key to a successful business, but in today’s world I can’t always side with that.  There are a lot of demanding, unrealistic customers that are simply trying to get ahead at your expense.  If they can get it cheap, free, or otherwise come out ahead, it doesn’t matter what they have to say or do to get there.  That includes lying, cheating and acting like you have somehow committed an atrocity at their expense.

What makes this worse is the number of fraudsters out there using tactics against customer service departments, knowingly working the system simply to get something for free.  Chargeback routines, threatening BBB and attorney general reports, and claiming shipped orders never arrived are just a few of the common practices people will use.  This has grown to a level that even people you would never call an outright thief will do it, justifying that these online companies can afford it, so it is somehow ok to do.

On a level less thieving is the tech company’s worst nightmare – the bargain minded business enlisting their services.  Small web development firms deal with type constantly.  I spent years acquiring customers for my outfit I ran with some partners and great friends.  We worked very hard to keep ourselves in business, and I am afraid often because we were willing to take on almost any contract, no matter the amount of work we had to agree to at any rate, just so as we had work and income coming in.  I was likely the worst at this admittedly.  We had a good business, though, and we enjoyed ourselves.  Eventually I left this company to pursue some other opportunities, which was a catalyst for some necessary changes in the company.  Along the way, they changed their policy to “let go” the noisy, demanding and otherwise unprofitable customers and to better organize their bidding and billing procedures.  Sure, they had some unhappy customers that went away, and some that stayed but complained about the apparent price increase; but in the end they are more profitable and living more sane lives as a result.

We can’t please everyone, especially those that can never be pleased.  As a business, shoot for pleasing 90% of your customers, and in the end you will be more successful.  You will spend your time building and offering services or products that make the bulk of your customers happy, and you won’t be wasting time with the vocal minority that drain your resources trying meet their demands.  This is a valuable lesson for any entrepreneur to learn, hopefully sooner than later in their business growth.  Some sage advice, from a big time CEO (Homestead) as well as a small time guy like me.