One Over X News

In Response to an Email from a Friend

Jeff,

I love the way you write. You should start a blog. If nothing else it serves as a good public journal. Amazingly, there are some people that I don't know who are reading the blog. Sometimes my daughters post comments but usually I just get emails from the readers. I get emails alerting me to a posted comment, of course. For whatever reason Outlook sees the feedback posts as junk mail. I was almost ready to delete my junk mail when I decided to just scan it for familiar names, just in case. Yours was number 47 out of 62 'junk' mails. Talk about finding a pearl in pig poop! Wait is that a real saying or did I just make it up, another Elgonism?

I am posting this to the blog, BTW. I find the entirety of your email interesting. Far be it for me to ever call anything that you write 'long'. I will post some of it at least. It is relevant to the theme of this blog, I think. Even if it is the first time that I post something from another writer, your comments pertain to One Over X and some of the other material posted on this blog.

In reference to your comment about Lana's remark in A Game of Hangman, that Brent is a 'so so writer in need of a good editor', the relationship between Brent and Jackson is a little strange to say the least. Jackson and Brent are maybe not friends so much as acquaintances. Over the course of the series and into the next series they actually become friends. Brent even begins to call Jackson by his first name, Jonathan. Jackson's son is a supporting character in the second series.

Jackson does see Brent's potential as a writer but is frustrated that Brent does not see it in himself. Brent writes because he has to. It matters little to him whether anyone ever buys his writing. He only wants someone to read it and undertsnad what he is trying to convey. Only someone who is a writer or more generally an artist understands that. I know that you do.

There are some pretty good legal reasons why I cannot comment about the Red Halfling (I like the moniker) but I think you know how I feel. I have always tried to be truthful and over the years I took beatings for the petty goals that we weren't achieving. I hate micro-management.

I used to think that I might be on a mission to educate the Red Halfling about proper customer service. Even before I was an employee I was a customer. The store in Orange Connecticut was within walking distance of the Orange Giant store where I worked. When I purchased a computer I did not buy it there but I bought software and upgrade items.

One of the things that I really shopped for was a Jazz Drive, if you remember those. A 1GB removable hard drive - what a great idea for backing up data. It is a pity that CD-R's came along and destroyed that market. Anyway, at the time I really felt that I just had to have one.

I shopped all the competition and found that Circuit City has the drive cheaper but the required SCSI card was not. The Red Halfling had the SCSI card a good thirty dollars cheaper. In fact if I bought both items from Red Halfling it would work out that I would save $10 over buying the set at Circuit City. Being a number's sort of guy at the time, that was not good enough. Being a manager for the Orange Giant I also knew every technique that customers had used on me to get what they wanted. I want one or the other of the stores to match pricing. Trouble was that neither one of the stores had both items in stock; so price matching was out of the question because the competitor did not have it. Neither of the stores general managers could understand why I was so upset with their intransigence. This is what I said and I know full well that whenever I state the company policy now I am in direct violation of how I really feel, but then you know you have to be gifted with near Machiavellian detachment in retail management. I told them IT IS NOT MY F&*KING PROBLEM THAT YOUR COMPANY CANNOT SEEM TO STAY IN STOCK AND IT IS CERTAINLY BEYOND MY CONTROL OR CONCERN THAT YOUR COMPETITOR IS AS INCOMPETENT AT SERVING THEIR CUSTOMERS AS YOU ARE!

I bought the card at The Red Halfling and the drive from Circuit City. Each store believed that they had won a battle. Both stores had missed the point and missing the fact that I was prepared to spend even more money if only they would take off the blinders and run their business the way that any mom and pop computer store would have.

So, yeah your point about numbers in society is well stated and I really don't think that I could have expressed it any better than you have. I'll go through and post excerpts of your 'rant' as a message from a friend and fellow traveler.

For the record, I know you were customer focused. Your presence is already missed. I cannot officially say what I want to say about the situation. It was uncomfortable to say the least.

When I left the Orange Giant, it a little different. At the time I felt that I had left on my terms but in reality they were trying to force me out. It was a numbers thing. They could have two or maybe even three managers for what they were paying me. My experience and my value as a trainer and mentor was not even considered. The fact that I could run the whole damned store by myself and had doneso on seevral occasions was not taken into account either. Whenever the bean counters assume positions of authority (generally any position outside of just counting beans) the company is doomed to a number-focused sort of myopia.

The way that I was treated did not make the transition any different. Before I was out of the building my replacements were on the way. That is how prepared they were for me quitting. They knew me and knew how far they needed to push me. I am still suffering from that decision but if I had to do it over again I wouldn't change a thing.

I am a writer. I always have been. I was a writer when I worked for The Orange Giant. I have always been about the craft just never seemed to have the spark of inspiration to turn my hobby into the magical form that some of my material has achieved: publication. Had I not left that company when I did I would have never become an author. I know that was the ultimate purpose. I am just not sure why things haven't gone a little more smoothly. I suppose I had some more suffering to do before the artist within could push past the proud and comfortable person I used to be.

So you never know at the instant why things happen as they do but you know how I feel about accidents and coincidences. Somewhere there is an evil genie laughing at us. To him or here we are but a society halfway intelligent animals, hardly any better or more important that a band of rhesus monkeys I think. Maybe this is the way your book gets into print and circulation.

Stay in touch, my friend.

E

posted by Unknown @ 10:22 AM