Drunk Elephants

I had the excellent fortune last night to hang out and watch the Brewer game at the Cardinal Ale House with the president of Discount Office Items, a little company right here in Columbus and when I say little I mean what started as a $25 resale of a lawn edger on ebay 12 years ago is turning into an annual $50,000,000 company. That's like a 2 million percent increase (think if he would have started with a $50 edger).

Anyway I'm not going to get into specifics about the company and all the trade secrets (like keeping the employees happy which to me seems like a bribe and caving into this "happy employee make better workers" fallacy.  Walker has it correct, beat down your employees and make them feel worthless, ONLY THEN will they strive to make their boss happy with greater productivity).

Discount Office Items is located is across from the Ale House (how convenient) and once, if you remember, I was looking for flat paper clips which Office Depot and Staples (the Circuit City of office supply stores - I never walk out with anything when I go there) and I decided I would go to DOI to see if THEY had the coveted paper clips. I walked in and all I saw were empty desks.

Well - either they were about to go out of business or they were preparing for growth. Growth it was.

Sadly I could not actually buy the clips as they are the World Headquarters and not one of the many warehouses secretly located around the U.S.  They are sort of the ZAPPOS of the Office Supply stores. Place an order before 2:00 and you should get it by the next day.

ANYWAY - I don't want to turn this into a huge advertisement as I know they would not want to get the word out but being a guy that loves business and entrepreneurship and Columbus I thought I would mention them.

I WISH when I was a kid and sold Creepy Crawlers to my 3rd grade friends I would have had an internet connection as I'm pretty sure I could have made it into a $50M company also. Or when I printed my own newspaper when I was a wee lad and went door to door selling them (normally for cookies) I would have become the non-evil Rupert Murdock.   Missed opportunities.

OH and that dude on the right?  His name is Horton.

Speaking of Horton, Cannery Wine and Spirits has a new liqueur called Amarula which is made from the Marula fruit found only in South Africa. This fruit is  known to entice elephants.  Seems the fruit drops to the ground and elephants then eat the fruit which is fermenting and all of a sudden you have a group of drunk elephants!

Well Cannery is going through it like crazy and world wide is the second largest seller in the cream liqueur category.
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Then there is the Cuisinart Coffee maker.   We had some issues with coffee spilling out the top of the coffee maker as opposed to the more normal "going INTO" the coffee pot.

I called up Cuisinart and they said I should soak the lid in warm soapy water to fix it.  I did and it did. Once again we have out coffee pot.  I had purchased an $8 coffee maker but MAN - the coffee sucked.
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One thing I have noticed with my job switching (some call it retirement). My language has gone down hill.  It seems that when a person "retires" he somehow gets more . . .enabled.  It's like all of a sudden you feel you can talk to anyone and if you say a few cuss words, who cares.  I mean, I can't be fired or anything.  I can't piss someone off so much my job is in jeopardy.

With that said does anyone had a day job for a few days a week?  LOL  I hate working at night a few days a week.  I never see the love of my life!  It's like I "retired" and now I see LESS of DJ.  I wonder if McDonalds is hiring day shift people :-)

Have a GREAT last day of the heat day!  Watch for T-Storms

Rod