Saturday, September 11, 2010

Godzilla dustballs.

Buster was busting my chops over "spending money" and "having employees."

Well, I figure having three part-timers is more like paying myself -- with time.

Meanwhile, as far as changing the store around and spending money, I just feel it is time to make changes. I think the store will look and feel better. But I'm not sure it will result in more sales.
I was expressing those doubts to Linda, and she just sort of laughed.

"You say that every time," she said. "But it always ends up working out."

You just develop a sense of when it's time to stand pat and when it's time to make changes. I trust that impulse.

I don't want anyone thinking I'm spending huge amounts of money -- on either the makeover or the employees. I try to get as big a bang for the buck as possible. It's within my cash flow budget.

Set Matt to making the bookcases, and it wasn't until he was done making four of them that I realized I'd been dreading that. So I've told him to make the other two cases we'll need on Sunday; and to come back on Tuesday and finish off the other five cases. By the end of Tuesday, I should be done -- except for all the fine adjusting.

You want to know what's scary? How much dust can accumulates behind a fixture in a few years.

Godzilla dustballs.

I think the store will look more streamlined, cleaner and less cluttered, at the end.

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Did you see the median housing prices in Bend last month? Wow. Scary.

Glad (!?) to see I wasn't the only one that had a horrible August.

I'm waiting to see how Sept. and Oct. go before I decide whether it's just one of those anomaly months -- like throwing out the highest and lowest scores in a test to grade for the curve.

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Back when I first started this blog, I used to toss out completely made up percentages as to what I thought was going to happen.

I haven't done that for awhile, so here goes.

I think there is, say, a 10 to 15% chance of a complete and utter collapse in the economy; Great Recession turns into Great Depression #2. If you are a great believer in Murphy's Law -- Watch Out!.

I think there is a 10 to 15% chance we'll pick up quickly, and get back to a truly growing economy. (Hard to say how this can happen, what with the debt load out there, but I don't underestimate American's ability to convince themselves -- )

Which leaves a 70 to 80% chance of, what? Muddling Through.

Of that, I'd split it 60/40% that we'll struggle for the next three or four years down, and then three or four more years along the bottom, which along with the two to three years we've already experience, means a Dead Decade.

The 40% chance is that we start bumping along the bottom soon, and have extremely slow growth thereafter, for a very Dull Decade.

Dead or Dull. Some choice.

3 comments:

RDC said...

Duncan,

Would you have three part time employees (basically 1 full time equivalent) if you had to provide prorated benefits, such as health insurance for each?

Duncan McGeary said...

Nope.

H. Bruce Miller said...

"Buster was busting my chops over "spending money" and "having employees."

Buster was thinking about how much Viagra and how many Malaysian ho's you could buy for that money.