In the continuing mess of “oh when will this house ever sell?” I decided to make the house more salable by fixing that which needed to be fixed. These past few days my labors centered around fixing the areas of the outside invaded by wood rot. Fortunately, the siding is simple wood paneling. Over the years the water causes the bottom of the wood to rot, and this must be replaced from time to time. Basically, I cut about a foot off the bottom portion of the wood siding and replaced it with new paneling. A quick coat of paint and we’re done. I was also fortunate to discover that the wood underneath the outside plywood was still intact – no rot – so I didn’t have to replace any of that. Of course, if I was dealing with a realtor who knew how to communicate, I might have elected to not do any of this work. The house is being sold “as is”, meaning that the buyer will accept whatever is there. But, I was never given a copy of the contract – or the addendum – so I went ahead and fixed what I thought I ought to fix because I have self-respect and I wouldn’t want to “stick” anyone with a substandard building. I may have done more than I should have, but I’ll sleep better knowing that I did what was right. I guess this attitude comes from being in business for many years; I’ve come to know that if you treat someone well, they will come back again. If you treat someone shabbily, they will never return. You would have burned a bridge. My thoughts on the matter have always been: Do right by me and I’ll tell everyone I know; do wrong by me and I’ll tell twice as many people. I believe that if a person does a good job, if he was fair with you, if he gave you a good product or service, if he kept you informed – with explanation, then he has done “right” by you. He deserves to be pointed out as a great vendor and word of mouth advertising by satisfied people should keep him in business. Conversely, if a businessman has not done any of the above services for the client, but has instead caused the client to feel disconnected in some way, then I say that this vendor should be shown for the misdeeds that he has perpetrated. This so that other people will not be “screwed”.

Tipping is a similar situation. When we “tip” a service person, we are tacitly saying that they pleased us with their service. Maybe they went the extra step, did more than they were required to do, or pointed out a two-for-one sale that we didn’t see. These people deserve our thanks. But, how many times have we gone into a restaurant and gotten bad food, or been ignored, or had to endure a lousy attitude from some service person? Do these people also deserve a tip? I think not. Tipping is extra money that we pay for extra good service. If there is no extra service (even a genuine smile may qualify) then why should there be extra pay? I’ve heard that waitpeople (isn’t that a stupid word?) get paid so poorly that they depend upon tips to round out their pay so that they can make a living. Sounds good – for them. But, if you’ve received bad service, there is no reason to reward such people. Service people are in a position to earn a lot more money if they produce. This is very fair, those who produce more should get more; those who produce less should get less. If you tip bad service, that is what you will be supporting and that’s what everyone will get.

Years ago, when I was raising a family, I decided that I would purchase some records of classical music so that my children would be exposed to it. There was a commercial on the TV at the time advertising all the great composers, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. In the background there were small clips of each composer, just a few seconds of each so that you could hear a sampling of what you were about to order. I ordered the records thinking that I had done something good. A few weeks later the records arrived and I hurriedly unpacked my purchase and headed for the stereo (that’s a thing that plays those large black discs with the small hole in the middle). What I heard was the same music that I heard on the commercial, just a few seconds of each artist; there wasn’t a complete musical piece on any of the records. Yes, they sent me what they were playing on the ad. I got screwed and as a result, I will never buy anything by mail. Same deal with magazines. You subscribe to a magazine that you enjoy so that you will get it every month. Okay. But supposing that you want to cancel it at a later time? Or, you buy something like a magazine that you haven’t seen before and, after seeing the first issue, you decide that you don’t want it. You have to go through Hell to cancel the subscription. Used to be in the old days that if you didn’t pay for something, you didn’t get it. Today, they keep sending the items and they keeping billing you. You lose all the way around. You have a product that you don’t want and you have to pay for it too. Lesson learned, never buy anything that you can’t walk into a store and pick it up yourself.

My question, and I bet it’s yours too, is how are these companies able to get away with these business tactics? You would think that there would be laws to protect consumers from these unscrupulous companies. We have so many stupid laws for so many ridiculous things that it is logical to think that somewhere along the way some lawmaker would present a law that would actually help the public. I guess all lawmakers should be required to buy those same records that I bought years ago. Then we would see some progress. So says Sam Post.