This is my Poster Store - it has all the lovely Butterfly Posters that I wanted to include on my Squidoo Lens that documents my encounter with a Black Swallowtail Butterfly. I called it "The Case of the Purloined Parsley." If you love posters or butterflies, check out all the terrific items below!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Friday, April 08, 2011
Crescent City Gal is almost a reality ...
At long last I have begun the process of creating my "personal brand" as the Crescent City Gal. It's been a LONG time in the making, but today marks the day I've finally started getting my stuff together with a clear vision of what I want to achieve.
I have a facebook profile just for Squidoo and IM: CCGAL on Squidoo
I have my Twitter account with the same e-mail now: CCGAL on Twitter
My Squidoo profile, which I pruned down is here: CCGAL on Squidoo
And, of course, I've included Posterous in this mix: CCGAL on Posterous
Best of all ... they all have the same email address AND the same avatar, for brand recognition, which I have been sorely lacking.
My objective as the Crescent City Gal is to highlight people, places, and a few special things I find along the way.
Crescent City is a small town on the Pacific northwestern coast of California. I have several Squidoo lenses about my hometown and things around it, and they have done rather well on Squidoo. In fact, my top lens is about the drive through trees of northern California. Recently, my home town was hit for the 3rd time with a tidal wave, or tsunami, which totally wiped out the harbor.
I've also got quite a few lenses about people who live and work "behind the redwood curtain" as I like to call it.
For example, Richard Martin from Brookings, Oregon (just a few miles north of Crescent City) makes some of the most beautiful pottery I've ever seen. So I have two lenses about his art: Horse Hair Pottery and Agateware.
Crescent City's economy is sluggish at best, so this little town can use all the publicity it can get. I'd like to think that in some small way I can help my hometown a bit. Perhaps I'll eventually be able to teach people "behind the redwood curtain" how to promote their arts and businesses online. Until then, I'll just continue to build lenses and write blog posts and keep learning what works and what doesn't.
Monday, March 28, 2011
My Gut Was Right
This is what I hope is the final chapter in the Road Show Saga. My gut was absolutely correct.
We finally got 50% of what we were promised, and were told that an error had been made and that we were not going to get the full payment. So we're being shorted $1,100, which in my book is a big chunk of change. Is it worth going to small claims court over? I haven't decided yet. There's more to that story than I can share right now ... but essentially the confectionery company may be hanging the middle man out to dry, and I'm not sure I want to squeeze him for funds because he made the same mistake I did and trusted the confectionery company. *sigh* I'm not cold hearted enough, I guess, even for $1,100.
I did decide, however, that I am not going to do any further business with either the middle man's company or the confectionery company, and I alerted both of them by email this morning. The representative from the confectionery company, with whom I spoke this morning, was rude and condescending on the telephone to me. I had another "AHA!" moment and became convinced that I was being manipulated, bullied, and probably laughed at behind my back. There are too many good companies with good products that I can sell for to make any amount of money worth allowing someone to treat me that way. That's true even if we would get paid what we were promised on time - and I'm not even close to certain that anybody will get what they are promised.
After the email was received, that same person called and inadvertently affirmed that I have made the right decision for my future well-being.
All that remains now is that we have to return some property of theirs that they had insisted we keep ... sad puppy selling, I realize in retrospect ... and then I'm done with them forever.
After I sent the email, I felt as though a HUGE weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Just one more affirmation of the rightness of my decision.
In some ways, my decision to leave this confectionery company was a lot like a battered woman leaving an abusive relationship. I'm really proud of myself for standing up and walking out before the abuse got any worse. In fact, I think I'm going to take myself out to celebrate! Yay Me!!!
So ... bottom line is ... although there are many opportunities for selling products, I cannot recommend doing road shows to sell fudge. Especially if they want everything to be oral only, and are unwilling to give you a written contract that spells out your compensation.
We finally got 50% of what we were promised, and were told that an error had been made and that we were not going to get the full payment. So we're being shorted $1,100, which in my book is a big chunk of change. Is it worth going to small claims court over? I haven't decided yet. There's more to that story than I can share right now ... but essentially the confectionery company may be hanging the middle man out to dry, and I'm not sure I want to squeeze him for funds because he made the same mistake I did and trusted the confectionery company. *sigh* I'm not cold hearted enough, I guess, even for $1,100.
I did decide, however, that I am not going to do any further business with either the middle man's company or the confectionery company, and I alerted both of them by email this morning. The representative from the confectionery company, with whom I spoke this morning, was rude and condescending on the telephone to me. I had another "AHA!" moment and became convinced that I was being manipulated, bullied, and probably laughed at behind my back. There are too many good companies with good products that I can sell for to make any amount of money worth allowing someone to treat me that way. That's true even if we would get paid what we were promised on time - and I'm not even close to certain that anybody will get what they are promised.
After the email was received, that same person called and inadvertently affirmed that I have made the right decision for my future well-being.
All that remains now is that we have to return some property of theirs that they had insisted we keep ... sad puppy selling, I realize in retrospect ... and then I'm done with them forever.
After I sent the email, I felt as though a HUGE weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Just one more affirmation of the rightness of my decision.
In some ways, my decision to leave this confectionery company was a lot like a battered woman leaving an abusive relationship. I'm really proud of myself for standing up and walking out before the abuse got any worse. In fact, I think I'm going to take myself out to celebrate! Yay Me!!!
So ... bottom line is ... although there are many opportunities for selling products, I cannot recommend doing road shows to sell fudge. Especially if they want everything to be oral only, and are unwilling to give you a written contract that spells out your compensation.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Should I listen to my gut in this situation?
Have you ever had a situation where you hoped your gut was wrong, but feared horribly that it was right? I'm in one of those right now, and I think the best way to work it out in my head is to write about it.
I'm not going to mention any names at this time, but will refer to the parties by their descriptions.
So back in January, we answered an ad in a niche specific newsletter I had a paid subscription for, and was hired for a road show selling a confection in a popular Texas grocery store for the 2 weeks before Valentine's Day. No written contract, just a bunch of email and phone calls, but enough to establish a contract for employment under Texas law.
During the show, we encountered several situations where the hiring party was less than forthcoming with words and deeds despite having been directed by the confection company to do certain things to help us. Each item taken alone could be attributed to any number of things, stupidity included, but when taken all together a pattern of duplicity seems to emerge. So the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise, and I start to wonder if he's going to pay us. That thought wouldn't have entered my mind except that he kept making grandiose statements, that just sounded like he was setting us up to be conned.
Fast forward a bit, and the "I'm sorry, they didn't pay me so I can't pay you" emails start coming. So I start doing a little digging, and I really don't like what I'm seeing.
I report this non-payment issue to the niche specific newsletter in which I had found the advertisement, and noted that prior to paying for the first show this entity was already advertising for a second go round. I thought I was sending in an anonymous report, so that if this happened a second time, the newsletter would have some idea of what the scam was if it turned out to be a scam. However, that was not what happened.
The editor simply forwarded my email to the advertiser, which opened up an entirely new can of worms. The advertiser contacted the confection company and, if my contact there can be believed, apparently stated that I had written derogatory comments on the web about them. Well, I had stated that I could not in good conscience recommend that anyone work for either company because at the time of the writing, I didn't know if I was looking at an anomaly or a ponzi scheme to pay previous road show attendants.
Then I get another email from him asking me to remove his last name from my web site, citing that it was to protect his wife from an ex-spouse. I thought that odd, because the advertiser's web site appears to be incorporated, and I know that incorporation papers are a matter of public record. So my BS alarm went off again, and I did a little more digging.
The incorporation papers are from the state of Wyoming, but the person's name is not on them. The location listed on the incorporation papers is a multi-biz office, much like a mailboxes etc. sort of place. Curious, yes?
So I go back through the emails, and the address that we could mail our w9s to is another one of those operations, with a listing for a mail forwarding service in Florida.
Our original agreement was for 25% of the gross sales, and the hiring entity's website originally stated that. Today I noticed that it has been reduced to 20%. Is this ominous? I think yes.
So I dig a little deeper. The website was purchased via GoDaddy (I already knew that because I'd checked it early on in our relationship, before he had actually uploaded a website) and was purchased in November of 2010 for 3 years. Registered using domains by proxy, which normally isn't all that bad but in this situation feels kinda sleezy as this saga unfolds.
The entity has changed phone numbers multiple times already - the reason being given that they tracked the responses from multiple numbers.
Now the confection company has told me that they are sending the money to this individual on Monday, and I am wondering big time if we are going to receive everything we earned, or even if we'll get anything at all.
The Texas Labor Laws that I've been reading indicate that our being classified as independent contractors won't fly, and that what we actually did was work as temporary employees. I won't push this issue if we get paid next week, but my gut is really concerned that we won't. However, the point I want to make is that by contracting with us, the company entered into an obligation to pay us whether the confection company paid the staffing company on time or not. I don't even want to get in to not withholding and remitting FICA taxes, because that's eventually gonna bite that company in the proverbial derriere without my help.
Reasoning it out, though, here we have a fellow who incorporated in January of this year, in the state of Wyoming, with a different name on the paperwork than the one he's using with us, who bought his website just a couple months prior to that, is doing his best to remain totally anonymous, and who seems to not have had the funds or line of credit to cover his obligations to his employees when his house of cards came tumbling down when the confection company didn't pay as agreed. Now he's all worried about an obscure little website I built where I've laid out what has transpired in chronological order, documenting the non-payment, and mentioning his full name exactly twice.
I just don't believe his story as to why he wants his last name expunged from my site. He says his name is rare enough that his wife's ex-husband has managed to stalk them on the web ... but it's not all that rare, and there are literally dozens of people with his last name who have a footprint on the web.
I just do not trust this guy or his so called company. Something just feels very, very wrong.
What do you think?
I'm not going to mention any names at this time, but will refer to the parties by their descriptions.
So back in January, we answered an ad in a niche specific newsletter I had a paid subscription for, and was hired for a road show selling a confection in a popular Texas grocery store for the 2 weeks before Valentine's Day. No written contract, just a bunch of email and phone calls, but enough to establish a contract for employment under Texas law.
During the show, we encountered several situations where the hiring party was less than forthcoming with words and deeds despite having been directed by the confection company to do certain things to help us. Each item taken alone could be attributed to any number of things, stupidity included, but when taken all together a pattern of duplicity seems to emerge. So the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise, and I start to wonder if he's going to pay us. That thought wouldn't have entered my mind except that he kept making grandiose statements, that just sounded like he was setting us up to be conned.
Fast forward a bit, and the "I'm sorry, they didn't pay me so I can't pay you" emails start coming. So I start doing a little digging, and I really don't like what I'm seeing.
I report this non-payment issue to the niche specific newsletter in which I had found the advertisement, and noted that prior to paying for the first show this entity was already advertising for a second go round. I thought I was sending in an anonymous report, so that if this happened a second time, the newsletter would have some idea of what the scam was if it turned out to be a scam. However, that was not what happened.
The editor simply forwarded my email to the advertiser, which opened up an entirely new can of worms. The advertiser contacted the confection company and, if my contact there can be believed, apparently stated that I had written derogatory comments on the web about them. Well, I had stated that I could not in good conscience recommend that anyone work for either company because at the time of the writing, I didn't know if I was looking at an anomaly or a ponzi scheme to pay previous road show attendants.
Then I get another email from him asking me to remove his last name from my web site, citing that it was to protect his wife from an ex-spouse. I thought that odd, because the advertiser's web site appears to be incorporated, and I know that incorporation papers are a matter of public record. So my BS alarm went off again, and I did a little more digging.
The incorporation papers are from the state of Wyoming, but the person's name is not on them. The location listed on the incorporation papers is a multi-biz office, much like a mailboxes etc. sort of place. Curious, yes?
So I go back through the emails, and the address that we could mail our w9s to is another one of those operations, with a listing for a mail forwarding service in Florida.
Our original agreement was for 25% of the gross sales, and the hiring entity's website originally stated that. Today I noticed that it has been reduced to 20%. Is this ominous? I think yes.
So I dig a little deeper. The website was purchased via GoDaddy (I already knew that because I'd checked it early on in our relationship, before he had actually uploaded a website) and was purchased in November of 2010 for 3 years. Registered using domains by proxy, which normally isn't all that bad but in this situation feels kinda sleezy as this saga unfolds.
The entity has changed phone numbers multiple times already - the reason being given that they tracked the responses from multiple numbers.
Now the confection company has told me that they are sending the money to this individual on Monday, and I am wondering big time if we are going to receive everything we earned, or even if we'll get anything at all.
The Texas Labor Laws that I've been reading indicate that our being classified as independent contractors won't fly, and that what we actually did was work as temporary employees. I won't push this issue if we get paid next week, but my gut is really concerned that we won't. However, the point I want to make is that by contracting with us, the company entered into an obligation to pay us whether the confection company paid the staffing company on time or not. I don't even want to get in to not withholding and remitting FICA taxes, because that's eventually gonna bite that company in the proverbial derriere without my help.
Reasoning it out, though, here we have a fellow who incorporated in January of this year, in the state of Wyoming, with a different name on the paperwork than the one he's using with us, who bought his website just a couple months prior to that, is doing his best to remain totally anonymous, and who seems to not have had the funds or line of credit to cover his obligations to his employees when his house of cards came tumbling down when the confection company didn't pay as agreed. Now he's all worried about an obscure little website I built where I've laid out what has transpired in chronological order, documenting the non-payment, and mentioning his full name exactly twice.
I just don't believe his story as to why he wants his last name expunged from my site. He says his name is rare enough that his wife's ex-husband has managed to stalk them on the web ... but it's not all that rare, and there are literally dozens of people with his last name who have a footprint on the web.
I just do not trust this guy or his so called company. Something just feels very, very wrong.
What do you think?
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Keep the "girls" supported ..
For the "girls" only - there's a great Playtex Bra Sale going on over at JustMySize.com
Just click the link below the picture to check it out.
Playtex Bra Sale: Get bras as low as $14.99 at JustMySize.com. Offer valid through 4.10.
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