Category Archives: Ponderings

May

Wed

Loathe

Don't you just love waking up to an email alert from your bank showing your account is in the negative? Seriously in the negative.

Which is what happened to me Monday morning.

So I jump online to look. And this is what I see:

Someone has a serious caffeine issue...

WTF #1? I don't even like Starbucks. And to charge $790 to them?

Some asswipe hacker got a hold of my bankcard number somehow and decided to load a bunch of Starbucks stuff on it online. And a few other online retailers as well.

All of which made my personal account go seriously in the red. Big time.

Luckily my bank was like "Woah! This isn't something Erik would spend money on." and locked out my card so no other transactions can be created at least.

Which I am now dealing with through my bank. Apparently the bank has to let the transactions process through before they can even do anything about them. WTF #2?

Which also means my legitimate purchases that were made, as well as my pending online bill pays, more than likely won't clear. So I'll be tracking those down to get those taken care of and hopefully avoid fines and fees from them.

*sigh*

First this, and then my blog gets hacked. And I'm one of the most technology paranoid kind of people on the planet.

I'm still attempting to determine how both these incidents occurred.

Until next time...

Apr

Sun

The Impression That I Get

I had to terminate one the artists at my studio yesterday.

It's not that he was a bad guy. He's a good person. And it's not that he does bad artwork. Well, most of the time. He's been slipping a little lately though. Which can be a problem in itself.

The biggest reason was because of the impression he left with clients when they walked in the door.

First impression is everything, even in a tattoo studio.

I've spent years cultivating a friendly, clean, and safe environment catering to clients who would normally not walk into a tattoo shop. And that was getting skewed.

When I first hired him I had some complaints that he was a little course and rough around the edges with some of the customers. I said something to him about it on several occasions, and he seemed to get better with it.

But over time I started getting more and more complaints. Lately it had gotten to the point where I felt like I was doing damage control more than I was doing anything else.

After dwelling on what to do for over a week, I decided I had to let him go.

Because people more than likely won't remember his name. What they will remember is the experience they had at my studio, whether good or bad. And it's my studio image and name that I have to protect.

Sometimes I really do hate being "the boss".

Until next time...

Apr

Thu

Behind.

My blog feed reader has "informed" me that I'm about two weeks behind in reading many of the blogs I normally read daily.

Ugh.

It's not that I've given up. I get started reading and commenting. But then I get distracted and start doing other things, like bills and drawing and who knows what else.

I seem to have lost my focus to read.

The worst part is that it makes me feel like I am missing out on the goings-on of the people I care about.

I need to kick my own butt.

That, or maybe everyone could stop blogging long enough for me to get caught back up again.

Until next time...

Apr

Mon

Taxing.

Ugh... April 15, how I hate you.

And March 15. I hate you also. That's the day corporate taxes are due.

Our corporate taxes are never a problem. They have pretty much been the same since the first year. Plug-and-play. Here's the numbers. File.

Our personal taxes are another story. With both the Husbear and I each having our own personal businesses, then our personal "non-business" finances that we have to file separate thanks to not being a recognized couple, figuring out who gets to claim what and what gets claimed where is a real pain in the ass.

I've been working on our taxes for over a month. And yet I was up until 3:30 AM last night/this morning finalizing the Husbear's taxes. Which he owed. And I just now finished my own. Which I also had to pay in.

Dookey.

I know I could let Accountant do it. But for years I've done the taxes "just because". And I paid Accountant to do the taxes also. And the numbers always matched. So why the Hell was I paying Accountant that much money to do all the taxes if I can do them myself?

I'm really surprised there hasn't been a revolution yet, just over the tax code. Someone needs to work on that. I would totally vote for you to make it a flat 10% tax for everyone. But make that happen first. Then I will vote for you.

Until next time...

Apr

Sat

12 on 12, April 2013

My sixteenth "12 on 12".

All pictures were taken by me with my iPhone 4S.

Since I work an odd schedule compared to most of you, I decided to start my "12 on 12" after midnight. It is the twelfth after all.... Although it extends past the twelfth, because I was working all day. And night.

The 12 on 12 challenge was created by Chad Darnell and picked up from a number of random bloggers who then linked back to him and vice versa. Chad stopped doing the 12 of 12 links in December of 2011, but has now passed the torch on to Janet Hughes. I'm linking with her, but I'm also giving a shout out to to Blobby's Blog as Blobby is the one who inspired me to do it.

On to the day! Or night, as it might be.