When you run a business, everything is about momentum.
The day to day pace of work is carried along by whatever you happen to be
working on each day, which leads to the next thing, then the next. So when a
long weekend comes along like a five day Thanksgiving break, it can be
difficult to find your place again. The older I get the more difficult this is
to do. Just as it is hard to turn around a battleship or to start a 30 car
locomotive from a dead stop, so it is with restarting a business enterprise
that has laid dormant for nearly a week. If you work for someone else, it’s the
job of your boss to get you restarted. When you work for yourself and your boss
is sometimes a confused jerk, well you might have problems. This morning, I’m a
confused jerk.
Over the holiday weekend my son volunteered to
redesign my Blog. It was his considered opinion that the Tempest layout was
tired and cheap looking. So, while I was outside getting up leaves he sat about
reworking everything. By the time he was done, the fake bookshelf background
was gone and there was a big link imploring readers to buy my new book. Pretty
cool.
Now that Thanksgiving is over, our attention will soon
turn to Christmas shopping. When I say soon
I actually mean at some point. When
I use the word attention, a better
phrase might be…deliberate
procrastination. So, let me write that sentence more honestly. Now that
Thanksgiving is over, our deliberate procrastination will at some point give
way to the job of Christmas shopping. For me, it usually begins around the 20th.
Can’t wait. This year I’m not alone, apparently. Black Friday sales have come
in down 11%, a number that nobody who cares about such things expected. Several
theories have already sprung up to explain the bad numbers. The one that seems to
dominate is the rise of online shopping, which makes sense. Why risk having to
fight off hysterical women for that last 55 inch big screen? Why risk getting
trampled by the zombie mob at Walmart? Why get in a fist fight at Best Buy at 2
o’clock in the morning, when you can just point and click on Amazon while
sipping your pumpkin spice latte in your pajamas as Nat King Cole sings softly
from your Bose?
Speaking of pointing and clicking, did I mention that
you can buy my book simply by clicking its picture at the top right hand corner
of my blog???
Just saying….
