Am I too late? BMO yields 4.88%. Canada and its bank stocks are doing fine, I believe. Am I wrong?
Larry Davis sells printing for United Book Press of Baltimore. His prices are OK. Not brilliant. But his service is brilliant. United is printing the latest (and greatest) edition of my dictionary — the 27th. What’s good about Larry (and his people like Helen Johnson) is they respond. Send them an email. You’ll have a reply within minutes. Send them a request. It’s done in minutes.
Why am I writing this? Simply, most people don’t respond. It’s annoying and bad business.
The worst “non-responders” in American business are the people who should be the most responsive — the nation’s public relations “professionals.” You won’t believe how many times I call public relations people at large companies only to be dumped into voice mail, and never get a call-back.
Maybe these people really don’t care, though they’re paid to care. I suspect most are bone lazy. Public relations is a dead end job. But you’d think their bosses would insist they carry smartphones and take calls from reporters. Heck, the good PR you can get for free on the Internet is infinite. But the bad PR you get from not having the facts straight is also infinite.
I’m sitting here awaiting a call back from Apple. It used to be ultra-responsive. Suddenly, it no longer is. And it’s reflected in the stock price. I bet there’s some relationship. AT&T is useless.
Oh yes. And finally, learn to say Thank You. Many, many times I’ve written something nice about a product I bought and liked. The day the piece came out, I’ll send a “Heads-up” email to the company’s PR department. 99% of the time I don’t get a simple “Thank You” email. And they wonder why they rarely receive any more free ink” from yours truly.
The world is hard enough without dropping your manners. Teach your people some.
Medical care is getting get more expensive. My orthopedic sports doctor at the Hospital for Special Surgery insists on cash. No insurance. He won’t submit paperwork to Medicare or your insurance company because (I”m guessing) it takes too much of his time. The crazy health industry is going big-time complex electronic — from ICD 9 coding to ICD 10 coding. ICD 9 has 18,000 codes. ICD 10 has 155,000 codes. Every time a doctor wants to submit a bill to an insurance company he (or his coder) has to figure out which of 155,000 codes his procedure fitted into. Insanity has no bounds. Hospitals will soon be spending $4 billion on “coders”, up from today’s $2.4 billion. And you wondered why your healthcare was getting very pricey.
For more, read this New York Times piece on Dealing With Doctors Who Take Only Cash.. Click here.
From this weeks’ New Yorker:
Don’t drive too close to taxis. My friend”s Mercedes got doored by a passenger who flung the door open without looking. It took out my friend’s mirror and caused a scrape along the entire side of his car. Cost $3,500. He should have known better. Bicyclists know if they see a taxi stop and the vacant light on the roof comes on that the door will be flung open by an idiot passenger.
Harry Newton who is still fiddling with the layout of my emailed column.
With a zillion acronyms and technology terms out there, Harry’s Dictionary, always current, is worth every penny alone just for the ability to look these up. Beats Google. And when not in use, makes a great stand for my computer.
On the other hand, to complain about the medical paperwork garbage caused by government regulations published non-stop by bureaucratic idiots, while twice voting (twice!) for Obama and his “improvements” to the system is hypocritical and just plain dumb.
Looks like Larry Davis doubled his free advertising dollars you gave him, Harry, by replying to your post and also adding his web site. Smart. You are absolutely right. It’s so hard to find anyone who wants to work these days. When I need something done at my house, I make some inquiries with some companies and then whoever gets right back to me and wants my buisiness, gets it. I have another rule. If the company is not making at least $600/day for each person in the truck, they are going out of business. If a company is not making minimum $600 per person ($200 for the person, $200 for the government, and $200 for you and the company). If a truck comes to my house and they don’t charge me $100 per hour, they are struggling.
Harry, thank you for your kind words !
Larry Davis
United Book Press
http://www.unitedbookpress.com
800.726.0120
I will not be purchasing this dictionary. 27 editions? What book is justified in printing a 27th edition?
You should check it out before you condemn it… quite an interesting book and has the ambitious pedigree of trying to keep up with the ever changing telecom/broadband industry and its associated technology. For those of us in that space, it is the “Bible” and required reading 😉
Cliff – If you were in the telecom industry, you would understand that it really is a useful book that MUST be updated with new editions because the technology is constantly changing. It is a way to learn about and understand the “jargon” used in the telecom industry and a lot of it comes from the engineering side. So, if you are not an engineer (say, you work in business development) Harry’s dictionary (actually Newton’s Telecom Dictionary) enables you to communicate effectively with all departments by giving you the definitions of all the current words and terms. I guess a dog leash is worthless unless you are a dog owner but could be priceless if you own a pitbull.