"What day is it?", Big/Small Corporate Deceit, Screwdrivers & Jobs

What day is it?...

After a normal sleep I was up early with assignments at the cafe.  Certainly there were tasks that needed to be done at 7:30AM & 9:00AM but it was a bit unclear what day of the week today was.  Was it the weekend?  Was it a weekday?  If either of those what was the name of the day?  In the current mode of operation every day is a work day (with limited financial gain) and they are all a bit unfocused...but that can change.  Gainful return comes with focus.

Big/Small Corporate Deceit...

Many of the the brand names we grew up with are gone and many others have been become nameplates on inferior China-produced goods.  

Our food has gone through similar branding compromises.  Hamburgers used to be fairly decent.  Now it's feedlot beef teaming with e coli, formed in a factory somewhere into patties, fried, frozen, shipped and microwaved for your pleasure.  One contaminated plant can poison the nation.

Branding involves what you hear and retain but also about what you see and what synapses that ignites in your head.  If you see a pickup truck parked along the road with bags of sweet corn you think "hey, fresh sweet corn.  I bet he/she picked that this morning."  If you put a couple of teenagers on the tailgate it's even more convincing.  Farm kids working for the summer.

In our area there is a corporate entity that has cornered the market on metropolitan food stands.  They are placed about the metro (not in bad areas) and the produce sits out in the sun all day after arriving from Texas and other god-forsaken parts of the country.  Hand-painted plywood signs indicate that this is "farm produce."  At night the produce sits out or on the ground.  No doubt the raccoons and vegetarian night-prowling coyotes have a field day.  They also charge about twice what the big box grocery retailers charge where the produce is rotated regularly, kept air condition, misted with cold water and for which you get really competitive pricing. 

My uncle used to say the best business was one in which you have no employees, no inventory and you continue to make money when you are not there.  I think that's what works for the owner of this farmstand corporate entity.  Hopefully I'll think of something like this one of these days.

Screwdrivers (and the US economy)...

My years at Universal Milking Machine were memorable and certainly representative of a long history of manufacturing in Albert Lea. In later years as I learned of it's end it did not dawn on me that it was the beginning of a an era of closings, consolidations, exportation of jobs and a loss of local and national economic strength. This evening as I remained challenged with a self-imposed writing deadline I opened my desk drawer looking for something to motivate me.

This was my first Enderes screwdriver and I distinctly remember seeing a four-way tool for the first time, explaining the Enderes name to the hardware store person (who may not have cared) and buying it without checking the price. Several more were purchased. Over time I started to see orange-handled screwdrivers of similar size and appearance but they were at most $1.99 and made in China. We started with really good screwdrivers and local jobs and tools that last and ended up with a very old company on the ropes, really cheap Chinese screwdrivers of questionable quality and jobs in China, not Albert Lea. Online checking indicates that Northbridge Tool purchased the Enderes name, reputation and goodwill and it looks like they have a catalog and it looks like there are new production Enderes tools available on eBay. If that is the case I'm going to send all of my orange-handled Chinese tools to some country that deserves failure.

 Jobs...

working on it...