Life is Short, Precious and Often Sad

Last week I got another piece of news that reminded me that life is short, precious and often sad. A friend of mine was killed in a traffic accident. Jason and I weren't close friends - we worked for the same start-up several years ago. Even though we did not stay in close touch, we did talk several times in recent years and I last saw him during one of my business trips to Denver last year. I will remember Jason as a smart, talented, humble, kind and good natured person. He was an educated and open minded individual. He was someone that folks liked to be with.

Today Jason is being put to rest. He is survived by his wife and two small kids, and my heart goes out to them.

Such events always remind me how fragile and delicate life really is. You could be saying goodbye to one of your loved-ones in the morning only to never return or never see them again. Thankfully, and I mean that, I am quickly able to get back to my normal way of thinking and forget the knife's edge we are all balanced on every day. People are not meant to live in constant fear and worry. However, while this perspective remains, it is important to do everything in your power to ensure that if the unthinkable happens, your loved ones are well taken care of:

1. Is your life sufficiently insured to support the needs of your family?

2. Do you have a will? We don't.  We need to get one.

3. Does your spouse know where all important documents are located and sufficiently understands the family finances? 

Thinking about the worst case scenario is not something any sane human enjoys, but it is simply something that needs to be done.

I will not be able to attend Jason's funeral today, but Jason and his family will be in my thoughts. If I believed in god, I would offer a prayer. Since I don't, all I can offer are my condolences and my modest contribution to Jason's kids' newly opened college fund. 

Rest in piece, buddy.

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What to Do with Old Furniture

Yesterday I wrote a post about all the new furniture that we purchased last weekend. Our furniture will be delivered in about two weeks, and to make room for it, we need to clear away our old stuff. There are five options that come to mind:

Selling - financially this is the most attractive option. It is conceivable that we could sell the furniture for a few hundred dollars. Even though our sofa has a big hole clawed by our cat, the sofa is structurally sound and is very comfortable. My wife thinks that someone could buy it, cover it with a low cost slip-cover and give it a whole new lease on life. I am not a believer. On the other hand, our armchair and dining room table and chairs are in good condition and are of decent quality. It is conceivable that these can be sold. To be honest, I don't have the patience to try to sell used stuff. I guess I am too lazy to go through the hassle.

Donating - we could donate most of the furniture, but I am not sure whether charities would consider the sofa good enough to take. Then there is the question of transportation. Some charities, including Goodwill are typically willing to pick-up donations, but if they don't accept the sofa we need to come up with another solution. Donating would give us a tax credit worth a few hundred dollars, so there is that upside to consider.

Giving - with Craig's List giving stuff away has never been easier. Typically if you advertise free furniture, someone will e-mail you within minutes and agree to pick up the thing. The advantage here is that we don't need to worry about transportation and clearing out the stuff.

Curb-Siding - similar to giving, we could turn our furniture into curb-side freebies, by putting it out on the street with a big sign saying "FREE". Of course, it would be pretty embarrassing if no one bothered to collect them, in which case we would also have to figure out a different way to accomplish the goal.

Dumping - that's not a very green approach to take, but we could always call the local waste management company and ask them to pick up the items. This may require us to pay for the benefit of having the furniture removed, which seems like a waste given that selling or donating the items can actually make us some money and giving the items away is cost free.

Anyway, I asked my wife to lead the charge and figure out the strategy. I'll keep you posted. Regardless, I will be very happy to see this old furniture go and the brand new, shiny furniture being delivered. We kept this old furniture well past its time to go. Frankly, it was embarrassing to me to have people come over and see the sorry state of our living room. This will be a big improvement.

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Spending Time: We're Buying New Furniture

For ten years we have abused our living room furniture. Our kids spilled juice and milk on it, our cat clawed a huge hole at its side. It now looks positively horrible. We have been looking for new furniture on and off for the past year, but could never agree on something that we both liked. Last autumn as the economy collapsed we put the search on hold, but last weekend we jumped back into the market and made a purchase. We are now the proud owners of a brand new leather sofa and chair (see picture from the store on left).

But wait, there's more. We also decided to buy a new dining table and chairs. Our 10 year old IKEA set was too small for our family of five and our twins are now ready to move from their high-chairs to sitting around the table. We found a set we liked, which was being offered on clearance in a local furniture store and decided to go for it. The total cost for both the living room and dining room furniture came out to approximately $4,200, including the delivery charges.

Here are a few thoughts about this whole affair:

Negotiating the Contract - when purchasing our new furniture, I was asked to sign an order form. While it may be called an "order form" it is nothing short of a binding contract between us and the store. The sales person expected me to sign this contract without reading it and without making any changes to it: "all I need is your signature at the bottom". Not very likely. Whenever I am asked to blindly sign a form, I insist on reading it in detail, and I am glad I did the same this time. The form stipulated that sales of clearance items are final and items are sold "as is", with no return or refund permitted. I refused to accept this. While we got clearance pricing for our dining room set, I insisted that the store amend the form to specifically state that our sale was not final and items were not being sold as is. I also insisted that the form specify the color of the furniture. The sales person pointed to a model number (A2) and explained that this designation stood for Dark Cherry, but what do I know or care about the accuracy of her statement? I insisted that the items would be described as "Dark Cherry" on the actual order form. Accepting the word of a sales person who tries to explain away the specific words of a contract is not a strategy that will hold up in court. 

Payment Terms - we paid for both purchases using credit cards - don't worry, we intend to pay off the entire amount immediately. We do not carry a balance, ever. We purchased the living room set using our American Express Blue card - we prefer this card because it offers a substantial cash-back reward. However, the local furniture store did not accept American Express, citing high transaction charges. We used our Citibank Dividend card to make that purchase instead. In this economy it is to be expected that many retailers will go into bankruptcy. While we paid the full purchase price in advance, using our credit cards, we do have the right to cancel the order until actual delivery. This means that if either store fails, we will not lose our money. Many stores offer to customize your furniture to your exact specifications - with a lead time of several months. In such cases, they expect you to pay for the furniture when placing the order and such orders are typically non-cancellable. Even though both companies seem pretty solid to me, I don't think I would want to take a 4 to 6 month bet on their continued solvency by placing a custom order... I think that "better safe than sorry" is the slogan of the hour. 

Credit Card Purchases - interestingly, our Citibank MasterCard purchase went through smoothly. Our American Express purchase was declined. When I called American Express to see what the problem was, they told me that their fraud department flagged the transaction. After putting me through the hassle of talking to two separate service representatives they unblocked the card. I found this particularly annoying - this is not the first time I run into American Express' brand of idiotic security policies.

Taking Pictures - as you may have gathered from reading this post, I am a suspicious consumer. I follow Ronald Reagan's old doctrine: "trust but verify". I respect the words of sales representatives, but have no inclination to rely on their words. Whatever verbal commitments they make will be pretty darn hard to prove. Instead, I gather as much evidence as I can, and make sure that we are protected contractually. One of the measures which I have started taking ever since cameras became standard cell-phone equipment, is to take pictures of whatever it is that I am buying, if I am not taking it home with me on the spot. If there is later a disagreement about color, shape or model, referring to the picture makes the discussion much easier...

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How Much Did Your Car Cost Last Year?

Last week I went out to lunch with a few of my colleagues: our VP of Finance, our Director of Channel Sales and our Director of Integration. All smart and successful people, and all of which I respect. Somehow the conversation got around to the poor excuse of a vehicle that I call my car. I conceded without question that my 12 year Geo Prism is certainly no luxury vehicle, but I told my friends that for my 12 mile round trip commute (a total of 30 minutes per day), I really need nothing better. I also explained that driving this junker is extremely cost effective and told them exactly how much money I spent on maintaining my ride last year. This drew two distinct reactions:  the first was amazement - folks were shocked at how little money I spend on my car. The second was surprise that I actually know how much money I spent on my car.

I don't particularly value cars. If my commute was longer and I had to spend much time in my car every day, I suppose I would feel otherwise. However, I live 15 minutes away from the office, and we do have a more respectable Toyota Sienna 2005 which we use when the whole family is going somewhere. For me, the Prism is simply a cost effective way to get to work and back. The one time I felt uncomfortable about owning such an old car was when my son started kindergarten, and I noticed all the shiny BMW's and Lexus's the other parents were driving. I have since gotten over this embarrassment and never looked back.

Now the real question: why is it that smart, successful people - including a VP of Finance, who does budgets as part of his day job - are surprised that I know how much money I spent on my car last year? How can you control and manage your spending and savings if you have no idea where your money goes? This is beyond me.

One more thought - once we got into the whole budgeting discussion, I told the guys about the fact that our third largest expense last year, after rent and childcare, was medical spending, this in spite the fact that we have medical insurance and in addition to the insurance premiums which we pay. We all agreed that this is completely screwed up. None of the others had more than a general sense about how their money was being  spent. Strange.

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Is Your Job the Right One for You?

My job is the right one for me. This realization dawned on me a few weeks ago, and I can't tell you what a relief that was. I mean, I have been pretty happy in my job ever since I joined the company about 10 months ago, but there is more to it than that. The job that's right for you does all of the following: makes you happy, takes you to the next step in your career, teaches you new things, expands your options, rewards you financially and more. Let's discuss a few of those and how they relate to my current position:

The Job Makes You Happy - everyone has their good days and bad days at work, but if your job is right for you, the good days are much more frequent than the other kind. A good sign that you are happy in your work is that you find it easy to go to work in the morning and you don't mind working hard. I have never been someone who is in love with their job to the exclusion of all else, but my current position makes me happy.

The Job Takes You to the Next Stage - career path is one of the most important things about a job. If your position is not taking you in the direction you want to go, it is not the right job for you. Don't get me wrong - many people find their jobs completely satisfying knowing full well that their positions don't offer too many opportunities for advancement. That's a very legitimate attitude, however, for career oriented professionals such as I, taking a job that doesn't move your career in the right direction is simply a bad choice. In this sense, my current position is superb: I am getting a great deal of exposure, I have been given a great deal of responsibility and I have no doubt that come the time, if I perform my job well, I will be able to use my current position as a springboard to my next executive position. That's probably several years in the future, but I am certainly getting properly trained.

Your Job Teaches You New Things - here is my philosophy: if you don't feel at least a little like a fraud each day at work, you are not in the right position for you. The right position for you is one that makes you stretch and do things you have never done before. When you get up in the morning to go to work, you should be feeling at least a little nervous. One of my business school professors used to say "knowledge makes a bloody entrance". I say, bring it on. At least several times a month, when I am on my way to work, I wonder if I will be able to pull off the task I am expected to accomplish that day. For example, over the past few weeks I have been negotiating a deal that is critical to the survival of my company. If I make a serious mistake,  my company will be in big trouble. How's that for pressure? I love it. However, it is important not to take this to the extreme. Never take a position for which you do not have the qualifications to succeed. Utter failure does not exactly advance your career.

Your Job Should Expand Your Options - when you finish school you have a huge number of options open to you. You can choose to become a doctor, an actress, a yacht captain. Hell, you could decide that juggling is your life's calling. The further you progress in your career, the fewer options remain open. I mean, if you have been working as a chemical engineer or as a nurse for 20 years, you are very unlikely to be hired as a museum curator in your next gig... so what do I mean by "expand your options"? I mean that specialization is good, but pigeon holing is bad. If you are a marketing professional that has been doing only PR for your last three jobs, your options aren't expanding very much. Chances are your next job will be limited to PR as well. In that sense, my current job has opened up a sea of options for me. My career has been mostly in business development and law. In my last position, I used my business development expertise to grow into a marketing role and eventually led my company's outbound marketing activities. In my current position I get to use every business skill I ever developed. I negotiate large contracts, I have a central role in business strategy, I own our outbound marketing efforts. I am also involved in many areas which I have never dealt with before, such as finance and operations. In this sense I am becoming a more rounded executive and this will allow me to fit into a larger number of future positions.

Your Job Should Reward You Financially - duh! But there's more to it than that. Even if everything else fits, taking a position that does not offer the financial rewards you need, is not smart. I am not advocating that job seekers never accept a lower paying job. However I am suggesting that for better or for worse, most of us use our paycheck as a measure of our success. It may be an imperfect measure, but it is the only objective way for us to compare our position to that of our peers. I also believe that if people don't feel that they are being properly compensated for their efforts they find the experience de-motivating, and ultimately there is a good chance that their performance will be impacted. On paper, my compensation in my current position is about 20% higher than it was in my previous position. However, in practice my cash compensation is roughly the same as it was previously even though my responsibilities and title are substantially increased compared to my last job (that, however, is a topic for another post). 

I would like to acknowledge Brip Blap, whose post "How to Succeed in Your Job" has inspired me to write this post. 

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