My Scottish Boss: "Never stop asking (your proposal's status) until you hear a 'no'", is something I still tell myself today. Until I hear a flat - out NO, then the game's still on, and you work like a dog to get it approved. Makes beautiful sense.

Another was when he'd either catch me losing focus when chasing a deal or concentrate too much on a non - profit goal, he'd sarcastically (but jokingly, mind you), say "Oh it's ok we have more than enough money!". Applicable almost to all things I do. Whenever I remember that, it puts my thinking right straight and center almost immediately.

And finally, the most compelling thing I learned from him was to observe the concept of "Fair Market Value", in action. This is a guy who I know completely lived in the concept of offering the exact value he feels a service or product should cost, no more no less. He hated, and was absolutely livid with anger at the concept of 'tawaran'. As far as he was concerned, if he offered something at a certain price, that includes a fair amount of profit on his side, and a fair amount of cost on the buyer's side, and he was absolutely transparent about it as well.

The high points with working with him involve actually seeing him GET UP AND WALK OUT of meetings when customers starts asking for a 'discount'. Not only does he feel these are unwarranted, but I believe he actually saw them as an insult to his character. From what I understood, he felt he was running an honest business and making honest margins, and so when someone asks if a 'discount' was available, he felt they were insinuating that he was overpricing them.

I tried to argue with him our Pinoys' point of view (which is compelling in its own, quaint way), but I fully understood where he was coming from as well, and came to experience this first hand later when I was pricing my own services. The concept of tawaran maybe a popular street hawker's technique, but it really doesn't belong in business.

I realized that in order for business to properly evolve, TRUST must prevail. A buyer MUST trust the seller that his prices are fair. On the other hand, a seller MUST trust the buyer in the sense that they will understand and appreciate the fair price offered them, and reward them with continuing business.

If there is trust, a buyer will continually seek out a seller, and the seller's business will grow and provide more value to the buyer, and overall the economy will succeed. It really is as simple as that.

As an aside, I look upon the current Meralco issues as essentially, a breakdown of that trust. Someone, either the seller, the buyer, or BOTH, is lying. Meralco with its layer upon layer of inexplicable charges and taxes, and the gov't, c/o GSIS, with its strange timing and attack from all corners approach. Either way you can't be sure they're working to provide a fair price for electricity inspite of the headlines because of the lack of transparency and general underhandedness with which negotiations are held. In other words you can write as many contracts and proceed to as many courtrooms as you like, but if there is no trust, all these will fail.

At any rate, back to my topic: It may seem insignificant when you're talking about P10 - P100 value street hawker items, but in the long run even small items costs are compounded over time. Even more so when we were dealing with six to seven figure contracts. My ex boss didn't discriminate from either. He'd walk out whether we were talking about a P5,000 deal of a P500,000 deal, if someone started to 'tawad'. It made for some pretty dramatic meetings.

Looking back, I understood he was a graduate from the school of hard knocks. I remember him for genuinely caring for us, his employees, and being the most hard working salesman I've ever met. You either liked him instantly or hated him at first, then grudgingly start liking him. You either understood him or not.

He believed in what he believed, but I think he runs himself ragged doing so, as I assume its very tiring to be him. I dunno if I'd like to be like him exactly, so I'll just take what I learn from him instead.

I was a newbie then and little did I know I was getting a great education. It was important for me to have met and worked with men like him. At the time however I was wondering what the hell did I get myself into.

At any rate, herewith are random thoughts from my vegged out mind minutes away from going beddy night night.

On my bedside is the marvelous One Hundred Years Of Solitude by - need I say who wrote it but I'll say it anyway why not - Gabriel Garcia Marquez. A book which in my opinion, he probably wrote whilst on a perpetual narcotic induced high. Because Jesus H Christ, how could someone write something so magnificent as that. It's the sort of thing you kind of drone on throughout, turning page after page before you realize that what seemed initially like a continuous tide of ill connected events is actually starting to frame itself into a story which is, without you knowing it, taking you on a ride.

And that is exactly how I'd describe that giddy feeling when I start enjoying a book, or a movie, or any story in other words. The author is taking you on a ride, and you don't know it, like a magician making you look one way while his other hand reaches in your pocket and takes whatever is there to take. Like how you sit on a beach transfixed at the distance before realizing the waves have crept up and you're feet have sunk in the sand.

And the truth is I didn't want to read what I knew was going to be a good book, exactly because of the way it takes me away from the things one has to do in life. Set meetings. Do your accounting. Deal with clients. Return a wrong delivery. Settle your accounts. Deposit and withdraw from the bank. Implement a category based wordpress conditional tag on kikay's sidebar. Load my G-Cash. Reload my debit card. Buy a Flickr account. Pick up my new calling cards. Work out so you don't get too soft. Print your presentation so you can give them out at the meeting this week. Pay the phone bill. Fix the network cables askew on the floor. Cover an event. Write a Valentine's post for next week. Shake the toilet handle so it doesn't waste water. Wash your bag because it looks filthy. Shampoo your room's carpet. Buy a new bedsheet. Buy a gift. Collect from a client. Look for writers. Pay those writers.

All those things get turned around to the second niche of things to do.

Because I had to read a good book. Taking me on a trip I don't want to go to. But go anyway.

I'm glad I got at least something done today. I'd have seriously kicked myself if I'd have bummed out to read the day away. At some point in my life I'll have the leisure to do such things. But now now. Not yet. Not by a long time.

I think hobbies are important because it takes you away from what you're doing long enough to at least give you a fresh perspective on what it is you normally do. In other words, I worked on my car because I didn't wanna work on my projects or the sites - my solution to the fact that I am so up to my ears in work (and consequently, thinking about it), that if I spend any more time working on it I'm liable to go nuts.

The left and right turn switch doesn't work for some odd reason, so my solution was to open and clean it up thoroughly using a rag and contact cleaner spray. I did so, and by golly who'd have known such a thing was so complex inside? It had bearings and tiny little springs that would fall over the place if you weren't careful opening it up. At any rate, I got it to work in the end, but only after a hell of a time. I realized I was literally bent over in concentration for an hour or two, and when I finally got it together and working I felt like celebrating. Problem is, the switch for the windshield wipers suddenly doesn't work now (it was working fine before I opened it up, and I never touched it when I did), so that's egg in my face right there. I'll get it to work though. I'm sure it's just something loose somewhere.

I think our brains don't (and likely can't) differentiate how important one job is from another. I gave that job a hell of a lot of time and effort - as much time and effort as I would say, getting a website to run or code to work. The difference is, I'm sick of sitting in front of a computer monitor and straining my eyes doing that, while working on the car gives me a chance to get my hands dirty (I like that) and active plus the fact it solves a problem that had been bugging me for a while.

If it didn't rain today, I'd probably have found myself at the court shooting hoops too. Again, I'd be exerting a lot of time and effort (a great deal more effort of course), but the result would be the same. It'd have given me time away from work, time that I'd appreciate because afterwards it'd give my head a fresher perspective on things I deal with at work.

I realize now that people probably don't, or at least shouldn't, mean it when they say they just want to sit around and completely space out when they have a chance to do so. It may seem to be the last thing anyone wants, but when a vacation comes around I think it's better to engage in some activity that will completely involve you as opposed to just watching the tv or aimlessly surfing around. I bet that if I had done that my head would surely have started thinking of work again, naturally because that was the last thing that concerned me before the break began. My brain doesn't know about the vacation break. It just keeps going on and on thinking about stuff, solving problems when it finds any. So the solution is to give my brain something else to work on so that it can still keep functioning at the same level as when I was at work, but at a different scenario or at least happier, healthier one (like sports or family stuff).

Sounds like a good idea I think. I thought about above when I was dealing with the turn signal. I just need to remind myself next time to deal with something simpler so that I'd not end up with another problem after :P