Re: Speaking of running a business...

They say I run a business, such as it is. It's not easy. It's not quick money. In the last fifteen years I've been at this particular gig, there have been times I've been sure I was going bankrupt and I even managed one near disaster this past year. I will say, though, that I finished the year in much better shape than I started it.

The alarm goes off at three-thirty am, and I'm out the door by four-thirty. Ten miles to the base, then taking on a load for my daily run. I'll finish when I finish, which may be as early as five in the afternoon but which in one case wasn't until three-thirty PM the next day. I'll put about two hundred miles on my vehicle every day, and I bear all of the expenses of operation of that vehicle in business. I do the heavy lifting, keep the customers happy or at least try to, and to the extent possible try to deal with the impossible demands of a dispatcher that can't understand that you just can't drive two hundred miles, make twenty stops in those miles and get back to base by one-thirty in the afternoon. In all, I probably do heavier work and certainly work longer hours than I ever would at a "regular job". Oh, yes. Forget about paid vacations and paid holidays. I get the holidays by default because everybody else is off anyway, but they're not paid. Vacations--- if I want one, I can take one. It won't be paid time off, though.

Now, I'm not complaining. My gig is one of those things which you either do because you love the work, or you find something else less aggravating to do. Truth to tell, I like most of the folk I deal with every day too.

Now, that's a real business. Most real business people I know can tell you similar stories, only the details change. For some reason, certain MLMs try to sell you something else though. Big money for minimal work seems to be a constant. If it were that easy, we'd all be doing it.

A bit of personal experience: I sat through one of those Primerica meetings. It was a rah-rah show designed to get you to sign on the dotted line, and the idea is that you sell term life insurance. That, and get any friends or family you can to sign up under you in your downline, 'cause that's where the real money is. The guy who called me had found my resume on Monster, and without reading anything beyond the contact information he called me. I know he didn't read it because nowhere on my resume do I say I'm the least bit interested in selling insurance or in MLM. So, I was ticked at being defrauded as soon as I entered that room. Not a good way to start. So, I didn't. I think Bluto is right on this one.