Crazy for Christmas?

As children we all learned this- when we see a hot stove, do we put our hand on the burner?

No!

As adults, have we all learned this?

When we see a crazy lady, do we be her friend?

No!

While sitting innocently enough at my friend Jamie's martini bar, at first I thought "Amanda" was Marge's friend; therefore I was quite nice and treated her graciously, as I would anyone.

When I began to notice Amanda, in her black and red leopard print bling-bling infused blouse, full of random "fucks", "shits" and "mercy!" was something of a whackjob, I casually inquired,

"So Marge, how do you and Amanda know each other?"

"Oh, we don't. I was sitting here and she pulled up a chair."

But the deal was, Amanda was 73 if she was a day, and I have been taught to respect my elders.  I continued to be congenial even when she, rather in a drunken state asked-

"Who are you really, Mary?"

(Amanda is from England. She refused to say my name correctly at all, because, "It is far too long.")

"Who am I really? I'm an entrepreneur."

"So what.  And?"

"And I can take you or leave you."

"Oh,  jolly good! In that case, I'd like you to come over to my home after this. We'll open a bottle of wine and put on some music. Will you come?"

Even though she liked Miles Davis and John Coltrane and had a great copy of Dorothy Parker and her husband died four years ago and she's very lonely and she owns a bangin' sea green Christian Dior hat from the 1960's perfect for our Retro Dinner Club, and "Don't fuck with me- I have so much more money than you do", she said for no apparent reason- I've seen enough of this personality type to know that it's not a match.

I do not have the skills needed to cope with toxic people, nor do I feel I should develop the inclination.

Here are seven signs you're dealing with someone who will never have your best interest at heart.

Just in time for all those family gatherings this time of year, huh?

Give your crazy, drunken, nasty joke telling in front of your children uncle a few smooches from Entrepreneur Chick.

My December Funktification

It happens every year. You know how the last day of school can't be taken seriously?

You know how the last couple of days before the last day of school can't be taken seriously?

And how, pretty much the whole week before the last day of school can't be taken seriously?

There's important things I could truly be doing for my companies.

But you know- the pretty lights, the parties, the cold weather, the parties.

I feel myself slipping further and further away into "Deck Them Halls", Monkey Munch, egg nog, gingerbread, pumpkin bread, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, you're such a blockhead, Charlie Brown! and have you done your shopping yet? So who honestly cares about meeting fourth quarter goals and cash flow? In fact, what's wrong with you, GrinchFace, that you would even bring it up?!

Meh. It's Christmas time!

How Not to Lose a Good Employee

I love this girl! Everything I ask her to do- "Shawnna, I need you to go over here and do this."

"Okay."

"Shawnna, I need you to go over here and be here at this time and do it like this."

"Okay."

And not only does she do what I ask, she does it right and I know she does it right because she gets good reviews and all my clients love her.

You might think with unemployment rates so high it must be very easy for me to get quality employees, but that is not the case. It's  not. Additionally, for two of my companies, a very specific set of skills and aptitudes are required, one of which is the abiltity to be able to speak in front of people. There are two fears that most people have-

(1) Death

(2) Public speaking

This lowers my hiring margins considerably, and not just any warm body will do. It is imperative that I hire talent.

So when Shawnna sent me an email two weeks ago that read, "I regret to inform you.." I knew what I was in for. Oh, boy. I'm losing her. While she loved everything about her job and "appreciated everything you've done for me and the opportunity you've given me... and I hate that it has to end", her family, it seems, did not want her to travel as far as I need her to travel.

My first response was, which I emailed back: I completely understand and you always have a place with me.

My second response was, and this is the unprofessional thing that you do not say, which I touched upon last week- I thought I was hiring YOU and not your FAMILY for crapsakes.

And then it came to me. What am I?

An entrepreneur.

What do all entrepreneurs hate?

My mother always said, "Lisa, you never could tolerate being told 'no'."

You see, things don't go as smooth as silk in business. When you ram right up into a brick wall and it looks like a 'no', you tell yourself- all right, maybe it won't work like this but I just bet it might work like that.

"Shawnna, how about I offer you more money?"

"What do you have in mind?"

This also, is a enormous principle upon which I run my companies:

Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

I bumped her up from where she was with the staffing company, which was less, to  $25.00 an hour. Plus I sweetened the deal and told her I want to hire her to train new employees. She liked this idea and is happy with the new arrangement.

I am not going to miss at all, the additional money I'm paying her.

It's worth it to me, to pay someone more, than it is to start from scratch with someone who's unproven.

My companies are only as good as the people in them, and you better believe Entrepreneur Chick knows that.

I Pop it, 'till I DROP IT!

For all of my homie hip hop readers out there, such as myself, I am not refering to Huey's "Pop Lock and Drop It".

This is Brittny (red Santa hat) and me doing that exact dance.

What you don't know is that I am laughing hysterically making my eyes squinch like Renee Zellweger, due to the following conversation:

Me: Brittny, let me up!

Brittny: Hmmmm... no.

And what you don't see is that I have on some way cute, Nine West, three inch stacked ankle straps, trying to balance us both. One second later we fell on our cute little...

 AND I CAN'T SAY IT!

I have a rubberband on my wrist. Anytime I cuss or complain, I must pop myself equal to the number of infractions.

No one told me to do this. I decided I needed to take radical measures- otherwise I might end up like my Grandmother Edna, who was a one woman off Broadway show- launching into long, rambling discourses about her latest medical misfortunes.

All she needed was a few dance numbers and a Playbill.

If you'd like to know what I complain the most about, upon your next trip to the drug store, just pick up a bottle of Midol and read the list on the back of the box.

The first ten minutes I wore my rubberband, I violated the rules five times.

Three for cussing. Two for complaining.

I'm explaining, on the phone, this to Amy:

"I said "sh*@", "FU#@" and "as*#$@*."

"Who were you mad at?"

"Nobody."

Later in the day, I'm explaining, on the phone, this to Allison:

"I said, "sh*@", "FU#@!", and "as*#$@."

"You said "sh*@", "FU#@!", and a*#$@?"

"Yes."

"Well," she asks all Cheshire Cat like- "aren't you supposed to pop yourself now because you just said it again?"

"DAMN!" I say, because now I have to pop myself.

And then I go: "DAMN!" a second time and cover my mouth, because I remember "damn" is a cuss word.

"DAMN!"  spews forth a third time because my mouth apparently has a mind of its own.  I can't seem to stop myself. I'm filled with regret, realizing I now have to pop myself SIX times.

Do the math.

See?

I pop it 'till I drop it!

And to all my very pious readers, I've a question:

What word starts with an "F" and ends in a "CK"?

"Firetruck", you perverts.

P.S. I know some of you are concerned that I should not be doing that dance in the dress I was wearing, which looked like this, only with white piping down the sides:

But it was a private party and everyone there already knows I'm crazy, wild, nuts?

Is "intoxicated" the word you're looking for?

How to go Glamping: 101

I've been back from "glamping" for a week now, so here's the "glamping" pictures I promised.

Review. "Glamping"~ Like normal camping but with glamour added: therefore: glamping.

Here's how it works:

You have rugs- must place them everywhere in your tent. No dirt. Bad dirt. Dirt bad. (Listen, as a woman, I can tell you right now you do not want sand in your sleeping bag to sneak up right into your hoo ha and night. You will not get a dot of rest.)

Should you need anything quicky- flashlight? Tongs? Salt and pepper? Napkins? Batteries? Bandaides? Asprin? Acid reducer? Cold medicine? Rain jacket? (Yeah, there's actually two emergency rain coats in there...) you simply reach in mah nifty black drawers~

And of course, you deck out yer dawgs:

Emerson is sporting his football jacket; that's his sleeping bag, which we move into the tent at night. He has no clue he's a dog. Seriously doesn't.

No fly zone.

Lakeview from tent.

We have two rooms! Whoa.

See those three green tubs? We keep them all filled and ready to go. When you want to go glamping, you just pick them up, add some food and grab your ice chest!

My favorite part is sitting in the screen porch of the tent in the morning and sipping hot coffee with the tantalizing smell of sizzling bacon and eggs outside- lucious!

And is he not the most adorable husband you ever saw?

Answer: Yes, he's the most adorable husband we ever saw!

Now for the real story. I know what you're thinking, so let me start there. Why are there no pictures of Entrepreneur Chick?

Tony took one picture of me in the tent holding Eliot when I woke up in the morning with my eyelashes (extensions) all glumped together. No, you are not going to see that.

As for glamping, this was my last trip without one of these:

The first night I got almost zero sleep. Insomnia. Plus there was some creature from The Howling outside my tent- maybe a cross between Wolfman, The Deer Woman, a vampire and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I debated for a long while how badly I really needed to uh..."get up".

Creature: Aaaaaaaah, oooooooooh!

Me: Oh dear Lord, what was that?!

Creature: Oooooh, AAARRRRR.

Me: On a scale of one to ten, I'd say I'm about at a four. If I fall asleep before I reach a six or a seven, I'll be okay.

Creature: You really think you're going to fall asleep with all this racket I'm making?

Me: Sleep. Sleep. You're getting sleeeeeepy....

Creature: That's not going to work.

Just when I started (finally) to fall asleep, Eliot, my Yorkie, started throwing himself around in my sleeping bag because he didn't want to wear his new coat I bought him anymore, but I didn't figure that out, until two and a half hours later.

Which brings us to six a.m. people. Aaah. Finally I can sleep!

THEN:

These would be the kids from the tent around the corner.

OKAY, I am UP! Is everybody happy now!?

Upon leaving, I asked our camping neighbor, Chad: "You want our tent?"

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing."

"How much?"

"Free."

This Has Nothing to do with Business BUT, mmmmm!

While it might not sound good, because people say that the ingredients don't seem to go together- like I'd know, but I promise every single one of the people writing about this recipe have been jazzed.

My thought is that I am going to make this on Christmas Eve- and then also, I want to make a relish tray; turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, dinners rolls and a pumpkin pie!

Now, how to make my current ephemeral obsession:

Peppermint Eggnog Punch

Ingredients:

1 quart peppermint ice cream
1 quart eggnog
4 (12 fluid ounce) cans or bottles ginger ale, chilled
1 cup rum (If I put in more, is that going to ruin it? And it is herein that I start thinking, well, if some is good, MORE has got to be better- and then it all goes to hell.)
24 small peppermint candy canes for garnish

Directions:

Set aside for 2 or 3 round scoops of ice cream in the freezer for garnish. Stir remaining ice cream until softened. Gradually stir in eggnog and rum. Transfer to punch bowl (oooh, and I have a new purdy, purdy punch bowl!) and stir in ginger ale. Hang candy canes around the edge of the punchbowl. Float reserved ice cream scoops on tops, and serve immediately.

Come on, Christmas Eve! If any of you guys make this, let me know how you liked it. And if you add more rum, get frisky with your mother in law and get thrown in jail; that's really on you.

When I Don't Want Your Business

"In" and "on" are two small words, are they not? Tiny innocent enough prepositions. But let us be very, very clear. If you, as an entrepreneur, can't figure out the difference between the two, it's going to cost you dearly.

I work "on" my business. I do not work "in" my business.

If a client who's either needy, demanding, or arrogant enough to think they are going to make me work "in" my business, which is what I pay my employees very good money to do, is mistaken.

And before I go on and let this whole motha rip, let me clarify a few more points.

I do not blog to promote any of my businesses. All my clients are other businesses. Secondarily, I'm here writing about what an essence of an entrepreneur is, and guess what? Sometimes it's going to upset a client's apple cart. So, get ready to pick up a few Golden Delicious, boys and girls, because here I go:

What I will say to my client, who I truly do like and respect is: "The objectives of my company have changed, and while it has been a pleasure to serve you, I can not serve you again."

What the whole truth is, which I do not say because it's unprofessional and professionals don't stand there and open up their mouth and tell everything they know- "While I like you well enough, I do not like your staff AND furthermore, I should have charged you an easy five to seven grand more (seeing as how you business meeting-ed me to death and I wrote you a contract that had everything you needed, I got that the first time) and let's say even if I did charge you more, go ahead and triple it, go ahead and quadruple it, go ahead and... and I'd still don't want your business and I'm not playing with you, not even one little bit."

Want a real business advantage? A real, true, surefire advantage ain't nobody can take away from you?

DO NOT EVER BE GREEDY.

Sure, you name your price. You bet you do. But when something gets too full of bullshit, you walk away.

If you can't do that, you can't win. You can't win because you're going to let money and people control you.

YOU control you.

End of story.