I don’t know about you, but I’m getting so tired of hearing the word bailout…

Today’s latest addition to Financial Chaos ’08 featured the big three automakers here in the U.S. returning to Washington to elaborate their case as to why they believe they should receive a $25 billion bailout loan from the federal government.

Oh, I have so many problems with this – I simply don’t know where to begin!

In my view, these bailouts have always been and will always be bad news, whether we’re talking about AIG, Freddie and Fannie, Detroit, or whoever. It’s not the government’s role to act as an emergency savings and loan – getting involved in the first place was probably the biggest mistake that’s been made so far, and there have certainly been a dozy of mistakes since! But for some reason, the United States has always lived under this crazy notion that we can just throw money at our problems to make them go away, even if we don’t actually have any, and thus we’re a nation that’s $10 trillion dollars in debt, fighting two separate wars overseas that are running a collective tab of about $12 billion / month, with the average citizen at home also carrying $8000 of consumer credit card debt on his or her shoulders. Seriously, what’s it going to take around here for us to realize that we can’t buy our way out of every problem???

And frankly, I think that for the most part all of this financial crisis that we’re experiencing is something that was bound to happen with the method in which so many of our big corporations chose to conduct business – cut corners, run a super-high risk on your products, and never slow down your spending for fear that the gravy train will get derailed. Well, that’s exactly what did happen to so many of these irresponsible giants, and normally this is simply where the free market would correct itself by scrapping down the failed companies for parts and selling those to smaller, more innovative companies which will rise to take their place. The only problem is, these giants refuse to admit that their dead because somebody went and put the crazy notion in their heads that they’re too big to fail.

Friends, in the world of business, nobody is too big to fail.

Granted, some are so large that it would be very inconvenient if they were to fail – thousands of jobs may be lost and many of us who rely on their services are going to have to figure out a new way to do what they did – but it definitely sets a very bad precedent for a free market when certain companies are deemed too large for failure. I mean, really, where do we draw the line? And who gets to draw that line? How fair is it to say that one company deserves hand-outs from our federal government while another doesn’t, simply because, and this is the really messed up part – they weren’t responsible enough with their business plan to even sustain themselves on their own. What sense does it make to reward a company with an extra chance when time and time again they’ve watched their competition simply die and fade away when the numbers stopped adding up?

One of the big whiners in the auto version of The Great American Bailout is the United Auto Workers union, citing that tens of thousands of union jobs will be lost if these companies don’t receive the money they require, and to that I can only say … sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Don’t get me wrong – yes, it’s a horrible thing anytime thousands of people lose their jobs, but you know what? Businesses rise and fall around the world every single day – jobs are lost, and families scratch their heads wondering how they’re going to pay the mortgage or put food on the table. And we already have a system to help people when these horrible tragedies happen – it’s called unemployment.

What about less than ten years ago when the tech bubble burst and hundreds of Internet start-ups went belly up? What about when the various airlines hopped in and out of bankruptcy like hopscotch and incurred massive layoffs during the process? What about when companies exercise their option to outsource jobs overseas to cut expenses? In all of these instances, thousands of people have found themselves suddenly without a steady paycheck, and yes – that sucks, but it’s also kind of how business works. If you can’t make enough money to cover your costs and sustain yourselves, much less show a profit to keep your shareholders happy, you don’t get to be in business anymore – it’s that simple. Yeah, the bigger these companies are, they harder they fall and any of the big three automakers in Detroit going out of business is going to hurt, but their size in the industry doesn’t get to dictate which of the basic rules of business still apply to them…

…which is why I thought it was almost comical, if not only because they’re actually serious, when I read of the new proposals that GM, Ford, and Chrysler brought to Congress to persuade them to open the federal coffers to help “keep the auto industry alive.” The CEOs offered to work for $1 / year and make major salary cuts or remove bonuses entirely across their executive staff, corporate jets would be grounded in favor of much cheaper commercial air travel, and operations would be downsized to run more efficiently – nice sentiment until you ask the follow-up question, “Why haven’t these guys been doing this kind of stuff all along?!” Maybe had they run their businesses smarter before – not taken multi-million dollar annual salaries, flown 1^st class commercial instead of in multi-million dollar jets that run in the tens of thousands of dollars in fuel per flight, and adjusted their product lines to innovate for tomorrow instead of maximize profits today – maybe had they acted as a company should if it wants to survive, they wouldn’t need a handout in the first place.

It’s easy to look back from your deathbed and say, “Oh, my gosh – if we had done this, and this, and this, we’d still be able to stay in business!” but why should anyone get that sort of Get Back into Business Free card, especially from a government that frankly doesn’t have the capital to be loaning out by the billions in the first place?! Two of the big three (Ford being the exception) were also sure to tack onto their proposals that without government intervention, they were done. GM’s COO Fritz Henderson put it bluntly, “There isn’t a Plan B. Absent support, frankly, the company just can’t fund its operations.” But where many other companies would turn to bankruptcy and admit defeat, these three stood there nonetheless expecting special treatment because they’re too big to fail. As far as I’m concerned, if a company can’t sustain its operations any longer, it’s already failed – period. The idea that these executives worth millions of dollars even had the nerve to fly to Washington and, with a straight face, request billions of dollars to keep the very companies that made them rich afloat, is deplorable.

And to make matters even more amusing, they claim – again, with a straight face – that they’ll be able to pay these multi-billion dollar loans back by 2012. That’s right, because these companies, who are dangling near the edge of extinction, can not only turn their businesses right, but also pay back billions of dollars in loan payments to the government in a matter of merely four years. Anybody else feel like these guys are just grasping at straws here?! Frankly, I’m more concerned about whether we’re even going to get the money back at all than how quickly they “promise” they can do it. Sorry, but after watching the path that they took to get themselves into this mess, it’s kind of hard to have any trust in these slicksters at this point…

Of course, even if we do end up shelling out this cash, who’s to say that it’s actually even going to do any good? We’ve already watched frivolous spending on Wall Street continue with lavish parties and all of the bloated spending that got them into this mess in the first place – why would we expect the auto makers to do any differently? Twenty years of poor business aren’t going to change overnight the moment the check clears in an “Ok, guys – this time we’re playing for keeps!”-kind of attitude. Kind of like that “economic stimulus” that most of us received earlier this spring that was supposed to kick start the economy, but ended up pretty much being handed directly over to the oil companies by most of us when gas “suddenly” broke $3, then $4 / gallon.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – we can’t buy our way out of this problem.

That said, what do I think should happen with this whole mess? Well, it certainly isn’t a fix that will take place overnight – it’s going to hurt, and it’s going to hurt for a while, but I say it’s time for the government to back off entirely and let some of these companies fail, just like thousands of other businesses have failed before 2008 – the year when everyone wanted a bailout instead of taking responsibility for their actions. What happens if these companies fail? A lot of people lose their jobs, yes, but as that happens, other businesses also move in to take up the slack. There are more than three car companies that do business in America – notice how not all of them are flailing their arms in the air begging for money? What are Toyota and KIA and Honda and all of the others doing differently that’s allowed them to stay afloat while their dinosaur brethren are gasping for air?

What’s going to happen if these bailouts do get approved is you’re going to set a very bad precedent for all other businesses in America. Let’s face it – we’re all hurting in our current economy. Does that mean that we should slip up just a little bit more so that Uncle Sam will swoop in and save the day? Just like I shouldn’t get special treatment to help manage my mortgage if I bought into all of the housing industry hype over the last five years and signed up for a loan that I could never actually afford under reasonable circumstances, these companies shouldn’t get special treatment for poor practices that ended up running their businesses into the ground. They should be treated just like any other failing business – call it quits or do your best to restructure under chapter 11 bankruptcy, but don’t walk around in thousand dollar shoes with your hands outstretched expecting us to help you get back on your feet.

Rewarding bad business is only going to buy us a little more time and unless actual change takes place to weed out the blatant corporate greed and get back to good business that earns its money honestly, we’re just going to be in this same boat another 6 – 12 months from now, hoping that just a few more bailouts will slip America’s economy back into check. It can be done, but there’s going to be a lot of hurting along the way and to expect anything less after allowing things to get as messed up as they are is just apathetic.

It is possible for companies to be successful and make money without being excessively greedy, and if an industry as a whole suggests that it can’t make money anymore, then it’s time for the players in that arena to either evolve their business plan or respectfully bow out. They shouldn’t have to look far for examples – thousands of good, successful companies already exist in all sorts of industries across this country and this world, and they’ll continue to stay right where they are and keep making that money as long as they remember that greed has no place in the world of business.

At least long term it doesn’t.

I don’t even know where to begin with this one.

I did a double-take last week when in reading our local paper, I found a legitimate article about one of our state senators here in Florida pushing an amendment to a highway safety bill that would make it finable to hang replica bull testicles from the bumper of your car or truck. Yeah … replica bull testicles – shake your head as much as you need to, but I know you’ve seen at least a couple of pairs flapping in the breeze in your days! Maybe you’re sitting at a stop light and look up to see them adorning the bumper of the Blazer in front of you, maybe you’re directed into a parking space at Disney World a while ago on a trip with your Dad and girlfriend, and can’t leave the car for a solid ten minutes because the three of you can’t stop laughing hysterically because you were told to park behind a pickup truck that has a chrome pair of balls displayed proudly on its rear, as if they were some sort of medal of honor or something!

So don’t even try to deny that you know what I’m talking about, and hey, if you happen to live in Texas, you probably see the things every single day! And personally, don’t get me wrong, I think they’re ridiculous, gross, just plain stupid – insert your favorite scathing adjective here. How that purchase even takes place, I don’t even want to know…

“The truck looks good, Biff, but it’s missing something…”

“I know, I just can’t put my finger on it, but … wait a minute!”

“Awww yeah!!!”

“Do you think they have ‘em any bigger?”

Needless to say, the day you find replica bull testicles hanging from the back of my own car is the day that it was stolen, but that said, to each his own. Balls simply aren’t my thing (on so many different levels!), but who am I to tell somebody what they can or can’t hang from the back of their vehicle? Other than them being three-dimensional, they’re not really any different than the gawdy bumpers stickers that people paste all over the backs of their cars and one walk through the student parking lot at your local college will no doubt present you with dozens of examples of obscenities far greater than replica bull testicles. Who cares?

Go figure, our local government cares because apparently they’ve fixed the insurance and property tax problems here in Florida, so it’s on to bigger and more pressing issues. The fact that hundreds of years after the founding of our country, politicians are still bewildered into thinking that they’ve somehow got the power to overthrow that whole freedom of speech thing makes my faith in the system drop even lower. I mean, seriously, we pay how much in taxes so that our state senators can sit around and talk about testicles???

Call it harsh, but I think that any politican like Senator Baker here who challenges our basic freedoms in such a ridiculous manner should just be kicked out of office on the spot – no further discussion necessary. If we continue to entertain idiocracies like this, then what’s next? Chevy fans most definitely find those window stickers of Calvin peeing on the Chevy logo to be offensive, and vice-versa for Ford fans with their own logo, so we’d better ban those, too! Witty retorts on bumper stickers about how our President is a failure? Why, that’s unpatriotic, so I’m surprised that adorning your car with that kind of sentiment isn’t already considered some form of terrorism already! By the end of the day, we’ll all just be driving around in grey, non-descript boxes because it turns out that there was that one guy who was offended by colors, too…

Of all the things to focus on, you would think that it would be clear from the start that this is a losing battle because if the Senator finds himself disgusted by pulling up to a light to see replica bull testicles hanging from the truck in front of him, you can’t tell me that he’s completely fine and dandy with all of the sleezy and provocative billboards and other advertising attempts that he no doubt passed on the highway before pulling up to those famed bull testicles. If something bothers you, then ok – it bothers you and you would prefer not to see it, so your option is to look away and focus on the flashing sign outside the church on the right of the roadway until the light changes. I, myself, am not too fond of breast feeding in public – I think it’s disgusting and unnecessary in a public setting – but it’s become painfully clear to me through many discussions about this topic over the years that a lot of women think it’s fine. Which sucks if I’m trying to enjoy a hamburger at Burger King and have it staring me down in the face, but then again, I’ve always got the option to sit on the other side of the booth and watch the kiddies play in the ball pit, too. Nobody’s forcing me to sit there and watch this woman feed her baby a la boob, and nobody’s forcing Senator Baker to oggle bull testicles all day, either.

I guess when you’re a politician, the goto method of dealing with things that you don’t like is just to create a law banning them, but between poverty and homelessness and property insurance going through the roof thanks to hurricane season a few years back, frankly Senator, you’ve got bigger nuts to fry than the ones hanging from the bumper in front of you. How’s about getting back to work and focusing on some issues that make you look like a little less of a nut?

I think I physically shuttered the last time I passed a gas station earlier this week.

$3.31 per gallon … and continuing to inch its way up every year. We used to balk at gas breaking $2 / gallon, and then $3 / gallon. I fondly reminisce about the days when I first learned to drive back in the late ‘90s when I could fill my car – with premium – for less than fifteen bucks a tank! My last fill-up was nearly three times that amount, using regular gas because anything else is just too expensive, and I don’t know about you but I’m really starting to worry about what our future is going to look like if we keep following our current path…

It would be nice if we could simply blame it on inflation because even though it wouldn’t make things any easier to pay for, at least then the answer might be a little easier to swallow! I know at least ever since I started working a little over ten years ago, the prices for consumer goods have continued to rise while wages … well, not so much. Prices for milk are up, prices for electricity and heating are up, and even prices for entertainment products like trips to the theater and resort stays on vacation have skyrocketed, and yet until last year, the minimum wage went a decade without moving from the $5.15 / hour mark and most salaries did little to nothing to help adjust for cost of living increases as well. Then again, our government never has been very good with money, as most recently noted with the $450 billion spent on the war in Iraq last year and also the whopping $600 tax rebate checks that we’re due to receive next month to help “stimulate the economy” and steer us clear of a recession. Not being able to even keep the nation’s checkbook reasonably balanced, really, what do we expect?

The business side of it, however, unfortunately makes a whole lot more sense because sure, oil prices being three times what they were a decade ago seem just absolutely crazy for us consumers, but if you were to put yourself in the position of a big-time oil executive, you have a very firm understanding that what you’re selling is a non-renewable resource. When it’s gone, it’s gone, and thus it would only make sense that the less of it that remains in the ground, the higher the price would rise to compsenate for the well going dry, quite literally! Some argue that at our current rate of consumption, we’ll have sucked the Earth dry of oil in about 30 years and with SUV sales showing no signs of slowing down despite ever-rising prices at the pumps, it might very well be even sooner than that. So yeah, it really sucks for consumers because the prices will likely never dip again, but from the perspective of the oil business, they’re just milking their product for all that it’s worth because clearly a day will come when they’re going to be out of business.

Sure, it sounds evil, but is it really their fault that society has gotten so addicted to oil? And it would certainly be nice if along the way, these same companies took it upon themselves to invent the next energy solution for when the oil runs out, but they don’t have to…

I typically tend to frown on the idea of government intervention to solve any problem because ours certainly doesn’t have the best track record of sorting things like this out – especially when huge amounts of financial gain are at stake – so I really don’t think that forcing the oil companies to drop their prices down to an affordable level is the answer … not that it would ever work even if it was. Now on the other hand, if Washington were to seriously make efforts to encourage and advance research in terms of efficient energy and harnessing renewable resources to keep our society moving, that’s just crazy enough to work … but there’s really no time to lose here. Steps need to be taken now to start moving ahead – waiting until the last minute could have very devastating results that frankly our children shouldn’t have to deal with.

I watched a “dramatized documentary” the other night on The Science Channel about what life might be like when we do run out of oil, and I’ve gotta tell you that it wasn’t very pleasant. I mean, don’t get me wrong, people weren’t looting stores and running crazy in the streets just yet, but it certainly wasn’t anything like the life to which we’ve all become accustomed by a long shot. Gas was $4 or $5 per gallon and stations were limiting customers to $10 worth a piece, and near the end of the presentation many stations were running dry after people lined up down the streets to fill up. Fights broke out over who got what, and even those that still had the extra money to afford gas at $5 a gallon felt reprecussions. As a last-ditch attempt, they authorized the drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, but came up with hardly enough to make it worth drilling for. Needless to say, the American dream didn’t look as promising in the dark…

So I think, or at least I hope, it’s starting to become clear to everybody that we all need to start honestly thinking about our energy problems now and what we’re going to do both short term to get by and long term to make sure that we don’t pass down an even scarier mess to our children and grandchildren. And it’s one of those areas where it’s really easy to feel like one single person’s contribution will never really make a difference, but the $40 worth of gasoline that you bought this week had to come from somewhere, didn’t it?

There are ideas both big and small that you can adopt into your life to help make a difference, not only at the pump but at home as well – everything from improving your energy consumption at home by investing in energy efficient products to simply turning off the lights when you leave a room or adjusting your air conditioner a few degrees. Maybe it means saving up a little extra cash when it comes time to buy a new car and purchasing a hybrid instead of another gas guzzler, or maybe it even means going the extra mile and a half and installing solar energy equipment at your home so that your electricity comes from the sun instead of out of the ground! One of the benefits, oddly enough, of it being such a big problem is that there are also a ton of different solutions that can all help to make a dent in our energy consumption around the globe.

In the spirit of Earth Day (April 22^nd), I’ll be taking some time in next week’s episode of Against the Grain… to walk through some of the things that I myself have done to help reduce energy consumption and overall ease our stress on the environment. Now is the time for action and as difficult as it can be to believe after looking around at how bloated and lazy our culture has become with regards to being environmentally conscious, I still have faith that we can all come together to not only ween ourselves off of oil and onto cleaner energy sources, but just generally make the world a better place that can still be enjoyed for generations to come … with or without oil. It’s not going to be easy, but someone quite intelligent once said that most things worth fighting for never are.

Go green or go home! And if you’ve got any special ideas – big or small – on how other readers of this column can help the cause, please certainly feel free to send them my way and I’ll do my best to include them in next week’s column as well. We’re all in this together…

‘Tis the season for caroling and mistletoe, decorations and gingerbread, and of course, it all wouldn’t be complete without a very special visit from jolly, old St. Nicholas himself! And as much as I’m a fan of getting wrapped up in both the spirits of giving and receiving, I’ve also got to admit that just as much as I love unwrapping that new Lego set on Christmas morning (because inside, part of me is still ten years old!), I’ve also found the holidays to be a great time for reflection back on the previous year, everything that’s been accomplished and everything that could’ve been accomplished had you done A instead of B, and so forth. With New Years right around the corner and resolutions no doubt in the back of everyone’s minds as we sneak just one more of Mom’s world-reknowned Christmas cookies, what better time for reviewing the last year of your life over a nice glass of eggnog while chestnuts roast on that nearby open fire?

So with that in mind, I thought it might be interesting this week to do something a little different with this column and instead of pick on one specific thing to analyze and tear apart, I would take a step back and run through some of my top concerns that come to mind as things that I’d like to see happen in 2008 because they certainly never took place in 2007! Of course, the chances of any of them actually happening are slim to none at best because not nearly enough people in this world think like me, but then again, what would I have to write about if all of a sudden things started going my way?!

Believe me, I’d find something, but nonetheless, here’s what I came up with – call it my Against the Grain Christmas List of sorts. It’s wordy, it’s entirely too political for this otherwise glorious time of year, and most of the people who do actually agree with me on a regular basis will probably also agree that it’s all common sense, but I do hope you enjoy it nonetheless. Happy holidays…

In 2008 I’d like…
…To Find A Company Who Still Believes in the Value of Customer Service
I’m so tired of interacting with companies whose only service is taking money from me without any regard for courtesy or decency. When I make a purchase, I want to know that the company genuinely appreciates my business, not just be fed the line with forced or fake enthusiasm in between complaints about how horrible fellow employees are treated. It’s a task that must be seriously addressed at both ends of any organization, though – not only must those at the top have respect for those beneath them, but those on the bottom rungs must still give a crap about their jobs. I think pride in not only an individual’s work, but also in the perception of the business as a whole is vital towards reviving the customer service experience.

…The Powers That Be to Admit They Were Wrong About Iraq and Just End It Already
Everybody makes mistakes and while some will always argue that they’re doing the right thing while thousands die in the trenches, a bigger man knows when to cut his losses and move on, and that’s exactly what needs to happen with Iraq. There’s been no progress, money is being wasted, people are dying whether they’re directly involved with the war or not, morale back home is sinking lower and lower, our own country is in shambles – the list just goes on and on, and at the end of the day, eventually somebody is going to have to realize that democracy isn’t something that can just be installed by force. If they don’t want it, they don’t want it and to keep trying to force a square peg into a round hole is futile. Just because it works for us doesn’t mean that it’s for everybody, so let’s just turn the page and move on.

…To See the Financial Enthusiasm Wasted on Iraq Dedicated to Rebuilding AMERICA
Hundreds of billions (with a B) of dollars have been spent on the war in Iraq, while we still have homeless people on the streets, sick people in our hospitals, and kids who can’t read in our schools throughout the country. For the reasons previously listed, it’s time to focus within and truly show the rest of the world what makes the United States the greatest country in the world. It’s not how free we claim to be or how big our army is, but how much we care about our own people. It isn’t greed to help your neighbor before helping your neighbor’s neighbor’s neighbor – it’s self preservation and it’s time Congress realized that there are far too many problems at home to continue wasting money fighting a war that will never end. Let’s save some American lives so that they can help teach their sons and daughters how to read instead of sacrificing them for a group of people whose only American interest is the oil beneath their feet.

…All of the Politicians to Take the Next Year Off!
You know what? While we’re on a roll, let’s just do it already! I’ve always thought that we’d be better off without all of the bureaucracy, so let’s take a year without them and give it a try. What’s the worst that could happen – our own internal infrastructures could fall to pieces while we focus on surrealistic goals thousands of miles away?! Oh, wait! If we’re wrong and the country is in shambles by this time next year, then so be it, but just the possibilities that stem from a nation without all of the red tape and lies and constant bullshit sounds too good for us not to try flying without a pilot at least once for the history books!

…The Writer’s Strike to End Sooner Rather Than Later
And that’s with the studios actually doing the right thing and correcting the compensations that they pay writers for their creative efforts, mind you. While the strike doesn’t really affect us writers outside of Hollywood, it’s still hard not to feel for someone who’s only getting paid pennies on the dollar while executives are getting rich as it is, then only to be told that certain “promotional viewings” such as Internet downloads aren’t even worth being paid for at all. To think that so many struggling writers aren’t earning paychecks at all during the holidays is kind of scary, so the best we can hope for is that they get what they deserve when all is said and done.

…To See Gay Marriage Adopted at a Federal Level to End the Bigotry Once and For All
I’m not gay, and yet it still really bothers me that this segment of the population who hasn’t actually done anything wrong could not only be targeted with so much hate from other people, but also from our own government by not allowing them the same right to exercise the ultimate expression of love is an embarassing travesty to our country and I think far too much time has been wasted because there’s simply no intelligent argument to be made against gay marriage. It might make some people uncomfortable and some find it against their own personal beliefs, but if they really knew what some of us “normal people” did in the privacy of our own homes, their bibles would probably explode! This just seems like a no brainer to me…

…The Christian Faith to Stop Thinking That It’s Better Than Everybody Else
And I know, this certainly doesn’t apply to every single person who calls themselves a Christian, but at least to the vocal majority – enough already! I’m happy that you found Jesus and all, and that now your life is complete because you have the Lord on your side, and that you just know that your family will be spending eternity in heaven, but how quickly do you forget that your bible has a little something to say about passing judgement on others, too? It’s not your place to say that the rest of us will burn in hell because we don’t believe in God or because we practice alternative lifestyles or because we believe that women have the right to choose whether they give birth, and frankly, I actually think that an awful lot of other Christians would also appreciate it if you would stop giving their beliefs such a bad name! We’ll all find out who was right and who was wrong in the end, but in the meantime stop being such jerks to everyone else around you and start living up to your faith for a change…

…To See More People Start Taking Global Warming Seriously
The big hang up that I’m currently seeing is the almighty dollar because my experience has been that although a few of us have jumped on the bandwagons for compact fluorescent lightbulbs and energy-efficient appliances and even something as simple as recycling, most people still won’t go out of their way unless they can save money now (i.e. 60-cent incandescent lightbulb vs. $3 compact fluorescent lightbulb). Innovation can be expensive, but sometimes doing what’s right will cost a bit more than what’s easiest – just ask anyone who’s installed solar panels on their home and now sends the power company a bill for their excess energy! Denying that global warming even exists is no longer an option for those of us who want to leave a world for our grandchildren to enjoy…

…To See Everyone Adopt The Golden Rule +1
And in an effort to wrap things up on a slightly-less political stance, my final hope/wish/desire for the new year is for us all to take that mantra that we learned in the second grade and build on it. To “treat others as you would like to be treated” is a good start, but how about “to treat others better than you would like to be treated”? If each of us, myself certainly included, smiled a little bit more and yelled a little less, held the door for more strangers and tried harder not to cut people off in our cars, reminded our friends and family how much we care and let bygones be bygones, just think of how much more pleasant the world could be! Sure, it wouldn’t solve all of our problems, but we’ve gotta start somewhere and out of this entire list, I thought it was only fair to throw at least one idea out there that was somewhat attainable!

Smile, buy an energy-efficient lightbulb, prevent World War 3 – looks like 2008 is going to be a busy year…

In accordance with my rich, pilgrim heritage, I’ve tried to make it a point to set aside a bit of time around the Thanksgiving holiday to really think about what I, myself, am thankful for from year to year. Sometimes the list is hilarious, as I do try to be entertaining to at least a few people ever now and again; sometimes the list is insightful and leads me to understand things about myself that I might not have even realized in the past. Well, this year I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone – a figure of speech probably not all that popular with turkeys this time of year – as I put together the following list.

Some are funny, some are serious, and some I’m probably going to get e-mails about, but regardless – I’m thankful for all of them the same…

I’m thankful that Mother Nature decided to take some time off and play fairly nice with us southern states in 2007 by barely even acknowledging hurricane season this year! Sure, it resulted in a few less crazy things for me to write about in my humor column, but there’s something about running around town looking for plywood to board up the windows at 3:00am that I think I can do without…

I’m thankful for all of the chefs that dared to incorporate pumpkin into dishes beyond the pie. I’m not so much thankful for all of the pounds that I’m going to have to work off after binging on pumpkin donuts and pumpkin ice cream and pumpkin eggnog and pumpkin pancakes and pretty much pumpkin everything for the next six weeks, but hey, it’s ultimately a small price to pay for deliciousness!

I’m thankful to be engaged to the love of my life and to think that less than a year from now, she’ll officially be stuck with me for the rest of our lives! It’s good to know that the search is finally over, and even better to realize that I didn’t have to sacrifice any of the things that make up who I am in order to find that special someone.

I’m thankful to live in a part of the country that will still be 80 degrees outside on Thanksgiving Day. While we may not get that iconic snow covering our landscapes and rooftops to help emphasize that Christmas-y feel, I can still see it on TV and that’s good enough for me!

I’m thankful for all of the frogs that we’ve seen around our new home, stuck to nearly every surface outside, including every single window the house has. I appreciate these particular frogs not only because frogs are cool, but more importantly because unlike the hoards of amphibians from our last home, these ones don’t croak into the wee hours of the night!

I’m thankful for the creative wonderland that is Walt Disney World, a place that never ceases to inspire me, and for all of the people responsible for sharing their very special brand of magic with the dreamers of the world. I’ll save further elaboration for this month’s edition of My Time with the Mouse, appropriately enough entitled Being Thankful for The Mouse…, but a mention in this column just had to be made because I seem to find myself loving that place and all of the memories that I’ve created there more and more each year…

I’m thankful that we don’t have a military draft because sadly it would mean that I would have a big decision to make. And that doesn’t make me a terrorist or anti-American, it just a member of the increasing population that believes that fighting for our freedom and what’s taking place over in Iraq are two very different things.

And while we’re on the topic, let me also just get out of the way that I’m thankful that next year we’ll be electing a new president and bidding a due to the blundering President Bush. I understand that there will still be a lot of corrupt politicians in office trying to steer us blindly down the road towards giving up all of our freedoms in the name of fighting terror, but ultimately I still believe that taking out the big fish at the top ought to be a good start.

Now you can be thankful in knowing that that will be the last political reference in this particular column! Just had to get some things off my chest … whew!

I’m thankful that my fiancée and I were able to find a new house this fall that not only fits into our budget quite nicely, but also gives us more room to grow and allows us to feel like we’re moving up in the world by finally leaving our apartment behind. Mind you, the transition itself was a major pain in the ass, but then again I guess I should also be thankful for all of the new material that I had to write about because of said transition!

I’m thankful that we still have people left in this world who are willing to challenge the majority when they’re in the wrong, even if it means alienating themselves or hurting a few egos along the way.

I’m thankful that The Simpsons Movie did so incredibly awesome this summer because not only did the film rock, but it also resulted in my being able to spend one small part of an afternoon shopping in an actual Kwik-E-Mart – a dream come true for any diehard fan! Not to mention that in addition to the DVD release next month, we’re also getting a new video game based on the epic series – sweetness, indeed.

Of course, I’m always thankful for friends and family, for without their love and support who knows where I’d have ended up in this life. I’m particularly thankful for my fiancée’s family, who has gone to great lengths to welcome me with open arms and make me feel like so much more than just some guy who happens to fancy their daughter.

And finally, I’m most certainly thankful for everyone who takes a little bit of their time to read Against the Grain each week. We may not always share the same opinions about the often times controversial topics that I write about here, but I’m a strong believer that even if your only success is to get people thinking for themselves about the issues that you’re passionate about, that’s still a step in the right direction.

Thanks for reading, everyone! Enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving weekend, and don’t forget to have an extra slice of pumpkin pie while it’s still in season. Viva pumpkin!!!

This week’s installment of Against the Grain admittedly hits a little more close to home than I’m happy to acknowledge, but nonetheless I think it’s one of those topics that all of us creative folks need to be reminded of every now and again. While we may all produce different things, between writing and cartooning and podcasting and countless other content genres, at the end of the day it’s all about the people that might very well stay up until three o’clock in the morning enjoying our work – the fans.

Well, that is hopefully eventually they’ll transcend that divide from reader who occasionally checks out your stuff into fan who obsessively follows your work and is likely to buy just about anything that you offer up for sale in your store! Our fans are the ones that really make it all worthwhile, both financially and otherwise, because not only are they in fact more likely to help pad our wallets either by purchasing books or simply bumping by up the advertising value of our sites, they also help to keep us going mentally with encouraging e-mails and comments about just how much they enjoyed that last column or how they’ve printed out their favorite comics to decorate their dorm room or cubicle at work. Of course, in the same right however, they become just as dependent on us as we do on them because, well, simply put – they love what we do and they just can’t get enough of it. They support us day in and day out by logging in and reading, but they can’t do that until we keep up on our part of the bargain…

That’s right – it may be their jobs to read and laugh and enjoy the brilliance that we throw up on the Internet several times a week, but it’s our job to create those columns and comics and so forth, and sometimes that can be quite the daunting task because I think we can all agree that creativity isn’t just something that can be turned on like the kitchen faucet! We all hit that proverbial writer’s block from time to time and that’s completely understandable, but I think it’s how we choose to deal with those slumps that can have either a very positive or a very negative affect on just how our fans perceive us. Do you cast off all other aspects of life as those deadlines pass until you can create something worthy of being posted, or do you take a more casual approach to the tune of “It’ll go up when it goes up…” and let that be the end of it? Of course, neither angle is entirely healthy, either for the creator who’s writing or artwork begins to cut into quality time with friends and family when they consistently find their deadlines wooshing by without stop, or for the just plain lazy creator who’s readership begins to dwindle from a lack of care or attention. So what’s a writer / cartoonist / podcaster to do?!

The basis for this topic has been brewing inside me for quite a while. As I’d mentioned earlier, I’m certainly no stranger to the act of posting columns or comics later than promised, but I think even more significantly though, my frustration stems not from my plights as a creator, but moreso as a reader – a reader who wants nothing but to enjoy the next installment from my favorite writers and cartoonists and podcasters, only to find that they haven’t been posted yet. Sometimes it’s because the creator had an emergency and wasn’t able to make the update, sometimes it’s because they couldn’t come up with anything, and sometimes I never quite know what the reason behind the delay is. All I know for sure is that I was ready to take a few minutes out of my day to be entertained and I had to walk away empty-handed because what I wanted wasn’t there. Talk about a real bummer, indeed…

And I think what sets me off on this the most is when I hear creators actually complaining or otherwise trying to justify their lack of timeliness, as if their fans have no right whatsoever to be upset that their favorite works haven’t been updated as promised. The most common argument is of the ilk, “I don’t make any money off this, so why should you feel entitled to get anything at all?!” or “What do you expect for something free on the Internet?” Since writing or cartooning or whatever has always been primarily a hobby for them, they take a fairly lax approach to it and consider it to be based primarily on their own schedule, as opposed to anyone who might be reading it … which don’t get me wrong, is completely fine if that’s ultimately your prerogative for creating in the first place! If your only goal is to draw cartoons from time to time for people to enjoy and you go into it having no intention of doing it on a regular basis, then by all means have at it … but be prepared for the consequences of that decision as well.

My analogy goes something like this – your buddy gives you the address of this really great local comic book shop to check out. They’ve got the best selection in town, the guys that work there are really cool, and you really feel at home when you go there, so week after week you swing by with your paycheck to pick up your favorite books. But when you stop by one week, you’re greeted by a sign stating that the clerks are out for lunch and that they’ll be back later, so you pick up lunch and head back to work empty-handed. Over the next few weeks, it seems that the shop is closed more and more, no matter what time you stop by, and as much as you absolutely love that comic book shop, you’re now behind on some of your favorite books and end up visiting a different store on the other side of town to pick them up because they’re open, whereas your preferred store is unpredictable. Months go by and you stop visiting the cool store for the larger chain that’s always open, and when your buddy asks how the guys are doing down at the shop, you tell him that you just haven’t been there in such a long time because they always seem to be out to lunch or closed early…

It’s very frustrating to be a dedicated fan who wants your content – on fairly reasonable terms, those of which being the ones that you originally set – but can’t get it because you’re not keeping your schedule, and ultimately although some content creators will disagree with me, those who are truly invested in what they do, either financially or just passionately, will understand that nothing good can come from turning your readers away simply because you weren’t prepared to give them what they want. Sure, maybe some of them won’t care, but the ones who truly notice and are bothered by it are the ones that you should be trying to please the most – they’re the ones who stand in line at conventions to chat with you for a few minutes or pre-order your latest book online so that you can afford to print them in the first place! The passion of ones fans can swing both ways, and from those folks – the best you might get is an e-mail stating concern or disappointment for your tardiness, but the other 90% who wouldn’t think to e-mail you will more likely than not just eventually remove you from their bookmarks and throw in the towel.

I can vouch for this perspective firsthand because I’ve sadly had to do it myself in just about every medium previously mentioned – humor columns start to get more sporadic, podcasts go from weekly to monthly (…or worse…), that same comic appears on the index page considerably longer than it should. No matter how much I love someone’s work, if they don’t give me new material to keep me coming back, what’s the incentive for my return? I can only read through the archives so many times – eventually I have to decide whether you’ve just thrown in the towel or truly don’t care about your readers enough to keep us posted on your creative efforts. You can only hit that refresh button so many times before you have to make that decision to possibly go find somebody else to entertain you, and as a content creator, that’s one of the last decisions that you would ever want your readers making!

And I’m not saying that we as creators have to spoon-feed our work to our fans just as fast as we can crank it out, but in the same right we have a responsibility to meet the deadlines that we’ve made public for ourselves to our fans. If I say that Against the Grain… is published on comedic-genius.com every Sunday, that doesn’t mean that it’s ok to put up next week’s column on Monday or Tuesday because I decided to go out bowling with some friends instead or even because I couldn’t find anything to write about. I want as many people as possible to read my work, so in a way it’s somewhat insulting to those readers who show up first thing Friday morning for The Humor Column, only to find that last week’s is still my newest column. It doesn’t even matter the reason – you can only give so many excuses before that’s all that you do and like it or not, most fans won’t tolerate excuses forever.

So what can we do to help ensure that our work is available to the masses in the timeliest of fashions? And believe me, it’s certainly even been a struggle for yours truly from time to time, but I think just taking your work seriously and truly holding yourself to task is the most important thing in trying to keep a working schedule. Obviously, procrastination is your worst enemy … which makes it increasingly difficult, as many of us either do our best work under pressure or simply can’t start working on something until the evening that it should normally be posted, but regardless, try not to let it come to that. It’s ok to work on something that isn’t due until later on in the week, or even further ahead if you find yourself in the mood for writing on a particular topic at a particular time. But know your deadlines and keep in your mind that breaking them is one of the worst things that you can do – remember that an editor at a mainstream publication wouldn’t tolerate unreliability, so when you’re publishing yourself, you have to take that role as the editor and recognize that it impacts you negatively when your work isn’t released in a timely manner…

Probably most importantly, however, would be to understand that unless you’re a super-writer or what-have-you, you’re going to occasionally miss your deadlines and while that’s not necessarily ok, per se, it’s not the end of the world by any means, either. Just do your best to recover from it as quickly as possible, don’t allow yourself to get caught up in excuses (“I was really busy last night!” or “I don’t owe them anything!” or “I was sick…”) – pick yourself up and get back on track as best you can, as fast as you can.

And if you do need a bit of inspiration, I think it helps immensely to remember this – if people are actually noticing that you’re not posting on time, that’s simply because they’re fans of your work and they’re looking forward to see what you create next. They may sometimes come off as harsh or demanding, but that comes from being passionate about something and that’s the exact kind of passion that most content creators strive for with their work! No one draws a comic strip or writes an article with the idea, “I don’t really care if anyone reads this or not…” and if you do, why are you posting your work online in the first place? If you truly have no need for an audience, an empty shoebox or a floppy disk will hold your creations just as well and save you the hosting charges to boot. Otherwise have a little respect for your fans – the ones that support you the most – and give them what they want, for cryin’ out loud!

Why must even going out to eat be so controversial these days?!

I enjoy a nice night at one of our area’s more upscale restaurants just as much as the next guy … arguably even more as of late, if you choose to measure that sort of thing by weight, if you know what I mean! It’s good to get out of the house, try something different for dinner after one has exhausted every meatloaf recipe in the book, and possibly even do a little socializing to boot. With literally dozens of cuisine choices from every corner of the Earth, it helps add a bit of variety to an otherwise boring, mundane meal … variety is the spice of life, you know!

And if that’s the case, then why does a simple night out for dinner have to be such a grueling task? It starts off wonderfully – you both get dressed up to the nines, the men somewhat presentable and their better halves smokin’ hot. The group actually manages to agree on a restaurant, so as to avoid arguing about what so-and-so can’t or won’t eat. You all then meet up at said establishment and dine like kings, with each dish even more delectable than the last, and then just when you think that the night couldn’t possibly get any better … in comes the check. The food was fantastic, the service was superb, but suddenly the evening takes a turn for the worst as your buddy opts to tip like a pauper for those services rendered that were worthy of a king. And thus the great argument of our time begins again…

It never ceases to amaze me the controversies that seem to arise around the appropriate tip to leave after a meal because really, at this point I kinda thought that the standards were pretty well defined! I mean, I’ve always been taught to go along these lines:

10% - poor / horrible service
15% - standard service (just ok – nothing impressive, but not bad)
20% or higher – amazing service, worth telling other people about
(figures to be adjusted higher when larger parties are involved)

I’ve tipped on both sides of this scale and it seems to work fine for me, and yet I still often times find myself arguing with people about them … and almost always from the perspective that these amounts are way too high, mind you. Apparently for many, 10% is their standard because it’s easy to calculate, while others simply round up to the next nearest dollar, even if it will only result in a tip consisting of pocket change. Others argue that truly bad service doesn’t even warrant a tip, thus shifting the scale to make 10% their standard as well and the oh so high 15% as a goal nearly impossible to attain. And don’t even get me started on those that balk when I tip even higher than 20% – that’s just crazy talk!

Unless I just described your own personal tipping habits in the last paragraph, I’m sure we’ve all been embarrassed by friends or family at least once or twice as far as what they believed to be an acceptable tip when we were out dining together. Sometimes we’ve paid for the meal and they offer to cover the tip in return, or maybe they’ve offered to cover both the meal and the tip themselves, thus leaving us on the sidelines to witness an inadequate tip in the making. Heck, I’ll even be the first to admit that I’ve felt a little sheepish when leaving a table where we both paid our own separate checks and I notice that my dining companion only left a dollar or two when more would’ve been appropriate! And there’s no good way to handle the situation, either, because you can either look like a cheapskate to the waitress as you walk away knowingly or you can look like a jerk to your friend as you discretely attempt to pad their almost-a-tip with a few extra bucks without getting caught. Either way, somebody’s walking away from the table unhappy and after a quality meal, there’s just no sense in that…

And I can agree, mind you, that at some points tipping can be a bit annoying, as we have to wonder at some point why these restaurants can’t simply pay their servers more and incorporate the charges into their food, as opposed to having us pay on the side for the service itself. I’ve heard that it has to do with overhead and taxes and all sorts of other accounting excuses, meaning that adding $2 to your burger and fries might not necessarily translate to an extra $2 in your servers pocket at the end of the night, and whether or not I actually believe that is an entirely different column, but at the end of the day as painful as it can be, there are still some benefits to paying tips separately. Of course, the largest one is the idea of being able to reward good service and likewise discourage poor service by the most direct means possible – money. I’ve yet to meet a single waiter who does what he does simply for his love of serving food to people, so it makes only sense that if there’s a means to encourage someone financially for really doing a great job, then where could we possibly go wrong?! Stay on top of my order, keep the drinks refilled, and answer my questions with a smile and you can count on 20% when I pay the bill, but make me feel like you’ve got better things to do while you ignore my table all night and you certainly won’t be rewarded by me for your lack of service.

But therein lies the other side of the tipping controversy – entitlement among servers. For as many arguments that I’ve heard about not wanting to leave anything more than a buck and change for a tip, I’ve seen an equal if not greater number from the other side of the serving tray shouting a general unhappiness about the system as it is today, in that they don’t believe that leaving that freedom to reward or punish service based on quality in the hands of their customers is the best idea. The most common example being that most other professions don’t knock salaries when an employee is having a bad day, many servers argue that a minimum gratuity – usually around 18% – should be required, and I certainly have a real problem with this. While I understand that you’re intentions are to help curtail those low tippers or even those who refuse to tip at all, I don’t appreciate that freedom to tip lower than “ok” when the service doesn’t deserve it! And I know that waiters and waitresses typically get only a fraction of minimum wage, relying on their tips for a good portion of their income, but it’s not like this is anything new – if you’re not happy with the way that the system works, then feel free to find an hourly job outside of the service industry that offers you a flat wage regardless of the quality of service that you provide to your customers! When I dine out, I have a certain level of expectations with regards to the level of service that I will receive and if that my tip is simply built into the price of my burger, then where’s the incentive to continue giving that good customer service?

As far as I’m concerned, when you make it mandatory, it’s no longer a “tip” – it’s a service fee and if that’s what you want to do, then fine but at least call it what it really is. The original intention of tipping has always been a means to show appreciation to someone for performing a given task, with the common understanding that such appreciation in dollar form would be higher or lower based on just how satisfied the recipient was. And I’m sure that it must be incredibly frustrating to deal with people (some of whom might very well be my friends and family!) who eat a $50 meal and then proceed to leave three bucks and change for the tip, but please don’t take that out on the rest of us by imposing a required minimum! I can tell you right now that when I receive a check with the tip part already filled out for me, regardless of whether the server might’ve actually deserved 20% or 30% for simply providing me the best service ever, I’m only tipping exactly the 18% that you’ve opted to require of me. I know it’s not fair to the little people, but it’s not fair to place a mandate on the act of tipping, now either…

And one last note before I post this column and prepare my inbox for the flood of angry e-mail that I’m going to receive from angry servers and cheap restaurant patrons, to anyone who works at a sandwich shop or an ice cream parlor or anything else of this variety: knock it off with the “tip jars” already! What am I supposed to be tipping you for – the fact that you scooped my ice cream into a cone for me or cut my sandwich in half?! Whenever I see these hastily-scribbled signs taped to the outside of whatever jar happened to be lying around in back, I have to wonder if the owners know that their employees, who are paid normal wages much higher than any restaurant servers are paid, are trying to solicit “tips” from their patrons. I’m not expected to tip the gas station cashier when she rings me up, so take a hint from those folks and just put out a jar for Make a Wish or Jerry’s Kids instead.

No, it won’t help if you sing, either…

Religion is always a touchy subject with most people, but honestly, I think that’s enough reason that it should be discussed openly all the more. I enjoy a good religious debate myself from time to time, given that both sides have the opportunity to speak their case fairly, and sometimes when people are truly honest with themselves as they talk, you can learn some pretty interesting things about them and why they believe what they do. Mind you, we’re not talking about discussions meant to convert someone or win them over, but simply some dialog to help each other to better understand where they’re coming from and all of that.

I guess I should note at this point, just for the record, I don’t personally believe in God myself. Well, actually I tend to bounce back and forth between atheism (not believing in God) and agnosticism (believing that there’s no way to determine if God exists or not) every now and again, but either way, for the purposes of following this story just keep in mind that I’m not a religious man by any stretch of the imagination…

You see, I’m currently neck-deep in the process of planning my wedding with my fiancée, and by planning, I more so mean that she does most of the research and I later go through things that she’s earmarked and give her my opinions on them. And as you can expect, sometimes we agree and sometimes … well, not so much … but regardless, I don’t want to be one of those guys who doesn’t have any involvement in his own wedding other than the fact that he shows up on time, and she doesn’t want that, either. So we go back and forth a lot, and sometimes we have meaningful exchanges where we can come to a compromise without strangling each other, and sometimes just neither person is willing to give on something that they’ve invested a lot of thought in but the other clearly just isn’t seeing, but regardless, it’s still good because we try to keep the lines of communication open no matter what and I honestly couldn’t imagine a relationship going the distance otherwise.

We recently settled on a location and a date and put our deposit down to lock things in, so with the granddaddy of all decisions officially out of the way, we thought we’d welcome a change of pace and talk about the officiant for a while – you know, to give our checkbooks a chance to cool down! Nonetheless, we knew that this wasn’t going to be the easiest of decisions simply because we were both coming to the table wanting very different things for the most important day of our collective lives together. My fiancée is Catholic and very much has always wanted a Catholic wedding, whereas like I explained earlier, I’m not religious at all and would prefer not to have that be the focus of our day. But we’re two relatively level-headed people who take pride in our communication skills with each other – we can work with this, right?

This actually came up in discussion when we first started dating – you might call it testing the water before we let ourselves get too serious – but we made it a point to talk about as many of the important differences that we could encounter between us as possible, and boy, there were some doozies! We talked about everything from abortions and having children to what our expectations were for getting married, and of course, our own religious beliefs or lack thereof. And neither of us ran away screaming, so we figured that we should be able to handle just about anything. While we shared different beliefs about things like religion, we did agree on one fundamental point – that people of differing beliefs should still be able to co-exist and live together happily – and that ultimately, what better example could we set for our children further on down the road than by teaching this early on by showing how Mommy and Daddy might believe different things, but still love each other very much?

It makes sense, but like anything, there are always a few little kinks down the road here and there, such as in the case of our wedding planning fiasco. Our first obstacle came in the form of the ceremony site itself, where she had always wanted to get married in a Catholic Church, while I wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable with that because I’m not religious myself. And granted, it’s not that I just refuse to step foot in any church, temple, or synagogue whatsoever – I have no qualms about going when someone else’s wedding is planned there or even on special occasions where she’d like me to go with her simply for support, but note in those cases I’m going exclusively for her or whoever the wedding is for. I don’t personally take anything out of going to church – to me, it’s just another building with really cool stained-glass windows … nothing more, and because of that, I feel that it wouldn’t be an appropriate site for my own wedding because I think on the most important day of our lives, I should get something out of the ceremony, too. It wouldn’t be right for her to get what she wants and me to just feel alienated and weird the whole time, but luckily living in Florida, it seemed like an easy compromise at the time to simply get married on the beach instead.

But little did we know that choosing the beach would make things more difficult than we thought. Now I don’t really know much about the Catholic Church, except for the stereotypes … even though lately I’m finding more of these to be true than false … and I’ve sort of been learning new things about them as we go, and one of the things I recently learned about was the fact that for the most part, the Catholic Church only supports weddings that take place in one of their churches – read: not the beach. And because of this, we’ve found it very hard to even find a Catholic priest that would give us the time of day because they seem to be very strict about how marriage ceremonies are to take place. Finally we thought that we were in the clear and that everyone would be happy because we found a priest that for some reason which evades me would conduct our ceremony on the beach, so all was right with the world. At least, it was right until I got a glimpse of the actual script for the ceremony…

One of the things that I dread about wedding ceremonies is that while some are quick, quaint and to the point, others are insanely religious and end up feeling more like a mass than a unity of two loving souls. All that standing up and sitting down and singing and eating of the cracker may be fine and well for those who believe in it, but for me it just seems to take away from the actual point of the day itself and that’s the idea that two people have declared their love for each other and are vowing to spend the rest of their days together. It’s because of this that I decided that I want my wedding day to be about love, not God, because although others might deem it necessary to thank the almighty for anything and everything, and cleanse their sins and all of that, I just want the day to be about the love I share with my bride-to-be. I don’t have a problem if people want to bless us or pray to God for our well-being, but I don’t want to feel like everyone around me on my own wedding day thinks I’m a sinner just because I don’t believe in God.

That said, the script that I read was pretty much the polar opposite of what I could’ve hoped for – eight or ten pages loaded with readings and prayers, with the audience reciting things back to the priest in true Sunday church fashion and needless to say, there was simply no way that I could ever be comfortable standing at the alter on the most important day of my life with that particular ceremony transpiring around me. It’s one thing for me to sit on the sidelines in support of someone else who finds religion important for Christmas or Easter, but to ask me to participate in the presentation in a manner that is expected for a wedding ceremony would be akin to asking someone who does believe in God to pretend like they don’t, just for the day…

And I know it’s hard for people who do believe in God to understand, but just because I don’t believe in God doesn’t mean that my life is simply void of beliefs and that likewise, talk about God shouldn’t faze me. My belief is that I don’t believe in God, and just as how you would feel uncomfortable if I were to stand at the alter and shout how I believe that God doesn’t exist, think of how I might feel to stand there and listen to your guy profess that God is responsible for anything and everything, and how thankful we should all be for his blessings, despite the fact that I don’t believe that he even exists. When you’re so fixated on the idea that what you believe is correct and you’re willing to take that to the grave, it’s sadly common to write off any differing ideas as lesser than your own, but consider how you feel when others tell you that your beliefs are wrong.

You don’t have to agree with me, but please respect my choices as you would like me to respect your own.

So after a few nights filled with discussions and arguments and all-out fights, we finally both calmed ourselves and sat down to go over the script together to see where we might be able to compromise. There were some parts that were simply way too preachy for me, but also some that I had no problems with at all, so combined with the few that I was still up in the air about, at the end of the night we both felt like we came away from the table with something that we could work with because we agreed that while I felt uncomfortable with religion playing such a strong part in our wedding, she wouldn’t feel right with it not being present at all. She would take our thoughts back to the priest to get his feedback and see just what kinds of adjustments we could make, and we would go from there. Or at least, we thought we would go from there, but now it seems that we’re back at step one again…

Apparently what I said about the Catholic Church being very strict about wedding ceremonies wasn’t the half of it because after explaining our situation – that I don’t believe in God and that we were looking for some compromise because such a heavy ceremony would make me uncomfortable – he replied stating that he wouldn’t be able to help us because he “wouldn’t feel comfortable turning his back on God to accommodate my lack of faith.” We weren’t asking to toss in phrases like, “If God exists, let us thank him…” or the liking, but simply to tone it down the Gods and Jesuses a bit in light of the fact that I don’t share the same beliefs, but there would be none of that. Naturally, my fiancée is now devastated because she feels that she won’t be able to get what she wants if the church won’t allow any room for change because their existing ceremony wouldn’t be fair to me. You might think that I would be happy because the Catholic ceremony is now out of the question, but it’s not like that at all – I actually feel really bad because although it does make me uncomfortable, I wasn’t at all saying that God couldn’t have any way, shape, or form in the ceremony. I simply asked for a compromise so that we could both enjoy the ceremony without feeling as our own beliefs had been excluded.

And to be honest, I’m a bit angry at the Catholic Church for her because I kind of feel like they’re turning their back on her on the most important day of her life. She wants her religion to be a part of her wedding day, but asks them to understand that her partner doesn’t necessarily share her religious beliefs and they’ve come back saying that it’s either their way or the highway – end of discussion. And that’s one of the reasons that even if I were to one day come to believe in God for myself, I don’t think I could ever be a part of an “organized” religion simply due to the dogma that they want to hold in the strictest accord like this. I honestly had concerns whether or not they would even acknowledge the union because I wasn’t Catholic myself, but apparently that rule is a little more lax than others. But regardless, here’s one of your believers who wants to make God and her church a part of her life on this important day and yet they still want to call all of the shots or they won’t have anything to do with it, as if God himself would look down on her and the wedding for trying to make both members of the marriage feel comfortable.

Everyone has their own interpretation of what God is like, but I’ve put a lot of thought into this myself over the years and if he does exist, I’d like to think that he isn’t as judgmental and rigid as so many of his followers make him out to be. At the end of ones life, it shouldn’t matter what you believed or how you believed it, but how you treated your fellow man throughout the ride and what you did to make the world a better place before you left. An entity so impressive as to create life, the universe, and everything wouldn’t need lip service or strict and consistent praise to know what kind of person you really are. Actions speak louder than words and in the end, it wouldn’t do him any good for you to speak his name in high praise if at the same time you were crass and uncompassionate to all of his other creations along the way anyways. Any religion that can turn its back on someone, whether it be due to biblical interpretation or sexual orientation or even differing beliefs altogether, needs to stop and give a long, hard think as to why their God put us all on this Earth to begin with because if they think it was to exclude people for being different, they’ve clearly missed the point.

If God loves everyone and love knows no bounds, then who’s the Catholic Church to judge my wedding?

So where do you draw the line for the cost of business?

It’s a question that a dozen entrepreneurs would likely give you a dozen different answers for, and one that I thought would be an interesting topic for consideration this week because the more I even think about it myself, the more answers and variants thereof that I begin to rationalize in my own head! Is it as simple as saying, “If I don’t make at least X% profit, it’s not worth my time…” or does sanity play into it, a la, “I don’t care if you make me rich if you’re also going to make me insane…” or possibly even along the lines of, “I’m in a bad mood today, so I’m not selling to you anymore!”?

The concept stems from a rather intriguing move by Sprint earlier this week in which the company informed about 1200 of their customers that they have about a month to transfer their numbers to competing carriers because they will no longer be doing business with them. The company stated that these customers being disconnected are basically high maintenance customers, meaning that they average over 40 calls per month in to their call centers for customer care, while the average number of calls across their entire subscriber base of over 53 million subscribers remains a mere 1-2 calls per month. It has also been stated that the decision wasn’t made strictly on call volumes requesting assistance – an investigation was done for each case to determine whether t was in either party’s best interests to continue the business relationship, but for this particular group, Sprint ultimately decided to give them the boot.

And my first reaction to this story was one of considerable anger, especially because I’ve been a Sprint customer myself for several years now, and I know I’d be mighty upset if I came home to find a letter stating that my cell phone carrier didn’t want my business anymore! It’s quite the bold statement, if you think about it, because especially in such a competitive industry where free phones and discounted service plans and referral bonuses are offered to gain customers, it’s hard for any of us to even consider the notion that our own hard-earned dollars are worthless to the enormous corporations who normally crave them! I mean, don’t get me wrong – the letters themselves seemed to be worded politely enough:

“Our records indicate that over the past year, we have received frequent calls from you regarding your billing or other general account information. While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs.

Therefore, after careful consideration, the decision has been made to terminate your wireless service agreement effective [insert date ~30 days out]. This will allow you to pursue and engage with another wireless carrier….”

…but regardless, getting broken up with is never an easy thing to deal with, even if you do happen to be miserable in your current relationship and have often times threatened to leave and go somewhere else if things don’t change! We, as consumers, want to be the ones who make the decision of where we spend our money – this just doesn’t happen – and obviously that’s why the story has made headlines in the way that it has. People worry that Sprint doesn’t want their business, that the company doesn’t care about it’s customers anymore, and that they could very well be next on the list. What kind of a company turns away business, anyways?!

This is how I felt for a while, until I put myself in their shoes and really started to see Sprint’s side of the story…

Now Sprint is a large corporation, so it’s more difficult for us to visualize it like this, but consider that you own a small business – maybe you’re the only employee. You’ve got plenty of work and barely enough time in the day to handle all your clients, but you’re growing and in business terms, that’s great! But when you sit down to determine what’s holding you from additional growth, or maybe just improving your level of service with your existing clients, you come to realize that not all of them receive the same amount of attention as the rest. Out of ten customers, nine of them are ideal – they understand how things work and you have a pretty good working relationship, but as for that last guy … man, do you just dread answering the phone when he calls! It’s always the same questions that you’ve answered two or three times already, he gripes constantly about how you’re overcharging him, and you’re honestly not really sure why he remains a customer anymore, but month after month he’s still around … complaints and all. When you finally hang up the phone, you feel a little bad for even thinking about it, but you really have to wonder if he’s worth your time anymore.

Seriously, is that one trouble customer worth your time anymore? You’re currently looking to expand your business by bringing another employee in to help you, but at the same time, if you do the math you could handle taking on a few more clients by yourself in the same time that it takes to deal with the less-than-pleasant guy. And it’s not that his money is any less green than the other folks, but when you factor out cost per hour, you learn that you could be making the money of two or three other customers in place of his ever-demanding paycheck. So as a good businessman, do you take the hit, continue to pull your hair out every time this jerk calls for help, following the adage that “A good businessman never turns away business…”, or do you draw the line and simply say, “I’m sorry, but it’s not in my best interests to continue our business relationship based on the needs you present as a customer.”?

And as I said, it’s tough to visually scale that model from the small business up to the 53 million subscriber corporation that Sprint is today, but consider the last time you ever called in for some assistance yourself and sat on hold for what seemed like forever. If those 1200 high maintenance subscribers tend to call in over 40 times per month, chances are you’re waiting on hold for them to get those same rerun questions answered over and over again – statistically speaking, assuming 1 call per month for the rest of us means that those 1200 subscribers … out of 53 million total … account for nearly half a million calls into customer care each month, or 1% of their total number of calls! That’s 1% of your calls from 1/500^th of a percent of your total customer base – it doesn’t take an accounting major to realize that some money is simply being wasted here, and since Sprint is in the business of making money and I’d prefer for my rates to not have to go up to help support these challenged customers, at the end of the day I’ve got to stand behind them with their decision.

Of course, the devil’s advocate asks the question, though, “What might happen if we were to see other businesses begin to adopt such practices???” Retail stores begin to identify those who tend to browse more than purchase; online merchants implement No Return policies for specific customers who return more than their share of unwanted items; I only agree to syndicate my columns to newspapers who are actually going to pay me – where does the insanity end?! While I don’t think we’ll see it go quite as far as any of those examples, it’s still worth bringing to light if for nothing but to remind the customer in all of us that just because we’re not content with the services that we’re paying for doesn’t necessarily mean that the person on the other end of the line is particularly thrilled with us in the grand scheme of things, either!

Business, like any other relationship, is still a two-way street and as such, either party always has the option to walk away and cut its losses at any time. But then again, for a customer that’s so unhappy as to call in forty or fifty times a month anyways, maybe the act is actually more of a blessing in disguise…

This week’s column is a bit special, as not only does it stem from a place very near and dear to yours truly – Walt Disney World – but it also addresses not one, but two issues for the price of one! You won’t find a bargain like that on just any writer’s website, so let’s dive right into the news and get on with it…

The story came out of Downtown Disney about a week ago regarding some youth that were banned for life from Disney’s shopping and entertainment district after allegedly loitering in the area for an extended period of time. In an effort to control crowds, maintain the safety of all of their guests, and essentially just keep everything running smoothly, Disney security has been cracking down quite a bit on loitering recently after concerned of “gang-like activity” were identified by the company, issuing some 48 warnings for trespassing over only two weekends after it was determined that they needed to take a handle on any loitering problems before they could get any further out of hand. In the case of the four young men who were banned this time, it was reported by local news that they had cited intentions to go see a movie, even though their tickets were for a movie that had already started, and after being asked to either go watch the movie or leave the premises, they “failed to cooperate.” This was apparently the straw that broke security’s back, and as they’d already addressed them for other incidents such as attempting to enter Pleasure Island after 11:00pm when the complex’s admittance policy changes to adults 21 and older only, they were taken somewhere to wait for their parents to come pick them up, fingerprinted, and issued citations to not come back … ever.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that they just so happened to be black? We’ll get to that part in a minute…

Now to be honest with you, this story hits a little close to home for me, and not in the nicest of ways, because pretty much as long as I can imagine, I’ve always been on the opposite side of what we’re facing here – where is it ok for kids to just hang out? When I got to my teenage years growing up where suddenly parents weren’t cool and there was mischief to be caused around every corner, wanna know where you found me and my friends? Hanging out in one of our parents’ basements – whether it was playing music or watching TV and movies or just sitting around. Occasionally we would go to local stores or to the mall, but when we were there, we would buy things. I never understood the idea of just going to the mall to hang out as a kid, and now a decade or so later, I find that it just rubs me even more because I can see the other side of the coin, too.

Whether you like it or not, the main point of the mall is for the store owners who’ve setup shop there to make money. It’s not there to be a trendy hang out for teenagers, much less a free babysitter for parents too cheap or lazy to raise their own children. In fact, there are certain malls in the area that I won’t even go to anymore simply because that’s the kind of reputation that they have – parents drop their kids off or they just end up congregating there all afternoon and evening, they don’t actually buy anything, and because they’re just there to “hang out,” they also tend to be disruptive to the rest of the mall patrons who actually are there to pick up this, that, or the other thing. If nothing is done about it, the mall likewise gets a reputation like the one down the street from me, people stop shopping there, and profits fall through the floor. And why, because shop keepers should cater to people just hanging around, bothering their customers and not buying anything in return? Forget that!

That said, I got really annoyed when I started following what was happening here because I do spend an awful lot of time (and money) at Walt Disney World and particularly, I enjoy spending evenings down at Downtown Disney. I would really hate to see it turn into just another teen hangout where people can’t go without kids screwing around, using language that isn’t appropriate for Disney, and generally making people feel uncomfortable when it’s supposed to be a family setting. And don’t get me wrong – I have absolutely no problem with a group of kids who wants to come down to Downtown Disney, grab a bite to eat, and catch a movie, or even just browse through the stores and people watch, for that matter! I spend a lot of my time there doing the exact same thing, but the key is this – it’s not disruptive to the other guests. When you start trying to sneak into bars and clubs where you’re not old enough to be or using foul language in a public setting, a line has to be drawn and I applaud Disney for taking the steps to maintain their property for their guests.

Part two, on the other hand, isn’t one that I’m going to touch on for very long because it’s just not worth the time, but I still think it’s worth mentioning alongside this story because as you may have already guessed after I mentioned it earlier, now the boys and their parents are playing the race card because they’re black and of course, these judgments simply could only be because the kids are black. Yep – white kids are allowed to loiter, steal, bad-mouth authority, and generally do whatever the hell they want, but we’ve just got to keep an eye on those black folks – they’re the bad ones out there?! Give me a break! Here’s a thought – maybe everyone they’ve caught thus far just happened to be black … it doesn’t have to have a racial spin unless you put one there because honestly, it’s in piddly, little cases like these when accusations of racism start getting thrown around when it loses its original intensity. Your kid wasn’t kicked out of Disney because he’s black – he was kicked out because he was trying to go into a club marked 21+, and if it happened at any other bar in the city, it wouldn’t have even made the paper because it does happen every single day. But accusing Disney of racism gets you lots of press, despite the fact that mouthing off to a security guard and Rosa Parks being sent to the back of the bus are two very different scenarios…

I actually wish that other establishments would follow Disney’s example and start to crack down on inappropriate behavior at their places of business as well because not only does it make the area more pleasant who do want to come spend our time and money there, clearly Disney already knows that their bottom line will be affected if they allow their own mall to become the after-school hangout. There are plenty of other places for that – the park, friends’ houses, even *gasp* the library – and it’s not right to expect people who are just trying to make a living to have to cater to people who are there to do anything but contribute to that goal. And yes, these kids just happened to be black, but I don’t think it’s ok for any kids to just be hanging out in a place like that just because they have nothing better to do. Spend a little money and be part of the magic yourselves, but don’t ruin it for other people just for your own self amusement – that’s not ok whatever color you are…