Free Batteries
Posted on | December 10, 2007 | 2 Comments
Did you by any chance take an algebra class in junior high school or high school? Even if you didn’t, you should easily recognize the formula A=B+C as a pretty simple formula most of us use everyday. In algebra class you have to show that if A=B+C is true, then it must also be true that B+C=A.
You know I always try to spice up my day and have a good time while out doing field service work so today I decided to do an experiment to try to prove that A=B+C and therefore B+C=A.
A lot of mortgage field service companies expect field reps to send them free pictures. So I figured free pictures=B+C. Now, what is B and what is C. I already have a camera so that must be the free camera they are talking about. So now we have free pictures=free camera+what?
Batteries. That’s it! You gotta have batteries to make the camera work. But all the batteries I had in the car were purchased batteries. Not a free one anywhere that I could see. OK. Let’s have some fun and go look for some free batteries.
Now even though this is supposed to be enjoyable, it still has to be professional. I decided to mix in my shopping while doing thirty-nine occupancy and bankruptcy inspections, three interior inspections and one commercial inspection.
My first stop was at a CVS pharmacy. I walked up to the cashier and asked her where her free batteries were. I saw right away that she was thinking this might be a robbery so I started explaining about the free batteries I needed for the free camera so I could send the free pictures. She called the manager.
The manager was nice enough and he thought they might have what I was looking for at The Dollar Store just around the corner.
Boy, The Dollar Store was busy. Christmas stuff I guess. So I decided to wait on myself and it didn’t take long to find a huge display of batteries. Black and yellow with red writing that stated “Equivalent to San-V-Aqui”. Hmmm. Must be good. But they were a buck a pack! Even though I felt I was close to finding the free batteries here, the line was just too long for me to wait to talk to the cashier.
Back in the car and time to drive a pretty good ways to my next inspection. I went through Mullet Jump Alabama, Bayou La Batre and Coden and wound up at Dauphin Island. Two inspections to do on the island and there’s a Circle-K store too. After the inspections, I stopped in at Circle-K. I asked the girls behind the counter where the free batteries were and all I got in return was a look like they were having a real bad gas attack.
I bought a twenty-five cent candy bar for ninety-eight cents and put forty-five dollars worth of gasoline in the Toyota Camry’s sixteen dollar tank. I figured it must have swollen up when I went through that water on the west end of the island.
Well, let me be honest. I’m starting to get a little discouraged so I decided it was time for a break. Pakak really likes the park on Mobile Bay so we stopped and walked along the bay for a while and watched while a county deputy helped a guy adjust his hand cuffs. Boy, did that bring back some fond memories.
Pakak finally did his thing and now we have to head for Highway 59, Bellingrath Road. Not many stores in that area so we knock out about five or six occupancy inspections and one interior inspection. Met one real nice guy at one of the inspections. He said I might as well report his mobile home as vacant because he’s walking. Payment went from three hundred to nine hundred!
North on Bellingrath Road to Highway 90 and we stop at a nice Chevron station. I bought a three piece chicken snack. I learned a while back that this particular dinner can be split up pretty fairly between Pakak and I. He gets one chicken finger, the roll and the potato log. I get two chicken fingers and the drink. And the Bull’s Eye BBQ sauce. The girl with the rhinestone stud in her nose said “we ain’t got no free nuttin”. Three dollars and sixty eight cents for the meal. The Bull’s Eye BBQ packets are fifteen cents each.
Well it’s getting late and Vickie wants me to come label the free pictures so she can spend the next hour or so uploading them. I don’t really know if I will continue with this experiment tomorrow or not. Pakak and I are going to the land of the shiny wheels tomorrow and I usually don’t get out of the car for anything.
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December 12th, 2007 @ 7:02 pm
Terry,
Perhaps you meant the Pythagorean theorem for a Right Triangle from Geometry: A squared + B squared = C squared. If any two of these quantities are known, the third can be discovered.
The problem with the free photos math you undertook is as old as Pythagoras himself: one business trying to shift its own financial burdens to somebody else. The question becomes one of who will accept that burden regardless of who’s burden it may. These companies don’t see any financial downside to not paying us for the photos we take and maybe we don’t value ourselves highly enough to insist we be paid for our work.
An old professor of mine told me his accountant threatened to quit keeping his books unless he raised his fees for his services. After nearly doubling them, the number of clients coming through the door dropped accordingly, but the clients he then got would do larger projects, paid promptly, and never quibbled over his fee.
How much is our work worth?
BTW – if you find free batteries or a free camera, maybe they’ll have the free photo paper and ink I need. My in-laws think I can print ‘em all a copy of every new picture of the baby. Canon (and others) suck us in with cheap printers, but the refills are where the money is.
December 13th, 2007 @ 7:43 am
I can tell you have a good grasp on the subject and your comments are dead on.
I continue to moan about the fees the reps in the mortgage sector receive but if you look at it from a business perspective, it is just business. As long as there are those that will work for the offered fees there will be no need to raise the fees.
And, lets not forget, there are many many people out there who need only a couple of hundred dollars extra per month to make a big change in their lives.
It’s sort of like religion. Everyone will have to choose their own path. Personally, I have recently been enlightened by other sectors of the business.
I’ll continue looking for the free batteries and let you know what I find. Free ink? Hmmm!