Yep, I started another newsletter. Blogs are called newsletters now.
I have my cartoon published daily at TomFalco.com, then there’s this Tomversation blog you are reading now. Then there is 10 With Tom, where I have lists of 10 things and also interview people with 10 random questions and the new newsletter is called The Morning Grapevine.
Yep, I’m a busy guy.
The Morning Grapevine is where I share ideas that will inform and help you curate a business. And even if you don’t own or run a business, The Morning Grapevine is fun and informative.
The newsletter features marketing and business news along with fun interviews with people about their businesses – how did they start, how did they get funding, how do they market themselves- things like that. From bakers to artists to Wall Street types, we want to know about them and share their knowledge, which will help us all with what we do whether it’s build things, write, teach, draw or run a large company.
I have a friend I am interviewing now. She’s a well-known artist and she is a whiz at marketing her art. I was with her this past weekend. I would love to share her techniques for selling art and getting clients, who keep coming back for more. I am interviewing her now.
I also want to ask people what they offer when they have Patreon sites as incentives and also when people have Go Fund Me sites. I’ve donated to a lot of Go Fund Me’s – usually for art project and books – and a lot of those have original art and things like that as incentives. But what about other Go Fund Me’s for different projects? I’m interested in that.
I hope you are interested enough to to subscribe to The Morning Grapevine. It’s free. No cost to you. You can check it out here to see what is published so far.
Bookstores are back according to the news. The American Booksellers Association (ABA) has seen a growth in membership, with more than 2,500 member stores in 2,561 locations.
Large bricks and mortar bookstores and our favorite, independent bookstores are back.
I usually stop by the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Union Square in NYC, but I noticed the other day that they sort of have more security guys than customers. These guys look very official, like FBI guys with long black jackets and walkie-talkies and they are quite menacing. You can’t steal books there if you want. Which of course is a good thing, but it is a bit off putting.
I guess I look like a thief, because I left the store after being followed around for a bit which was very insulting and annoying.
There seems to be a nostalgia for bookstores. In the past, I would go in and take a picture of the book I liked and then just ordered it online for my Kindle. But of course that doesn’t work well with graphic novels.
Lately, I’ve been ordering comics and comic strip related books, so those I like having in my hands rather than trying to navigate them on a gadget.
For many years I was on a list for book reviewing and all of the major publishers would send me a few books a month – mostly graphic novels. I don’t know how I got on the lists, but it got overwhelming for a bit, but it was nice. During the pandemic, I donated most of them to a charity shop in the neighborhood.
What’s nice about bookstores is the warmth and smell when you enter. And of course, you can be going in for one thing and wander around for a long time finding other things.
In today’s 10 With Tom column, the subject is: “10 Reasons Bookstores Are Making A Comeback.” Read it here free.
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I left the house without my phone the other day. Before I left I kept thinking I was forgetting something. I kept feeling my pockets. I had my car keys and fob, I had my money and credit cards. Why was I feeling like something wasn’t there?
Halfway to the store, I realized I didn’t have my phone. That’s a very weird and helpless feeling. To tell you the truth I hardly every answer the phone, so it wasn’t like I was expecting any phone calls. But still. My whole life is on that phone. I felt naked.
Makes you wonder how we did things in the past.
Before cell phones, I ran a whole business by hardly ever being there. I was a printing broker and I worked maybe an hour or two a day. I picked up jobs early and then ran to the office in the morning, then for a bit after that I went to printers to bring the jobs over and was done by 11:00 am or noon. After that I was out all day – mostly at the beach.
People couldn’t reach me. They had to leave a message on my answering machine. And they did. I literally printed school newspapers, all sorts of things for local hospitals, clubs, the American Cancer Society, books for many organizations, etc., all doing it within an hour or two a day.
Years later I had a couple of neighbors who were attorneys. They lived between Miami and New Hampshire. I asked her how they did it, you know, handling clients, going back and forth, which was a silly question coming from me, who worked an hour a day for so many years.
She told me, “Tom, as long as you answer your phone, they don’t care where you are.” This of course, was after we all had cell phones.
And I did that for years, but now, I don’t answer the phone. With my business account, I have a message that tells people to email me if they need something, and that’s been working out fine. As for personal calls, no one really leaves a message. When I see a missed call, I return the call or text them back when I have a chance.
When I got home from the store and checked my phone, there were no calls or emails or texts. The way I like it to be. Silence.
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Did you see the news recently about Wendy’s adding “surge pricing” also called “dynamic pricing” to their menus? It’s an experiment they may start next year.
I can understand if prices go down at quiet times of the day, but will they go up, too? You know that once Wendy’s starts this and then the other food places will follow, and the what’s next – supermarkets? movie theaters? Mass transit?
I know Uber and other car services do this. I’ve actually seen people at the airport keep refreshing their phones in order to get better pricing, which seems to change minute by minute. I’ve never tried that, I just want to get in the car and get to my destination, but I guess if I remember, I may try it on my next Uber trip, but of course the price can go up, so it might be better to just leave well enough alone.
But I’m imagining the menus at Wendy’s changing every few minutes depending on the store traffic. And what about the drive thru – once you are at the window, that’s it, you can’t just sit there and hope for better pricing in the next minute or two. It might make lunch cheaper to eat after lunch time. It could change the whole concept of our day, instead of noon lunch, we might have lunch at 3 pm.
Anyway, it makes for a good cartoon.
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Have you heard about “Bare Minimum Mondays?” They’re sort of a sister to Quiet Quitting and Casual Friday.
I work for myself, so I can admit I’ve sort of lived Bare Minimum Mondays for years. As the lady in this Insider article, she does Bare Minimum Mondays, to beat the Sunday Scaries, which I get.
That was my solution to hating Mondays – I would do little work and go to the beach. I would make it a habit to go to the beach every Monday. It eased me into the week. Again, I work for myself, so that’s an easy thing to do.
I used to be the president of the board at our condo. Back then I really needed Bare Minimum Mondays. I told someone once that every Sunday night felt like the night before the first day of school each Monday because it was it was a lot of pressure and not enjoyable, not to mention stressful. He laughed at that until he became the condo prez, then he got it.
For many years I printed school newspapers and other publications and during the summer months – June, July and August, I didn’t have any money coming in, so on the first day of school, which wasn’t a Monday, but usually a Wednesday, I would celebrate business starting back up by going to the beach. It was sort of like Bare Minimum Monday, but it was better. Since everyone was dealing with the first day of school – parents and kids – I had that day to myself.
But then again, during the school and business year, I would manage to take Bare Minimum Mondays, to ease my way into the week. It was a mini-vacation.
When there is a holiday on a Monday, it is sort of like Bare Minimum Monday for everyone. For some reason, the week goes so much faster – it’s Tuesday before you know it, then it’s Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – it goes by so fast. That sounds like that Seinfeld episode (shown below), but it’s true.
So anyway, I think Bare Minimum Mondays or any day you choose during the week, is a great thing for your sanity. It’s a day you can look forward to. I know there is lots of talk these days about a four day work, but even then I think we need a Bare Minimum day to ease the work week, no matter how many days it is.
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Years ago, maybe 20 years ago, I asked a neighbor how she worked in New Hampshire and Miami – she and her husband, both lawyers, went back and forth between the two places. She told me, “Tom, all you have to do is answer the phone, the client/customer doesn’t have to know where you are, they are just happy that you answered the phone.” And I’ve always remembered that.
It’s so easy these days with all the digital things we have – iphones, ipads, etc. I’ve worked on planes, trains and at the beach.
Years ago, I think I mentioned, I was a printing broker and I handled school newspapers. I literally worked an hour or two a day. I picked up the newspaper ready for print at the schools and dropped them off at the printer and that was it. In between, I stopped at the office, but by 10 am, I was usually free the rest of the day. And this was before cell phones.
I was unreachable after 10 am. I don’t know how I managed to do this for 20 years, but I ran a very good business like this. Teachers occasionally would leave me voice messages on my home answering machine, but basically, that was it. I was free from 10 am until 8 am the next day. No fuss, no muss.
When cell phones came into play and websites and things like that, I seemed to be more tied to the office than when I was a printing brokers with no way of reaching me.
It’s always amazing to think and wonder how things got done in the past without being tied to our cell things 24/7.
I blogged about this one time – the fact that I would meet up with friends while traveling and we would just meet up at the appointed time and place without being able to text back and forth 100 times to arrange it all. I would tell friends I would be in NY on such and such date and if they happened to be there visiting, too, we would arrange to meet.
But how did we do it? I don’t remember. Did we say on such and such date at such and such time we would meet in front of this place and that was it? We always managed to meet up and we were always there at the appointed date and time.
Sometimes life was much easier and less stressful when we weren’t tied to wifi all day and night.
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I got this crazy note from my newspaper carrier. No joke.
I only bring this up now because I see the FTC is trying to make it easier to cancel subscriptions to everything. Right now you have to jump through hoops to cancel any subscription and that’s what happened here.
I called the paper to cancel my subscription and rather than just canceling it, they questioned me as if I was on the stand. Why did I want to cancel? “Well,” I said, “I never really read it.
You don’t read it? “Well no, like today. I didn’t read it.”
Why didn’t you read it today? “Well, to be honest, it wasn’t delivered today and I didn’t even miss it.”
It wasn’t delivered? “Well, no, that happens a lot . . . “
And then on and on, I go . . . “A lot of time it’s left out front where people pick it up off the street, other times, it just doesn’t come. It’s late, it’s this it’s that,” and I go on and on.
At the end of the conversation, I asked them to please not use my name and don’t say anything to the carrier, but of course they did, and I got the above note.
After the subscription was finally stopped, I got non-stop calls from the paper asking me to re-subscribe.
One day I was standing out front, very early in the morning, it was still dark out, I was waiting for an Uber to pick me up to take me to the airport.
Up comes a car, I think it’s Uber. It comes right up to me on the front lawn – right up on the grass. It’s the delivery girl! She has her usual music blasting and she hands me the newspapers for the whole condo, says, “Good morning,” backs up into the street and is off.
Since then I’ve resubscribed, but only to the digital version, not the printed paper. But I forget to read the digital paper and occasionally use it to read the tv listings only. I once read up to seven newspapers a day (no really), now I read none. I can read the comics online, which I do, I can get all the news online from social media, where all the stories are posted and I hate to not support the local papers. So maybe I’ll go back to print, soon.
By the way, about showing this letter to her boss. I know her boss, he lives next door to one of my best friends. I have his number in my phone and if I really had a complaint, I most likely would text him, not go through the subscription service.
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There’s a lot of talk about AI (artificial intelligence) and things like that lately. And it all seems interesting. I’ve always been pro-technology. I build websites, I draw digitally, rather than with pen and paper, for 15 years I published our local news online, and I’ve run an online business for years, so I’m all up for that, but lately, a couple of things have bothered me.
I had a doctor’s appointment recently and it was all done digitally, except for the doctor’s appointment, which now that I think about it, could have been through Zoom. But what I mean is I had to make the appointment online, then they texted me things and emailed me forms. I had to fill out forms online before showing up for the appointment, then I had to fill in insurance forms online and and answer questions, personal things, including what religion I am.
Then weeks before the appointment, they either emailed me, texted me or called me daily. And I mean one of those three options daily! When I have a doctor’s appointment, I like to not think about it until the day of the appointment, not be reminded about it every day until the day of the appointment.
When I showed up for the appointment, I had to check in myself on a computer. And then a wrist band came out of the machine which I had to wear, you know the type you would get if you were in a hospital? And it was all mechanized and I felt like a number from there on.
The other day I saw a condo online that I am interested in. It’s in a building I lived in some years back. I rented back then and now I have the opportunity to purchase. I love the area and love the building and I decided to make an appointment to see the unit, I think it’s to mostly get it out of my system, rather than possibly buy it, but who knows. I have a friend who is my realtor, but since I don’t want to waste his time, I thought meeting with the listing agent for the first time would be best.
But I can’t get a live listing agent on the phone, so . . . .
The freak out is about the awkwardness of it all. At the airport recently I came upon this where when you pay with a credit card, you have to go through a process of tipping or not tipping before you scan your card.
This is now a thing everywhere – in person at the register and also on apps where you order food or drink.
I’ve seen this at ice cream stores, sub shops, fast take-away places and of course sit down restaurants. You order and then when it’s time to pay, the tip portion comes up. And you’re not even in the store when you order on apps and you are tipping before you even receive service, or even enter the store at most instances. Tip first, ask questions later.
And a new thing at many restaurants is where they use this new scanning device at the table; they don’t take the credit card away to process it anymore, which is a good thing, but the waitstaff now stands over you waiting for you to tip and pay for the order, You don’t really have time to think.
Last week I split a bill with a friend, we both gave a credit card and split it in half and we both tipped 20% and left. We didn’t get a receipt and we asked each other, “Do you even know how much the bill was?” Neither of us did.
In NYC recently I was at a diner with another friend, an expensive diner (diner, not dinner), and the waiter was quite pushy. He was an older guy and I guess worked as a waiter most of his life, so he knew the ins and outs.
He handed me the black box to pay and then said, “Put your card in this way,” and “Here is the tip section, I’ll push the 20% button for you here,” and he did. He pushed the tip button himself.
One thing about that tip thing – I think they are losing out because I usually give more than 20% tip and most times I’ll round up the tip to a higher figure. Like if the tip is $17 or $18, I make it $20. So if their 20% button gives them $17.25, if they left me to my own devices, I would have left them $20.00 and sometimes even more if I liked the waiter or waitress, or if I know them personally.
There is one Starbucks I frequent in NYC daily, it’s a convenient location for me. But they are terrible. They are slow, they ignore orders placed on the app, they once made me break a $20 bill for a 5 cent bag (they charge you for shopping bags in all NY stores now) and they are not tip-worthy. But if you don’t leave the tip ahead of time when placing the order, you worry about the treatment you will get. But now that I think about it, could it be any worse than the service you get now?
At the beginning of the pandemic, when everyone was staying home, I used Instacart and had things delivered from the supermarket. You would tip in advance there, too. I usually gave $5, but at that time, they were so overwhelmed, they literally would take up to four days to deliver the products. Now it’s two hours, but then it literally was days, they would tell you on the app, “We’ll be there next Thursday, between 2 and 4 pm.” It was a mess.
But I read that if you gave a big tip, you would get faster delivery times, so I started giving $20 and it worked; I was prioritized and received my delivery on the same day. So it seems as if on these apps and such we are now paying to get a fast and decent order before we even get the fast and decent orders and it’s almost a bribe to get the fast and decent order.
I heard that people don’t tip Uber drivers much. I always do. I used to give them a cash tip, but now I put it on the app. It’s easier. As I exit the car I tell them, “I’ll put the tip on the app.” I don’t know if they believe me, but I always do add it later.
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I get this thing called “informed delivery” from the post office. Every morning, around 9 am, I get an email with photos of my mail that is being delivered that day.
I got it because I travel often, and sometimes I get important business stuff in the mail, so this way if I see anything that needs to be attended to, I can ask my neighbor, who takes my mail in for me when I’m away, if she can open it and let me know what it says.
Truth be told, that has never happened. It’s been about 10 years that I have this service and I don’t think I’ve ever had to have something opened because it was important and couldn’t wait until I get home.
I try not to look at it daily because my mail comes late – sometimes 6 pm and if I see something that I question or concerns me, I worry about it all day. Like yesterday – this happened yesterday.
I saw a notice/letter from the IRS. All day I worried about it. Do I owe them money? Are they going to audit me? What is it?
Finally, about 6 pm, I went to the mailbox, got the mail and know what it was? A pin code that I requested a week before. Apparently to get into your IRS account online, you need a pin code, which they send via snail mail.
This happened not long ago. I saw an IRS notice and freaked out and when I ended up opening it, it was a letter telling me they were adding interest to a refund they owed me. Since they were late sending out the refund, they added interest.
I’m thinking of getting rid of “informed delivery” or at least not looking at it when it arrives in my email.
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