Next week I am traveling with family to Orlando for some much needed - get away time. I realized today that I’ll have to take my work computer with me and do some work while I’m there. It’s a bit disappointing because I wanted to be free from work for a week but as it turns out - I’m not going to be able to do that.
It’s okay though, my plan is to wake up before anyone else and work thru messages and emails. I may get an occasional phone call or two which may piss off some folks but what choice do I have - the bills have to get paid.
I purchased this vacation about a year and a half ago thinking I may go to Vegas or California. At the time, when I planned it, I was working on sharpening my negotiating skills and would randomly take these time share promos. I know, why would anyone do that willingly if they didn’t have to. For me, it was an opportunity to play chess with a high pressure sales person to see how long they would last before asking ME to leave rather than the other way around. Their policy says you are required to do be there for 90 minutes. To this day, my record is 15 minutes before they ask me to leave. I’ve been asked to do about 4 of them in the past 6 years and on one occasion I received a free cruise - with no questions asked or required presentation. This last one I did a year and a half ago I was thinking of using their point system as a business write off and was allowed to do a 2 week purchase. My plan was to take the package and prepay a trip to either Vegas or California. Well, I have a family member dead set on proposing to his girlfriend so I said - tell ya what, I can trade my 2 week 1 room deal down to 1 week multi-room condo and we can all go to Orlando and you can make it extra special. So, I got that planned for next week with some time at a few parks. The plan is he is going to pop the question at the moment Tinkerbell floats over the top of the crowd at the fireworks show.
The caveat to this whole thing - that I was aware of - is another 90 minutes presentation that I was initially okay with 18 months ago. I was looking forward to making the salesperson squirm trying to answer my math questions.
Now, not so much - I’m not at all looking forward to it. Companies and attorneys have sucked all the fun out of negotiating. They have word played and psychologically manipulated all the angles. They have a set of questions that they have designed to get certain answers out of. There’s no high pressure much anymore because apparently people like me have hurt their ability to talk enough people into their scam that they have to figure out a different way. Once they get a certain amount of distance in the conversation they stop pushing and they move on to the next victim. It’s like buying a new car. Most all dealerships have moved to a no-haggle policy that they make their money on the financing and extended warranties that there’s no room to negotiate the sticker price. They figured out that 9/10 people will ask to see their invoices. But, I don’t trust those either. The Internet and AI has put a stop to the fun of negotiating.
It may be me. I may be changing. I spend a lot of time negotiating and trying to work out the best plan for music gigs, promotions, radio airplay on top of my work in advocacy for the disabled - that I don’t want to negotiate or try to get the best for myself.
As a matter of fact, if I didn’t have so many people depending on me for their own livelihoods - I would probably work a plan to downsize so much that I could save 90% of what I make in 3 years and probably never work another day. But, there’s too many hands stuck out at the end of the week for me to consider that. I’ll be working until I can’t whatever that age is. At some point, age is gonna get me in the music world. For right now, genetics helps out a ton. I don’t look my age so I still have a bit of an edge there… But, what used to be my motivation for getting up every day - has pretty much fizzled.
For now, writing seems to give me something meaningful to do. Reading everyone’s posts that I have found a connection with has also been like therapy. I also like having these connections with strangers based on our words. There’s no judgment or maybe there is. I don’t feel it if there is. It just feels organic. Ya know, after having said all of this - I think I’m gonna leave a few days early and just drive to Orlando. I have a show this weekend that is somewhat on the way - may skip the ride to that with the band and make a road trip out of it.
Enough for now, I have a podcast to prepare for and am considering cancelling my studio session for this afternoon.
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