<\/p>\n
Some people are born to be businessmen. They know how to promote themselves, they understand negotiation, they embody what Donald Trump calls the Art of the Deal. I wish I had a couple of strands of those genes in my DNA. My kin, my ancestors, my genepool — all I can say is they climbed down out of the trees, but they never figured out they could sell the timber or develop the real estate. Plus we never remembered how to climb back up so now folks want to sell US the damn trees.<\/p>\n
I actually have a business. I know, hard to believe. My right-leaning Republican relatives and in-laws shake their heads sadly to think I\u2019m the only one in the two families who represents their bedrock GOP values of entrepreneurial get-up-and-go, job creation, small business struggles, all those virtues they hold dear. I sell goods. I buy materials, fashion them into art and then I have to sell the product. American? Well, it sticks in their throats, but yeah, as apple pie. Mom and country. Bootstrap success story. You might suppose, after 35 years, I\u2019d be pretty good at it. I just made a stained glass entryway window for some new arrivals on the South End. Even though I\u2019m cheaper than any glass shop in the Pacific Northwest \u2026 and even though my stuff is original artwork \u2026 I ended up giving them a discount. And they\u2019re rich. You tell me what\u2019s wrong with that picture.<\/p>\n
I bought a new truck a few years ago when my old one almost caused me to miss a huge commission for a public art project down in Portland. You think I negotiated a lower price or argued for some \u2018extras\u2019? If you thought that, you don\u2019t know me. All I asked my salesman was sell me the damn truck sitting out there in the lot, the one without any bells or whistles, and don\u2019t screw around, I want to leave here ASAP, I don\u2019t want to play the game, I don\u2019t want the sales manager showing me an invoice proving you aren\u2019t making any money on the deal, I don\u2019t want to hear that bullshit. Yes, I\u2019ll pay full price. No, I don\u2019t want to take it for a test drive. Yes, I\u2019m a complete idiot.<\/p>\n
But \u2026. I\u2019m an idiot who would rather pay the full monte than get down in the pit and wrassle for a few dollars. I\u2019m not going to lie and say money is beneath me. I\u2019m frugal to a fault. I\u2019m my Depression-era parents\u2019 kid. I shop mostly at Goodwills, I buy Chinese, I\u2019m so stingey I squeak. Money comes hard and it leaves hard too.<\/p>\n
Sales is a tough job, at least for the likes of me. Buyer beware? I don\u2019t think so. For me, it\u2019s seller beware.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some people are born to be businessmen. They know how to promote themselves, they understand negotiation, they embody what Donald Trump calls the Art of the Deal. I wish I had a couple of strands of those genes in my DNA. My kin, my ancestors, my genepool — all I can say is they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7072"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16188,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7072\/revisions\/16188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}