BEST BUSINESS PRACTICE? MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS

The best business practice is managing cash flow.

Ordinarily, a bad cash flow is the way a business dies, drowning little by little, month by month, in unpaid bills.

Am I business man? Noooo.

But I do pay attention.

For example:

For one time in my life I had a local bar to call my #1.

It felt special, a place to meet and experience different people on their days off without leaving NW Portland.

What I liked about it was the chance to listen to real people talking about their lives.

One day I walked in to find four gorgeous ladies at the bar at an otherwise empty time.

They were friends of the daytime bartender who was also a beauty.

In their mid to late twenties, they were comparing notes on their long weekend out of town.

One had been to Las Vegas, two to Palm Springs, another to LA.

They traveled with older men on business trips, older being forties and fifties.

It was their lifestyle choice and they were having a ball.

 

Next Man Up

Their dudes were Portland West Hills married men who met up at local bars like Jakes and the retired Veritable Quandary to compare notes on sympathetic women.

 

“He’s under so much pressure with work and family. He needs to relax and talk, so we do.”

“My guy is stuck in an unhappy marriage with a demanding wife. He just needs some time away from it all.”

 

They were a gold mine of warnings on how to navigate the future.

We were all about the same age, except I was living in a dinky apartment a block away and the guys they ‘dated’ lived in West Hills mansions.

Aren’t all West Hills houses mansions? I like to think so.

Were the ladies out of my league, or was I out of theirs?

I saw the group a few times after their long weekends on the road.

They met on Tuesdays around three. I marked it on my calendar.

The numbers shrunk as they dropped out for a better life, or after the promise of divorcing a wife didn’t happen, or they just took a hard look in the mirror and asked themselves the big question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

I liked seeing them in the bar, but we never had a word.

My move was splashing on a stink-load of Brut, or Hai Karate, wafting past, and waiting for the magic.

From Google AI:

Their best business practice was keeping their professional lives professional, not magical.

The same thing can’t be said for the bar.

The owner was in a stage of life where his regular habits took more time and money away from the main priority of managing his cash flow.

Those regular habits resulted in having one nostril in his nose instead of two.

It all went downhill from there. No business, no wife, no nothing.

The last I saw of him he was with one of the barstool women.

So much for the 1980’s.

 

The Other Side Of Things

Decades later I met up with a good guy, had a nice day with the wives, and showed him a project we’d been working on.

He asked, “Well Dave, how long have you been a slum lord?”

That one question changed my opinion of him.

If someone can’t see the dream unfolding before their eyes, of improvements and value and relationships, they might be short-sighted.

We live in a world of standards and expectations of meeting those standards.

Running a rental business correctly means putting money back into it on a regular basis for maintenance and appearance to raise standards and expectations.

It’s a long, slow, process that shows subtle results often unnoticed by others.

I could have said, “You should have seen it before,” but didn’t.

It sounds too much like saying, “You should have seen the other guy,” after a bloody nose fight.

I intended it as a friendly visit with a smart guy who might make a few good suggestions, but nooo.

He took a drive-by attitude that didn’t sit right with me.

Not that I was looking for a business savant.

Because I’m a dedicated history man I see a long trail of events and the people who affect them, not just what’s in the moment.

What I’m not is a ‘gotcha’ guy, or an ‘I got it first’ guy.

I like to take what is lasting and try to make it last longer.

For me it’s not about tearing shit up, down, or sideways, but making things better, about positive results.

That’s my standard of expectations and a life worth living.

I’m not a self-proclaimed role model, just a guy trying to do right by others.

Sometimes it works out, but that’s my lane and I’m staying in it.

 

PS: BoomerPdx has had a jump in blog traffic from China, which is a thrilling notion. One advisor said it was from bots. Do me a favor and leave a comment to prove him wrong.

 

PSS: My readers will find insights to American history in many posts. I’m writing for the world at large. Let me know how it’s landing. I’m looking at you . . . for more stories on here. How did you find boomerpdx?