Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. You would have thought that after the presidential election was over that things would settle down, and the start of a new year would allow us to catch our breath…but no….it does not appear like that is happening.
Matter of fact it seems to be getting worse. Does beg the question, if the election went the other way would there be this much moaning and gnashing of teeth? Speaking of emotional pain, we have experienced some of that at work as well. We started the new year very relaxed, having just spent the previous week on vacation since the plant was shut down for the holidays. We came back and it was like someone had opened the flood gates; we were swamped with orders and production requirements. I mean that was good news for us since 2016 was not exactly a sterling year for the company, but the downside was that we were caught completely flat-footed. Lack of inventory on the shelf and lack of raw materials to quickly get ahead of the wave presented special challenges, and on top of that we already hit our first potential “line-down” with one of our key customers. Line-down…if you are wondering…is one of the worst and most costly things we can do to our customer since that means they have to stop their production lines while they wait for delivery of our parts. That does not make them happy campers, and they are more than willing to slap us with the cost of shutting that line down, and that does not make our management happy.
Good news…I was able to get our vendor to deliver over the weekend (2 a.m. Saturday morning) and we were able to get the parts made and delivered before the Tuesday dead line. Hopefully things will settle down for us and for the nation so we can focus on what is important and not just on the fire of the day.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
“Stop focusing on what happened and start focusing on what will move you forward.” – Dogpound Wisdom
QUICKIES
• Husband: Babe, after work I had an accident. Sabrina took me to the hospital. After various tests, they said I was in a bad state with cervical dislocation, multiple facial injuries. Also, they will have to amputate my right leg. Wife: Who is Sabrina?
• A girl phoned me the other day and said, “Come on over, there’s nobody home.” I went over. Nobody was home. (Wasn’t even April 1st!).
That is a wrap for today. As always be good, do good, play safe, and remember it is a long year, so pick your battles wisely.
JR
