Business always has this odd balance of trying to keep customers and making money. The purest of businesses want to make money and customer service, the thing that gets them the money, suffers. We as consumers, for lack of a better phrase, put up with this.

This morning I had to make a decision, a lazy one I might add, to reduce the size of the videos I'm running on IMVN. The servers I'm on right now are too slow to handle the size I have now, and I can't stand having the video start and stop. The smaller size and auto run had the videos looking good and running smooth. At the company I work for, they have servers that seem to be able to handle this larger size, in the small tests I've run. The lazy part of the decision is I don't want to upload the files to my company, or rework the files to go to the servers.

That's my choice, I understand, but why I have to have slower servers when other companies have faster ones to handle it I don't get.

While our company gets praises for our customer service, we still get a good number of calls from people with problems. I had a few yesterday and it amazes me when people with little skill call up and will blame anything but the obvious. It can't be their computer, or their coding or something well beyond their control. They will use their limited experience in the area of the problem and proclaim the fault lies with us.

Out of the 40 calls I had yesterday, I'd say a good half of the problem phone calls were operator error. To be fair, a great deal of the people, probably 30 of them, listened, took the error in stride and we were able to correct the error. Those are the calls that are good because at the end of the day, when you can fix an issue and show ways of improvement, that's when I feel a good job has been done.

Remember how I said there is a balance between keeping customers and making money? Well, the money making aspect has been in full force this week. I'm not a natural salesperson. If I sense a rapport, a willingness to listen, I can help you out. I hate when sales are forced on me and I'm not going to do that to someone else, but more and more the sale has become the issue.

I'm not happy with that.

I got a call the other day from a good friend of mine. He reminded me (and I still can't believe its been so long) that we've been friends for almost 20 years, maybe more. He reminded me of when I was a supervisor at one of my old jobs, where we met. It brought up some good memories, because I did like being in a decision making position, but I didn't like the business (money) end of things. I believe if you do right by the customer the money will follow. You don't have to hit people over the head with it because your actions will bring them to you. In a lot of jobs I've been in, with the MBA folks, they all think about the money, and in many cases its to line their pockets not to put back into the company.

I look at where I've been and where I'm at business wise. I can't argue with the steady income, but the creative flow I have is getting killed. The good thing about having a car is I have more time to spend at home working on creative projects. The bad thing is, as I found out on my last day off when I worked over 12 hours straight on something, I miss the laser focus I have when being creative. I miss the accomplishment of looking at the final product and being proud of it.

I guess I'm in this business reflective mood is because we're having more pressure to sell items. I'm not a consistent seller. Right now I'm in a slump, so I feel a lot of pressure trying to get those sales. I have the supervisor jokingly on my back, but I can see how a joke can turn serious if the pattern continues.