The first time I noticed that type of arrangement was when I saw my mother-in-law was using a mailbox with a padlock on it as a drop box. She had a padlock on the box, and she explained that the office’s courier had a copy of the key so he could pick up and deliver correspondence independently of the US Postal service.

I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if home delivery of the mail was cut down to only a couple of days a week, or even eliminated completely in favor of people having to pick up their mail in a central location like cluster mailboxes at the intersections of their roads, or like commercial mailboxes in a post office or a general store, like in the old days when the post office was just delivering mail by pony express. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we would revert back to ponies, just that the mail delivery would end at the posts office and people would have to come get it from there.

One of the companies that employs people who have access to the Internet, and copy writing skills is the triangle direct company. This company assists businesses to market their businesses on the Internet, and one of the ways it does that is by hiring people who can write for them without even leaving their houses! Can you imagine being able to make your living by staying home and typing on the computer without even having to change out of your pajamas? Sounds great to me!

Being new to the industry meant I had a lot to learn but I was really thankful my old boss gave me a chance. When I started out I was just an administrative assistant and that was really helpful for me in getting my foot in the door – I got to be involved in EVERYTHING which made me feel more confident in my abilities all the way through by the end of my tenure at the event planning firm. I had to help with marketing and merchant services and even the air conditioning – I was the only one who knew which key went to which door and how to turn the alarm off when it was going crazy. I know my boss really appreciated the hours and work I put into everything but you know, at the end of the day I think there’s something to be said for paying your dues and moving on. I would have always been an assistant if I had stayed with that firm.

I flunked every test, even though they were open book take-home tests and I worked on them for hours on end. I can remember thinking that if the IT jobs of the future depended on learning how to program computers, then I was never going to survive out there! I think that the only reason that the professor gave me a passing grade was because I went begging to him not to flunk me and promised him that I would never ever try to get any IT jobs now or in the future. I think I’m in trouble!

I used to work for a large corporation that would “lend” me out to different offices from time to time.  Today I was remembering one of the times that I was lent out to an office that was a long commute from my home, and the hardships that caused me.

I started remembering the different personalities that I ran into at that office, and found myself shaking my head at the memory of one of the ladies who always snuck into everyone else’s desk drawers to steal items from their lunch boxes.  I was remembering how angry that made me because I didn’t want to feel that I had to carry my lunch box with me every time I left my desk, but if I didn’t carry my lunch box with me, she would steal my lunch and then I’d go hungry! 

Complaining to the boss did no good whatsoever.  I was really glad when my time of being sent to that office was finished!

I’ve noticed that when I go to a trade show of some kind, I often find that a lot of the companies there are giving away free promotional products that they hope will endear you to their company. I have received a lot of pens, calculators, visors, highlighters, tote bags, cup cozies and water bottles just by going to trade shows.

My parents run a small shipping business and they love to give me their freebies whenever they get a new shipment in. They’ve given me a travel sewing/mending kit, a bottle opener, a jar opener “round tuit” and lots of pens. I’ve suggested to them that they start using eco friendly promotional items the next time that they are going to be handing out freebies. I like to support businesses that are making an attempt to reduce their carbon footprint.

I found myself thinking about that when I was doing a CBT today at work about the proper storage and disposal of different materials. To be perfectly honest, I never even gave it a second thought about how there might be chemicals at work that would need to be stored in flammable lockers.

When I stop to think about how many liquids and solvents are flammable, I’m amazed that there isn’t some kind of building code that requires every house to have Flammable Cabinets in their garages and pantries!

I wonder how many house fires would be prevented if the homeowners kept their flammable liquids in the proper Flammable Cabinet Storage.

I just bought a magazine like that this past weekend. This magazine was promising both of those stories. Usually I spend a couple of minutes in the check out line skimming the articles to see if the magazine is any good or not, but this time I didn’t have the time to do that. The article about saving money on food was the same-old-same-old advice; use coupons, shop sales, buy store brand. I have a word of caution here – I don’t always buy the store brand because it is not always cheaper! I needed to buy some Truvia this past weekend and saw that there is a store brand of it, but the price was higher per unit.

As for making money at home, the article suggested that people look into using the Internet to make money. Specifically the article was talking about bloggers putting paid advertising on their blogs. I went to the Internet to get more information about that and found the bizzclick Home page and looked at the Advertiser page and the Publisher page and soon realized that if I depended on pay-per-click income that I’d starve to death under a bridge somewhere. I know my brother makes money doing that, and more power to him!

His wife recently had a baby girl; their very first baby. Sunday was telling us that she sings Nigerian Songs to the baby and that they watch Nigerian Movies at home on his days off. We tried to convince him that he should start to watch shows like Sesame Street with his daughter, but he said he didn’t have any interest in watching shows like that.  I’ve noticed that there are a lot of adults that don’t like to watch children’s shows with their kids, and I think that is a shame – I can remember watching Sesame Street with my kids when they were small! I suggested that he put on headphones and listen to Online Nigerian Music while watching children’s shows with his daughter to at least give her the impression that he was spending time with her watching something geared towards children. But knowing him, he won’t follow my advice. Guys rarely do.

There are great opportunities for small businesses to lower their costs by taking advantage of serviced offices chicago. These serviced office spaces chicago are set up so that different companies can send their employees to the location and use the facilities, just the same way that they would use their company’s brick and mortar office. This allows for more employees to actually produce more work during their work day than it would to have them spend a lot of time on the road travelling from place to place.

This also allows for more people to not have to dedicate a room in their own home to being a home office, giving them more space to actually live in their own homes. Not everyone has the luxury of having a spare bedroom that they can convert to a home office!

Their biggest competitor was a company called “New England Music” and the competition was fierce! This was back in the 70′s, way before the Internet existed, so the biggest media for advertising back then was the newspaper, radio, and television. The advertising budget was very limited, however, so much of the marketing was “word of mouth.” But we had a lot of fun with local promotions, sponsoring events and contests. Not long after my husband and I married, he changed his career path and we lost touch with John. We heard that he died in a terrible automobile accident and the business closed up. That was very sad news to hear.

Today I was talking about my blogging with a lady at work; she suggested that I apply for a copy-writing job with a local catalog sales company. She told me that she used to work part time for them, helping them to write their catalog entries. I was intrigued with the idea, but it brought back memories of a “Jerry Seinfeld Show” where Elaine was working for a catalog company, helping to write their ads. Just the thought of doing something like Elaine did made me laugh!