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Discover Mid-America — August 2008
Ya gotta laugh about it all
 |
by Bruce Rodgers
Remember the off-color phrase s_ _ t happens? If you’re a small business owner — like me, like many of you — it’s well understood that, indeed, “stuff” happens. But besides the economy, seemingly endless rounds of taxpayer bailout proposals for big business, gas prices and penny-pitching consumers, what’s to worry?
Well…the answer is the unexpected, and recently we’ve had our share of that at Discovery Publications.
As many of our advertisers know, in early June Al Hedrick, long-time marketing and sales employee and the mainstay of our small advertising sales staff, had a little thing called open-heart surgery.
Al had been feeling overly tired. One day Al left the office a little early and drove himself to Liberty Hospital in Liberty, MO, where he lives with his wife, Brenda.
When I found out about Al being at the hospital, I called the emergency room. He was busy being examined. I was told. When I called again later, the hospital receptionist said she had no record of him being admitted. “Probably went home,” I told myself. So much for assumptions.
At the time of second call, Al was probably in a helicopter over Kansas City ready to land at St. Luke’s Hospital — but wait! No surgeon could be found so it was of the Kansas University Medical Center. Not long afterwards, Al went under for surgery. Thankfully, it went well.
Not one to linger, Al did not give himself an extended recuperation period — the old Marine that he is — and was soon back making sales calls.
Ron Johnson and I, and new sales representative Mike Walker, took up the slack while Al was home. The result was another “excellent” issue, though late getting out on the street by a few days. But, we’re thankful Al is back and getting his strength up.
Meanwhile, this week our server went down containing our advertising and editorial files for the August issue. Our regular Mac tech guy was out with his own health issues so we turned to a new Mac guy.
He was unfamiliar with the setup in our server installed by our regular Mac guy. So while retrieving our files, the new Mac guy accidentally retrieved an old file, leaving our current August files existing somewhere within the digital netherworld. Art director Ron figured out how to go around the problem, while the embarrassed new Mac guy began the slow process of finding our August files.
I decided not to get too worked up (though I did consider having a few beers) and accepted the fact we would get through it, and that later I would laugh maniacally about it in the mirror in the privacy of our office restroom.
What else ya gunna do?
Bruce Rodgers can be contacted at publisher@discoverypub.com.
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