Not an everyday Question for you

[antonio]

Hi SS'ers

Hoping you can help me out for a moment.

Got an unusual question for you.

I'm doing a research project on helping people make their personal/work/biz life easier, fun and/or more profitable

How? By seeing if we can help solve their problems/frustrations.

From the problems, maybe a software solution can be developed to make it
go away or life easier for you and others having the same problem

eg. Questions:

What's the most frustrating part of your day / business?

What manual tasks would you like to automate?

In the past week, what activities took up your time which were tedious?

What software do you wish existed / or is better?

What is the most time-consuming/expensive problem in your work/business?


So take this as the gripe, whine, complain, I wish... thread


Thank you in advance for any of your thoughts.

A

= = =

I'll start it off.

I wish that there was an affordable weeding service

 

[The Y-man]

What is the most time-consuming/expensive problem in your work/business?

Sales people who sell things we don't/can't provide or sell things under cost because they get a commission based on sales amount not profit!

The Y-man

p.s. I am not angry at the Sales people - they are doing their job. I am angry at whoever approved the incentive scheme

 

[Aaron_C]

People who you pay to do a job for you, and then take their sweet time to do it just to make it look like they should justify their fees. I hate it.

 

[tom32]

Sales people who sell things we don't/can't provide or sell things under cost because they get a commission based on sales amount not profit!

The Y-man

p.s. I am not angry at the Sales people - they are doing their job. I am angry at whoever approved the incentive scheme

Interestingly this is what the freakonomics guys reckon is wrong with the real estate industry.

They said far better the commission was based on a result rather than turn over.

Apparently it turns out also the average sale time for an re agents own home is longer than those they are selling for others but a higher price is generally achieved...

Incentives must be very carefully aligned / calibrated with the result you are actually aiming for or you can end up with dire unintended consequences. There is a software idea, but I think the human mind and how it reacts to incentives is not always so easy to model...

 

[RumpledElf]

What's the most frustrating part of your day / business?

Small children who demand 50000 things while you're trying to work. So we put the most troublesome one in daycare 15 hours a week

What manual tasks would you like to automate?

Writing software to automate manual things. And don't laugh, we actually do this quite a lot - writing scripts to convert something in a DB or import custom data to a DB.

In the past week, what activities took up your time which were tedious?

Waiting for other people.

What software do you wish existed / or is better?

Small, light open source program that opens PSD files correctly. Since I couldn't find one, I ended up buying Elements and that is so massively enormous it makes my computer look like some kind of archaically slow dinosaur. Just to open PSD files. Blah.

What is the most time-consuming/expensive problem in your work/business?

Waiting for other people. You don't get paid when you're not doing anything.

Its not so bad, I have lots of weeding to do so I've been doing that while waiting for other people When I was at uni I think I did that for $10 or so an hour, back when $10 was enough money to actually buy stuff. You want an affordable weeding service, hire a student.

Also waiting for plants to grow is quite tedious too, can you invent something that makes plants germinate overnight instead of taking 3 weeks?

 

[antonio]

Sales people who sell things we don't/can't provide or sell things under cost because they get a commission based on sales amount not profit!

The Y-man

p.s. I am not angry at the Sales people - they are doing their job. I am angry at whoever approved the incentive scheme

either it's a loss-leader sale or methinks the inventor of that sales incentive scheme is probably not around anymore!

 

[antonio]

People who you pay to do a job for you, and then take their sweet time to do it just to make it look like they should justify their fees. I hate it.

any particular profession you're referring that has this habit Aaron?

 

[antonio]

You want an affordable weeding service, hire a student.

Great idea - though not sure if students would do anything for $10 an hour, nowadays

Also waiting for plants to grow is quite tedious too, can you invent something that makes plants germinate overnight instead of taking 3 weeks?

I believe that's Monsanto
impervious to disease, chernobyl and grows in a day twice the regular size

 

[Aaron_C]

any particular profession you're referring that has this habit Aaron?

Well that complaint applies to all professions. But in my personal experience it is Valuers and Banks who are to blame. And the worst part is - you can't sue them for any damages that flow from their negligence.

 

[our obsession]

Hi SS'ers

Hoping you can help me out for a moment.

Got an unusual question for you.

I'm doing a research project on helping people make their personal/work/biz life easier, fun and/or more profitable

How? By seeing if we can help solve their problems/frustrations.

From the problems, maybe a software solution can be developed to make it
go away or life easier for you and others having the same problem

eg. Questions:

What's the most frustrating part of your day / business?


I don't get frustrated or anxious or particularly stressed in day to day life, I consider that I have a most fortunate life and get to do the things I love, (and love the things I do). That's not to say challenges don't crop up, but I then get to 'best figure them out and solve them'...I embrace life and it's opportunities..

What manual tasks would you like to automate?

I like the mixture of automated and manual things going on in my life..investing and property ownership isn't cumbersome, I'm not inundated with unnecessary chores, I love investing, it's fun.

In the past week, what activities took up your time which were tedious?

Again, I have a great life, I get to do the things I love, and love that what I do...activities and my life are interesting to me...

What software do you wish existed / or is better?

Software is fine...technology is going great guns, although I would love (getting offtrack a little here) for my ipod to to not go so flat so quick..

What is the most time-consuming/expensive problem in your work/business?



Well, I have learnt to buy property that not only pays it's own way, but makes me money...so costs are fairly balanced, costs are a part of life, I do attempt a reasonable cost minimisation on stuff, and I don't find my time consumed -I am doing what I enjoy...

So take this as the gripe, whine, complain, I wish... thread


Thank you in advance for any of your thoughts.

I don't think I have helped you much on your quest...but such is life. All the best. If anything does come to mind I'll come back and add it in...

A

= = =

I'll start it off.

I wish that there was an affordable weeding service

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[VYBerlinaV8]

What's the most frustrating part of your day / business?

This doesn't happen now since I left the big company, but when I was an employee for an international IT services company, my biggest complaint was 'opinion shopping'. I ran a small team with a very niche specialisation, but there were a few others around the company who also played in our sandpit a bit. Executives and salespeople would ask an opinion, and if they didn't like what they heard would work their way around all the people in my niche trying to get a different opinion. The problem is that they would inevitably find some bunny who would also say "sure, you can do it that way for this price", but then it came back to my team to deliver.

If I ever run a larger business, I will rectify this by putting in some very simple controls within the sales/delivery cycle.

 

[RumpledElf]

Great idea - though not sure if students would do anything for $10 an hour, nowadays

This was the early 90's

Oh and overnight I got an email to say one of the people I am waiting for has finally said "**** off we don't want anything to do with you" (to our project manager not me personally) so that's one less feature we have to implement lol

They're going to send us a database instead and we get to manually write something to automatically import it

 

[BayView]

Hi SS'ers
What's the most frustrating part of your day / business?

Talking to humans.

 

[Jaggannath]

Sometimes it's working out what I need to do that takes all the time...

Dealing with underperformers in my organisation also takes a lot of time.

 

[BayView]

Sometimes it's working out what I need to do that takes all the time...

Dealing with underperformers in my organisation also takes a lot of time.

LOL!

No; it's because YOU (like everyone else here at SS who are active investors and on a mission to better themselves) are an OVERACHIEVER!

 

[Jaggannath]

No; it's because YOU (like everyone else here at SS who are active investors and on a mission to better themselves) are an OVERACHIEVER!

You flatter me

The problem with underachievers is some just need guidance (which are my favourite), but some are either bullsheizers or don't believe they are underperforming.