transparency

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

Crap.

Filed under: business,consuming,economy,sewing,unwanted knowledge — alison @ 19:44

I went on a little stroll today to buy sewing notions. The fabric store I hit first was out of what I needed, so I headed up the Plaza St-Hubert. One of the three dressmaker supply stores on the strip had disappeared; another was closed (for the week?) and the third was open but also out of what I needed. So, onwards and upwards to the fabric stores above Jean Talon, where I found what I needed and more.

I love the Plaza. It’s four blocks of stores with glass-roofed sidewalks, known throughout Montreal as a centre for wedding dresses, white shoes, and MOBs. There are both a Salvation Army store and a Renaissance. You can get furniture overruns; $20 shoes and $300 shoes; slutty underwear and medical foundation garments; luggage; clothes for men and women, kids and grownups, skinnies and fatties; electronics; housewares and kitchen equipment; handmade items from India and Africa; sewing machines. You can mail a letter, get your legs waxed, sign up for driving lessons and send money overseas. You can duck through an alley and go to a peep show before you start work in the morning. North of the Plaza are the remains of the old needletrade sector, with fabric stores and jobbers supplying and buying from manufacturers. There’s a Vietnamese restaurant and a Roi du Smoked Meat, but it isn’t really a place for strolling and munching aimlessly; it’s for people who have a purpose.

When I first moved to the neighbourhood I found the street a bit sad, a bit soulless. In the past few years though it’s picked up, a busy place for working people. But today I noticed something had changed.

On the way down I counted:
– Between De Castelnau and Jean-Talon: two empty store fronts, one going out of business sale.
– Between Jean-Talon and Bélanger: two empty store fronts, two going out of business sales.
– Between Bélanger and St-Zotique: four empty store fronts.
– Between St-Zotique and Beaubien: one empty store front.
– Also about five signs advertising commercial space available for rent over the storefronts.

I think this is the worst I’ve ever seen on this street.

Crap.

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Shit

Filed under: housekeeping,illness,motivational,travelling — alison @ 06:55

I got a stomach bug on my last trip to Winnipeg. I ended up wasting a day in my hotel room, unable to leave for fear of shitting my pants. I dozed and internetted during most of the day and in the evening I watched television. I ordered a small, light meal from room service, ate it slowly and cautiously and kept it down. Then I rolled over and shit the bed without warning.

Staying in a hotel has its advantages. I stripped the bed and dumped everything in the hallway; washed up in the bathroom and put the soiled towels out in the hallway; called Housekeeping to pick up the soiled linens; and moved into the other bed. Cool. It happened again in the middle of the night, but then I didn’t have a clean bed to move in to. I wrapped myself in a complimentary bathrobe and spread a towel on the bare mattress. That’s when I started feeling sorry for my future self, imagining myself living alone and poor in an HLM with a laundromat in the basement, wondering how long it would take me before I stopped changing the sheets when I was sick. 

Then I realised I hadn’t been paying attention to all the television ads I’d been watching. Of course. When I am that sick, in that situation, I will just wear diapers. 

The next morning I didn’t try to eat right away, but took a taxi to work and set my things up in my usual conference room. Then I walked to a drugstore and bought myself a package of Depends and changed into them before getting breakfast at the company cafeteria. They are surprisingly comfortable, which is good to know. I kept a couple of changes in my purse for the flight back to Montreal that afternoon, but I didn’t need them. The bug seemed to have run its course. And all day I was thinking of the Active Woman in the Depends ads, who can leave her home to lead a Busy Life. And I thought how liberating the availability of a disposable consumer product can be.

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

Surprise treats

Filed under: corporate life,surprises — alison @ 11:45

I was in Mississauga Monday when I discovered that I was working in Toronto Tuesday and possibly Wednesday. I sighed (ok, I fussed) and reserved a room at a good downtown Toronto hotel for Tuesday night.

To avoid traffic, and to be able to meet my counterparts before my day started to get an idea of what exactly I was expected to be doing in the Toronto office, I took my taxi in from Mississauga at 6h30 and was at my hotel before seven. They had a clean room for me right away, so I took my key and went upstairs to leave my bag.

Hotel doors have heavy springs to make sure they shut behind you every time. To get in you need to arrange your bags right behind you, unlock the door, open it and immediately turn around to hold it open with your bum, then back into the room dragging your bags. As I was backing in I heard the radio, which I thought was not quite right for this particular hotel: usually they have the television on softly – an in-house channel with wildlife – for a little light and a little company for business travellers hauling themselves in late at night. Backing past the bathroom, I noticed a towel on the floor. Turning around, I saw a naked man holding his pants in front of him. He suggested that perhaps I had the wrong room? I agreed that perhaps I did and went down to the front desk to tell them that I needed a different room and that the gentleman I had just disturbed probably needed a phone call.

For the shock and consternation they caused me, I got a free upgrade to a junior suite with a complimentary fruit basket and mini-bottle of maple syrup. I don’t know what the poor naked man got: I hope a free room next time he stays at the hotel.

Monday, July 31st, 2006

So, what’s it like being a new homeowner?

Filed under: being a landlord,home ownership,reality check — alison @ 08:26

Still slowly trying to absorb it. I thought I was getting it when I dutifully and only mildly resentfully started dedicating all the nice weekends of my summer to scratching the rust and loose paint off the wrought-iron fence in preparation for painting it some yet-to-be-determined colour.

But then the Nurse from the Insurance Company called to say she was coming by the next morning – at 7h00 – to take blood and urine samples. Oh. That’s serious. Somehow that felt like more of a sobering initiation ritual than sitting in an office with a scattered notary signing a document and being informed that the important stuff would be done later and eventually mailed to us.

Like, somebody else wants to check up on us make sure it’s being done right. Must be Important then. Even if it’s just the life insurance and has nothing directly to do with the purchase at all.

Makes me question how I judge when something is important or even real.

[originally transmitted by e-mail July 31, 2006]

Tuesday, December 27th, 2005

A weblog I’ve been following with the adulation of a star-struck teenager

Filed under: Aspies,business,mental illness,parenting — alison @ 20:16

Kathleen’s site is a resource for designer-entrepreneurs in the “sewn product” field. She’s passionate, extremely bright and rides her hobby-horses (pattern cutting and lean organisation) with the single-mindedness that is the gift of Asperger’s syndrome. She wrote the book that you can buy through the site – and that is used as an essential text in fashion schools all over North America.

This particular entry documents the application of a business management approach to a potential domestic crisis.

Thursday, August 12th, 2004

Classic question and creative solution

Filed under: business,sewing — alison @ 23:45

I belong to various sewing lists and there’s a question that comes up regularly on them (as it tends to in life generally). It came up again today, in the following form:

To: “Fashion for the Plus size Woman” [______ @lyris.quiltropolis.com]
Subject: [fullfashion] Question regarding sewing for a friend

Hi all,

I have a question regarding sewing for friends and I was hoping you all might have some insight. I just completed a costume for a friend (the weird coat I was asking about a few months ago) and I’m not sure how to handle costs. I’m a sewing novice but I offered to make the costume to help my friend out. Now, the project is done, and he told me to total up my costs and “add in something for labor.” I was only expecting him to pay for materials, but it turned out to be a very time consuming project, so I appreciate that he’s willing to pay for my time. However, I have no idea what a reasonable amount is.

To complicate matters, we work together and see each other 8 hours a day, so I don’t want to strain our friendship/working relationship by haggling over money.

So, how do you handle the costs when sewing for friends?

Thanks,
Laura

This is usually a very slow list but for this question there was a flurry of eager answers. Lots of reminiscing about having been taken advantage of when younger and less experienced and suggestions to write this off as an expensive lesson. I had been going to suggest that Laura heave the ball back into her friend’s court and simply ask him to pay her what he thought she was worth. If he really had no clue, he would give her $25 and she would know he had no clue. And she could keep her mouth shut and save everyone’s pride that way.

But I didn’t, because someone beat me to the punch with a far better answer that I just had to share with the world:

To: “Fashion for the Plus size Woman” [_______ @lyris.quiltropolis.com]
Subject: [fullfashion] Re: Question regarding sewing for a friend

Hi Laura —

This really is the kettle of fish you think it is….

My 2 cents are this…

List materials:

Then list your hours times hourly wage (feel free to not cheat the hours) and put in anything from min. wage to your hourly wage at our real job to the $50.00+ an hour, the custom creation job hours are worth. Then we do a series of discounts: 10% for being a learning example; 25% for not having a deadline; 5% for bringing me coffee etc. until you “price it down” to what you’d like to be paid in labor. (I’m sure in your heart of hearts there is a dollar amount you’d like to be paid for labor.)

This method while sounding silly lets people that don’t ahve a clue (and even some that do) how much a “non-friend” could have/would have charged them. This method has saved me friendships (in my opinion) though I will tell you that I typically go down to something really tiny for labor as I had offered to do it for free, and then many people will kick in more, but again you can’t expect it.

Heather in wisconsin

Much better than pretending to everyone that your time, skills and labour have no (or minimal) worth. It even factors in the value of friendship.

[originally transmitted by e-mail August 12, 2004]

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