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2006-12-10 - 7:44 p.m.

Tip of the Iceberg

You may have noticed that I tend to rant about my boss's cheapassity (hey! new word!) on a fairly regular basis.

As many times as I've wanted to point out to him that instead of focusing his energy on saving $6 a week on soda, he might wanna just run over to Sam's Club with his fancy membership card and buy a box of 100 XL Hefty trash bags for $15, in lieu of my buying 10 boxes of 10 bags at Kroger that cost $5 each.

Or ya know, work a bit harder to convince the farm manager that sending three of our mares to outside stallions with fees of $100,000+ is a tad excessive. Not to mention that all the other fees ($75,000 here, $50,000 there) for the rest of our broodmare band (~20) REALLY ADDS UP.

There are two conflicting theories when it comes to breeding: 1) You get what you pay for, 2) You never fucking know.

Great mare + great stallion could equal a graded stakes winner. Or a complete dud. On the same token, a semi-decent mare with a not-so-hot stallion could produce a Derby winner.

The whole racing industry is one giant bet. You play the odds and percentages and hope for the best. The more money you have, the more you can play around and experiment. Sometimes you get lucky. And many times you don't. Some years are better than others.

In our case this year, it's split. Our racing performance has been lackluster (with a few peaks), while our stallions have been hitting homeruns with successful progeny left and right. Obviously a banner year would be to have both areas going strong. Very hard to accomplish. Overall, we've been very successful. Especially since we do a lot more, with a lot less resource-wise.

At its fullest (including interns and seasonal workers), the barn staff is probably 2 to 4 people shy of what it should be. And that's not to say that the horses are any less taken care of, or that things don't get done, it's that the management squeezes the maximum effort from everyone to make up the difference. And when someone quits out of the blue, or two people are both out on vacation, everybody just makes do and gets through it.

And I know intimately well how the farm utilizes office resources. Us gals are jack-of-all-trades. The only gal who doesn't do anything outside her job description is my boss's accounting assistant. And I mean ANYTHING. I think she believes a little fairy drops by and puts rolls of toilet paper under the bathroom sink. And that the soap pumps refill MAGICALLY. (Uh, no, that's ME, bitch).

Or, for 'sample, you know how you can be standing around, waiting for your food to cook in the microwave in the break room, and out of boredom, you straighten something up, or wipe off the counter? Or you look over and see that the bag of empty water bottles for recycling is overflowing, so you tie it up and put in a new bag?

Not her!

You would think that the ONLY WOMAN IN THE OFFICE WITH KIDS would be the domestic one, wouldn't you? But hell, she ain't doing shit.

The rest of us gals (me, farm owner's assistant, and my fave co-worker who does stallion stuff), are fair game for everything else that comes down the pike. Not only to we get tasked with a wide range of crap, we do stuff no one told us to do. We do it because it needs to be done. The paper towel roll needs to be refilled. The door mat blew away. The dogs tracked in mud. The lamp bulbs are burnt out and need to be replaced. The soap dispensers are low. The front stoop is covered with old leaves.

And don't even get me started on all the tasks we do that other farms have armies of people to handle.

One minute I'm entering farm vehicle gas usage into a spreadsheet, and the next I'm forwarding a call from Former President Bush's office to the farm owner's assistant. After entering a few more vet tickets in the system, I prepared a FedEx envelope for my boss related to oil & gas royalties, then printed, laminated, and cut a list of mare name tibby-tabs for the assistant farm manager. While I was in the copier room, I popped in 1/3 of of the broodmare pedigree list for the farm manager and set it to 10 copies. Because 30 sheets at once is 20 sheets too many for our aging (rented) IKON.

Farm owner's assistant was taking up most of the available space by stamping Christmas card envelopes (Xmas cards SHE designed), while I tried to use every other inch of space to lay down my copies...which were in progress.

Then the other farm assistant guy waltzed in and needed one copy.

*shit*

"I'll take care of it between this next batch."

Which I promptly forgot about as he came in looking for it, but no matter, the copier jammed anyway, so I had some wiggle room.

"You might as well make a copy of this, while you're at it."

But of course. I grabbed his legal pad, copied that, sent him off on his way so I could finish my big batch of shit.

When all the copies were done and placed in a cross-hatched pile, I brought them into farm manager's office while he was talking to his guys.

"Yeah, set them there. That's fine. Just make sure they don't get messed up. Ok, good. She (farm owner's assistant) is working on the covers. I'm gonna need you to punch and bind all these later."

YOU DON'T SAY.

I understand, from a management point of view, about using resources wisely. But draining them of every last drop of energy is not only cruel, it's counterproductive. And shitty.

If I worked for a small, struggling farm I could understand. But we're not.

Money? We gots it. I'm sure the balance sheet after everything gets paid doesn't amount to what I think it might. But if we're booking $100k stallions, we HAVE the money.

My thinking is, if you have the kinda money that our farm has to "play around" in the big leagues, and the one thing you shouldn't do is shaft your employees every chance you get. In fact, you should be rewarding them.

We haven't been given a racing bonus in 2 1/2 years ($20). But one of our trainers gave everyone $50 last Christmas from a big win.

The trainer. NOT the farm. How pathetic is that on the farm's part?

But as much as I thought we, the employees, were being shafted, there's this:

When I emailed my boss after Thanksgiving (I try not to speak to him directly whenever possible), that it was time to order his usual $30 Christmas baskets for his 10 clients, he popped by to tell me he wanted to do something "different" this year.

First thought: He wants to do something CHEAPER. So he's gonna go with a DIFFERENT item that looks "about" as valuable.

I said "What about charitable donations?"

"Well, the farm is doing that for other clients. Maybe. I don't know. Let me think about it."

I knew I needed to remind him about it again this week, yet I put it off. It was far too squibbly, and I had more important things to be focus on. Kittens! Hams! Pups! And then there was that whole thing about my rent check possibly bouncing.

To my amazement, he mentioned the Christmas gifts to me yesterday...probably because a client on his list said she was buying lunch for everyone in our office next week.

So bossmans was all geared up for holiday giving. He asked me into his office.

"Yes?"

"Here's what I'm thinking. We'll send out a box of Kentucky bourbon balls to everyone. I've been looking at this website..."

(Oh balls. How original).

I leaned in to look, as he tapped at his screen. 8 pieces. Hmmm. Kinda small, but they can be pricey. I hate bourbon balls, so that was 8 pieces too many as far as I was concerned. But whatever. I was more distracted thinking of the having to set up an order with a whole new company.

"Sure, okay."

"Find out if they ship nationwide. How many names are on the list?"

"Ten."

"Read them out."

"Blah, blah, blah....."

He winced at one name, and I knew why. We'd switched our major accounts to a bank in Houston. And the guy whose name he winced at was the head of the bank here, that had been shafted. But we still do some business there.

I could see the wheels of his wee brain working: Drop him, save some dough.

"Oh...I don't know about him. Eeeeeeh. Umm...no. Well, ok. Go ahead. That's fine."

(GOOD LORD)

I rattled off the rest of the list.

"Ok! I might have a few more names to add, but that's good for now. Contact the company and find out about shipping. If they don't, we'll deliver them."

(What? Some of these people are in Texas and Louisiana. WTF?)

As I sat back down at my desk, I started thinking of the fuckwadiness of sending chocolates down south, where an 80+ degree humid Christmas is not unheard of. We might have to pay extra for goddamn dry ice, just in case. IF THEY SHIP NATIONALLY, THAT IS. What a yutz.

But the kicker, my friends, is when I went to the website to pull up the page he'd been looking at.

An 8-piece set of bourbon balls retails for...

.

.

.

Are you ready for this?

.

.

.

$7.50

YEP. SEVEN DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS.

My jaw dropped to my knees. I knew he was cheap. I knew he was looking for a way to save money, but DEAR GOD.

A ch-ch-ch-Chia pet costs more! At Walgreen's! ON SALE! A DVD of "The Apple Dumpling Gang" in the bargain bin at Kroger costs more!

Fuck! Why not send them a box of Little Debbie Zebra cakes with holiday sprinkles and save another $6.39 while you're at it?

Or better yet, send them a $1.19 Piggly Wiggly gift certificate! Of course, we'd have to spring for postage, so let's knock it down to $0.89. We must keep our bottom line in check. On the other hand, geez, that might look cheap. Fine. We'll make it a dollar to cover tax.

When I went over to my fave co-worker, whispering what boss was trying to do, she initially replied that $30 was cheap in the first place. I tried to relay that while I thought he'd try for the $20 range this year, I was floored when he knocked the price down to $7.50. And had already chosen something. But she thought I meant he was making me FIND chocolates for that price.

Whispers:

"Are you kidding me? How can you do that? There's no way you can find a gift that cheap!"

"Noo...no...he already picked it out."

"What? But how can you keep to that price?"

"He already did! You don't understand...hold on..."

I went back to my desk and grabbed the print out from the website.

"Ohhhhhh...he wants you to order THIS for his clients? 8 pieces? Do you know how small that box would be?"

"I didn't realize how small it was was until I discovered the price."

"He can't be serious."

"He is. And even if he thought the size looked adequate on the website, you can't tell me he wouldn't have figured it out based on the price."

"But that box is like...a sample size! Couldn't be more than, say, this big by this big!"

"I know!"

"You have to say something to him."

"Like what? You know how he is!"

"He should be sending them a half pound box AT LEAST, if not a full pound. Just tell him you don't think what he has in mind is the best idea..."

"And suggest something else?"

"YES!"

"Oh jesus. He's over there thinking he's saving a shitload of money this year. What an asshole."

"I know. But you have to tell him. It's gonna look so bad if he sends out a tiny box like that to his clients."

"Ok, maybe I could throw him some other ideas when I go back in to get the rest of the client names."

"Yeah. And hey, you should check into this candy company. I'll get you a brochure. They sell those chocolates too, and they've sent stuff out for us before."

"Ok...but geeezz...what a cheap bastard!"

"I know. That's really bad on his part."

No shit.

I went back to my desk and typed up a list of client names and addresses, to prep for a mailing of whatever.

Boss and I haven't discussed the Xmas list since I told him YES, they DO ship nationwide. Which was before I talked to my co-worker, and looked over the brochure she left on my desk with boxes of candies of the NORMAL SIZE of a half pound or pound that ranged from $18-$25. Hmmmm.

You know, the good part of Halo wants to alert my boss to the boneheaded move he's about to make.

But the evil part of Halo wants to let him save his sweaty fist of dollars and wind up completely embarrassed.

I'm 80/20. Or 20/80.

In other words:

For years, his clients have been given big gift baskets brimming with treats, that give off a $50 quality in all their 30 dollariness.

This year, they will receive a tiny box of liquored balls.

Merry Christmas, fuckers.