I have been looking into the payday loan business. It intrigues me both as an entrepreneur but even more so on the ethics side. There is a serious stigma associated with payday loan businesses that they are evil and help to ruin lives. This is a broadcast about our local city Burnaby showing the same thing: that we must unite…
Category: Business
What to Say and What Not to Say
Over the last few years it has been interesting to learn just how little we all know about law, and more specifically, freedom of speech. 2013 and 2014, if I could summarize, would be for me ‘The Legal Years’. My circumstances forced me to get out of the boat, shun my fear of law and lawyers and start to learn…
How to Formally and Politey Kill Your LinkedIn Account
Concerned about your privacy and security? Looked up ‘privacy violations LinkedIn’ in a search engine and not feeling so good? Maybe it’s time to delete your account, but you want to make sure that at least your contacts can reach you elsewhere. Here is a step by step about how to say bye-bye in the most courteous way. Compose your…
Franchisees – Well Chosen Victims
I was a franchisee of a big coffee chain for many years in Vancouver. To sum up the story, it ended ugly and I was shocked that I had involved myself with such a system. But actually, I’m not shocked at all – I was completely ignorant. And that really got me thinking. The thought rolled over and over again…
The Tithe Challenge
The ‘tithe’ has a lot of significance to me these days. When I first gave my life to Jesus the first major challenge I had was the concept of the tithe because my worldly teachers had always taught me to ‘save and invest in my own empire’. Wikipedia defines the tithe as 10% contribution to a religious organization or compulsory…
Ubuntu Touch Poised to Enter Market with New Smart Phone Partner
It is not often that one can be slightly ahead of a major change or curve. I like to document these moments in a blog post. Bit Coin was my last one. People thought I was crazy to accept Bit Coin at my coffee shop and just a few months (not years) afterwards people were coming back and asking, “how…
Keep it Clean and Don’t Burn Bridges: It’s a Small World After All
It has been a few months since I have been spit out the other end of my coffee shop franchise – the most painful 5+ years of my life. There are not too many people out there who have lost their entire lifetime earnings plus their inheritance, but when this suffering occurs it creates an instant bond with others who…
Special Cafe People – Part 1
Well, at long last it is time to feature the customers that truly make you wonder whether their parents were asleep at the wheel, or, sadly, whether you yourself are off your rockers. Some of these are your regular customers and you are afraid to ask them directly or the topic is awkward. Others are one-off wack-nuts that come in…
Top Ten Ways to Get Rid of Customers at Closing Time
Everyone who has worked in a cafe for the closing shift knows about one thing all too well – the customers who just don’t seem to understand that you don’t want to stand there and watch them chat after closing. They are usually very well-meaning people but they just don’t ‘get it’. Maybe they haven’t worked in a food and…
Getting Global Wit’ it (bitcoin)
Yuliya Talmazan had previously called me and then published this article featuring myself as one of the retailers accepting bitcoin in Vancouver. I still find it amusing how there are two Taylors in the same article. Then she dropped by during her coverage of bitcoin for her time on the 6 oclock news. I grabbed the file and decided to…