On Clients and In Betweens Of Being Your Own Boss

So, the journey of being your own boss comes with challenges, who would have thought? I am still new in the game,still learning the ropes of the business.I am in the shoe industry, just in case you didn’t know. Ankara and custom made shoes to be precise.
I heard somewhere that the principles of business is the same everywhere and all you have to do is figure them out, apply them and thereafter, everything else works with the same principle. Well, where I come from we believe in the power of books or is it information? So, before I started my business, I read books from several fields, books written by economist, psychologist, marketers and heavens knows what other related fields. I thought those books will on the least, help me with basic principles of the business and all. Imagine my surprise when it hit me that I had to learn everything from FUCKING scratch. So far so good, still learning, still trying. Haven’t put a bullet through my brains yet, you know. Progress.
Today am in the mood of talking about customers or clients. If you are a start up, the worst clients are your friends or so I found out. I should have known from the start, or I should have taken the advice from that book I don’t remember that somehow stated that friends will be your first clients,and they will grandly ruin you. I mean,some of my friends have been awesome and paid up and all. Most of them did let me down. Some paying half the money,others none and some placing orders and then somehow changing their mind. I mean,what the fuck, why give specifics of a shoe then somehow change your mind? You do realize, it will take a century to have another you with such a poor taste in shoe,right? The reason we custom make shoes is so that we include our clients in the process of creation. I have over fifteen pairs of shoes lying somewhere in my house that I have no fucking idea what to do with them. I can’t even wear them, maybe I will go to shagz(my village) and I might get lucky to find a few feets willing to wear them, donate them for Christmas or something.
They say the client is always right. I know. Some clients I found online bought our products and gave us both positive and constructive critics that I did appreciate. Perfection is our aim and with such criticism we will definitely achieve perfection. If a client doesn’t like a product, that is totally alright. I don’t see how clients are right when they give you specifics of what they want then fail to pick up their goddamn orders.
Then the ones who outright refuse to pay. That was a mistake on my side. I am learning. Soon, I will get better at the game, like everyone else. Apparently, no one escapes bad debts, it’s part of the game.
On the days I feel like giving up, someone restores my faith in humanity in one way or another.
Until next time friends. I will keep updating you on my journey of being my own boss. Tough, I know. We carry on.
Namaste.

Be Your Own Boss

Every millennial wants to be their own boss. I like the sound of that, scratch that, i FUCKING LOVE THE SOUND OF THAT. More bosses, more job opportunities, my god, we all know Africa needs jobs more than we need relief food.More bosses with their hypothetical more jobs comes with better services, better products, driven by forces of demand and supply(assuming our new bosses fail to think outside the box and over flood our supply industry) which creates competition and,maybe,perharps, the best products and services wins or it could get better,we get to pay less for more or is it get more for less?But then again, things might not turn out like I imagined. Like some people still pay more for less.Humans are unpredictable like that.
I didn’t go to businesses school so I have no idea how forces of demand and supply might reflect on the economy but someone I know once explained that shit to me in layman’s language,”more bosses,more jobs.” That’s all we care about,don’t you think?

So I took matters into my own hands and started my own business, again, she says. I sell handcrafted shoes,designed by some good people,you should see them sometime. Maybe I should write a blog post on my shoe business someday. Since I joined the shoe industry, things have been crazy and awesome. Like my big brother placed an order a week ago that I haven’t delivered yet, because of one reason or another. I have made some clients happy. Some are not so happy. I have encountered challenges, unforseen, for that matter,that I soldiered on. Some days I want to walk away, get a job and let someone else worry about my bills but my momma didn’t raise a quitter. “Things have a way of working out,” I remind myself everyday. Then there are days I just sleep in and I ignore my clients and the shoes stay in the workshop BC I need to have a day or two to myself because I don’t want to be a zombie, burn outs are real my friend. But that’s my story of trying to be my own boss. Its my journey and I intend to enjoy the ride,learn to dance in the rain,and take a break when I can’t survive another day without taking a break. It is part of the process. Learning the ropes of the industry, the art of money, the rules of gold, the art of customer service and taking care of myself enough to survive the madness.
 
So,imagine if all millennials, especially recent graduates who are jobless, they all decide to start their own small hassle instead of blaming the government of unemployment or generation X for making things worse for US. Well,it is true generation X fucked us up;they did tank the economy with money, pass policy that doesn’t favour us and all……. I know, I know. But we are millenials, we can fix their mistake. Turn lemons into lemonade or is it see the opportunity in the tragedy and spin these around to our favor. We did invent things that didn’t seem possible ten years ago. We started selfies, social media etc. We can take the business of being our own bosses serious and make the world a better place. We can take the hashtag #BYOB  from just another trending hashtag on social media to reality. Stop looking for a job, start your own business and if you really want to be employed, you can as well start by hiring yourself. How about that? WE CAN DO THIS, MILLENNIA LS, YES WE CAN. We can actualize the dream of being our own bosses.

Until next time friends!!

Blessing Galore

Finally we hit 200 posts.

I feel blessed. 

Now that Easter is here, I would like to thank The Guy above for his unending love and blessings He sent my way and for The gift of life .

 Thanks to my readers for your constant support. For reading my work. For validating my struggles by commenting and e-mailing me. Sometimes all it takes is to hear from you and I know I don’t have to stop writing for the internet 
Thanks to my friends, family, strangers and beautiful glorious sundown for inspiration, sharing moments with me and your stories.

 Thanks to insomnia I get to write at night. 

Special thanks to my hormones, that girl, surely, makes me bleed words and literally.

Today it’s all morning sunshine, coffee and gratitude. It’s truly during Easter weekend, just  after the glorious ecclesiastial full Moon. The universe is all awesomeness and gratitude.
It wouldn’t have been possible without y’all sharing your stories and life with me. 
It wouldn’t have been possible without the glorious beautiful sunset that inspires me to want to create something beautiful.
It wouldn’t have been possible without conversation with the moon. She inspires conversations in my head for the book I will never write.
3am is a beautiful place. It’s where my favorite pieces come from. 
Thanks to bloggers for supporting and editing my work. 
My hormones, she is the best. 
Thanks to everyone and everything that made blogging worth the work, vulnerability and the pain.
Thanks to WordPress for giving me a platform to project my life. 

It wouldn’t have been possible without the internet community. I may never meet y’all but surely you have been the best. Your support, hate speech, spam messages and constructive criticism has been for the best.

I hope my words have not been in vain. 
Keep the love. Keep the support.
Yesterday and other days from yesterday I have had moments of walking away from writing. The vulnerability of sharing my thoughts online sometimes literally hurts. But it’s the posts that leave me most vulnerable that matter the most. It’s the posts of my struggles that make a few people feel less alone and for me that’s enough.
Namaste. 

An Email To Crazy Monday

This is Ms.Riri but her friends call her Daisy. She is just a girl from a small town with big town dreams. Sometimes she writes about big town dreams but mostly it is about small town happenings. She talks about terrible things with a touch of humor and sarcasm. Currently she is an unemployed twenty something doing odd jobs to get by. When she is not at working, she is writing stuff online, watching bad TV while sipping water or cheap wine that stains her teeth or coffee. There is a huge chance she is always sipping coffee, though.

I don’t think am popular on social media but I know a couple or more than a couple of strangers who read the substandard prose I post online and sometimes I get inspired and write poems.

I have a blog, not popular of course. There is a chance the same couple or more than a couple of strangers online read the blog, but what do I know?

Every time I get started working on a piece my intentions are pure; write something inspiring and educative. If you read my posts online you will realize they are mostly sarcastic with a touch of humor. The articles and stories are mainly for people out there to feel less alone and have a little laugh. I make up words that do not exist; English falls short in some situations you know. There is a long list of words somewhere with my name on it or maybe there isn’t but that doesn’t mean I will stop using problemly and the like. Chuck Lorre once said, “sometimes you write and you think your words are funny and mind blowing but in reality they are just words that doesn’t mean you stop writing”.

In other news, I did not set myself up to write this mail nor see the advert but approximately six strangers online sent me the advert. It might not seem as much but having six or more strangers believe in you is a big deal where I come from. The message that hit the spot or should I use the coffin and nail expression? The message was from some girl who promised to Phillip Drummond a bottle of wine if I email you. Well, if we have met then you obviously know I never turned down alcohol ever; I doubt I can start now.

Find me on Facebook @ Daisy Riri
Blog @ www.daisyriri.wordpresss.com 

PS. I told you they don’t e-mail me back 

An Open Letter To The Generation That Raised Millennials

Everyone below 35 is somewhat a Millennial but 30somethings aren’t that affected. I will stick to talking for twenty somethings because I understand the full capacity for being misunderstood. I feel like Jack in the Titanic where the only thing keeping me afloat is a darn piece of wood. Barely surviving. I know what’s like to be a twenty something these days.
First I want you to know that we are not lazy. We are probably depressed that’s why we sometimes sleep our life away. We hide in our rooms because we are not emotionally equipped to hangout with people all the time, some of us need time alone to get by. We like being left alone to sought out our emotions just in case you haven’t noticed we have so much to deal with.We are the Generation that was raised with house helps,cartoon and the internet. we are the Generation that our parents were too busy working they didn’t get to actually get to know us. we are the Generation that was raised with parents, broken homes, unavailable parents and excess homework. Then you wonder why we have so many issues. daddy’s issues, mommy’s issues, anxiety, depression, abandonment issues, bipolar, neurosis and other issues that only therapist can pronounce. Yes. We are fucked up.No ma’am I just can’t get over depression or anxiety. No ma’am I just can’t stop cross dressing I feel confident wearing ‘men clothes ‘ and I would rather do lipstick even though am a boy. I can’t get over by being in love with same gender and it’s not something you pray about. If you think we created all these issues for ourselves remember that you the people that Raised us. We literally inherited and or copied them from you. What does that say about your parenting skills if we are lazy with unending issues?
Yes. We invented selfies and active social media life.But you the Generation that ruined the system. You ran down workers unions, inflated the economy, ruined pension, increased interest on students loan, made college extremely expensive and still managed to make policies that only suits you. I would rather sleep peacefully with our Instagram and selfies than lie in your bed of leaving  “terrible children for our earth and horrible earth for our children.” By terrible children I mean not full functioning humans because of unending mental health issues.

Yes. We are broke. We still ask for rent or live at home because whatever you did to the economy to get rich is exactly what’s making us poor. For starters, the Constitution that you adopted…a small country like Kenya to have 47 counties,what were you thinking? How did you imagine you would pay salaries and allowances by the way? The wage bill that was suppose to make our lives a little bit liveable you tamed it in Parliament because it doesn’t work for you. Why did you run down workers union and replaced it with bloody sucking soul crashing pyramid schemes with the name of professional but boards to run the show? Oh and you did this through the act of Parliament, so now that’s law and we can’t do anything about it. We have our degrees, our diplomas, our Masters with no hope for employment. A single job gets an average of 50 applicants for one position.Yes,you think we should start our own business… with what capital when we have HELB on our necks and you get listed on CRB with an Mshwari loan of 200 ksh. Business premises have ridiculous Goodwill rates and high rent it will be a miracle to survive out there. How do you people sleep at night? Corruption on the rise. You take the saying man eat society literally. You honestly don’t care.

No. We don’t think we are entitled. Your little survey on how we switch careers, write blog posts like this and constantly complain doesn’t hold any water. Look at the pot calling the kettle black. You the Generation that runs on titles. You want to be the who’s and who’s it doesn’t matter how many toes you stepped on. You steal everything just to make a name for yourselves. Public funds disappear, office funds disappear, employees privilege funds ran dry. You only care about how much you and your buddys get out of everything. You even have the guts to ask for sexual favors and or bribes for the limited jobs available and you call us selfish? What tinted glass are you people viewing the world from BTW? I would like to see what you see when you see us but from where we are standing….. we weep for you.Its pity. Again she asks…how do you sleep at night? If we have sugar babies all over it’s because you created an environment that supports that stop condemning us for your mistakes. 

Listen to me. we want to get married, have a family someday and even kids. The reason why we not dating just having sex and moving on is because we can’t even afford dating. How will we afford a home and have kids? We can’t even pay for wedding, remember the couple that did a wedding worth 100 ksh? Yes. Those are Millennials and you were all over social media trying to save them. In case you didn’t notice,most of us are going through the same.The only way I can reach my significant other is through the phone and we can’t afford to see each more than once a year. No. We can’t move in together because we are poor. You think we haven’t explored our options and wondered what a time to fall in love. Yes. What a time? We want to have all those things because other than NB being Millennials we are basic human beings. We say we won’t have kids because we can’t afford and when we do I have a feeling it might be too late. It’s not a badge of honor to be broke. Unlike you, we want to give our children better lives and when we see our shortcomings will only fuck them up then the wise thing to do is not have them.
We have a lot of cleaning up to do. Maybe we should start a revolution. Maybe we should publish blogs and get on with our lives and hope someday we will fix all the things you broke. Maybe we will actually do the right thing and save ourselves and our children. We might even save our planet from your sins and global warming. Yes, we will make our mistakes but I hope somehow it won’t be this bad to be a twenty something in future. I hope the transition of the world into a global village will produce positive results someday and things won’t be That bad for the next generation. For now we make do with what we have and hope to God we see another day.
Funny thing as much as you screwed us we won’t revenge when you finally retire that’s if you ever now that you retire at 60 with a hefty pension and get hired again as experts or run for political posts and heaven knows what. As in you never really retire. Not for sure. I digress.

Thank God For Coffee And Wine

There are a lot of things under the sun we should be thankful about. Earth and life for example or should I say, a planet that supports life? Whatever. Then this planet came with two magical drinks, I like to call them the nectar of life.

Most people wish for money, gold, riches, diamonds and silver. I wish for those things too, I’m human too. Again, this human is also thankful and Glad she can access coffee and wine meanwhile, while she awaits her wishes to be fulfilled.  I think  the best about being an adult is wine and coffee. We wanted so much to grow up, then we realize it sucks being an adult but at least we can legally purchase wine and no one gives you crap because you drinking too much Coffee. See where I’m going with this?

If it’s too early for wine, that means it’s Coffee time and when it’s too late for coffee, yaaay, it’s wine time. When the sun goes down, baby let’s start that bottle of wine. When the sun comes up, just give that cup coffee and shut the fuck up.

There’s nothing like too much coffee or too much wine or a big glass. Coffee gives you the grace to deal with assholes throughout the day. You haven’t stabbed your coworkers, yet, thanks to that coffee you had in the morning. You call your boss by their name and not Dick, with a smile on your face, look at you, you are coffeed. You have kept your job this long, thanks to coffee. You don’t shout,”shut the fuck up” at work, you smile gracefully and use words like please, thank you, I’m glad you had fun this weekend, look Leslie we really don’t care that your daughter knows how to use the potty, please stop talking. See? Grace.

Wine let’s you forget all that crap and bullshit you have been dealing with all day. It let’s you sleep like a baby. It let’s you cook dinner, and not poison everyone in that house. It even makes you think you Like your neighbors cat, so you let it in when it rains. It makes the evening merry when dealing with loved one’s. Wine is magical, it keeps the family together. A family that drinks wine together, stays together. So baby, pass that bottle and let’s get started with this family time business. I will cook dinner, help the kids with homework and hangout with you, all so gracefully, you won’t notice I have killed y’all in my head.

Pay day is here, let’s buy wine, coffee and thinks to eat with them. End of grocery list. Enough wine that won’t run out and unlimited coffee. We can live on bread only, but we can’t survive without those two. God made man, man made Coffee and wine. Let’s thank God for that, first. 

A lot of lives have been saved due to Coffee and wine. Personally I have avoided jail time, thanks to those two. I would Like to extend my gratitude to God first, then man second. Y’all have made my life tolerable. I know I’m awesome and stuff, but it’s good to be awesome and awake during the day and awesome and asleep at night, don’t you think? This wouldn’t have been possible without the nectars of life.