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fuelcut · 4 years ago

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A thought experiment on Silicon Valley’s third era

[ read the tweetstorm if you’re in a rush]

June 19th marks the end of American slavery, July 4th American Independence and July 14th the storming of the Bastille. It’s also my 40th birthday, and I’m exploring what we can learn from the past to help navigate today’s struggles for racial justice and economic freedom.

1940-1980: “Atoms” and the military-industrial-labor complex

My dad arrived in the Bay Area in 1970-1971 to get his PhD at Berkeley - just as the area was being rebranded as Silicon Valley.

Free from the stifling hierarchy of the East, the Bay was America’s center for social, technical and institutional change. Black Panthers policed the police in Oakland, shiny BART trains crossed the Bay to SF where the Gay Rights movement was flourishing. My family tree waited a millennia for India to recognize intercaste marriage. My parents would see radical social change in America across every axis in a single generation. Bold leadership in the 60s expanded civil rights and embraced immigration. They (and I) benefited greatly from an economic and social foundation that had been laid over many decades.

Caterpillar Tractor - founded in the Bay Area - embodied the spirit of this era. It went from liberating France in WW2 to building a massive middle class, unionized labor force. Cat later moved its headquarters to Peoria, Illinois - because in this era, cities across the country - not just the coasts - had the ability to compete. Since WW2, America pursued an intentional strategy of geographically broad-based economic development - via highways, airline regulation and distributed national labs.

Caterpillar didn’t just give Peoria a chance, it also gave my dad a chance to put down roots in America by sponsoring his green card. There was no H1B limbo. The nexus of military, industry and labor unions brought immigrants, Women and Blacks into the workforce - with paid apprenticeships (not exorbitant higher education) and technically-focused community colleges paving the way for millions. My mom learned COBOL while her toddlers played in the back of class. Even Hunter’s Point in SF was vibrant during much of this period. (Of course, it was far from a halcyon era - the war machine had massive human cost globally and civil rights were far from evenly enforced in America.)

And while atoms reigned supreme during this era, the military and government patiently invested risk capital in advanced manufacturing, semiconductors and software/networking to prepare America for its future.

1980-2020: “Bits” and global capital, jackrocks and polarization

In 1980, Reagan was elected President - and I was born. This would also be the peak of private sector labor employment in the US and the beginning of global capital (and the multinational companies they backed) as the leading force in forging the social contract.

They promised us that countries with McDonald’s would never go to war with each other. Indeed the Berlin Wall fell, Asian laborers got jobs and Americans could buy cheap stuff at WalMart. Global capital (bits) put atoms inside shipping containers and sent them around the world - abstracting consumers from the manufacturing base.

The writing was on the wall for unions.

As a middle schooler, I saw Cat management and labor (UAW) locked into a multi-year strike over the future. The front line was not in a boardroom or on the picket line. It was neighborhoods, schools and community groups. I remember when a classmate whose dad was in the union talked about how folks in the factory were peeing on effigies of management - including my dad.

Naturally I knew which side I was on. Cat needed wage concessions and freedom to operate to be globally competitive. I’d read Akio Morita, TPS and Lee Iacocca. I worried about Japan Inc. eating our lunch (yes as a 12 year old!) UAW workers and families were much more grounded. They needed a livelihood and wanted certainty for their future.

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War continued to wage into high school. We came home one day to find “jackrocks” outside of our driveway - a tool used in feudal Japan to thwart the advancing armies - horses, chariots - etc. of those in power. In <60 years, Caterpillar had gone from transforming America’s agrarian society to becoming the enemy of American workers. We had the GOP’s Contract with America (stored in my Trapper Keeper) and Clinton signing NAFTA within a couple years. Both parties supported global capital and global capital supported both parties. Maybe jackrocks worked better than voting?

Corporate America soon figured out that if your workers were in China, Mexico or the South, it’s harder for them to stick jack rocks in your driveway. If your kids go to private school or you live in a quasi-private suburb, they’ll be insulated from the wrath of the have-nots in heavily policed, declining urban centers. No peeing on your effigy or having your kid hear about it!

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After college, I became an analyst at Bain & Company. Once an auto parts company hired us to do a “portfolio review”. I meticulously compared the costs of building mirrors in Eastern Michigan or Malaysia - creating a zero defect Excel model. Guess which location won? The auto parts company - like Cat - had the freedom to choose where to put jobs.

But what freedom did the workers have? Marie Antoinette once said “let them eat cake”. The elites of our era now say “let them move”. Social capital is critical for folks navigating change. The educated elite take the portability of social capital (embedded in college degrees and iMessage threads) as a given.

But place and social capital are deeply intertwined especially if you’re poor or a minority. While the deep introspection elites once had during 2016 has now been paved over by new crises, we should never forget that there’s a cost to society of losing its manufacturing base and jobs. How do you model the costs of broken families, drug addiction and a polarized electorate in Excel?

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I grew disillusioned with management by spreadsheet. But I saw a bright spot on the horizon: tech. I remember opening my first iPod, getting 1000 songs in my pocket and believing that America had a shot at leading a new generation of consumer electronics when everyone a decade earlier had written us off in favor of the Japanese. Perhaps tech could bring jobs and prosperity back to the country? I wanted to be part of it.

So I moved to the Valley in 2004 and joined a VC fund. I saw how the VC funding model that Silicon Valley was built on incentivizes high-risk, high-leverage and massive-scale. It encourages companies to cherry-pick top-end talent (immigrants, marquee college grads) to build the differentiated bits. Pick the highest leverage point in the stack, outsource everything else - by building in China and/or pushing the last-mile to an ecosystem that you can control at arms length.

Tech companies could more than pay back the largely fixed costs of software / semiconductor design from the large and homogenous American market. This dynamic attracted massive amounts of private risk capital and enabled aggressive expansion abroad. This model didn’t work for everything (I got burned with cleantech) - but it worked amazingly well for broad swaths of enterprise software, consumer services and marketplaces. I saw how tech could be an incredible lever for wealth creation. But every visit back home to the Rust Belt made me wonder - wealth creation for whom?

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2020+ - A thought experiment on institutional innovation and putting people first

July 14, 2020 - Q2 Earnings - CEO, MEGA TECH CORP - Hi everyone. These aren’t normal times. We’re not going to talk about our 10Q on this call. We’re here to talk about the next 10 years. So if you’re here for DAUs, ARR or CPC, you can drop off now. 

We’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the race, health and economic crises our country faces. Over the last few weeks, I’ve asked our exec team to leave their homes, their Zoom calls, their DoorDash deliveries - to join protests and explore our community through new eyes.

Race & Place: On Juneteenth, we biked from Sheraton Place to Hunters Point to Tanforan. We saw the real life impact of redlining, mass incarceration of Blacks and the lack of jobs from decades ago - and how our headquarters sustain - rather than disrupt - the region’s policies of de facto segregation. We also remembered how political demagogues once imprisoned our neighbors of Japanese descent. We see today how their rhetoric affects our Black neighbors and colleagues. What might it do tomorrow to folks without legal status in ag/service industries that California depends or the H1Bs we depend on? What does diversity & inclusion mean in this context?

Jobs: The next Friday we biked from SRI to PARC to Sunnyvale and Moffett Field. Our industry once dreamed of a bicycle for the mind and embraced technical education and apprenticeship as a path in the door for Women and Blacks. Meanwhile we’ve pushed vast swaths of work to contractors or platform-mediated transactions - making it harder to use up-skilling as a talent lever like manufacturing employers did in the last era. What’s the impact on income mobility? At what point will 40 million unemployed Americans affect our share prices and the stability of society?

Climate: On Independence Day, we biked on the Bay Trail past landfills, superfund sites and the 101 - alongside poor and minority neighborhoods with terrible health outcomes. We talked about the Bay Area weather forecast for 2060 “fire with a chance of flooding”. We passed abandoned railways and dreams of regional transport - the result of which is folks commuting hours each way from the central valley to work service jobs in our campuses. We wondered about the long run political consequences of isolating our employee base inside the WiFi confines of a private bus network. Where is the voting base to drive institutional change? How many axles or tires will our commuter buses need to keep them safe from jackrocks on the 101?

Health: Last week, we rode from the old Permanente cement quarry to 101 (built by the same cement workers.) We talked about how Kaiser - a private employer of low-skilled workers - internalized their healthcare needs, pursued disruptive innovation and faced fierce clashes with the medical establishment. We thought about how COVID is exposing the brittleness of our employee’s isolation inside a private insurance bubble. No one can be healthy in a pandemic without competent public health infrastructure. Meanwhile, the growing cost of private healthcare makes it harder for tech - let alone the rest of the country - to employ American workers across the wage spectrum - exacerbating job loss and instability.

And as we spoke with others, we saw how the issues that Silicon Valley faces are not unique to one metropolitan area or one industry. It just happens to be the ultimate archetype of Global Capitalism and de facto segregated American metros.

What we now see - more clearly than ever - is that our entire company, our entire industry, our entire Valley - is built on a flawed foundation.

We can no longer just focus on the magical software bits and hope someone else figures out racial equity, employment, climate and health. This is Joel Spolsky’s Law of Leaky Abstractions on the ultimate scale. The abstractions are failing - and we’re seeing bugs and unintended consequences all around us. And the more we invest to deal with one-off bugs, the more likely we are to calcify change and imprison ourselves inside a failing stack.

It’s like we decided to build the world’s notification service on Ruby on Rails - or building an iPhone competitor on Windows CE. Fail Whale everywhere. Unfortunately, America’s democratic institutions are in poor condition. They are struggling to deal with inequality let alone looming environmental disaster. A polarized electorate - particularly at the national level - leads to populism and makes it hard for these institutions to execute meaningful, long-term plans.

We talk a lot about speech, misinformation, fairness of targeted ads etc. But it’s becoming clear that UX, linear algebra/training data and monetization in our products is just the tip of the spear to address polarization. We believe polarization is a product of the underlying conditions of civil rights, education, health and climate debt that affect Americans differentially based on race, wealth, neighborhood and region. e.g. If we care about justice, how far does focusing on the fairness of employment ads get us in a world when many people lack the skills and negotiating power to secure a living wage?

So will today’s peaceful protests for racial justice expand into tomorrow’s revolution(s) for economic freedom? If you don’t think things are bad now, think about what happens when the stimulus checks run out. Take a look at the amount of debt in the public sector, use any imagination about COVID, work out what happens to their tax base / pension returns and consider the impact on public services, public servants and their votes. MMT better be a real thing. Maybe we didn’t start these fires, but that refrain won’t save us when the flames come our way.

We’re done debating why we need to act. It’s clear America needs our help. Let’s talk about how we’re going to rise to the occasion. Our mantra will be “internalize, innovate, institutionalize”.

First, we’re going to internalize our problems. I’m here to tell you that issues of racial and economic justice are not just moral issues but they’re financial issues. Racial debt, education debt, health debt, climate debt will hit us harder and harder each year. (By the way, revolution probably won’t be great for your DCF models.) So we’re going to recognize these off-balance sheet liabilities - which amount to a few hundred billion in the US alone over the next 10 years for a company at our scale.

Second, we’re going to innovate against these systemic problems - but our only shot at making progress is if we realign the entire company’s mission to address them. This is not about optics. This is not about philanthropy. This is not another bet. We’re putting all our chips behind one bet - America. It's the country that backed us in the first place, it's where most of our people are and most of our profits. The job for our existing products, platforms and cash flows will be to advance four areas: place / race, skilling / manufacturing, health / food and climate / mobility - starting in America. The board will measure me based on job creation and diversity. It should go without saying that we’re pausing dividends and buybacks for the foreseeable future. Every dollar will serve our mission. Every senior leader will need to sign up for our new mission - and those who choose to stay will receive a new, back-end loaded, 10 year vesting schedule. We want them focused on the long-term health of society - not the whims of Robinhood day traders or strengthening the moats of existing products. We will need to invent entirely new ways to operate and ship products. As Joel Spolsky said, “when you need to hire a programmer to do mostly VB programming, it’s not good enough to hire a VB programmer, because they will get completely stuck in tar every time the VB abstraction leaks”. We need engineers, designers and product managers that will look deep into the stack, confront the racial, job access, health and climate debts that our products, our companies and our communities are built on top of. This is not about CYA process to protect cash cows or throwing things over the fence to policy. We will need to innovate across technical, cultural and organizational lines. This requires deep understanding and curiosity. This will bring more scrutiny to our company - not less. Not everyone’s going to be on board - so for the next 12 months, we’re giving folks a one-time buyout if they want to leave.

Third, we can’t do any of this by ourselves. The problems are too big. Our role will be to provide enlightened risk capital (from our balance sheet or by re-vectoring operating spend) alongside R&D, product, platform leverage to help leaders and innovators pursue solutions in these areas. Of course we will work with our peers and the public sector wherever possible - buying/R&D consortia, public-private partnerships, trusts, etc. But the new era and landscape demands that we explore institutional models beyond global capital/startups, labor unions, NGOs or government. We need models that can more flexibly align people and purpose, that innovate on individualized vs. socialized risk/reward - and that ultimately help build and sustain local, social capital. It’s difficult to say what these will look like - but increasingly figuring this out will be existential for our core business too. Right now, it doesn’t matter if you’re designing the best cameras in Cupertino or the best way to see their snaps in Santa Monica - we’re all just building layers of an attention stack for global capital. Our Beijing competitors have figured this out. ByteDance is already eating our lunch. They’re using the same tech inputs as us - UX, ML and large-scale systems - which are now a commodity - but with vastly lower consequences for the content they show - creating a superior operating / scaling model. They’re not internalizing social or political cost.   What we need in this era is the accumulation stack - where each interaction builds social capital. This is not about global likes. This is about local respect. We’ll create competitive advantage when we build products that reach across race / economic lines to harness America’s amazing melting pot and do so in ways that build livelihoods / property rights for creators and stakeholders.

With this operating model in place, we’re committing to fundamental change in four areas:

Place & Race - We’re done with de facto segregation. Over the next 10 years, 100% of our jobs will be in diverse communities that embrace inclusive schooling, policing, housing and transit policies. (Starting tomorrow, we’re putting red lines on our maps around towns with exclusionary zoning.) This is not about privatizing cities or an HQ2-style play to extract concessions. This is about investing our risk capital and our reputation to innovate alongside government. How do we bring world-class education to neighborhoods with concentrated poverty? What is the future of digital/hybrid charter schooling? Unbundled, community-driven public safety? We’ll embrace “remote-first” as a means to this end. The Bay will become one physical node alongside others (e.g. Atlanta, DC, LA) creating an Interstate Knowledge System that develops diverse talent across the country. We’re going to coordinate our investment with leading peers - since after all, this isn’t about cost savings or cherry-picking. It’s about broadening our country’s economic base.

Skilling & Manufacturing - We will 10x the tech talent pool in 10 years - by inventing new apprenticeship models that bring women, minorities and the poor into the workforce. We’ll start with our existing contractor base, convert them to new employment models with expanded benefits and paths for upward mobility. Next, we will invent new productivity tools for all types of workers - from the front office to mobile work to call center - that brings the power of AI and programming to everyone. These will be deeply tied into new platforms for work designed from the bottom-up to build social and financial capital for individual workers and teams. Last, we’re going to manufacture most of our hardware products - from silicon all the way to systems - entirely in the US within 10 years. This will require massive investment, collaboration and innovation. It may require a revolution in robotics - but we will pursue this in a way that makes the American worker competitive - not a commodity to be automated away. If we’re successful, the dividends of our investment here will have massive spillover benefits to every other sector of manufacturing in the US - autos, etc. - including ones we have yet to dream up.

Health & Food - We’re not going to tolerate a two-class system for healthcare anymore. As we convert our contract workforce to new employment models, we’re going to have to innovate on the fundamental quality/cost paradigm across our benefit stack. This may feel like a step down but it will put us (and the rest of society if we’re successful) on a fundamentally better long-term trajectory. Food is part of Health, and we’re going to innovate there too. Free food for employees is not going to come back post-COVID. Instead, we’ll use our food infrastructure to bootstrap cooperatively-owned cloud kitchens. We’ll provide capital to former contractors - mostly Black and Hispanic - to invest and own these. We’ll build platforms to help them sell food to employees (partly subsidized), participate in new “food for health” programs and eventually disrupt the extractive labor practices we see across food, grocery and delivery.

Climate & Mobility - Lastly, we’ll be imposing a carbon tax on all aspects of our own operations - which we’ll use to “fund” innovation in this space - with a primary focus on job creation. This is an area where we’re going to be looking far beyond our four walls from the beginning. As a first step, we’re teaming up with Elon and Gavin Newsom to buy PG&E out of bankruptcy and restructure it as a 21st century “decentralized” utility. It will accelerate the electrification of mobility - financing networked batteries for buses, cars and bikes along with charging infrastructure - and leading a massive job creation program focused on energy efficiency. Speaking of mobility, private buses aren’t coming back after COVID. Instead, we’re teaming up with all of our peers to create a Bay-wide network of electric buses (with bundled e-bikes) that will service folks of all walks of life - including our own employee base. Oh and one more thing - we’re bringing together the world’s most advanced privacy/identity architecture and computational video/audio to bake public health infrastructure directly into the buses. For COVID and beyond. None of this is a substitute for competent, democratically accountable regional authorities. This is us investing risk capital on behalf of society - with the goal of empowering these authorities. Yes the New York Times will have a field day with this. Maybe in time they’ll leave their bubble, enter the real world, see the sorry state of their institutions - the behavioral health and infrastructure crises on their crumbling streets - and get on board. Until then, our job is to be patient longer than they can be inflammatory.

Open technology for global progress - While we have to prioritize America given the scale of problems, the intent is not to abandon the rest of the world or hold back it’s progress. We feel the opposite - that over the coming decades each country’s technology sectors will thrive. To get there, we will continue to invest patiently - hiring, training, partnering, investing and innovating - but with a clear north star to help each country develop local leaders in new areas. Long-term, we’ll continue to contribute open technology that others can build upon.

America should be the proverbial city on a hill for everyone - not a metaverse for the rich with the poor dying in the streets. We don’t have much time so we’re getting to work now. See you next quarter.

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This call may be imaginary but none of this is sci-fi or requires MMT. What it requires is us to care. To act. Join me on bike rides to explore our past and discuss what tangible actions Silicon Valley’s leading companies can take in the coming quarters and years. Logistics here for rides on June 19, June 26, July 2 and July 10!

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crimsonblackrose · 6 years ago

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Now that I’ve moved to a city I decided that I should go do the things I want to do. I’m no longer tied down by how difficult it is to catch the bus. This includes going to festivals I want to see. With cherry blossom season in full swing I decided I wanted to see THE cherry blossom festival in Korea. It is, however in Jinhae, which is closer to Busan. (And thus far from me)

I thought I’d go on my own. Make a day trip or a weekend out of it. But then while talking to Gina, she mentioned she was going via WinK. I checked their Facebook events, found the tour and e-mailed them to see if there was any availability left. There was! Which meant I didn’t have to worry about getting there or getting back, or finding my way around. I didn’t have to find a place to stay last minute or worry about almost anything. I just had to pack and be at Seoul National University of Education Station Exit 14 at 10:30pm after work on Friday.

Here’s the schedule we had:

Friday/Saturday

10:30ish depart from in front of WINK taphouse. (short walk from exit 14)

Pick up people along the way to the Jimjilbang/motel after about 3 in the morning.

Meet at 8:15 back at the bus to go to the festival. (Receive muffins!)

9am-Jinhae festival

FREE TIME

11am- Leave Jinhae

1pm- arrive in Gyeongju and rent bikes

FREE TIME

5pm return bikes and head to hostel

6:30/7pm bbq dinner at hostel

8:00 night walk tour of tombs and Anapji pond

Sunday

7:30am Bagels and hot drinks

8am Bulguksa Temple/Namsan Hike

9:30am Seokguram Grotto

11am pick up everyone who tried to sleep in

12:30 Buffet lunch

6:30pm back in Seoul

Pretty busy trip for sure. I wasn’t particularly excited for Gyeongju as I’d already spent an entire Chuseok exploring the city my first year and nothing on our itinerary was new to me.

But this post will cover up through Jinhae. Gyeongju will be in a second post.

First thing was the long journey from Seoul to our Jimjilbang. Practically everyone slept during the bus ride, including our guides. We stopped at a couple spots to pick people up throughout the night/ early morning and there was one “rest stop” included in that. The rest stop was really the bus picking someone up and the rest of us, who were awake, running into a nearby hotel to use their lobby bathroom.

I tried to sleep the rest of the time, grateful I’d brought my eye mask, until our bus driver started yelling. We were making our way up hill and he got stuck due to traffic and seemed rather unhappy. It took a moment for our guides to rouse and in a dazed way figure out why he was unhappy. Turns out the jimjilbang was up a hill and our driver refused to go the rest of the way. So (late) we unboarded and made our way up the steep hill at 4am. Not fun. We all huddled on the steps as our guide tried to get us in. The front desk at first told us that there wasn’t any space available. But our guide reminded them we had a reservation and started calling off our names in groups of threes to collect our jimjilbang pajamas and locker key.

This was my first time staying at a jimjilbang. I’ve heard about them countless times before. Everyone calls them spas and they’re known as a cheap alternative to a hotel/motel/hostel to stay at in South Korea. So cheap, that everyone told me they only cost a couple thousand won. (a couple bucks) When I heard that this one was 10,500 won I thought, oh it must be nice and fancy. It was also much cheaper than staying at the motel which was where or bus had driven off to and which cost about 35,000 won extra.

I headed off with the other ladies on our trip to the women’s locker room and dropped off my shoes in the shoe locker and then my stuff in the big locker. Both went with the number on the key band and then I separated from the rest of the group to head downstairs to take a shower.

For some reason I thought there’d be more. I don’t know why, but I thought toiletries would be included. Or at least more than communal bars of soap. The ground felt grimy and I really wished I had shower shoes. A couple other people headed down with me and I took, quite possibly the quickest shower in my life. I’m not sure if it’s different if you’re with a bunch of friends or if there’s more people and it’s less exhausting. There were pools or baths, but they were mostly drained and I really just wanted to go straight to bed. So I put on the pajamas, dropped my towels off in the used towel bin and headed upstairs.

The majority of the group had changed into their jimjilbang provided pajamas and headed upstairs to sleep earlier. Apparently there was a specific room for women and another for men that had been set aside for us. However when I got upstairs everyone had gone to sleep and I didn’t want to get too close to the bodies sleeping in various corners to inspect and see if any of them looked familiar. I found one of our guides laying down on some chairs, grabbed a very flat mat and made do near the water fountain.

I did not sleep. I couldn’t. It was too hot. People kept getting up and walking past. Many people were loudly snoring. I was also at the first stages of getting sick which was making me miserable and part of me wished I’d stayed on the bus. One girl from our tour got so fed up with all the sound that she grabbed her stuff and slept in the locker room, where she found a cockroach.

It might’ve been better in the lady only room, which I still don’t know where it was, or shelling out an extra 25,000 won for a motel room. But the people who stayed at the motel didn’t get much sleep either and had a lot of difficulty checking in and the ladies in the women only room ended up not getting much sleep either due to some snoring.

It also didn’t help that at 6am one of the ladies who ran the place decided to high pressure wash all the bathrooms near us and then take out the trash and shake it past everyone sleeping as she walked.

So eventually I gave up, got up, retrieved my stuff from my locker, tried to charge my poor phone, dropped off my key at the desk and then stood outside to wait with everyone else for the bus.

Stay at a Jimjilbang in Korea check. Am I fan? …nope. (However I did miss out on probably everything that people do actually enjoy about jimjilbangs. But I also am not one who can handle heat)

The first thing we got on the bus was our choice of muffin (from Costco) and then we headed to the festival. The muffins were good but several people also spotted the nearby McDonalds and before the bus left ran off to grab coffee and other less sweet breakfast items. (Gina was very kind and brought me back a hash-brown.)

Maps were passed out and our first stop would be to visit the train station which is only open during the festival. It’s the iconic photo anyone who goes to the festival takes. It was also the furthest away from everything else we were going to do and the thing we had the shortest amount of time for. There were flower crowns being sold everywhere with the sneaky way of being sold as the sellers would just walk up and put them on peoples heads and then be like “Oh so pretty~”. The safest way to avoid this was beating them to the punch and buying one from someone else.

The Korail cherry blossom train is only available to visit during the festival. The area is pretty crowded but if you have time they set out lawn chairs so you can relax, almost lay down and watch them fall around you. It was absolutely stunning. But also very very crowded.

There’s a line to get pictures with the train depending on when you go. I didn’t want to bother with the line. I was worried about our time. I like being on time and I do get concerned about being left behind on tours. So I grabbed a picture of just the train with the cherry blossoms and I was quite happy.

I was also on the hunt for cherry blossom bread and was determined to find some. I wanted to bring some home to my new coworkers as well as try some. I didn’t find any at the train location, only general street food that I can find anywhere in Korea.

Gina on the other hand really wanted her picture in front of the train, and got in line, but we ran out of time so I ran to see when the bus was leaving only to find it leaving.

Problem: I had the map. My goal was elsewhere. Gina didn’t have the map. Her goal was a picture in front of the train. So she stayed to get her picture and I got on the bus. It was a bit stressful, trying to figure out how to tell her where we were with my dying battery (remember how I didn’t charge it the entire time we were at the jimjilbang???…yeah) So I stayed close to our guide as we headed to the next spot to try and somehow put the two of them in touch, since he could better tell her where we were and how to get to where we were going.

Our next stop was the stream….which was underwhelming. A lot of the cherry blossoms weren’t yet in full bloom yet. There was very little water in the stream and despite how I ran up and down along either side of it, no cherry blossom bread to be found. Meanwhile Gina met subscribers and got her picture. She also found a free shuttle which took her directly to the area we were in, was able to find an uncrowded side street where the cherry trees were in full bloom and was having a delightful time on her own.

Highlight of my trip at the stream? I did find cherry blossom ice cream. It was 3,000 won and delightful.

I also found a shop selling cherry blossom coffee with art of the festival on it, so I bought some as a “worse case scenario” back up gift for my coworkers. (Ended up giving it to the principal and vice principal and they loved it) I found information desk after information desk, showed them the bread I was looking for and they sent me “left and up the stairs”, “across the street and to the right”, “down that way past the intersection next to the bank”, “around the corner”, and no matter who I asked, no matter which way I went I couldn’t find the bakery that made them. Concerned about being left behind (the bus didn’t wait a second for Gina) I gave up and returned to the bus. I ended up so early that I was the first one aboard and I just collapsed in my seat and tried to cool off.

Where was the bread? Why was I sent all over downtown looking for it in conflicting directions? Turns out the bakery had made little pop up tents where they were selling the bread. I know this because I saw one of the tents as our bus drove away from Jinhae.

So was the tour worth it? (For the Jinahae section?) I’ve got mixed feelings. I feel like on the one hand it made it very easy to get in and out of the festival. We had a map to where everything of importance was. However due to the time crunch it made it difficult to actually accomplish anything. If you just want to go and see the flowers, it’s perfect. If you actually want to get specific pictures or buy something specific…a little less easy. It depends on what you want to do. I’m glad I went but there’s also free shuttles during the festivals that will take you to all the highlights of the festival. So part of me does somewhat wish I’d stayed in Busan and then gone to the festival in my own time and with more sleep. But that’s because I understand enough Korean to navigate public transportation on my own and would’ve liked to have slowed down and smelled the flowers.

Jinhae Cherry Blossom Tour 진해국항제 Now that I've moved to a city I decided that I should go do the things I want to do.

#cherry blossoms #festivals #진해국항제 #jimjilbang #jinhae cherry blossom festival #tours

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profitboostsoftware-blog · 6 years ago

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Auto Repair Software Prescott Valley

Make selling your business location your exit strategy Do you own the building your business is in? Do you plan on buying the building? If you are starting an auto repair shop have you decided to buy your own building. If not, why not?

Not many people know this, but McDonald's isn't a burger business. It's a real estate business. The value of the property, with improvements, is the real value of a McDonald's store. The vast majority of stores are run by franchisees who pay head office rent every month, no matter how good or bad their month has been head office still get their rent and they own the building forever.

Someone could come up with a better burger tomorrow (and some would say that already exists) but no one can take away the prime locations that Mcdonalds own.

Starting an Auto Repair Business Like starting any business it is expensive, it is scary and risky. You have enough to worry about looking for staff and thinking just how much you need to earn every month to break even, never mind paying a mortgage as well. You worry about this weeks payroll and looking long term is not easy, we live in the moment and work on fixing the problem in front of us. Leasing a building may be easier, quicker and seem cheaper, than buying a building but is it the right long-term decision?

What does your Business Plan say? Before you even think about starting a business you need a plan, you need to do research and you need to think long term not just short term. A real-world example is a very experienced mechanic who opened a shop in a area that was 40 minutes’ drive from his home. He didn’t think about how that driving time would extend his work day and cause him stress and expense. He spent less buying the shop than if he had bought one locally but over time he spent a lot more on fuel, increased wear and tear and stress for him.

You need to have an auto repair shop business plan and it needs to cover every possible thing, you should look into the costs associated with leasing a building and then collect the data on buying a building. Two plans almost exact in every way but with very different long-term outcomes.

Should I Lease Space? The benefit of leasing is that it is generally quicker to arrange and cheaper, in the short term at least. Your rent will go up every 5 years (maybe sooner, make sure you read the agreement), and it may go up substantially at the end of your pre-agreed time. What if the owner sells the building to someone else who wants to remove you at the end of your lease?

Say it all goes well and you pay your rent for 30 years, retirement comes along and what do you have to sell? Nothing is the answer, you get to either sell your equipment and customer list to a new person who wants to start in the auto repair business or you sell it off piecemeal (for a lot less than you paid). You don’t own the building, you don’t own the land it’s on you don’t have much in the way of physical assets.

Should I Buy an Existing Building? For the soon-to-be owner of an auto repair shop, your easiest strategy is usually to buy an existing location (even if it's not currently profitable), they will already have equipment and they will have at least some customers for you to build on and you are in business fast.

What if the current business owner also owns the building? Buy the business complete with building all in one fell swoop.

You could do two separate deals. Buy the business and agree to pay rent for 5 or 10 years and then buy the building. By working with the current owner to arrange terms to buy the building now you remove the problem of what happens in 10 years when you have built a successful business and the property owner puts the rent up and up just because they know you can pay it.

Should I Build my own Shop? Buy land and build your shop from the ground up, this is a second option and will take more upfront cash and more time than just buying an already existing business. The positive of this option is that you get what you want in a shop. Doing self-build allows you to choose every detail, right down to the color paint and carpet you have from day one.

Building your own shop takes time and energy (as well as money), everyone who I know who has built their own repair shop has said that while it is profitable in the long run it is also the most stressful and exhausting part of their life. Unless you have substantial money and energy this is a last option.

What is Your Endgame? I know it sounds crazy but the saying that “Time and Tide Wait for No Man” is true. One day you are a fresh-faced technician thinking about going out on his own, the next day you wake up and your have a successful business and all the aches and pains that go with 30plus years of fixing cars.

How you spend the 30 (or more) years after retirement can be deeply affected by the decision to buy the building your business is in or not.

If you currently lease your business's building, you need to seriously consider true ownership, rather than just adding another lift to your shop. No matter how profitable you can be (even with Profit Boost auto repair software helping you), the intrinsic value of land and buildings can be the difference between retiring with a bit of money and retiring with a ton of money.

That may mean relocating your business, if the current owner won't sell. It is a lot less painful to relocate your business when you are young and have the energy to rebrand and reignite it in a new location.

Poor Planning Prevents Profit The point here is that you must be mindful of your first priority: make a profit.

It means finding value in every aspect of your business, not just in the revenue of your operation. Plan to make every part of your business profitable, even a simple thing like renting parking space for extra money every month can mean the difference between meeting your payroll, and not, in the short term.

Profit Boost shop management software can help you improve your bottom line, especially if you're willing to use it as fully as you can. Measuring profit on parts, technician efficiency and PPH are all valuable, no essential, for your business profitability.

Using that profit to ensure your long-term future is the real secret sauce.

Think of it as plugging holes in a bathtub you want to fill completely and increasing the flow of water as much as you can. There's a limit to how much you can make, no matter how efficient your operation may be.

Owning the land and building that houses your business can be your ticket to a satisfactory retirement. Give yourself an edge – plan for your future and provide for yourself when it's time to move on from managing the shop.

Get Help From Day One No I don’t mean technicians or a service writer, we have covered that in previous blog posts. I mean get a real tax advisor, get to know a banker locally, get a good business attorney, speak to a Commercial Real Estate Broker.

You should have all these people on speed dial and spend the money to take them out to lunch once a year.

Even if you don’t think you need a loan or any kind of money anytime soon it always pays to have your banker know just how well your business is doing, your tax person will be able to explain new laws (do not make the mistake of only thinking of taxes in September when they are already late or close to it).

Ask the commercial broker how a building like yours is valued? There are 2 or 3 different ways but the most common is based on how much rent it brings in. What does this mean for your auto repair business and your property holding business?

You didn’t think the repair shop was going to own the actual building, did you? No you set up a property management LLC and that owns the structure. The repair shop rents the building. The amount of rent it pays will increase the value of the building when you sell it. Even though you are renting the building from yourself you should have a water tight lease and have regular rent increases baked into the lease. Now you can see why we said to get an attorney and become friendly with him.

We recently spoke to a shop owner who owns the building that his auto business is in, but he has been charging a below market rent to the repair shop. He thought he was doing himself a favor, making the auto shop look more profitable. In fact that has reduced the value of the building. If he finds a buyer for the building but not the business, they are going to low ball him as the rental income is low. If he sells the auto shop he can’t suddenly increase the rent he is charging the new owner so either way he loses.

Don’t leave it to the last minute to increase the rent, a buyer is going to want to see more than one year of accounts. Remember we mentioned planning for success earlier, now you see how planning really does result in long term profits.

How do I Buy an Auto Repair Shop? Start with the money, how much do you have and how much can you borrow? We mentioned a banker earlier, you should be opening a business account months (or longer) before you need to borrow any money. Speak to a real banker (not just the teller) and see if there is one who has experience with financing Auto Repair Shops. Ask other local business owners, see who they recommend. We have found local credit unions to be better than the nationwide banks in many instances but do your research.

Small business loans for auto repair shops are available, search for a lender with SBA (small business administration) experience and when you find one milk every bit of knowledge you can from them.

As for the ins and outs of buying, selling, negotiating, and managing the purchase and sale of commercial real estate, do the right thing. Engage the services of a professional experienced local commercial real estate broker, one with a track record of dealing successfully with all the aspects of the business you need handled.

Local knowledge and experience really do count in instances like these, your realtor will be able to point you towards reliable contractors and experts in their field (and share who to avoid). The realtor will want to know that you have spoken to a banker, that you have earnest money and that you have some idea of what you are looking for. They may even know a local business that is on, or about to be on, the market. Ask them for info before you tell them what you know and don’t know.

In some cases, you may require property management, because your location is (or will be) more than just a repair shop. In other cases, you may require specialized services because of your location.

Ask questions and listen to answers, better to ask a hundred questions and learn all you can than to buy the wrong business.

Think Long Term Now that you're thinking about more than just squeezing the last dollar out of every repair job, and ensuring profitability with your auto repair shop software, begin to think long-term about your repair shop exit strategy. Every business has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Do yourself a favor and make sure that your end will be as satisfactory as was your opening day.

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ProfitBoost Software

8841 Florentine Rd suite e

Prescott Valley, AZ 86314

Phone: 888-274-3776

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Profitboost

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProfitBoost-Software-265939784254/

Official Site: https://www.profitboost.com/

#auto repair software #auto repair shop software #auto repair shop management software

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stone-man-warrior · 4 years ago

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April 7, 2021: 6:07 pm:

===========================================

I just returned from shopping in Dystopia, where socio-terrific conditions are the only law.

I went to AM/PM and Walmart.

At AM/PM Luke’s Arco, the prices of all of the items in the store have increased over the past month by about 20%, and more for some items.

There was a “bait” car at the AM/PM, a car that the terror army can use if they need to set someone up for a fake theft. The bait cars are not easy to spot, but after awhile of seeing them and learning of the ways of the terror army, they are as if they have a sign on them that says: “Steal Me!”,

It was the most painful shopping experience that I can recall. The poison leg symptoms are so very painful that the pain itself is frightening.

The Walmart terror associates did what I suspected they would do to make my life more difficult and painful, they took the items I want to buy off of the shelves, as they do often, but this time they took all of the vitamin E gel-caps off the shelf, then as I was searching for it, they sent a female terror soldier complete with entire family terror cell to block access to that area where the vitamin E is located, and, the terror family cell had an accomplice who showed up for the purpose of engaging in a Walmart Customer Pow-Wow, again, to block access to the vitamins, and since the Walmart terror associates know what my leg condition is, they made sure I was hurting more than was necessary in many parts of the store.

There was one bottle of the vitamin E in the wrong place, backwards on the bottom shelf, I was fortunate to have found it, as the vitamin E gel-caps are very helpful for dealing with this condition on my leg.

Items they removed that I always buy:

Very Vanilla flavored Silk brand Soy Milk.

Jimmi Dean Hot! flavored sausage.

Two-pack carton of 18 count eggs.

Folgere’s Colombian Coffee.

Marshmallow cookies.

And other stuff. There is always someone who is there to block access to the things I want, the terror soldiers anticipate my route through the store, and they swoop in on the aisles that have the items I want, and tend to huddle around, acting oblivious to the idea that somone else also wants to get something from that shelf. Those blocking conditions have been going on for many years, not just at Walmart, the terror army teams up that way at all of the grocery stores, and stores where other products are sold also. I think they do that to try to provoke a response that can lead to a set-up in association with the imposter police. And of course, a huddle of terror soldiers in the aisles is oportunity to prime a marked victim with plenty of nitrous oxide gas for easy to capture prey at the check-stand later on.

There is always some kind of malfunction with the debit card reader or with the self-check out, something that requires a store associate to come to the register. That makes opportunity to shoot the costumer with a .25, and then they offer first aid to the people they shoot, while blaming someone else. Today, it was the bananas that caused the malfunction, and when the terror associate came over to the register, somehow she knew my name, and, she said to me: “You are not dead?” then I asked “what?”, and the reply was: “we thought you were dead” so I responded with: “not quite, just give it some time, you should not have to wait much longer.” I recognize the gal that came to the register from some other place than Walmart, but I cannot place the gal at this time. That same Walmart terror associate, a yellow vested one, asked or said to me: “You took out Syn & Deb?” to which my response was something like: “I did not purchase any Syn & Deb products today”

If anyone wants to know more about Syn & Deb, please provide me with a national security interview so we can talk about the details of terror take over of USA and other parts of the world.

Other interesting Walmart activity is they removed the McDonald’s from the Walmart. As I reported before, that McDonald’s uses a black sign with yellow arches, is not a real McDonald’s sign they had hanging on the wall above the McDonald’s, is gone today. There were men taking the McDonald’s apart, and they started by taking down all of the signage and McDonald’s corporate colors.

The pain today was so intense that I forgot to get the hydrogen peroxide, and that is the primary reason I went to the store today, the pain is so intense that I am not able to think clearly, and that goes beyond the nitrous gas they use everywhere. The Walmart terror associates actually stationed a terror representative at the aisle where the peroxide is on the shelf, the terror associate was seated in a chair opposite the hydrogen peroxide at the end cap, but the chair and terror soldier were seated completely within the aisle, waiting to see who is going to buy some peroxide today.

Walmart parked a American Medical Response Intensive Care Emergency Vehicle out front next to where I parked, just to make sure I saw it, and everyone is aware that US citizens cannot get medical treatment in Oregon. The AMR truck was for “Add some insult to the injury” terror, it’s a SAG terror tactic designed to reduce a persons morale, is a “Chip away at the Stone” terror tactic. There are hundred of the “Insult to Injury” news items presented on Twitter every day.

I saw someone who fits the description of Sterling Chartrand on my way home, he was at the Chartrand terror cell, but could have been an imposter in make-up.

Every once in a while I see someone at my driveway gate, they take the gate off of the thing it rests on and jump up and down on the gate, then put it back on the support block that keeps the weight off of it when it’s closed. Today the gate is dragging on the ground when I open it up, I have to carry the weight of the gate now, while trying to find a time that it would be safe to repair the gate without Monroe terror cell shooting at me. Some asshole bent the gate to make my life that much more difficult.

I have not seen Sterling Chartrand around here for a long, long time. He is very difficult to get a look at, stays out of sight all of the time. Sterling Chartrand has a number of signature characteristics among the terror army, he has an attack disguise costume that is made of a deer. He made the costume from a dead deer, and when he wears the costume, it makes him look like the mythical creature called a Pan. part human, part hooved animal. I have seen Sterling Chartrand use many different kinds of disguise costume camouflage, all of them were deer costumes of one configuration or another, but the Pan costume is really very stealth. it’s an amazing thing to see, and is dangerous to get close to. Sterling is about 19 years old, super skinny, about 130 pounds, about 5′11″ tall has bushy, curly brown hair, and looks a lot like his mother Jenifer Chartrand did, they both resemble Bob Dillon.

That is all I want to say for now, I am hurting too bad continue.

==============================

10:08 pm:

Those increased prices I mentioned at the AM/PM store looks like a response to terror marching orders presented on Twitter with the news story about baseball and moving the all star game from Georgia to Colorado. The way it translates, and the what little I overheard about it, seems to be that the orders from “On-High” are to increase prices across the board on all merchandise and services as part of the next phase of the global terror take over being advanced by Screen Actor Guild and Britain. There is a “Star Buck’s” connection to the terror orders to increase prices dramatically, but I have forgotten where I saw the Star Buck’s connection beyond the All Star Game that leads to the orders and how Star Buck’s is part of the decode information.

What I learned today, is the act of going from Georgia to Colorado is a “Hiring act”, as to raise elevation, and I don‘t think the orders are limited to prices gaining elevation.

The words on a sign at a store front that says: “now hiring” is a nod to those terror orders, it means that the place where the “now hiring” signage was placed, is a leading model of how the “Hiring of Elevation” will be done. So, at AM/PM there is such a sign that says “now hiring” out front of the store, and indeed the prices of the products were sky high compared to a few weeks ago.

It’s notable that there was only one car in the drive through line at the Star Buck’s store across from AM/PM, and that is very, very unusual. That Star Buck’s always has more than twenty vehicles in the line waiting to pay eight dollars for a cup of coffee.

The terror bastards are going to price the remaining US Citizens into a riot, where the cost to survive is going to exceed the income of the vast majority of US citizens, and since the terror army does not have to pay for their sustenance, the terror army won’t be adversely affected in any way. As it stands now, the terror army is not affected at all by hardships caunsed by the so called Corona Virus, for the same reasons, the terror army is fully supported by the SAG/Britain leadership.

Too Big To Fail is what the terror army is funded with.

“now hiring” is the call to raise the price to live for non-terror citizens.

That is another example of why Twitter must be taken offline forever. The marching orders are commanded from the news media stories presented on Twitter.

not one thing can be done to combat the global take over unless Twitter is removed from view of the terror army in the field.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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McDonald’s Pokémon Promotion Taken Over by Scalpers and Aggressive Adults

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

In case you haven’t heard, Pokémon has been experiencing a bit of a mainstream popularity resurgence ahead of the franchise’s 25th anniversary. While no aspect of the brand has “escaped” renewed interest, one of the biggest beneficiaries has been the Pokémon TCG. That being the case, it only makes sense that McDonald’s recently decided to launch a Happy Meal promotion featuring collectible Pokémon cards.

The promotion is, on paper, rather simple. Various McDonald’s stores have recently started serving Happy Meals in special Pikachu containers. The container is cute enough, but the real prize is the pack of Pokémon TCG cards located inside. Each pack contains four of 50 cards (which includes base cards and their “holographic” variants) that feature starter Pokémon from various generations. The cards are specially marked and feature some other (relatively minor) differences, but for the most part, they resemble the real deal.

It’s a clever, well-timed, and overall enjoyable promotion that many fans have been praising ever since it started to roll out earlier this month. From those who want to reconnect to their nostalgic love of Pokémon to those with children who are just getting into the Pokémon TCG scene, the reaction to this concept has generally been glowing.

ah pokemon cards a woman in her early 30s only weakness

— Cristina “Vee” Valenzuela (@CristinaVee) February 10, 2021

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

I totally just doordashed McDonalds to work so I could get happy meal cards 👀 pic.twitter.com/UIX9OC3q1i

— TheSuperBetic | Nemesis (@TheSuperBetic) February 9, 2021

Me in the Mcdonalds line trying to get some pokemon cards pic.twitter.com/ffbYpJGLvx

— Hungriana🥢 (@glazin_asian) February 10, 2021

While many people are in love with this idea, the practicalities of the promotion are causing headaches as fans everywhere scramble to beat scalpers who are gaming the system by acquiring as many cards as possible.

Yes, much like the PS5 and Xbox Series X, scalpers have shorted supplies of McDonald’s Pokémon cards. How? Well, the most popular methods involve exploiting McDonald’s own rules (or lack thereof). For instance, most locations don’t seem to impose a limit on how many Happy Meals you can buy, so you can often simply buy as much food as you want while chasing a particular card.

However, the most prolific scalpers seem to be taking advantage of the fact that some McDonald’s locations actually let you buy the card packs without buying a meal and, in some cases, seem to have been willing to sell entire containers of card packs regardless of whether or not a meal was purchased. That (along with likely cases of theft) seems to be how we ended up with instances such as this:

@McDonalds @Pokemon I sure hope you do some form of inventory control for your promo Pokémon cards as some of your stock is being sold in sealed boxes which means they’re not even making it to your stores 😳 Though same thing happened with Tim Hortons Hockey too. Retail $1.99 😳 pic.twitter.com/kX8qZyRX2V

— redphoenixsportscards (@redphoenixcards) February 9, 2021

Early results show that there is money to be made by selling these cards. While a pack of Pokémon cards purchased directly from McDonald’s will set you back a few dollars (depending on your location), there are eBay listings for individual packs going for as high as $15-$20. More importantly, individual cards (most notably the Pikachu cards) are currently commanding prices as high as $50-$100.

It’s not just the scalpers who are ruining the experience, though. While there’s nothing wrong with adults getting in on this fun (it is the series’ 25th anniversary after all), some are taking advantage of their free time and disposable income to buy all (or most of the cards) at a particular location before anyone else has the chance. They’re not necessarily selling the cards, but they are trying to get as many packs as possible in order to collect all 50 (or just one particular card). Others are just using the promotion to create YouTube videos and streaming content.

The “ethics” of this approach are debatable. Right now, buyers are hitting every card shop, online outlet, and trading forum as they try to buy as many Pokémon cards as they can to either bolster their personal collection or profit off the trading card game’s growing market. It happens all the time, but many are noting that the fact McDonald’s isn’t a card shop and isn’t currently imposing a global limit on how many meals/cards you can buy at once. That means that there are many people (especially children) who don’t even have the chance to buy a pack of cards or (in rarer cases) a Happy Meal. As you can imagine, that kind of spoils the fun.

I guess the scalpers haven't hit my McDonald's. Collecting Pokémon cards used to be way more fun, and it wasn't because I was young. But it felt different back then. People have ruined it, and it's not "adults ruining it for kids." It's adults ruining it for everyone. pic.twitter.com/1XC0ezeXXl

— Brittany Vincent (@MolotovCupcake) February 10, 2021

Scalpers: https://t.co/pjk4miDVmQ pic.twitter.com/MUG6EXsuSu

— Nirbion (@Nirbion) February 9, 2021

One thing that most people seem to agree on is that the practice of buying large quantities of Happy Meals just for the cards is unacceptable. In fact, there are many stories of buyers who decided to give the food away or otherwise simply try to purchase the cards alone when they are buying in bulk.

I decided to go to McDonald's to grab some of the new Pokemon Card packs! Since you couldn't buy the packs separately I bought 10 happy meals and I'll be giving out the food to homeless in the area 😁 If you only want the cards then do the same!#Pokemon #McDonalds pic.twitter.com/xPb7lNKQw0

— ✨JT Valor 👑✨ (@JT_Valor) February 9, 2021

We’ll see if McDonald’s steps in to impose some kind of universal restrictions designed to curb the madness, but for the time being, be sure to ask yourself how many Pokémon cards you really need, don’t ruin someone’s day just because you see them as competition for your cards, and whatever you do, don’t throw away boxes of food in the pursuit of a shiny piece of paper.

The post McDonald’s Pokémon Promotion Taken Over by Scalpers and Aggressive Adults appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3q8CjXl

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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redditnosleep · 7 years ago

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I've Been Seeing A Man In My Backyard For The Past Two Nights

by Opinionson

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 (Final)

I’m sorry for the wait everyone but I have been on the road all day.

I posted another album on imgur showing pictures of my hotel from the other night.

Album

Last night when I posted the third update, many people in the comments had told me I needed to stop using reddit as it would only lead to find my location, so I didn’t. I turned off my laptop and put my phone on airplane mode for the past day. I decided my best course of action would to be to calm my nerves and finally get some shut-eye. I signed off of reddit, jumped into my buddy’s couch, and finally went to sleep.

At approximately 3 in the morning my friend woke me up telling me I needed to check something out. I immediately grabbed the revolver I had left on the table next to the couch, and we went to the front porch. In the distance I we could see a car parked all the way down the road. I’d say it was about 300 yards and still visible because of a street light. The following was the conversation best I could remember it.

Tom: See that car down there, I was dozing off and the moment I snapped out of it the thing just showed up out of nowhere it was just sitting there.

Me: How long do you think it’s been there for?

Tom: I’m not sure, I saw it there and stared at it for a good 2 minutes, after that I took my flashlight and started flashing it on and off, after that the car shut off and some guy got out and waved and had walked into the woods.

There is a wooded area near my buddy’s house that if you walk through it you can go walk into a large open field in his backyard. There is a fence dividing the field and from his backyard but it can be easily hopped.

Me: Do you think we should go check it out?

Tom: No, this guy could be going into the woods and coming back round towards my back door, you have to stay here and I’ll go check it out.

Me: Alright if it's a Gray volkswagen we need to leave immediately. I want you to record the license plate and look inside to look for anything notable. That means ropes, knives, duct tape, anything sketchy we need to get out of here.

Tom: Alright wait inside and defend the house. Make sure no one gets inside.

I went back inside and stared out the window as Tom approached the vehicle with his 12 gauge. I went to the back of his house stared out his backyard window and saw some figure start walking across the field. This was particularly strange as there were no houses visible in this field and he just seemed like he was walking towards nowhere. He climbed over a hill and he was no longer in view from the window. I went back to the front window to look at the car and Tom was checking it out. I felt relieved for the slightest moment as I felt like maybe just maybe, I was overreacting. Then his home phone rang.

I looked at it and saw the caller I.D.and it was my area code, not Tom’s. At this point I had my phone still on airplane mode so I assumed it was someone from my neighborhood/family trying to contact me. I felt almost intrusive seeing that I was answering a call to a home that was not even mine, but now was not a time to take chances so I answered.

I picked up the phone:

Me: Hello?

Caller: (Silence for a few seconds)

Me: Excuse me who this?

Caller: Oh excuse me sir my apologies. Is this the owner of the household?

Me: No I am just a friend of the owner he is currently outside who is this?

Caller: (Silence for another few seconds)

At this point I just felt that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you realized you fucked up. I just revealed that I am here alone and whoever is calling just realised that.

Me: Hello?

Caller: Who else are you with sir is it just you?

At this point I was shaking and I could barely speak without stumbling my words. I decided the best things to do was lie like no tomorrow.

Me: Um, No we are having a party and there are a couple other people here. I ask again sir who is calling.

Caller: Are you sure about that I was just walking by and saw that there is only two cars in his driveway.

At this point I completely lost my shit.

Me: LIsten just fucking tell me who you are why the fuck are you calling this house so late.

Caller: (More silence)

Me: Hello?! Can you please just fucking tell me?!

Caller: I apologize sir I may have the wrong number. Tell whoever owns this house to call back. Thank you.

Then he hung up.

Tom had come back and said the car was not a volkswagen and had a license plate. He said the windows were tinted and the doors were locked so there was really nothing he could make out. I told him about the caller and he said he had no idea who’s number that was. He called back, no answer. He called from a restricted number, no answer.

An hour passed by as we were sitting on the porch and we heard an audible slam from his back door. We both looked at each other and he motioned to follow him around back. We saw nothing out of the ordinary. We looked around everywhere for footprints, but still nothing. When we had gone back to the front porch after countless minutes of searching, it was approximately 4 in the morning at that point. It wasn’t until 10 minutes after we got back to the porch that we noticed that car 300 yards away was gone and we hadn’t even noticed.

I haven’t gotten any sleep since last night. I told him that I wanted to leave his house because I need to keep moving, and he said he wants to come too. He locked up all his doors, brought some guns, and we drove off at 6 in the morning. Police still haven’t done jack shit despite all the valuable intelligence I gave them, and I’ve been on the road all day with my friend. I drove a lot and he slept in the back. We are currently at a Mcdonald's as I type this. We were joking saying if we do end up getting kidnapped, murdered, attacked, these nosleep posts will make one hell of “Based on a real story” script.

I’m just tired guys. Tired of being stalked, tired of being hunted down, and tired of making these goddamn posts. I just want this to be over.

If anything happens tonight….I’ll let you all know. Bye for now.

#creepy #horror story #stalker #author: Opinionson #series #i've been seeing a man in my backyard series

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bartalks · 5 years ago

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ECM SYNCHRONIKA REVIEW - BETTER THAN THE ROCKET AND PROFITEC!

The Synchronika is the top of the line dual boiler machine from ECM, and it's a winner in several respects. But before we explain why this machine is exceptional, let's talk about ECM's founder - Wolfgang Hauck, because when you buy an ECM, you're buying into the ethos of a pioneering and entrepreneurial founder.

ECM Synchronica - Summary Up Front

We love this machine on many levels. The design looks like a fusion of Italian passion with robust German pragmatism. The price is half that of a La Marzocco Linea Mini, which we also like, but unlike the La Marzocco, you get flow control - which is a huge feature you pay through the nose for with a Slayer single head machine. The Synchronica is a no-compromise machine with absolutely top quality components, so you can feel comfortable that you will buy once and not feel the need to upgrade for many years. It has a dual boiler, a rotary pump - ensuring quiet operation, E61 Group, PID, optional flow control (at a cost) and a versatile display. The steam power is up to par with its rivals, and if the shiny chrome isn't too your liking, it's simple to customise. There is an ability to do line based preinfusion, although you may need to do some adjustments to get it working. A minor niggle is that I've heard some people mentioning their systems developing a little rattle. This appears to come from some loosening screws and is easily remedied by going around and doing a bit of tightening - perhaps using some plumbers tape to keep them in tightly. The only thing it seems to be missing is a mobile app for additional controls. Read below for our thoughts on the usefulness of apps as at the date this was written. The build quality from ECM is what makes us smile. To interact with the machine, hold their portafilter, touch the smooth rounded edges and admire the top-level hand welding. This is a hand made machine that gives you pleasure every time you use it. Replacement parts are available, and internally it has an elegant and considerate layout that makes it easily serviceable. The ECM Synchronika is an espresso machine that you love to use every day, is beautiful to look at, not only for the design but the quality of the build, which is quickly noticeable.

Who are ECM and Where are they Manufactured?

Hauck has been in the business for over 25 years, and before he was manufacturing his own product line, he was importing and distributing machines from Gaggia, Cimbali, Pavoni and others. Later, in 1996 Hauck struck out on his own to make ECM in 1996. Later his son joined the firm and added additional technical expertise, and now runs the business as its CEO. The company says they combine Italian espresso culture with German engineering, something we'll come onto later, but you can see this immediately with the elegant but industrial style of their equipment. Now, their commercial espresso machines and grinders are manufactured in Germany at their own production centre. They produce their consumer-focused machines in Italy since 95% of the suppliers are located there already.

ECM Synchronika Price and Competition

You can buy a Synchronika for £2,280 from Doppio Coffee in the UK, an authorised reseller. In the US, they sell for $2,999 and you can pick it up from Whole Latte Love. That's not a bad price for a machine that is hand-built with such an extensive range of features. The Synchronika is most often compared to the Rocket R58 and the Profitec 700, both of which are essentially the same price, and are similar in some ways, but do not match the build quality of the ECM.

Specification and Features

This machine does not have any volumetric controls, but if you wanted that, you wouldn't be looking at this kind of system in any case. The volumetric system - which measures the output volume of shots has gained popularity in some professional machines where turnaround speed is a prime consideration. But more recent research indicates that this is a flawed method because different beans have different densities, so weighing the shot is more important than measuring the volume. This is especially relevant for a home barista who may be changing their beans and roast levels frequently - darker roasts have less density than milder roasts, for example.

Design and Build Quality

We know that not everyone is a fan of the shiny chrome look, but for a small company, it's a safe option, and it will look great in any kitchen, and if you want something warmer, we've seen how it looks in beautiful wood panelling, which is simple enough to create, we expect any local woodworking shop will be able to route some new panels for you.

Simple switching between water sources are examples of ECM's attention to detail Ask any 'metal nerd', whether it be bicycle frames or deep-sea pipe maintenance, and they'll talk about weld quality. Now you can add espresso machines into that group. We mentioned that these are hand-built machines, and the weld quality is superb. Look into the little nooks and crannies of the ECM, and you'll not see ugly lumps of weld - everything butts up with minimum seams. These details on their own may not add up to much, but together, the effect on the eye is noticeable immediately and adds to the satisfaction you get from owning something that was hand-built by craftsmen. You can do almost any repair on this machine without special tools. You'll just need some common sized screwdrivers and an adjustable spanner.

Maintenance

The Synchronika was designed for easy access. I know the German designers are somewhere secretly smiling to themselves as we look inside the casing because the magic of the build quality is not just skin deep. Accessing the machine takes the removal/loosening of 6 easily accessed hex screws using a 2.5mm Allen key. At that point, you can remove all the body panels, so you have easy access to all areas of the internals.

The frame is entirely powder-coated, which will ensure it maintains its good looks for years to come - and not a cheap option. ECM decided to use a single solenoid valve, which initially confused me because I know others of a similar class use two, but then doing some research, I learned that solenoid valves often are the source of failure in espresso machines. I guess ECM found a way to accomplish what they need to do with only a single valve, which should contribute to better reliability.

Interface and Lack of Mobile App

The PID ECM uses blends into the machine, which is a different direction than most other manufacturers, who make a 'feature' of the display. I prefer ECM's approach. Some people have reported they find super-bright displays annoying when they have an open plan kitchen and living room area. ECM did the right thing by being understated, and in fact, you can even switch it off.

The single PID serves several functions. Steam Boiler TemperatureBrew TemperatureShot TimerCustom alerts to clean machine ECM has not developed an app or the capability for an app in the Synchronika. I can see a time when using your phone as an interface is the only way to control your brew, but that for me, that will only happen when it provides flow control and profiling like the Decent Espresso machine. Apps, such as the one from La Marzocco, seem to be a solution looking for a problem at the moment. Remotely turning on your machine is one use case often used. But that can easily be achieved with a wifi activated plug like the one from TP-Link below. For everything else, like brew-head temperature, I'm much happier seeing that on a minimalist PID screen, rather than fumbling with my phone.

Steaming

The steam wand is cool-touch, which is a nice feature, although I couldn't tell if it created a condensation issue, as they sometimes do. The wand is reasonably mobile, making it easy to find the right position. I don't fiddle much with a steam wand when frothing milk, but I know this is a big thing with some people. The resellers will tell you it will steam 250ml in 10 seconds using the very impressive 2 bar pressure, but owners will tell you it takes longer in reality, perhaps 30 seconds is nearer the mark. A 4 hole steam tip might improve things and original ECM versions are available for about £10 ($12). Producing steam is controlled with a short stick. I prefer lever control over knobs. I find knobs take too long to turn on and off - they annoy me. levers, on the other hand, feel good to use, and the ECM has a nice feature which allows you to burst some steam with short push, or have it run continuously with a long pull on the lever. Call me childish, but I also like the fact that levers allow great wood customisation.

Portafilters

You get a mix of portafilters in the kit, and as you'd expect, ECM takes as much pride over the design of each basket as they do in the machine itself. The handles match the steam levers. They're angled so that you can rest them on a surface and the basket will be level, making tamping a breeze. ECM even sends you a tamper in the kit that isn't plastic. It puts other companies to shame, with their throwaway plastic items that look like a McDonald's toy. Finally, I'm sure it's no coincidence that the handle is weighty, which results in a nice balance. Everything about the ECM seems like an engineer thought it through, not an accountant.

The Boilers

It's a dual boiler machine, which means you independently control the temperature at the brew head, and for steaming milk. ECM uses 1400 watt heating elements and substantial 2-litre steam boilers that pushes out steam at 2bar. That's similar to what the commercial Victoria Arduino Eagle one manages and significantly higher than the 1.5 bar often found on other similar espresso machines. You'll steam 6oz of milk in around 10 seconds, and 12oz in 20 seconds. This is great for a busy barista but actually might work against you if you are still learning how to steam. In this regard, the steam control levers can have less fidelity than their knob counterparts. So this is not a machine that you want to learn how to steam on.

Water

ECM has designed the Synchronikia to be simple to switch between the reservoir and plumbed in use. Changing is as simple as attaching the pipe underneath the machine and flipping a switch. When using the internal tank, you'll be able to add 2.8 litres of water, which is about the right amount. You fill it from the top as you'd expect, and you should check to see if you have enough room to put it under a kitchen cabinet and still get a water jug above it to pour from the top.

Flow Control

The flow control mechanism is an optional purchase from ECM. They charge a rather exorbitant price (£179 around $220) which is very difficult to swallow after laying out over £2k on a machine already.

That said, the La Marzocco Linea Mini - at almost double the cost, has a paddle that mimics the flow control mechanism, but it's there for looks only, and in fact, only controls an electronic switch with a binary on/off function. The popularity of the device is not in question though, as they are regularly a back-ordered item. Flow control, as it sounds, is how much water is allowed through the valve. Sometimes it is incorrectly referred to as water pressure. It's true that pressure is influenced by the flow, so they're linked, but not the same thing. Controlling the amount of water that flows, and hence the pressure means that you can do things like run a long pre-infusion or mimic the behaviour of certain types of machines with their specific characteristics. For example, a lever machine might have full pressure at the outset of the shot, and reduce the flow as the shot nears completion. Different beans and roast techniques will react to different flavour profiles that can be generated by controlling the amount of water flow at different times throughout the pulling of your shot.

If you just want to do pre-infusion, then you may be satisified with using a technique ECM has built in to the standard model. The pre-infusion works by letting water into the group head without initiating the rotary pump. In theory this should work fine, but in practice there are reports of many users seeing no water come out until the pump is activated. This is probably due to incorrect adjustment of the cams inside the valve unit. There is a simple way to adjust these, but it seems odd that ECM don't test this before they're shipped.

E61 Group Head

I was surprised when I learned that the E61 Grouphead design goes back to 1961! The fact that it is still being used today must stand as a testament to its function. E61 group heads are not perfect, but they're simple to maintain and do a pretty good job with thermo-stability. The mechanics work on basic physics, with springs, washers, cams and needles.

When you turn the handle on the ECM, a cam (like an odd-shaped circular wheel moves inside the valve, pushing one needle up and another one down. This releases the water flow when the handle is turned one way and closes it when it is returned. On a well-made valve, you can expect the only things to need changing from time to time are the gaskets, and depending on your water hardness, they might need cleaning from limescale.

Comparing the ECM Synchronika with Profitec Pro 700 and the Rocket R58

The ECM is the most expensive machine among its peers, but only by a small margin, but it's common to ask what the differences are and whether the ECM is the right choice. We'll do a separate full review of the Rocket R58 and Profitec Pro 700's, but there is a short answer. The ECM has unrivalled build quality. They have gone to extreme lengths to ensure it runs silently, has the most elegant and simple internal layout, and uses understated design touches that you'll appreciate every time you look at it. The Profitec 700 is almost identical to the ECM, but some of the fit and finish is not quite up to the same standards. The Rocket uses different internals, such a smaller set of brass boilers instead of the stainless steel ones on the ECM. There's small things I don't personally like about the Rocket. The looks are cool for a while, but they wear off, the branding is a little too pronounced and seems to be on every element of the equipment, and it's not as nice to touch and use, for example the amount of turns I need to do on the steam knobs vs the ECM where I can slap the stick down at any angle and it immediately comes on. Buy the ECM if you want all the features and the best build quality.Buy the Profitec Pro 700 if you want the same functionality of the ECM but are willing to sacrifice a small amount of final build quality for a slightly lower price.Buy the Rocket if you want to make a design statement and don't care about having an always-available PID. Read the full article

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nonsensicalwisdom · 5 years ago

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Day 1

Tuesday March 17, 2020

10:00 am

I have decided to begin somewhat of a self-quarantine. Cases in the United States to this date have equaled those of Italy at the same rate after a week from initial first cases. Although the sheer mass of the United States is exponentially greater than Italy, by nearly 340 million people I think it is fair to say being out in public poses a risk that most Americans are not taking seriously. Living in the Tri-State area poses the greatest threat of all risk factors. We are constantly in proximity with one another and it is virtually impossible to find three feet of free space from anyone especially in the panic that is occurring now.

Where we live is an entirely other demon considering we are surrounded by major transportation hubs, planes, train and automobiles. I am struggling with the thought of continuing to work currently. I am a delivery driver and although I believe I can be a great service of those hungry and in need I do not feel like I should risk my own life for the luxury of others I know you guys have to eat but I also have to live and knowing a month in advance of what our imminent future looks like is not the responsibility of restaurants and delivery drivers. I hear that it is “assured” I am in no danger I believe that always seem to sound like the most ideal situation when shit goes wrong.

My mind tries to cope with the idea of life being more valuable than money. I am staring at a fridge full of food, a full cabinet but still I fear we do not have enough. There are seven full gallons of water sitting on the counter. Visually it looks like enough, but we also must help with the survival of two dogs.

As I write I am smoking a CBD joint to ease my aching shoulder. I only have 24 pills of Aleve if need be within the coming weeks. I am making so much effort to conserve where I can. At this point I am in constant worry for the well being of my relatives. It seems as if everyone can comfortably say they are prepared, what does preparedness even look like? Especially, when you do not even know how long or when you should begin isolation.

I ash my joint into the ashtray.

Again, I have no fear of catching the virus or even the slightest about dying from it. I have more fear of people who have a backwards attitude of this being a conspiracy or not real. My reasoning says avoid those types of people at all costs.

I want to free my mind of the conspiracy angle, at least for now, I am solely just trying to be informed and prepared for the days and weeks to come.

My shoulder feels better by the way. My day plans include prepping soup, freezing it for storage and creating a meal plan- as well as a day plan- to ensure we can stretch what we have until it is over- or at least until more information and guidance is given.

I do not find myself to be or to know all of the understanding of the government’s motives but as I watch the organization of the State of NJ and the United States government I think the only way this could devastate America and have severe repercussions on Americans is if we, the people. Are negligent, ignorant and irresponsible.

I think the 1st steps in the NY, Connecticut, and NJ area are intelligent and well thought out. I think the only way to ensure the safety of all three states is if mass transit is shut down and I feel like this is to come within the next week. Forcing a shelter in place doesn’t seem as bad as it sounds. I do believe in our freedoms and liberties as individuals, but this is not a time to test the waters or to claim yourself as impenetrable. We all NEED to tow the line at this point- the more we evade the suggestions of health officials, the more the opportunity we give the government to slap their hand down on us.

I hope within the next few days a decision will be made to close restaurants completely and not encourage patrons and people alike to leave their homes. Right now, the roads should be left to police and medical professionals. The road should be free from delivery drivers and people who need to get to the grocery store and others who need medical attention.

Yesterday, in fact, I was met with many stares in public spaces for wearing a medical mask. I snickered to myself slyly in my head because I had been aware of the county I was in and the confirmed cases. A regular person, any one of us, goes to the grocery store, picks up their kid from school, goes to work, the car wash, McDonalds, the movies or any other public location on the regular even all in one day. I track myself I literally go all over the state in one day in contact with hundreds of individuals prior to this pandemic. Me and everyone else stands behind you in line, grazes your shoulder as we walk past, touches the same glass door you do and then involuntary without notice scratches our nose, pushes our hair out of our face, and then bites our nails. See, think about it.

We do many things throughout our day without intent. The only way we can guarantee safety it to not put ourselves in situations of uncertainty.

I tend to believe I am informed on what has been going on in the last three weeks yet, I still have so many unanswered questions. I am patient. There is no other choice to be patient and wait for the people in control to sort out all the things that worry us American’s about the months to come. So, despite no income coming in from here forth I am choosing to refrain from work at the suggestions of my lover, friends and family. I may gather a few more food items, but I am more entirely concerned for the safety of myself and my bf. We owe our future the respect of taking care of ourselves today.

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unniversalsalons · 5 years ago

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Does Google Know Who You Are? How Good is Your Hair Salon SEO?

My name is Chip Foust. I am a professional hair photographer and the publisher of UniversalSalons.Com. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the decade of the 2020s. This decade is already seeing new advances in technology that will greatly affect the way everyone in the world interacts with each other. This is especially true in the cosmetology industry. I want to help you optimize your hair salon SEO and attract new attention to your business every day. With social media sites like Facebook and Instagram tightening their grip on the number of organic viewers who will see your content, the influx of competition whose goal is to drive the price of your goods and services down, as well as the increase in non-professional individuals who have decided to dilute the quality of service in our industry, and now we’re even seeing hostility from different states across the US that are contemplating drastic revisions to the licensing requirements for professional cosmetologists. There is no doubt that you cannot do business in the 2020s the way you did in 2019.

Put Your Best Foot forward for Hair Salon SEO

I built UniversalSalons.Com on the belief that NO ONE DEALS WITH THE SECOND BEST, AS LONG AS THE BEST IS AVAILABLE. People don’t choose to take the inferior over the superior. In this belief, lies great opportunities for 2020 and beyond. You see the definition of best is subjective. Is it better to drink Coke or Pepsi? Is McDonald’s the best or Burger King? Your job is to decide what makes you the best in the eyes of your customers.

UniversalSalons.Com Video Series

With that in mind, I’m extremely excited to announce a series of videos I’m producing to help the salons that participate in our photoshoots get web-ready for 2020. These videos will not only show you step by step how to establish a strong web presence that is geared toward gaining new customers through search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. They will also discuss the reasons why the changes are needed and how effective hair salon SEO can grow your business.

Photo Credit: Pixbay

Are Search Engines Still Important?

So, let’s get started. The first thing some of you may be wondering is, “Why do I need to be found on search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing?” (I hope there aren’t that many people asking that question, but I know there are a few so I’m going to answer it now.) Is hair salon SEO really important? The three main reasons search engines are important is because of there size, (the number of people who use them daily) their friendly business model, and the realization that today’s consumer is going to check you out online before they make a trip to your salon for the first time. Add to that the fact that your images are already showing up in these search engines, we just feel that together, we can make your presence stronger. Google’s size alone is enormous. Over 90% of all searches worldwide take place on Google. That’s over 5.4 Billion searches a day. Remember that all those searches are from interested consumers. This means that the consumer is excited about your product or service before they are introduced to you. Every click has some level of interest in what you’re selling. This is different form almost every other form of marketing where you need to grab the consumers' attention away from competing for interest before you can introduce your service.

Search Engines Have a Friendly Business Plan

The thing I like best about search engines is their business plan. Unlike social networks who are constantly changing their algorithms to further monetize their platform, Google understands that their only true competition in Bing and Yahoo, so their focus is on delivering better content to their viewers than their competition. THIS IS A MAJOR ADVANTAGE FOR COSMETOLOGISTS!!! Where social networks are saying “How can I make more money off my viewers?”, search engines are saying “How can I deliver better content to my viewers?” While one is constantly changing algorithms to increase profits, the other is constantly changing algorithms to make a better product. This is big for cosmetologists because who knows the cosmetology industry better than the professional cosmetologists? Plus, it’s important to remember that your customers are already searching for your services whether you’re represented or not. Today’s consumers will search for information about your goods and service online before they visit your salon. This reason alone makes hair salon SEO very important.

Photo Credit: Brett Sayles

Cosmetologists Have a Great Opportunity

Professional Cosmetologists already have the better information that the search engines are looking for, that information just needs to be packaged in a way the Google understands. UniversalSalons.Com has been doing this for over 10 years. Every day our web pages register for thousands of searches across the globe. We are the largest black hair website in the world today. Let us use our worldwide reach and our understanding of search engine optimization to introduce your salon services to a new marketplace that is actively looking for you. Then use your social media accounts to drive traffic to your salon pages and reach an even broader audience. This is another reason why your UniversalSalons.Com pages are so important. Instead of posting the same content over multiple networks that may or may not be here In the future, (remember Myspace) we’ll show you how to post your content to your salon page on UniversalSalons.Com and then promote that content through all of your social networks. Then all of your networks will be working together instead of against each other. All of your viewers across platforms are centralized which will increase the strength of your content in the eyes of the search engines.

Get Your Pages Ready for Hair Salon SEO

So, the first thing we’re going to do in this series of videos is to optimize your hair salon SEO by getting your salon pages ready to be the central hub for all of your web marketing. This means making sure your pages are optimized for search engines as well as adding any extras like online booking or a web store for your retail products. The goal is that whenever the public or the search engines want to find out information about you, your salon page will be the go-to place. Let’s get started. Depending on when you shot with us, many of you will see a page that consists of only your salon name and pictures of the hairstyles you shot with us. Others will see much more robust pages with places for salon bios, operating hours and consumer reviews. My goal with this video series is to help every professional cosmetologist that wants to get ready for the 2020 economy, prepared with the most robust salon pages we can create on UniversalSalons.Com. The best part is, if you’ve shot with us before, the vast amount of changes you will make are free. They take time, not money.

For those who have shot with us before, you should:

Go to the UniversalSalons.Com homepage and look in the top right corner for the search bar. Type in the name of your salon. Locate your salon page in our system and make sure all the information is correct. Send any corrections to [email protected].

500 Word Informercial id VERY IMPORTANT for Hair Salon SEO

To optimize your hair salon SEO, the most important thing you need on your salon page is a 500-word, (minimum) article about your salon. This short bio will give the public and the search engines the information they need in order to determine if you really are better than the second-best. What you write in your salon infomercial needs to bring home the points that make your hair salon better than your competitors. You should also take the time to mention where you are located. Don’t only mention what city you are in but how are your salon services a better fit for your local environment than your competitors. For instance, don’t just say that you’re located in Columbia, SC, talk about how your salon services will make your clients the star of the show at a Gamecocks tailgate party. Find every advantage you can and use your infomercial to define those advantages to prospective clients. Be sure to spend this time to talk about the different salon services that you excel in as well. DO NOT LIST EVERY SERVICE UNDER THE SUN!! You only want to generate traffic in areas you enjoy. Once you have created your infomercial, send it to [email protected] and we will post it for you.

We'll Write Your Article for You

If you don’t like to write, here are two quick ideas to get you started: Have a client that excels in writing content creates an elegant infomercial for you. Our editors will be glad to interview you and create a great 500-word or more article for your page at a cost of just $25.00. To have us write an article for you, contact Chip at [email protected] Whether you write it yourself, have someone else write it for you, or have our staff write your content, the infomercial is the most important piece to your hair salon SEO PLAN. It will become the hub for everything else you do. Later in the series, I will show you how to add your own content to your pages without the need to send content to us first.

UniversalSalons.Com Reviews

The last thing I will talk about in this first video is the reviews section of your webpage. Reviews are EXTREMELY important to your hair salon SEO. The more reviews you can get the better. Here is a little trick to remember. Don’t have all of your customers write reviews at once. Many of you have reviews that are years old and that could hurt your SEO. Search engines could ask, “why haven’t any new clients left reviews lately?” It’s better to have your reviews spread out over the year so as to always have a fresh batch.

Photo Credit: Tobias Dziuba

Get Ready for the Next Video in the Series on Hair Salon SEO

My next video will focus on the importance of adding your own retail store and online booking to your salon page. Neither one of these will cost you any money but they are essential to your overall marketing plan. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to leave them in the comments section below. I’ll try to answer them there or I’ll make a new video if any clarification is needed. Understand, that I’m doing these videos because I believe that no one deals with the second-best as long as the best is available. I’m creating a home for professional cosmetologists and the public that appreciates their craft. I know that effective hair salon SEO will drive tons of interested traffic to those salons. Thanks for watching guys. Read the full article

#blackhairsalonsmarketing #hairbiz #hairsalonSEO #salonbranding #searchengineoptimization

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splashrollstumble · 5 years ago

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Brasov – More than Just Dracula, a Hidden Jewel of Eastern Europe

I came to Brasov with the plan to stay just one night and, like everyone else, all I planned to see was Bran Castle: the legendary home of the Vampire Dracula.

On arrival, I checked into a very cheap hostel (45 lei / €8) called Art Hostel which isn’t in the best location but since I was only planning to stay a night I didn’t mind. It’s probably the smallest hostel in the world, with only one 8-bed room and a tiny kitchen and common area but I really liked it. That evening I headed out to explore, not expecting to find much in this pokey little village. After a brief walk around the old town square and the Black Church, I discovered a busy looking road full of bars and restaurants. Being Saturday night, it was quite packed with a bustling mix of young and old locals.

I soon came across a bar called Biblioteque, which caught my eye because I know it as the word for ‘library’. Turning up the long passageway that forms the entrance to the bar I found it was lined with bookshelves full of old books, antiques, and board games. Immediately I was enamored with this bizarre find and began to realize there is far more to this pokey little village than I first assumed. After a few beers and a bit more exploring the awesome nightlife on offer I knew I wasn’t going to be leaving Brasov tomorrow.

In the end, I actually stayed a whole two weeks AND didn’t even go to Bran Castle in that time. I did cycle the 25 kms to the Bran Castle location on my first day as planned but it was a Sunday and the place was absolutely packed. It looked like Disney World with all the cheap souvenirs, stalls and hawkers trying to sell you crap. It was not at all like the creepy environment I expected and I quickly decided I had wasted my time coming here. Also, it was never even the home of Vlad the Impaler who inspired Dracula – it just looks similar to the castle described in Bram Stoker’s Dracula book.

On the cycle home, I decided to take a different route via Poiana Brasov (the ski resort overlooking Brasov) due in part to roadworks I had encountered on the way and the feeling that I should at least do something while I’m out. The road was fairly long and steep but I didn’t have my bags so it went smoothly despite the lack of any high range gears on my bike. As I climbed I quickly began falling in love with the surrounding nature and by the time I was cycling down the hill on the opposite side back into Brasov, I had again reiterated to myself that I would be staying longer.

I entered back into Brasov through a nice dirt path and then turned on to a road that followed the ancient walls and a small river. Suddenly I came across a door in the rock face opposite the river with a bridge leading to it. It was pitch black inside and as I stood wondering if it was open to exploring, somebody popped out and confirmed that its a collection of tunnels that you can explore with your phone torch.

So I went in and spent about an hour exploring and got quite deep into the caves, having to crawl at some places. Eventually, I grew concerned I may not find my way out and started heading back. It was a bit confusing at parts but I eventually escaped unscathed. I thought it’s pretty cool to just have something like this open to the public with none of the usual worries about health and safety. Oh Romania, you silly sausage.

Getting closer to town

That evening I began to develop a rather nasty cough and spent the next day in bed at the hostel, getting some work done but mostly trying to rest. It may have been from overexerting myself on the cycle, or possibly something I inhaled while in the cave? Either way, I booked another night in the hostel and stayed in that night. A hitch-hiker showed up and we got chatting and he said hitch-hiking in Romania was very easy and people were friendly. He went out and when he came back showed me some amazing pictures from a hike he had done up to the Brasov sign, so I resolved to do the same before I leave.

The following day I abandoned plans I had made to leave Brasov and go cycle the Transfagarasan Highway and instead moved to another hostel more centrally located. Incredibly, this hostel was even smaller than Art Hostel, with only one 6-bed dorm and a tiny bathroom but a slightly bigger kitchen. I got some more work done and then went for a hike to the Brasov sign, which turned out to be quite a lot further and higher than the hitch-hiker had made out. It was totally worth the view though, and some good exercise.

When I got back, another cycle-tourer was at the hostel – a French guy who was heading in the opposite direction to me. We chatted a bit and then he headed out to an Irish bar called Deane’s where I later found him. The bar was having a 10 lei pizza special (about €2) so I joined him and some girls he had met and we had a few €1.50 beers and pizza. I guess it’s not the most traditional Romanian place but it’s a really cool bar, and they do karaoke every Tuesday!

The 7 Ladders Canyon

By now I had picked some info about the surrounding area and heard about an incredible hike up a gorge called the 7 Ladders Canyon. I headed off early the next day on the 10 km cycle to the canyon, stopping briefly for some very cheap McDonalds breakfast along the way. I locked up my bike on arrival and began the easy 2-hour walk to the start of the gorge. It follows a small river and a really awesome looking zip-line course which I planned to do on the way down. Entrance to the 7-ladders canyon is about 30 lei (about €6) so remember to bring some cash if you intend doing this. Luckily, I had enough, but the zipline is quite a bit more (80 lei), so I decided against that.

Hence the name, the canyon consists of a climb up 7 steel ladders through a huge gorge created by the river and has a similar feel to Antelope Canyon in the US. Along the way, I met a Norwegian girl who was living and studying in Copenhagen. She wanted to continue the hike all the way to the top of the mountain but was afraid of bears and asked if I would join her. I said yes, of course, because it was the chivalrous thing to do and not at all because she was drop-dead gorgeous.

After what felt like ages up steep sections over rocks and dirt where the path sometimes disappeared completely, we eventually reached a clearing with a small hut. The hut was a refuge for hikers and had some supplies so the Norwegian girl bought us a coke each since I had shared my water and biscuits with her. From here it was another hour or so hike to the highest point and we bumped into some others who decided to join us – a Norwegian guy who looked like a Viking, a French girl named Camille and an English girl from London. Just as we were heading off a small bear walked out of the forest up ahead and crossed the path but didn’t even notice us. After that, we were all on the lookout for more bears but sadly didn’t see any.

We did, however, bump into a shepherd who got very mad with us for apparently scaring his sheep off the path although we couldn’t understand what he was actually shouting. Despite taking another two hours, the hike to the top was totally worth it as the views are unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve heard that the mountains in Switzerland are even more beautiful but they would have to be pretty spectacular to beat this! If you ever get a chance to visit Romania, which you definitely should, I would recommend this hike over any other tourist attraction.

Becoming a local

During the hike, we had all become friends but sadly the Norwegian and English girls had to leave that evening, so I arranged to meet Camille and the Viking for some after-hike drinks. We went to Bibliotheque for some beers and then another bar where we drank some Bechrovka shots and then headed back to their hostel for homemade Palinka, an awful tasting local liquor. Needless to say, I stumbled back to my hostel very drunk, with the promise to move to their hostel, Boemia, the next day.

Despite a mild hangover, I was up early, packed my stuff and moved to Boemia hostel before the others even woke up. After being assigned a bed I had some coffee and got some work done. I was now quite settled in Brasov and had quite decided I might just live here now, so I no longer felt the need to try squeeze in lots of touristy stuff. Camille was a volunteer at the hostel along with a Kiwi girl, Jess, who I had briefly met the night before. They took turns looking after the hostel in the evenings in exchange for free food and board and so the young couple who ran it could get some time off.

Peles Castle

I had been hearing a lot about Peles Castle since I arrived, which people reported as far more beautiful than Bran Castle, so Camille, the Viking and I decided to go visit it the following day. We headed off early and took the €3 train to nearby Sinaia, a short walk from the castle. It really is far more beautiful, although quite expensive to visit if you want to see the whole thing. Just the first floor is 30 lei (€6) and for both floors, it’s double (60 lei), which seems excessive. The other two had student cards so they got half-price but I decided I couldn’t afford that much and just took a first-floor ticket.

After exploring the opulent first floor we attempted to go upstairs but they asked to check our tickets. I said I had accidentally given mine in at the door but since the other two had second-floor tickets, she assumed we were a group and let me in. Score! If you do go to Peles and can afford it, I suggest getting a ticket for both floors (or sneaking in like me) – the upstairs is far more impressive than the first floor! Annoyingly, they try to scam an extra 30 lei out of you for ‘photograph tax’, which is bullshit and I told them so. It does, however, mean you need to be very discreet when taking photos if you don’t cough it up. Fortunately, after traveling to so many supposedly ‘sacred’ sites around the world, I’m a pro at taking discreet photos.

That evening the Viking had to leave but Jess, another guest and I headed out to watch a live music event that the local council was hosting in the town square. It featured some local bands and ended off with an incredible opera singer that sounded as professional as anything I’ve seen on TV (although, I’m tone deaf so what would I know).

We took a bus up to Poiana Brasov the following morning despite mild hangovers and decided to hike up to one of the ski chalets. It wasn’t the most beautiful hike as it mostly followed a dirt road that is a skiing piste during winter. However, at the top, we discovered the pot of gold – free food and palinka! We don’t know why, but a small restaurant was giving away platters of bread, ham, cheese, and cake along with free shots of palinka, so we proceeded to get drunk before stumbling back down the mountain and almost dying. Good day.

Transfagarasan

I spent the following few days mostly working during the day and playing increasingly complex drunken card games with Camille and Jess in the evenings. The hostel (Boemia) had a nice flow of really interesting guests, many of which we got to join in with our game of figuring out, and then playing loudly, the song that was number one when they were born. This, I found, is a great way to get everyone in the hostel involved, even the commonly shy ones. I really should work in a hostel full time.

Anyway, during these days we formulated a plan to hire a car and drive up what Jeremy Clarkson once called the most beautiful road in the world – the Transfagarasan! The road was built by ex-president Ceausescu as an attempt to improve upon the already popular Transalpina, a few kilometres to the west. While it is admittedly more impressive, it is so treacherous that they need to close it every winter.

The car hire companies are a bit odd in Romania and require a minimum rental period of 2 days, so we collected the car the day before Jess and I drove up to Poiana Brasov to have some lunch. It was also good practice for me to get used to driving on the right. The next day we all woke up super early and hit the road at 7 am, along with Camille’s friend who had come to visit her for the weekend. Unfortunately, we didn’t choose the best day weather-wise but that just added to the spookiness of the Romanian countryside.

The road past Bran and around the back of the Carpathian mountains winds up and down along mountainous roads with beautiful scenery all around. It’s dotted with creepy old towns that are littered with interesting and bizarre sights, like strange sculptures and bizarre buildings. After a few hours driving, we eventually began the ascent up the south side of the Transfagarasan, where we stopped to visit another one of Dracula’s supposed castle – Poianeri. Unfortunately, it was closed due to bears, so we continued on across precariously built bridges and through small tunnels until we were winding up along the sides of a huge valley.

Suddenly I realized we were very short on fuel and the chances of finding a gas station out here were slim. The girls were freaking out but I figured as long as we get over the peak we can just free-wheel down the other side to the gas station at the bottom. We had one moment of panic when we stopped for photos and the car wouldn’t start at first but eventually, we made it to the top. Right at the very peak is a short tunnel which, when driven through, result in the most extraordinary event. On the side, we entered it was sunny and clear weather but as we broke out the other side it was practically snowing! The sky was dark with clouds, thick rain was falling and patches of snow surrounded the road. It was like going through a portal into another world.

We found somewhere to park the car amongst the throng of tourists and day-trippers and went to explore this strange landscape. Despite being mid-summer, large swathes of snow remained on the mountain, almost like a glacier. Despite this, many people were hanging around by the lake and some even went for a brief swim. The view from the top is incredible, looking down over what must be the windiest road ever built. Surprisingly, the food stalls at the top weren’t overpriced and we managed to get a decent lunch for about 15 lei (€3). One of the nicer things about Romania is that it isn’t spoilt by tourism…. yet.

Soon we needed to head down, so we all climbed back in the car and started to roll down the road with the engine off to save petrol. It made it difficult to brake and steer without mechanical assistance, especially considering the sharp corners and steep inclines, but we made it. We stopped briefly to explore a waterfall near the base of the pass and then got back on the road for the long ride home.

Personally, I find Brasov to be one of the undiscovered jewels of Eastern Europe but a friend of mine recently visited and found it boring. This highlights how unique the travel experience is for each different individual and how our perception is largely subjective. I always hope my blogs can help people to enjoy a destination better but in reality, the only way to know is to get out there and do it yourself.

As always, have a happy journey …. and never stop exploring!

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rahulkpofficial · 8 years ago

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12 Essential Tips to Picking a Website Color Scheme

Did you know that 85 percent of shoppers base their product purchasing decisions on color? It’s true. At first, I found that stat to be amazing. But after considering just how visually-driven we are as humans, it made total sense. Visual stimuli guide nearly everything we do. So why would it be any different when it comes to buying? And just think about some of the world’s biggest brands. Most tend to have a distinct color scheme associated with their brand identity. For McDonald’s it’s red and yellow. For Dell it’s blue. And so on. Color and branding As we all know, establishing a solid brand identity is vitally important. It’s a key ingredient in building trust, making consumers feel comfortable, and creating long-term brand advocates. And what’s an integral part of a brand? Its logo. The color scheme that a company chooses for its logo is forever entwined with its brand identity. According to research, “Color increases brand recognition by 80 percent .” So I think it’s fair to say that color scheme is pretty important. There’s something else to keep in mind. Brand color has a correlation with brand value. Sure, there’s some cause/effect tradeoff, but take a look at these stats: Valuable brands care about their colors. A lot! If you were to go and mess with the colors of an existing brand, it would completely change how that brand is perceived. Take a look at these examples from TheLogoFactory.com You can instantly spot the artificial logos, and you feel something different surrounding that brand! Website color scheme Just like it’s crucial to choose the right color for your brand logo, it’s equally as crucial to choose the right color scheme for your website. You don’t want to pick your color scheme at random or base it on “whatever looks cool” to you. Of course, you want awesome aesthetics and to “make it pop,” but color scheme is something that you want to give plenty of thought. Why? “People make a subconscious judgment about an environment or product within 90 seconds of initial viewing. Between 62 and 90 percent of that assessment is based on color alone.” If you choose the right color scheme that’s naturally geared toward your demographic, you’ve already won half of the battle. I would now like to offer 12 essential tips on how to pick the perfect website color scheme based on research and my own personal experience. 1. Understand how color affects emotion The first thing I recommend is familiarizing yourself with how color affects humans on an emotional level. Here’s a breakdown of how various CTA button colors affect shoppers in North America. Note that the impact of color can vary depending on geographical location. For instance, a color that appeals to American shoppers may not necessarily appeal to Indian shoppers. I also came across the Color Emotion Guide that explains the emotions we associate with colors and provides some examples of brands that use each color. I suggest spending some time looking at these examples and thinking about the psychological implications of the various colors. 2. Consider your overall demographic Now I’d like you to think about your target demographic. Who is it you’re trying to reach and sell to? What types of emotions are you trying to arouse? These are extremely important questions to ask yourself. I recommend checking out this information from Fast Company that explains the emotions and psychology behind common colors. Consider the personality and emotions of your target audience. Then choose the best color to serve as the primary color for your website color scheme. For example, if you’re an organic food company, your best bet would probably be green because it’s associated with nature and health. 3. Consider gender Although this won’t apply to everyone, some companies mostly cater to a specific gender. If you’re one of these companies, you’ll want to know what are men’s and women’s favorite and least favorite colors. Research from Joe Hallock’s Colour Assignments found that on average each gender has definite color preferences. Here’s what I mean. As you can see, men really like blue and dislike brown and purple. Women like blue and purple and dislike brown and orange. This is just another factor to keep in mind. 4. Consider age group Here’s something to think about that may not be obvious — age group. Did you also know that a person’s color preferences can change with age? According to research from Joe Hallock, it’s true. Here are people’s favorite color by age group. Here are people’s least favorite color by age group. If a certain age group dominates your demographic, then this too will be a factor to consider. 5. Take “the color quiz” If you need a little help deciding on a primary color, you may want to take this quiz from Grasshopper. It will ask you things like “what best describes your customers” and “what type of product you offer.” It’s quick and easy (only seven questions) but can point you in the right direction if you’re a little confused about which direction to take. 6. Let go of your biases Here’s a mistake that I’ve seen many businesses make when choosing a color scheme. And that’s basing it on their personal preferences rather than psychology. If your favorite color is blue, it’s very tempting to make blue your primary color. But if you’re a cosmetics company targeting a female demographic, this would be a mistake, and you would usually be better off going with purple or pink. This is just something to keep in mind because you don’t want your own personal preferences to end up costing you sales and potentially diluting your brand over time. 7. Decide on how many colors to use So at this point, you should have a primary color in mind. Now it’s time to figure out how many colors you want to use in total. While there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for this, I would like to point out something that’s called the 60-30-10 rule. Long story short, this rule is used to come up with a color scheme in areas like interior design and fashion and involves dividing three colors into percentages to create a “perfect harmony.” Here’s how it all breaks down. 60 percent of a dominant color 30 percent of a secondary color 10 percent of an accent color This means that the primary color will account for roughly 60 percent of the space on your website, the secondary color will account for 30 percent and the accent color will account for 10 percent. If you want an example of the 60-30-10 rule, look no further than Quick Sprout. Notice how green is the primary color, white is the secondary color and black is the accent color. So when you boil it all down, this means that the ideal number of colors to use would be…drumroll please! Three. Now I’m not saying that you have to go with three colors, but it’s a good number to shoot for. Using any more than four colors can make things complicated and downright ugly. 8. Choose your set of colors What you want to do now is determine which set of colors you want to use. Now I’m not a design expert, but one thing you’ll definitely want to achieve is contrast. I personally prefer sites that have a light colored background with darker contrasts in the foreground. This should make it easier on your visitors’ eyes and creates at least a certain amount of aesthetic appeal. Here’s a good example. However, there are sites that can pull off a dark background quite well. Take Wonder Bread for example. 9. Consult the color wheel Remember back in art class when you learned about “the color wheel?” Well, it can be a huge help for choosing a website color scheme. What you want to do is choose either “analogous colors” that are similar and next to each other on the color wheel or “complementary colors” that are directly opposite each other on the color wheel. Here’s what I’m talking about. One choice for complementary colors would be yellow and purple. Another would be green and orange. One choice for analogous colors would be orange and red. Another would be green and blue. 10. Use tools for help Here’s a tip for streamlining the process. Use a tool like Colorspire . It gives you a quick and easy way to test out different color combinations to give you a better idea of how they would actually look on your website. This can save you a lot of time and should help you find the color combination that’s just right. Or if Colorspire doesn’t tickle your fancy, I recommend looking at this list of awesome tools for choosing a website color scheme. 11. Check out the competition You can also learn a lot from competitors in your industry. I recommend checking out at least three websites of direct competitors and looking for overarching patterns in their color scheme. This should give you a sense of what types of tones they’re using. From there you have one of two choices. Create a similar color scheme that fits the conventional mold Go the opposite direction in order to differentiate yourself from the pack I’m personally a proponent of the second choice if you’re looking to establish a distinctive brand. 12. Compare a few different color schemes Here’s the thing. You don’t need to commit to the first color scheme you come up with. In fact, that can be very limiting. What I suggest is coming up with three or four different color schemes and compare each one side-by-side. Have your colleagues or business partners do the same to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. Then narrow it down until you find the color scheme that fits your brand to a T. Conclusion You don’t need to be a world renown artist to come up with a workable website color scheme. It’s just a matter of understanding the psychology behind color and the emotions that various colors conjure up. You’ll also want to have a basic understanding of the 60-30-10 rule and how the color wheel works. With a bit of experimentation and trial and error, you should be able to come up with the optimal website color scheme. In the long run, this will enable you to make an emotional connection with more visitors and can contribute to a lower bounce rate, more time spent on your site, and a higher conversion rate. All of which can have a tremendous impact on your business. What factors do you take into consideration when choosing a color scheme? The post 12 Essential Tips to Picking a Website Color Scheme appeared first on Neil Patel .

http://neilpatel.com/blog/website-color-scheme/

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jobsearchtips02 · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus: Working in fast-food during pandemic, in workers’ words

Fast-food workers are still considered essential employees during the coronavirus outbreak.

SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

More than 100 people responded to Business Insider’s callout to tell us what it is like working in fast food during the coronavirus outbreak.

Workers at chains including McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Arby’s, and Burger King discussed fears of infection, financial concerns, and looking for new jobs.

“I haven’t seen my son or family in a week out of fear of infecting them unknowingly,” said one Domino’s driver.

Read on to hear from fast-food employees about working during the coronavirus epidemic in their own words.

Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

As fast-food chains remain open across America amid the coronavirus outbreak, many workers feel as though they are putting their lives at risk by going to work.

When Business Insider put a call out for fast-food workers to share what it is like working during the coronavirus outbreak, we received more than 100 responses from people, many of whom were deeply worried about their health or the health of a family member.

Business Insider spoke further with many of these workers via email, phone calls, and social media direct messages about what it is like working during the coronavirus pandemic. We verified these workers’ identities and employment through pay stubs or other documentation. The workers were either granted anonymity or referred to only by their first name in order to speak freely about their experience.

“I fear catching this virus and taking it home,” one McDonald’s worker said. “I’m already poor. I live paycheck to paycheck, but I would much rather be out of work to help prevent the spread to my children or anyone else.”

“I’m currently looking for work-at-home opportunities, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to make the transition before becoming infected,” a Domino’s driver said. “I haven’t seen my son or family in a week out of fear of infecting them unknowingly.”

Read on to hear from employees at chains including McDonald’s, Starbucks, Burger King, and Taco Bell describe in their own words what it is like working during the coronavirus pandemic.

Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. All fast-food chains mentioned in this article were given an opportunity to comment on employees’ fears of getting sick and weathering financial concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic.

A worker at McDonald’s

A McDonald’s employee wearing a face mask looks out as a Glovo food delivery courier picks up an order.

Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

My concern is I will get the virus and take it home to my kids. Fast-food drive-thrus aren’t safe. I deal with customers that will cough, sneeze and then hand you their money. Sorry, but you also can’t trust every worker to be clean.

I do need to work, but I also have two kids that have been hospitalized due to rare disease and I myself have health issues. I fear catching this virus and taking it home. I’m already poor. I live paycheck to paycheck, but I would much rather be out of work to help prevent the spread to my children or anyone else.

I love my kids and want them to stay safe. Please help the poor who are still being forced to take risks.

Ryan, a worker at Dunkin’

Dunkin’ rest stop location.

Rebecca Harrington/Business Insider

The threat is so close and near I can practically smell the illness around me. I have expressed my concerns to my franchisees about sick workers and the amount of hours I will be required to work (sick or not) to keep their store running.

Mondays are my day off… my one and only day off … I had to go into work two different times that day … one in the morning and then again in the afternoon. After going in on my day off, I now have to work who knows how many hours until next Monday to actually get some rest.

How will I spend my day off? Resting because my feet are throbbing and I have no energy after working multiple positions and a million hours. I am on salary so on top of it I have no overtime to compensate financially what I myself am going through and doing to make somebody sitting in an office money.

I do hope other fast food workers aren’t going through the same as I am. Hopefully I do not get sick from the lack of rest. [I] hope my daughter doesn’t continue to be mad at her father because I was unable to take her on the weekend.

“Our top priority is the safety and well-being of our guests, employees, franchisees, their restaurant teams and the communities we serve,” Dunkin’ said in a statement. “We have implemented temporary brand standards, guidelines and enhanced safety measures at Dunkin’ restaurants nationwide, including moving to a carry-out or drive-thru model only, suspending the use of reusable mugs, and allowing franchisees to encourage cashless transactions where permissible. Additionally, in response to national guidance on social distancing and mandates in certain jurisdictions, franchisees have marked floors with painter’s tape in six-foot increments to help ensure the safety of restaurant workers and guests who choose to order inside the restaurant, where permissible, and restaurant workers are also maintaining distance by keeping to their own work circles.

Between the federal bill that goes into effect April 1, jurisdictions that already mandated sick pay, and franchisees who have been offering sick pay as part of a suite of benefits to their employees, the great majority of crew members at Dunkin’ restaurants should have access to sick pay benefits during this time of crisis.

We and our franchisees remain vigilant in helping to minimize exposure and we will continue to do our best to provide a safe, secure restaurant experience for our guests and restaurant workers during this challenging and uncertain time.”

A worker at McDonald’s

McDonald’s.

Reuters

My job has been done away with. I am a janitor. I clean bathrooms and dining area and take out the trash and clean the parking lot. But now, I have no public to clean up after.

I wish customers would stay home and not eat fast food. … Ultimately, I understand by not having customers I won’t have a job. But I want my fellow Americans to be safe.

I don’t know what I’ll do with no education to get a better job and not being able to get any help until I can prove I need it when I only get paid for four hours a week.

A worker at Arby’s

Arby’s.

Irene Jiang / Business Insider

I think everyone that has to work during this crisis — medical, retail, and fast food industry — should get paid more for putting their families at risk. Why is this not something that is going into effect? If we have work during this crisis and put our families at risk why, are we not being taken care of?

I am all for feeding the hospital employees, emergency personnel, but our governor said that basically people can travel just to go get take out. How is this stopping the spread of the virus?

Also, our customers need to be more understanding in our drive-thrus.We are there to serve them during the most scary time in our lives. Be nice to us and [do] not act like we are carriers of the virus.

People actually look at me is disgust, like I am infected by the virus. I go to hand them their change and they act like they don’t want to touch. I don’t want to touch you either, but I put a smile on my face and treat you with respect.

Arby’s did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

A worker at Taco Bell

Taco Bell.

Taco Bell

We only have seven of us that work each shift, which is less than the recommended 10. We are drive-thru only, and if we don’t stay open I can’t pay my bills or send child support to my kids. I am grateful that so far I’m able to continue working, but I fear with restaurants being ordered to close, I won’t have any way to pay my bills or support my children.

I am more afraid of restaurants closing, including ours, than I am of getting sick. I would like customers to know we are taking extra precautions including all of us wearing gloves, including those who aren’t handling food, to ensure employees as well as our customers stay protected.

“We hear them and we understand their concerns,” a Taco Bell representative said. “Taco Bell and its franchisees, which consist of 350 small businesses, are working to ensure our restaurants are the safest places to work and eat.”

Taco Bell has rolled out new safety measures last two weeks, including providing gloves for all cashiers, increasing sanitizing routines, and ensuring hand sanitizer is available for workers and customers. Taco Bell is working on procedures to help workers with social distancing while working, according to a representative.

“The drive-thru business continues to be essential, and one of the safest ways, for individuals and families to get food quickly and affordably,” a Taco Bell representative said.

A worker at McDonald’s

McDonald’s.

Ann Saphir/Reuters

Every time a customer asks for a sauce, napkins, etc., I always see them reaching into their bag for fries — shoving it in their mouths and reaching out for what they asked for. I can sometimes feel the salt on my hands from their fries. That’s when I start to wonder do people even care about us. Sure, I can wear gloves but I’ll be concerned in changing my gloves consistently in order to keep the next customer safe.

A lot of employees go to work worried what will happen next to their jobs. All people see and hear is what the news and social media tells them. They need to be more vocal to us, and keep us with a positive mind set.

Am I worried about getting sick at work? Yes, I have little sister at home and my mom is diabetic. Not only do I risk my health, but I risk my [family’s health]. You can’t forget about others. If I’m working without knowing I have the virus, I can infect many more.

A worker at Domino’s

Domino’s worker.

AP Images / Sunday Alamba

We almost always have over 10 workers working at one time sometimes 20 on the weekend in a very small store. It’s very crowded.

With about seven to 12 drivers a shift coming into contact with what is estimated to be 10 people — some much more depending on the length of their shift — then each returning to the store after each delivery, it feels like I’m being exposed to the 10 to 20 co-workers plus everyone every driver delivers to that shift resulting in direct and indirect exposure to 100s of people a day.

Unfortunately I’m not able to stop going to work unless Domino’s lays me off so I can draw unemployment, I’m currently looking for work-at-home opportunities, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to make the transition before becoming infected. I haven’t seen my son or family in a week out of fear of infecting them unknowingly.

When asked for comment on worker’s concerns, a Domino’s representative said that the chain is using contactless delivery and many locations are instituting contactless carry out. All dine-in spaces are closed, and the chain has increased cleaning and sanitizing protocols.

“For decades we have delivered to first responders, hospitals, shelters and neighbors in need,” Domino’s CEO Ritch Allison said in a statement. “It is our honor and privilege to do this for communities worldwide. While this global pandemic is a new challenge for us all, we will continue to follow advice of all health authorities and work hard to continue to feed our communities safely.”

A worker at Burger King

Burger King.

Irene Jiang / Business Insider

Since the coronavirus has become a pandemic and New York has become quite an unstable place due to panic/the spread of the virus, there have been plenty of policies enacted or discussed. Many of these are foolish.

We are still allowing customers to come inside and use the restrooms and order food.

We have to continually deal with close proximity with customers (and clean restrooms that they use).

In both drive-thru and in the dining room, we are to use these plastic containers to hand and accept credit cards and money. What foolish corporate idea is this? We are still touching the money — this protects nobody. And close contact is still necessary because the containers are not nearly six feet long.

Furthermore, the corporate decision was to have us bag up the food for drive thru, set it on a food tray, and hand it out to the customers in their cars. Try balancing a tray with a bunch of drinks on it and the incapable hands of a consumer strapped into their seat by a seat belt.

The drinks almost fall over every time and the customers continue to look at us with wild eyes like we are crazy for doing this. I explain to everyone that it’s stupid, but I must follow through because it’s what the company has mandated.

“Burger King has over 65 years of experience serving affordable, convenient, and delicious food that is a critical part of the routine of millions of Americans every day,” a representative said in a statement. “We can help take the pressure off of overwhelmed grocery stores and families by offering dependable, clean and contact-less service via drive-thru and delivery and takeout options.”

The statement continued: “In places where required, we will be moving to drive-thru and delivery/takeout only operations and complying with public health guidelines and recommendations. The health and safety of our guests and team members is our top priority. We have enhanced our already strict food safety and sanitation practices in our restaurants and are well positioned to operate safely during this challenging time for our nation and do our part to flatten the curve.”

A worker at Taco Bell

Taco Bell.

Irene Jiang / Business Insider

Because our lobbies are closed, our drive thru goes non-stop, one car after the other. It is exhausting us and it is making us weaker.

We are working ten times harder for no reason. We are human too. Yes, it’s nice to have a job when so many are losing theirs but it isn’t worth the risk.

A worker at Jack in the Box

Jack in the Box.

David McNew/Getty

Here in Alabama, the stores are out of a lot of products and it’s hard for us to get the items we need because we are at work in the restaurant. Single moms and dads cannot be at work daily and take care of their children at home because school is out. You cannot get a babysitter for them because you don’t know who has it.

This thing is an airborne disease that is basically a silent killer that we don’t know we have. I personally believe that [at] this time it would be better if everyone if they shutdown everything for a few weeks and try to protect everyone involved.

I would rather lose a paycheck or two then keep going out to the job and possibly bringing it home to my daughter.

It seems like people don’t think it will happen to them. Unfortunately we all are at risk. It’s not worth losing your life over to be an employee to the public. It’s time for everyone to be home and trying to protect everyone else.

A Jack in the Box representative said in a statement: “We appreciate our employees who continue to serve the public during these challenging times. Out of concern for their safety and the communities that we serve, we are continuing to follow national and state guidelines by implementing a contact-less system with our drive-thru, delivery and carryout services. We’ve always mandated heightened sanitization requirements as an ongoing practice. During this time, we are further protecting our employees and customers by implementing additional strict procedures to deeply clean and disinfect all surfaces every hour, such as sanitizing our cash registers more frequently and enacting mandatory hand-washing and glove wearing procedures.

For our company-owned restaurants, we have implemented a temporary sick pay and special quarantine program, and have encouraged our franchisees to follow suit. We’ve instructed anyone who is not feeling well to stay home. As most of our restaurants are franchise-owned and operated, we are closely monitoring and checking in regularly with all franchisees to ensure that our employee and guests’ well-being are the number one priority.”

A worker at McDonald’s

McDonald’s.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

I am fearful every time I go into work about bringing something home. I would say that my concerns for my children are higher than what I feel it would be a concern for myself. The fact that I have children who are high-risk makes the stress of being there even worse.

I see employees that are not using proper hand-washing. I have seen employees that will pick their nose and rub their faces and cough into their hands. Nobody is doing anything to correct it. When I see these things, I immediately wash my hands and protect myself the best way that I can.

I know that we are helping out nurses with their coffees and truckers. They also need to understand that our situation — I feel at least — is that we are serving people with very high risk. It has been shown through the media that travelling is one of the biggest reasons how people catch the coronavirus. We are dealing with these people who are travelling through province to province.

Brent, a worker at Taco Bell

Taco Bell.

Crystal Cox/Business Insider

We see Doctors, EMTs, and other “Essential Employees” making “hazard pay” and other differentials. It’s disgusting that we aren’t even recognized financially by the state, let alone the federal government.

We aren’t asking for $15/hr or anything permanent. We just want to be financially sound during this time of being considered “essential.”

Just this week I began taking time off, USING my vacation, just to give my own shifts to my Shift Managers and Team Members and give them hours. It’s the least I can do, as well as assist them with UC claims.

I wish no harm on Taco Bell, or even the franchise I work for, I simply want our country to acknowledge us for the HUGE job we do, just like our Doctor and EMT counterparts who are paid way more than us.

I don’t want my team to hate their job, due to a change in customer base. We love Taco Bell. The franchise and company in itself have always been amazing. I just think this disease is bringing out the worst in everyone and everything.

Niki, a worker at McDonald’s

McDonald’s drive-thru.

Yaoinlove/Shutterstock

I work at a McDonald’s, in the cash collecting window most of the day. There are so many things being talked about and done in response to this crisis.

And yet nothing is being done or even discussed about the collection of money. Every car that uses cash causes me to dip back into what is very likely a contaminated drawer. I am practically bathing in hand sanitizer.

I fear that I’m a soldier on the front line, bound to be the first to fall. Over cheeseburgers.

McDonald’s has been continually internally updating its approach to the coronavirus, as the virus spreads and states update their local regulations. While franchisees — not McDonald’s corporate headquarters — control operations in 95% of restaurants, the fast-food giant has been constantly revising and updating guidelines to share with franchisees.

Last week, locations shut seating areas, moving to carry-out, drive-thru, and delivery. All stores are now rolling out contactless service, which includes updating how employees are configured while working and creating ways to get food made and handed off to customers without any contact.

“While we continue to serve our communities, the safety, wellness and economic security of our customers and employees is our top priority as it has been throughout our 65-year history and especially today,” US President Joe Erlinger said in a statement shared with Business Insider when asked for comment.

A worker at Starbucks

Chairs are stacked in a Starbucks coffee shop that remained open for customers purchasing for take-away, Monday, March 16.

AP Photo/John Minchillo

I hate to generalize, but so many Starbucks customers are extremely entitled. They will cough all over us without covering their mouths, they will berate is, all in the midst of a pandemic.

Corporate has made it clear that they don’t care about us, as those of us who are sick with a fever or chest pain, are told to come in if we can’t find coverage. This isn’t only hazardous to fellow employees, but to any customers as well. I have asthma, and going into work where i come in contact with people who are absolutely careless terrifies me.

With the curve not being flattened, more and more cases are being announced every day. As medical professionals have stated, COVID-19 is an extremely contagious disease. Starbucks can afford to close its stores and still pay its employees, but they are choosing to side with the profit.

Since Business Insider spoke to this Starbucks employee, the chain has rolled out some of the boldest corporate responses to the pandemic. Last Friday, Starbucks announced it was closing all cafés, moving to a drive-thru and delivery-only model. All workers would be paid for 30 days, whether they went to work or not, with employees who did attend work getting a $3 raise.

JP, a worker at McDonald’s

McDonald’s.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

I think fast food chains should close down completely until this situation blows over. Fast food chains, such as McDonalds, have the money to pay staff for time off and close restaurants for a couple weeks or months.

We’re talking about multi billion dollar corporations. With that said, I understand grocery stores can not close but maybe have a rotating schedule until things claim down. Such as four days open three closed, then three open four closed. This would limit staff even more than they are now.

I like many others are still going to work and putting my health at risk. It’s scary right now and we have try not to think about it because we need our jobs. I’m prepared to leave my job though if things get too serious and I feel like the company isn’t taking appropriate action to keep us safe. The health and safety of myself and family come first.

At the end of the day it’s just a job; it will still be there tomorrow and the day after that. There is no guarantee that I or my family will be.

A worker at Jack in the Box

Jack in the Box.

Jack in the Box

I’m terrified of going to work everyday because I see on the news that we’re told that we need to stay inside and quarantine ourselves in our homes for two weeks, maybe more. And then I see so many people ignoring the quarantine and ordering fast food, as if there wasn’t a coronavirus pandemic going on.

I’ve seen bars, restaurants, casinos, the whole strip mall that’s across the street from my work all shut down, including GameStop — which took employees, and the police to finally get it to close temporarily for two weeks. But my work? Nope.

Because other places closed for fear of coronavirus, fast-food restaurants get MORE people in the drive-thru. That’s not practicing social distancing. That’s completely opposite.

If we really want to beat this pandemic we need to actually do what we’ve been saying we’re going to do and ACTUALLY quarantine ourselves. We can’t keep shopping, eating out at fast food, going to the beach like nothing is wrong and there’s no coronavirus. I honestly believe if we close fast-food restaurants too then more people will quarantine themselves.

Then we can beat the coronavirus pandemic.

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travelworldnetwork · 6 years ago

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By Mithila Phadke

11 February 2019

As a newly minted Beijinger, there were certain things my brain quickly scrambled to make room for: the exact time I needed to leave home in the mornings to avoid being squashed into human dumpling filling on the rush-hour subway ride; the location of the best spots for mala xiang guo (a stir-fried version of hot pot); to never flush toilet paper; and to never, ever attempt eating a soup dumpling by putting it straight into your mouth (poke and slurp, people!).

One task, though, seemed impossible: remembering my QQ number, a string of randomly assigned digits that served as the user identification for the QQ messaging service our office – and many others in China – used.

It seemed living in China meant being constantly bombarded by numbers

As the only foreign employee in my department, I was also clearly the only one with this problem. My Chinese co-workers had no difficulty rattling off their own 10-digit, or in some cases nine-digit, IDs. No-one else felt the need to run over to his or her computer like a total idiot to check every time someone asked them. In case you didn’t realise, that idiot was/is me. Since that day two years ago, when a colleague helped me set it up, I’ve never once signed out of my QQ account, nervous that I’ll not be able to log back in at all. If you asked me what my QQ ID was, after more than 104 weeks of living in China and using this messaging service, I would not be able to tell you.

I once asked the British guy working in the office next to ours if he remembered his. He did not. Neither could my two American friends. “What do those numbers mean?” we’d whined to each other. “There’s no order of any kind to them. Why not just use letters?!” I had been tempted to place the blame squarely on our collective terrible memories but turns out, there was possibly more to this. None of the locals we’d asked seemed to find anything unusual about remembering not only long strings of QQ digits, but also various other sets of numbers in other areas of their everyday lives. They turned up in website domain names. They were part of internet slang. Certain numbers assumed significance in cultural beliefs: some were auspicious; others were to be fled from at all cost. Once I started looking, it seemed living in China meant being constantly bombarded by numbers, much more so than in other countries and cultures. And none of my Chinese co-workers or friends were quite sure why.

View image of Upon moving to Beijing, writer Mithila Phadke noticed the prevalence of numbers in daily life (Credit: Credit: jeremy sutton-hibbert/Alamy)

“I’ve heard the train fares on the CTrip website are kinda high,” my Sichuanese roommate Panbi told me, back when I first moved here, as we discussed my Chinese New Year travel plans. “Why don’t you try 12306?”

You may also be interested in: • How India gave us the zero • Japan’s unusual way to view the world • The country that can’t slow down

“Um. Is that a helpline number?” I’d asked, adding that I wasn’t sure my Mandarin skills were up to scratch yet. Turns out, no, it wasn’t a helpline. 12306.cn is China Rail’s official website and app. You know, just like email service websites 163.com and 126.com. While trying to find out exactly why all of them were named thusly, I found a very puzzled (non-Chinese) user’s post on a software company’s forum. “Are 126.com and 163.com fake email addresses?” he asked, with some consternation. “I noticed a number of email addresses for our members with [these] domain [names]. From what I've been able to tell via limited research, these domains could potentially be fake.” Other users quickly clarified that they were legitimate addresses. No-one, though, explained why.

Or wait, almost no-one. Turns out the reason was likely the same as the one behind every one of my life choices: it involved the least effort. As Frankie Huang, a writer and strategist based in Shanghai, told me over email, numbers are far easier to type for purposes like websites’ names, as compared to pinyin, the Romanised system for Chinese characters.

“Not everyone in China has perfect grasp of pinyin. If websites have pinyin names, it might actually be difficult for some people to figure out which letters to write,” she said. A string of numbers is easier to commit to memory than words in a foreign language.

Also, because numbers involve just a single keystroke, you can type much faster. “This was a particular advantage back when phones had real keypads and you had to hit number keys multiple times for letters,” Huang added. “Nobody has time for that.”

View image of Numbers often appear in website domain names as they are easier to type (Credit: Credit: Lou Linwei/Alamy)

Unlike the QQ IDs, the digits in a website name usually aren’t random, explains Christopher Beam in his New Republic essay. For instance, 163.com is the website address of Chinese internet company NetEase. It’s a throwback to the days of dial-up, when customers had to enter 163 to go online. “The phone companies China Telecom and China Unicom simply re-appropriated their well-known customer service numbers as domain names, 10086.cn and 10010.cn, respectively.”

This is also where homophones get involved. Among e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba’s various platforms is 1688.com, with the numbers pronounced ‘ee-lio-ba-ba’ in Mandarin. Get it?

Some, like McDonald’s (phonetically translated in Mandarin as ‘Maidanglao’, until they changed their name in 2017) decided to get more creative. You can order your McMuffin online by typing 4008-517-517.cn because ‘517’ in Mandarin is ‘wu yi qi’. Almost like ‘wo yao chuh’ or ‘I want to eat’ (‘chuh’ is the closest phonetic spelling for ‘chi’, the actual word for ‘eat’). Website 51job.com sounds awfully close to ‘I want a job’, and the ‘6’ in video-streaming site 6.cn’s address is a near-homophone for ‘to stream’, writes Beam. All Chinese digits are monosyllabic, making them easier to remember as sounds, or a short, catchy chant.

View image of McDonald’s allows its customers in China to order food by typing 4008-517-517.cn (Credit: Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy)

While this societal fascination with numbers truly becomes apparent once you have lived in China long-term, it’s often something tourists might notice too. The first time I encountered the cultural quirk was years ago, on my first trip here. I was in the city of Taizhou, spending a few days with my dad. He worked there, flying back and forth between Taizhou and Mumbai every couple of months. On my way up to his apartment, I noticed the lift panel had no fourth floor. There was 1, there was 2 and then there were 3A and 3B. Months later, when I had moved to China myself, I kept coming across elevators that had resolutely decided to not acknowledge 4.

The reason is that the pronunciation of the word ‘four’ in Mandarin sounds way too close for comfort to the word for ‘death’. Which, in the case of the more-orthodox Chinese people, necessitated banishing the number entirely. A co-worker gently suggested I remove one of the four hand-painted coasters I had brought from India for my boss before presenting them to her. My real estate agent informed me, strictly off-record, that often, apartments numbered 4 or 44 tended to be rented out to foreigners. “Many times, the local Chinese people don’t want to live there,” she said, instantly making me remember house 44 inside Qianmachang Hutong in Beijing, where my very American ex-boyfriend had lived.

Huang says her apartment building in Shanghai is “an extreme example of numerical superstition”. It ascribes to not only Chinese, but also Western numerology. Along with leaving out floors 4, 14, 24 and 34, it has also done away with 13. “Once, I was looking at our building from the outside with my husband and we tried to figure out which floor was ours by counting up,” Huang recalled. “[We then realised] that the floor numbers are meaningless as they're all wrong.” 13 was actually 14; 23 was actually 20.

View image of Oftentimes in China, apartments numbered 4 and 44 are considered less desirable (Credit: Credit: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy)

Number 8, on the other hand, is the luckiest, as it sounds like the Mandarin word for prosperity. Car number plates with multiple 8’s have likely been paid a fortune for by their owners, and the ornate ‘88’ building number outside Mr Shi’s Dumplings in Beijing is essentially an announcement to any potential competitors that they are doing very well indeed, thank you very much. If you happen to get an 888 in your phone number, you could likely sell it for a pretty good price.

Numbers also lend a sense of solidness, apparent from the government’s fondness for incorporating them into official policies. There’s the ‘Four Comprehensives’ put forth by Chinese President Xi Jinping, another heartening moment of redemption for the number 4 after Chairman Mao advocated for the ‘Four Olds’ – Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits – in the 1960s. Because official policies are kept separate from cultural superstition, it’s irrelevant how “lucky” a number is. Former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Jiang Zemin had the ‘Three Represents’. Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao had the slightly more bluesy-sounding ‘Three Supremes’, but then made up for it with the very serious ‘Eight Honours and Eight Shames’ – also the title of the lecture my Indian parents gave me the second I hit puberty.

View image of Numbers have also become engrained in Chinese internet slang (Credit: Credit: Education & Exploration 3/Alamy)

Then there’s the wide, wild world of Chinese internet slang, where dodging censors (or just nosy parents) means homophonic numerals are popular. So 748 is telling someone to go to hell, 555 basically means a crying emoji, 233 means you’re laughing, and 520 is ‘I love you’. And if you wanted to really kick it up a few notches, there’s 2010000, which means ‘I love you for 10,000 years’. How’s that for your Valentine’s Day Instagram hashtag?

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travelguy4444 · 6 years ago

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My 17 Favorite Hostels in the World

Updated: 07/09/18 | July 9th, 2018

I often write about my favorite hostels in regions around the world. Today, I want to combine it all into one place and talk about the best hostels in the world. At least, what I think are the best hostels. These hostels embody the traits I love: friendly staff, a warm atmosphere, competitive prices, comfy beds, clean facilities, and that special je ne se qu that makes a place memorable. With more than 90 countries and ten years of backpacking under my belt, I’ve stayed in probably over a thousand hostels. Some were so bad that I’ve blocked them out of my memories. But out of those hundreds, I have some clear favorites, places I’ll never forget and will go out of my way to stay in.

Rocking J’s (Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica)

Rocking Js is sort of an institution in Central America. It’s been there for ages, there’s a beautiful white sand beach in front of it, they serve decent food and have nightly BBQs, and there’s lots of partying. Moreover, they have a wide variety of cheap accommodation (from hammocks to private rooms). There’s a huge common space area, and they offer a lot of travel services. It’s a bit out of town, but it’s by far one of the funkiest places I’ve ever stayed, and I met a lot of great people here.

—->Book your stay at Rocking J’s.

Franceso’s (Ios, Greece)

Francesco’s is one of two main places to stay on Ios (the other being Far Out Beach Resort). I personally like Francesco’s better because it is closer to town (no late-night walks home) and the staff gets everyone together at night to interact. It’s a much more social place than Far Out. It’s impossible not to meet people here. Plus, there’s a pool. Francesco’s is also next to the most wonderful milkshake-making place on the entire planet. The rooms are quite nice and the beds comfy, but what really makes this place so wonderful is its central location and the fact you make tons of new friends every night.

—->Book your stay at Francesco’s.

Kabul (Barcelona, Spain)

Arguably one of the best hostels in the world, Kabul is just an all-out fun-filled place, but only if you are looking to spend your nights partying. You don’t come to Kabul to sleep. It is so well known for its atmosphere and parties that it’s always fully booked, and during the summer, it’s booked months in advance. Everyone socializes in the halls and dorms, getting to know other travelers, playing card games, drinking, and listening to music, or heads downstairs to the giant common room to enjoy dirt-cheap beer and pool. Kabul also offers a small free dinner each night. I haven’t been there in a long time (I like sleeping more partying these days), but if you are young and like to drink, or just like to drink, or are just young at heart (whatever!), stay here.

—->Book your stay at Kabul.

Nomads (Queenstown, New Zealand)

This was a new hostel when I was there in 2009, and I got to stay there as a guest of Nomads. I was traveling with a group of people who were already staying there, and this place blew my mind. The hostel has a huge kitchen (restaurant sized), top-notch showers (with great water pressure) and toilets, and a large lounge, and most rooms have balconies. The pillows are thick — the manager told me they change them every few months to keep them fluffy. How about that for service? Moreover, unlike most hostels in New Zealand, this one doesn’t have a bar, which means you can drink in the hostel. This meant that a lot of people stay around socializing at night instead of spending money at the bars. Moreover, the hostel hosts activities every night (including a $10 pub crawl) and has a free dinner and quiz night on Sunday.

—->Book your stay at Nomads.

The Flying Pig (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

What I love about this place is the people. The facilities here are standard (except the pillows, which are like sleeping on air), and the prices are on the expensive side, but I love the atmosphere here. While this hostel is popular with travelers looking to chill and smoke weed, the bar area gets very busy at night with those who don’t. It’s not all about smoking here. The staff (a mix of locals and travelers) is what sets this place apart from the rest. They hang out with guests, are experts on the city, and will always help you. They want to have fun as much as you do. In Amsterdam, I never stay anywhere else. The Flying Pig has three locations in the city (uptown, downtown, and the new beach location), and I prefer the uptown location because it’s smaller and easier to meet people. Prices at the uptown location are around 20 – 50 EURO a night.

—->Book your stay at The Flying Pig.

Base St. Kilda (Melbourne, Australia)

I’ve said in the past that Base is like the McDonald’s of hostels. You leave full but you’re not really satisfied. Yet McDonald’s (Base) outdid themselves with their Melbourne hostel. It is my favorite hostel in Australia. The bar is lively every night, and there are BBQs and events during the week. Moreover, the rooms and bathrooms are clean and very well maintained. Most people stay here for the atmosphere and location. Within moments of my arrival in the dorm, I met a group of friends to spend time with. I stayed there during my first trip to Australia and went back this year to see if it was still as good as I remembered. It was.

—->Book your stay at Base St Kilda.

Hostel Mostel (Bulgaria)

This hostel has locations in three cities in Bulgaria (Sofia, Plovdiv, and Veliko Tarnovo), and they all follow the same principles: comfy beds, free breakfast, free dinner, free beer, fee shots, a pool table, and free, fast Wi-Fi. And you know, it’s hard not to like a place that gives you a delicious breakfast, free beer, and pasta each night. The beds are super comfortable, but the best part of staying here is just the friendly, social atmosphere. I especially loved their location in Veliko Tarnovo, as it had great views of the old castle and the surrounding mountains. This hostel was my favorite during my recent six-month trip through Europe. Stay here cheap for around 10 EURO a night!

—->Book your stay at Hostel Mostel.

Tallinn Backpackers (Tallinn, Estonia)

Tallinn had a lot of good hostels. I had to switch a lot, and out of the four I stayed at, I enjoyed this place the most. It was the most social of the hostels I stayed at, and they host a nightly pub crawl that usually begins with a little sing-along. (Yes, of course, they sing Oasis’s “Wonderwall.”) The beds here are soft, and I probably got the best night’s sleep here that I’d had in a while. And it’s not loud at night because everyone is out, and they shut down the common area at midnight so people can sleep. Downside? It’s sometimes filled with large groups of drunk Brits and Aussies, and I’d probably avoid this place on the weekend for that reason.

—->Book your stay at Tallinn Backpackers.

Green Tortoise (Seattle, Washington)

The Green Tortoise has hostels in San Francisco and Seattle. They offer a robust breakfast (I’m always impressed by how much food they have), run lots of activities and events for people who stay there, have friendly staff, and comfy beds. They are really solid places that combine the best of the hostel spirit. These folks get hospitality. I rarely stay elsewhere.

—->Book your stay at Green Tortoise.

Naked Tiger (Nicaragua)

Located in the beautiful beach town of San Juan del Sur, the Naked Tiger is an incredible property nestled a bit far out of town but on top of a hill with a beautiful view of the entire area. Here you’ll find a party like atmosphere as the staff wants everyone to have a great time! This isn’t a place to sleep, especially on Sunday’s when they host a citywide pool crawl!

—->Book your stay at Naked Tiger.

Gallery Hostel (Porto)

This “luxury” hostel in Porto, Portugal is not the cheapest in Porto, but this hostel/art gallery features home-cooked Portuguese food, a backyard, free after-dinner drinks, a game room, and friendly staff committed to making sure everyone gets to know each other. The art on the walls is from local artists and is for sale (for those not traveling on a budget). I loved the nightly dinners they organized the best.

—->Book your stay at Gallery Hostel.

City Backpackers (Stockholm)

I stayed here years ago and recently returned when I was in Stockholm. The place was just as amazing as I remember. They still have a very nice café and an outdoor eating/sitting area. Their beds and pillows are still super cozy and comfortable, plus they have a huge kitchen, common room, free sauna, and laundry facilities. And you can’t turn a corner without bumping into a public computer. City Backpackers was and still is one of the top hostels in Europe.

—->Book your stay at City Backpackers.

Khaosan Hostel (Tokyo)

This awesome hostel chain in Tokyo features comfy beds and soft pillows, a warm and knowledgeable staff, and very central locations. Like everything else in Japan, the facilities are spotless, there’s free tea and coffee, and lovely outdoor spaces and common areas to just chill out in.

—->Book your stay at Khaosan.

Milhouse (Buenos Aires)

This amazing hostel in Buenos Aires offers free coffee and tea, paid breakfast has an awesome ba and rooftop, a kitchen, free lockers, a pool table, and board games. Not only that, they host amazing dinners on said rooftop and at night this place becomes a wild party. Thankfully, you can’t hear the noise from the rooms that wrap around a beautiful inner courtyard (so even if you don’t want to party, this is a good place to stay). The staff here is super knowledgeable and can help organize a plethora of activities in the city and around the country.

—->Book your stay at Milhouse.

Fabrika (Tbilisi)

One of my more recent stays, this old Soviet area factory has been turned into a multi-use building featuring a restaurant, bar, hostel, mini-apartments, co-working space. Outside the courtyard, you’ll find an array of bars and restaurants. The dorms are very spacious with soft beds and your own light and electric outlet. This multi-use space is also extremely popular with locals and is one of the hip places to be in the city.

—->Book your stay at Fabrika

HK Austin (Austin)

I’ve stayed in thousands of hostels over the years, so I’d like to think I know what makes the difference between a good hostel and a great one. Sure, I may be a bit biased here since this is my hostel but I really do think it’s an amazing place to stay. From the new mattresses to the spacious dorms to the comfy common room couches to the BBQs we throw, we’ve really worked hard to make sure our hostel is amazing. But don’t take my word for it — come on by and check it out for yourself!

—->Book your stay at HK Austin.

****

So there you have it. These are my favorite hostels in the world and the ones I would highly recommend staying at. Of course, there are many, many, many other great hostels in the world, but for me, these are the cream of the crop.

Photo credits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

The post My 17 Favorite Hostels in the World appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

source https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/my-favorite-hostels-in-the-world/

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