Late today on my way home I received an e-mail notifying me that I would not be able to continue to do business with one of my largest accounts. Over the last few months we participated in an extensive bid proprosal from an outside purchasing management company in Mexico. Hundreds of quotes were submitted. Countless hours were spent on spreadsheets and questions. The proposal culminated with a bid auction where price was the only deciding factor. Companies battled to see who could win the job by going below cost. We did not win the battle. All the deadlines we had met...all the attention to detail we had shown...all the seminars we had given to educate the buyers...all the quality we had put into the finished product...all the relationships and friendships we had nurtured,...all of this was for naught. None of it mattered. Price was the only thing that mattered. It made me extremely melancholy. I will miss the friendships. I will miss the income. But most of all I will miss believing that if you do things the right way, you will be rewarded. That belief is gone. It died with an e-mail. An e-mail that simply said..."See the Non-Reward Letter below..." What a way to end years of doing things the right way.
The last couple of nights have been spent decorating a Heartsong Cookies tree. This weekend I got the bright idea to shake things up a bit and do something different with our Christmas tree. Mike hates getting all the Christmas decorations out of the attic and I wanted a creative outlet. A trip to the dollar store and a rummage through my kitchen cabinets gave me all I needed to put together my tacky creation. I trimmed the tree with wooden spoons, spatulas, cookie scoops, pot holders, candy, cookie cutters and red, silver and turquoise colored balls. I picked up some mini Chinese take our boxes that will be filled with mini Heartsong Cookies and hung on the tree for this weekend's Christmas party. I fashioned a tree skirt out of a variety of dollar store dish towels. The result made me smile. It is tacky and goofy and very me.
Many hugs,
Kathy
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