Investor Alert: Is Masterworks.io a scam?
Every once in a while, someone decides to sell shares in “something” new. Today, that something is Fine Art. Let’s explore the pitfalls of investing in this idea.
Investing in Art
Purchasing art has always been about buying a single piece of artwork outright. Meaning, you find a piece of art you like and you buy it. That means that piece of art is yours to display in any way you wish. This type of purchasing of art is (and remains) the most optimal way to purchase art. You buy it outright and you own the entire work in totality.
However, there are exceptions to the above. If you purchase a reproduction of an original work of art, this purchase offers much fewer rights to the buyer. Some rights that you forfeit when purchasing a reproduction include reproduction of that art. Meaning, you can display your purchase in any way you choose, but you cannot photograph it and/or sell photographs of that art. The reproduction rights remain with the original work’s owner. Only the person who owns the original artwork may reproduce the work in any way.
Mass Produced
You may be thinking, “But, mine is painted with real paint on real canvas”. That doesn’t matter. What matters is if the painting is the first and the original. Many painters reproduce their works using paint on canvas, many times over. Typically, these reproduction paintings are painted by employees (in a sort of paint-by-number situation), but is not always painted by the original artist. These are painters hired for the sole purpose of creating a copy of the original. These reproduction paintings are sold typically at a fraction of the original art’s cost. These reproductions rarely become valuable simply because of the total number produced. It’s the same reason why many mass produced items rarely go up in value.
Because the original was painted by the actual artist, this original painting is the one that holds value. That’s not to say that every original painting by every artist will increase in value. Many do not. It depends on the artist, the artwork and that artist’s contribution to the art world. Perhaps in time that artist might be seen in some kind of historical light, thus propelling their artwork values upward.
Because an original art piece might spawn many “authorized” copies, copies that could become very popular in sales, that makes the original work much more valuable. For example, an original Thomas Kinkade painting would be worth far more than one of its many reproductions. That doesn’t mean reproductions can’t increase in value, but they will never be valued the same as the original first painting.
Masterworks.io
Masterworks takes the idea of Fine Art to an “investment” level. By that I mean instead of owning the actual painting / art piece in full, you only own a “share” (or small portion) of the art. In reality, this type of investing is an abstract concept. At the moment, Masterworks appears to focus solely on paintings. You might be wondering, “How does owning a small piece of a whole actually work?”
The short answer to this question is that it doesn’t. Investing in a tiny piece of a valuable work of art doesn’t do anything but ultimately make Masterworks as a company rich. You, in fact, don’t own anything but the knowledge that you “might” own a small piece of a work of art. You also own the knowledge that that investment might, maybe return value IF the painting is (eventually or ever) sold at a profit. In essence, you’re essentially placing a long shot bet that eventually that painting might be sold for a profit.
Let’s understand some of the problems with this idea.
Where is that painting?
Good question. If you’re buying into an investment object, you definitely want / need to know exactly where that “object” is physically located in the world. If you invest in a company, for example, you know where their headquarters are. You know who their executives are. You know their physical address and phone number. You can call and talk to someone. You can even find out their sales plans, the products or services the company sells and how much they make in revenue per quarter. Keep in mind that some private companies may be unwilling to disclose their sales numbers. With public companies, that company’s revenues are public knowledge.
Buying into a Masterworks painting, on the other hand, you don’t know exactly where it is. You don’t know under what conditions it’s being stored. You don’t know who currently has possession of it. Masterworks can “assure” you that that item is safe… but is it? Paintings are particularly susceptible to deterioration if not kept under the strictest of environmental controls. Artwork is also susceptible to theft. Both of these issues are difficult to manage at the best of times.
One might think that paying to invest in small bit of a painting might help protect it from being lost to time. It’s a lofty ideal. It’s, unfortunately, an ideal that when considering the underlying logistics of it all, make the investment seem highly risky. It’s also an ideal that may not hold true.
An investor should always ask, “Who owns the original work?” You must also consider the following:
- Is Masterworks attempting to sell shares in art they don’t legally own?
- Is Masterworks actually in possession of the art they claim to have bought?
- Did Masterworks actually buy the painting or is it under some kind of “lease”?
- Is the art being stored in correct conditions?
Who knows for sure? These are all very good questions. They’re also questions that should greatly concern you when considering “investing” in art through Masterworks.
Paintings as Investments
Art is entirely subjective to every person, but it is also highly volatile in its salability. What I mean is that paintings, particularly abstract paintings, go through ebbs and flows, waxing and waning in popularity and, yes, value. What might seem like an excellent painting today may be seen as outdated and worthless next year. Art’s value comes and goes, sometimes as a result of changing style trends. Painting values are, as I’ve said above, highly volatile. Way more volatile than investing in company stocks, bonds or even precious metals.
Sure, this investment type is yet another “thing” you can put some money into as part of your larger investment portfolio and hope to see a return on investment, but it may not return anything. The problematic issue with this concept is, can Masterworks be trusted or are they simply another Bernie Madoff? This is the ultimate question.
Novel Concept, Poorly Realized
The idea of share investing in art is definitely novel, even Masterworks states as much. However, is it realistic?
First, there’s the idea that you only own a tiny fraction of a painting. How does that work anyway? Are they planning on cutting up the piece of art if the art price bottoms out and there’s nothing left to pay you back your investment? Clearly, no. They’re simply going to tell you that you’re out your money and they STILL get to keep that art even if it’s worthless. Not only do you NOT get the art after investing, you don’t get your investment back if the painting is sold at a loss.
Second, there’s the logistics of where this art is stored. You have no idea as an investor. Unless Masterworks intends to spend boatloads to create a location to store all of this art under perfect archival environmental conditions (highly unlikely) AND they can prove that fact to investors, the art is then completely open to deterioration, decay and possibly destruction or even theft. Some art, in fact, may be produced using non-archival media. This means that no matter how well a piece of art is stored, it may still slowly (or quickly) deteriorate to the point of no longer even being art (or saleable) even within a few months. You can’t stop deterioration, which actually makes some art less valuable every day that passes.
Third, who actually owns (and holds) that art? Are art owners selling the full piece of art, selling it under consignment or are they selling only the concept of ownership as shares, so then Masterworks then manages that “concept trust”? If Masterworks is selling shares in works of art they do not rightfully own and possess, that is very close to a Ponzi scheme. It may also be very illegal. That’s like someone claiming to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. Sure, anyone can claim to sell it, but they do not own it. They do not even own a piece of it. Giving money to someone claiming to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge is, thus, the very definition of a scam and fraud. With Masterworks, be very careful.
Masterworks needs to also be very careful in what they are doing, making sure their ‘i’s are all dotted and their ‘T’s are all crossed.. Here’s what Masterworks has to say about their own model and art investing:
‣ We have a novel and unproven business model.
https://www.masterworks.io/
‣ Masterworks issuers do not expect to generate revenue, so investors will only recognize a return on their investment if the painting is eventually sold at a profit
‣ No market exists for the shares and paintings are highly illiquid, so you must be prepared to hold your investment for an indefinite period.
‣ Each Issuer owns a single painting and this lack of diversification magnifies risk.
‣ Your ability to trade or sell your shares is highly uncertain.
‣ Paintings may be sold at a loss.
‣ Costs will diminish returns.
‣ Investing in art is subject to numerous risks, including (i) claims with respect to authenticity or provenance, (ii) physical damage, (iii) legal challenges to ownership, (iv) market risks, (v) economic risks and (vi) fraud.
‣ Issuers are totally reliant on Masterworks.
‣ Masterworks has potential conflicts of interest.
‣ Timing of sale of a painting is uncertain.
None of the above (or even their web site) describes how or where the art is actually stored or maintained. It almost solely discusses the risks of investing. The fact that Masterworks also finds the need to call out that purchased shares are “illiquid” says a great deal here. This word means that there are few participants, thus low volume, which ultimately means a very low chance of ever being able to sell out of purchased shares.
Consider stocks and bonds. You can likely sell out of any of these positions in about a day. With Masterworks investments, the low volume and few participants means once you invest, you’re likely stuck holding onto that investment until the painting either sells (at a loss or profit) or fails to sell at all. Masterworks doesn’t really state what happens if you can’t sell your position with a painting that never sells. I guess you’re ultimately out your investment money.
Art Storage
As with any artwork and has been stated above, it’s important to understand how and where the art is stored and who actually owns the art. None of this is explicitly stated on Masterworks’s site. I’m actually taken aback by the fact that for all the deluge of investing information provided, there’s equivalently a severe lack of information regarding the artwork itself, where it’s stored, how it’s managed or who owns it while it’s being held for shares. That’s a big, nay HUGE, problem in my book.
However, Masterworks does say this…
What this ultimately says is that Masterworks locates and purchases art. It doesn’t exactly state what “purchase the work” actually means. Are they taking possession of the work or are they leaving it at the gallery where they found it to remain on sale? They do claim to hold a work of art for 3-10 years. I’m uncertain how this works exactly considering the second half of that “OR” statement. Only questions, few answers.
As I said, for as much information as there is about risk of investing, there’s equally as little about the actual artwork itself… which is huge red flag 🚩.
Any business straddling both the art world and the finance world should be, at once, both engaged in explaining how and where the art is to be stored and handled, but also able to explain the risks of investing. Clearly, Masterworks is only interested in documenting half of this equation.
Volume Investing
Masterworks hopes that as more people jump on board with their share idea and begin investing, a larger and higher volume share marketplace will eventually emerge to allow for easier share trading. At this moment, however, Masterworks has stated that any position you buy is likely to be “illiquid”, thus implying that this is a new market with limited options for selling shares.
In other words, if you invest $100 into a painting and gain 2 shares, those shares in that painting are most likely to remain yours until the painting sells at a profit or a loss. The question is, though, even if the painting sells, does Masterworks have the painting to sell? I’m still skeptical.
Art Galleries
Masterworks, as a company, needs to be a whole lot more forthcoming about all aspects of its business operations, especially surrounding where, how and who stores the art after it’s purchased.
What Masterworks should have planned for is purchasing a number of galleries around the United States (or around the World) to support their business model. Instead of simply attempting to sell the investment share idea, they should have worked this idea full circle.
Here’s where things get a little dicey for Masterworks. Instead of creating a complete sales cycle (or sales funnel as some might call also it), they leave out one very important piece: Galleries. Clearly, they have Acquisition, Investments and Sales. Though, questions about Masterworks’s acquisition process remains, primarily because they don’t have galleries.
To really make this business model complete, Masterworks needs to own and operate its own set of galleries. Why galleries? Owning galleries sets a tone that you know how to properly store and manage expensive artwork in addition to offering a place to actually sell it properly. Though, paintings can be sold through auction houses as well. Masterworks is attempting to sell art for millions of dollars, yet Masterworks doesn’t really state where, or more specifically how, that artwork is managed and stored. It’s an important and necessary piece that’s conveniently missing.
Owning galleries keeps Masterworks honest and allows for auditing. If there is a gallery where a specific investment work lives, investors can visit the gallery and physically see the art they have invested in. This verifies that the artwork exists, that it is genuine (not faked), that it’s in Masterworks’s possession and that it can be verified. Without this piece, verification of the actual art remains an open question. Images on a web site do not verify that anything is genuine. Talking to someone on the phone doesn’t verify authenticity either. Only physically seeing the artwork in person can an investor verify the painting and, thus, verify that their investment is backed by something real.
Questions without Answers
That leaves too many open questions. Questions like, “What exactly am I investing in?” Like, “Where is the artwork stored?” Questions like, “Is the artwork properly stored for a long sales wait?” Like, “Is the artwork in the possession of Masterworks directly?” All of these questions could be easily resolved if Masterworks owns and operates a set of galleries… or at least a showroom at the bare minimum.
Additionally, with Masterworks ownership of galleries, this means you, as an investor, can physically go see the art you’ve invested in. You can see if it’s as it appears in the images. You can see it on exhibit, or at least it can be brought out for a viewing. You can see that it’s being kept and stored in appropriate environmental conditions.
There are so many questions surrounding the art itself, there is absolutely no way I would recommend anyone to invest in Masterworks… unless you absolutely like throwing money away on odd “investment” strategies. Knowing where that art is, how it’s being stored and if it’s being stored appropriately combined with knowing you’re able to view the actual art is extremely important BEFORE investing any money in a share of a painting.
Ponzi Scheme?
While I previously made reference to Bernie Madoff and his ponzi scheme, that statement isn’t intended to suggest that Masterworks runs a Ponzi scheme or that it intends to make off with your money. However, because of so many lingering questions, this business model seems unnecessarily risky… especially not knowing the answer to far too many questions surrounding the paintings.
Additionally, because of the volatility in art sales, as an investor, you must fully trust and be reliant on Masterworks buyers and appraisers to locate “valuable art” that might sell for some amount of money higher than what was paid. However, you’ve no idea if the art they’ve selected will actually sell at all. Because art is so subjective, what a few like, too many others may hate.
It also means betting that some nebulous “whale” will come along and snap up that piece of art (for millions) you just so happen to have invested in. That isn’t likely to happen often. Unless the art is of great historical value (i.e., Leonardo DaVinci or Michaelangelo or even more recent artists like Mark Rothko, Roy Lichtenstein or Marcel Duchamp), art produced by artists living and working today might fetch random amounts, but perhaps not millions. There’s just no way to know what any piece of art might fetch when produced by today’s artists. It’s all a calculated, but a seriously risky best guess.
Unfair to Artists
One thing Masterworks also seems to be attempting is to force art to be sold at far higher prices than it’s actually worth. This is what many collectors attempt to do, usually via auction. That is, Masterworks appears to intend to artificially inflate art prices to make better returns on shareholder investments. The difficulty is that this artificial inflation (nor does the sale itself) benefit the artist at all.
Where Masterworks might “buy” a work for $70,000 from an artist via a gallery, they may attempt to turn it for $1.3 million. That nets a huge profit for Masterworks and a lesser amount for shareholders in that work. However, for the artist, $70k is all they have received. The artist is not fairly compensated from a Masterworks sale.
One might argue that aftermarket sales of art never has benefited the artist. Yes, but here’s a business model that could arguably help bring artists into the fold by making sales on behalf of the artist. This goes hand-in-hand in owning galleries. Instead, it seems Masterworks has chosen an aftermarket sales model that excludes the artist. A model that only makes money for investors and Masterworks, but not for the artist. Intentionally leaving the artist out of this process is entirely greedy and unfair to the artist.
Artists Deserve Compensation
One might think that $70,000 is a lot of money for the sale of a painting. It is. But, it is nowhere near the amount that the artist could have netted if they had sold it for $1.3 million.
Artists shouldn’t be required to invest in their own paintings with Masterworks just to net more profit on an aftermarket sale. Instead, Masterworks should work directly with artists to list the work and then compensate the artist for at least 50% of the sale, either directly or by issuing a 50% ownership stake in the art via shares. The rest of the profits should go to paying out shareholders. This model would not only fairly compensate every artist, but it also fairly compensates the shareholders and Masterworks itself.
Artists are always the one who seem to get the shaft. This problem has existed for many, many years. Masterworks can modify their business model to make sales that directly benefit the artist while also properly compensating shareholders and turning a nice profit for Masterworks. Instead, it seems they have ignored this aspect only to make their sales benefit mostly Masterworks executives the most, leaving out the artist.
Artists vs Corporations
If you’re of the mindset that you would like to see artists fairly compensated for their work, skip these risky investment schemes and buy directly from an artist. If you buy directly from an artist, you are helping that artist, not some random corporate executives operating a more or less faceless and questionable company. If you’re willing to shell out $20 to see a movie actor perform, then why wouldn’t you be willing to pay an artist for the artwork they produce?
Not only can you carry pride in the fact that you purchased art directly from the artist, you also own an original work of art in full, not solely just a share in a work of art that you’ll never see. You can also hold pride in knowing that you have helped the artist produce even more work. Buying art from Masterworks does not, in any way, encourage artists to continue to their craft. In fact, the pittance that the artist might receive in the first sale may be barely enough to cover the time and effort put into producing that painting let alone help them produce future paintings. Art supplies are expensive.
Art Valuation and Secondary Market
Let’s talk about the investing and trading pieces. Masterworks operates a secondary market where shares can be traded. Unlike Wall Street stocks where a stock’s value is based on such fluctuating data points as company profits, company revenue, investor calls, product sales and announcements, analyst recommendations, investor confidence and volume of trading, paintings have no such intrinsic back end data points (other than perhaps trading volume… and even that is drummed up via this questionable investment scheme).
Art valuation is entirely subjective, made solely by a random person appraising its value. What that means is that if you invest in a work that claims to have a $30 “share price”, you’re at the mercy of an appraiser to raise or lower this price. Bid and ask sale prices might influence pricing some, but the pricing seen on the secondary market site is mostly “best guess”. There’s nothing behind that painting to “prop up” its changing value. There are no profit margins, no new product announcements, no analyst calls, no company books to review, nothing. It’s a painting. That’s it. Paintings don’t randomly change value UNLESS they are sold. Anything else purported is a dubious scheme.
Investing in a painting with a fluctuating value is a false equivalence to stock. There’s nothing there to change the value of the share in a painting, yet it seems that the values do change. Why? The painting hasn’t yet sold, so it makes zero sense. As I said, there’s nothing in any painting to justify changes in the share price until AFTER it’s sold. Once a painting has been sold, then the share price will change to reflect the sale price of the painting.
If Masterworks intends to see a painting’s share price fluctuate daily, like stocks, then there’s something seedy, dubious and awry going on. It’s also something that you as an investor need to understand before investing a cent. Intraday changes in painting’s share price prior to a sale is extremely dubious.
One might argue that there are a limited number of shares in the painting. That each share sold makes every share more valuable. I might be willing to accept that argument except a painting can be arbitrarily divided 100 times, 1,000 times or even 1 million times. When does that share division end? You can’t really divide a painting up like that. If you’re going to apply a random investment concept, such as a share, onto a painting, then any division into shares is entirely arbitrary and disconnected and holds effectively a fractional value tied to the current “worth” of the painting. Ultimately, there’s only one (1) painting. Therefore, there should only be one (1) share. When you buy that one (1) share, you buy the painting.
Having this sub-construct of many shares which are separate from the “painting as a single commodity” is not only an odd concept to apply to a physical object, it might be seen as a form of Ponzi scheme. These “shares” are actually an abstract idea applied to a single physical object which cannot be subdivided physically. So, how exactly does this abstract division concept work? That’s exactly what Masterworks is attempting to find out. It’s also why the Masterworks business model is unproven.
Overall
I can’t recommend investing “shares” in paintings via Masterworks for reasons already outlined above. However, let me summarize these points:
- Proper art storage isn’t explained (very high risk)
- Returns on investment isn’t fully explained (high risk)
- Paintings aren’t guaranteed to sell (high risk)
- No sales benefits given to the artist (problematic)
- No galleries to physically view or confirm ownership (exceedingly high risk)
- Art prices are highly volatile (high risk)
- Art sales are solely dependent on subjective criteria (overly risky)
- Art values are solely dependent on Masterworks “appraisers” (highly risky, requires high trust)
- Intraday changes in share prices are nonsensical prior to the painting being sold (dubious)
- Must trust Masterworks for both valuation and truth (overly risky)
- Must trust Masterworks that they actually own and possess the art (exceedingly risky)
- Secondary market attempts to treat shares in a painting like stocks (exceedingly risky & dubious)
Without seeing the painting physically, as an investor, you have no idea if Masterworks truly has that painting in their possession. It’s easy to take a picture and put it on a web site, making claims that they own and possess the work. This then tricks the investor into a purchase. Then, you hold and hold and hold and the painting never sells. In fact, you could come to find they don’t even own the original art. You might find that they’re selling something they don’t even have possession of.
While Masterworks may own some of the work they claim to own, there’s literally no way for an investor to confirm that every piece of art listed is actually in the possession of Masterworks. This problem is exacerbated mainly because Masterworks operate no galleries.
For this reason, Masterworks could be selling you shares in a work that they do not, in fact, own or possess. That’s effectively a form of fraud.
Masterworks would do best to modify their business model to offer a process that can prove they physically own the paintings they claim to own. The only way this is really possible is if they open and operate at least one Masterworks gallery somewhere so shareholders can visit and request a viewing of the art they’ve invested in. This is effectively an audit system which holds Masterworks accountable to all shareholders. Without this change in their business model, investing in any work that Masterwork claims to own is unnecessarily risky. To anyone willing to give money to this company, I say, “caveat emptor!” Let the buyer beware.
Without such basic investor auditing responsibilities, I strongly recommend staying away from this novel, but highly problematic investing concept and stay away from Masterworks as a corporation. That’s not to say this concept can’t be revised to be more functional, but at the moment this concept is just not there. This concept forces an over-burdensome amount of trust and risk onto the investor and off of Masterworks, while leaving too many unregulated, unauditable and manipulable pieces in the hands of Masterworks executives.
Bottom Line: If an employee at Masterworks wished to game the Masterworks system, the lack of proper auditing over this concept would allow any executive far too easy access to game it… thus losing investments from investors and truly turning this into a huge fraud scheme.
Business Concept: B
Business Execution: F+
Scam Risk Level: Exceedingly High, Stay Away
Recommendation: Don’t Invest in Masterworks
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Is it safe to drink soda left in a hot car?

This question seems like it should have a simple answer. However, the answer is more complicated than it would seem. Let’s explore.
Canned Soft Drinks and Beverages
Canned sodas are hermetically sealed and are bottled with bacteria free water. This means that high heat won’t grow anything undue. However, sodas have flavorings, artificial and sometimes natural colors and sugar or artificial sweeteners. Depending on these ingredients, sodas can deteriorate if left in hot conditions.
Canned sodas are “bottled” (or canned) in aluminum cans. While aluminum is heat safe, think about the aluminum foil you use to bake with, there is no problem with the aluminum itself. In fact, because the drink is fully sealed and not exposed to UV light, this method of storage with heat probably offers your best chances of retaining a drinkable beverage even after being exposed to excessive heat. If the aluminum were the only problem, this section would be over.
However, we must also consider the ingredients. The good news here is that artificial and natural colors are generally heat stable. Again, think about baking with food coloring. Colors don’t degrade under 350ºF / 176.7ºC baking temperatures, which is far higher than the heat your car interior should ever reach.
The same goes for soda flavorings. Most flavorings are designed for baking purposes which also reach high temperatures needed for baking.
What’s ingredients are left?
Sweeteners and preservatives. Depending on the sweetener, it might or might not be high heat stable. For example, it is known that Aspartame (aka NutraSweet) is not high heat stable. As temperatures increase, Aspartame begins to break down into components such as methanol. Keep in mind that Aspartame is made up of 10% methanol, 40% aspartic acid, and 50% phenylalanine.
Methanol is a highly toxic substance that, when heated above 86 degrees F (as it is in your body), is metabolized into formaldehyde (embalming fluid) and formic acid (the poison in fire ants).
https://www.downtoearth.org/articles/2009-03/13/aspartame-potential-risk-lurking-your-cabinets
As the above quote states, at 86ºF / 30ºC is when methanol begins to break down into formaldehyde and formic acid. This temperature is well lower than the temperatures which can be reached inside of a hot car. During a hot summer day, temperatures in a car can reach temperatures 20-30ºF / 5-10ºC hotter than the outdoor temperature. For example, a 90ºF / 32ºC ambient outdoor temperature can see temperatures rise to between 110ºF-120ºF / 43.3ºC-48.9ºC inside of a car.
If a beverage you’ve left in the vehicle contains Aspartame, it may not be safe to drink if the can has reached these high temperatures. For canned drinks, it takes between 30 minutes up to 1 hour to heat a can up to these high temperatures once in a vehicle.
Beverages that contain other sweeteners, such as saccharine, sugar, stevia or agave, are considered heat safe sweeteners. Sucralose (aka Splenda) claims to be heat safe, but may or may not be. If a drink contains Sucralose, you might want to taste it first. If the drink is no longer as sweet as you expect, a portion of the sweetener may have broken down in the heat and it’s not recommended to drink.
Bottled Drinks
There are two different types of bottles: glass and plastic.

Glass
Glass bottles are safe to drink so long as it contains heat safe ingredients. However, if the bottles have been exposed to UV by sitting in direct sunlight, some of the coloring might have faded and flavors may have changed. I’d be cautious if the bottle has been sitting around for hours in sunlight. I’d strongly suggest a smell and taste for any bottle which has been sitting in UV light for longer than 1 hour. If the bottle has been sitting for an hour, then it shouldn’t be problem. Always use the nose and taste test to determine suitability for drinking. If it doesn’t taste right, spit it out, then toss it out.
Plastic
Plastic bottles are different beast. Plastic bottles can leach plastic and chemicals into the beverage after sitting in a hot car. This goes for water bottles and flavored beverages. If your beverage has been sitting for hours in direct sunlight in a super hot car, toss it out. Don’t risk it. It doesn’t matter if the ingredients are heat safe. It’s the plastic leaching that becomes the problem with plastic bottles.
Wine, Beer and Spirits
Wine is a drink that is best kept at room temperature (i.e., at or below 78ºF / 25.6ºC). If wine bottles are exposed to higher heat, such as 85ºF / 29.4ºC or hotter, the bottle of wine can be ruined. By ruined, the flavors change, the subtle aromas are lost and the bottle may increase tannins, making the wine unpalatable. The longer the wine remains at a high temp, the more the wine may turn into a flavor resembling vinegar. If you open a bottle and it tastes of vinegar, the bottle is bad. This goes for all wines including white, red, rose and bubbly.
Beer, like wine, will also sour and go bad when stored above room temperature for long periods. Unlike wine, beer is carbonated. This goes for sparkling wine and Champagne as well.
If you’re paying a lot for your wine or beer, you want to keep it in your car near an air conditioning vent, then remove from the car as soon as you arrive home. If it’s an especially hot day and you need to do a lot of running around, I’d suggest bringing a cooler with you and placing these into a cooler with ice. That, or shop for these items last.

Spirits, such as Tequila, Vodka and even Liqueurs can go bad in high heat. This is especially true for liqueurs like Bailey’s Irish Cream, which does contains dairy cream. Anything containing dairy should always be stored refrigerated once opened. However, Bailey’s Irish Cream remains shelf stable if unopened and is stored under room temperature conditions.
Changing Flavors
Regardless of whether a drink contains high-heat safe ingredients, sitting in super hot conditions or subject to UV exposure for long periods isn’t good for any food or drink. If you accidentally leave a case of soda cans in your car for three days or longer, I’d suggest tasting one first. By tasting, I mean just that. Taste and spit. If it tastes at all funny, then the cans are bad.
When buying drinks, it is suggested to take them into an air conditioned climate as soon as possible. Sure, you can run around for a little while while shopping, but be cautious for how long. If you know you plan to shop the entire day for hours, then plan to bring a cooler and place beverages and food items into the cooler to keep them stored properly and safely.
Explosions
Carbonated beverages have one other problem with high heat. As more and more manufacturers reduce costs, they tend to make their product containers (cans and bottles) as thin as possible. These containers are safe when stored in appropriate conditions. However, under high heat conditions, these containers can weaken and burst.
As high heat creeps in, this weakens a plastic bottle or can, which can lead to an explosion. Safety is a concern when buying a case of cans or plastic bottles and choosing to leave then in a hot car. Glass bottles should be safer in regards to exploding, but the beverage itself may not survive high heat conditions.
Summer Safety Tips

Always store cans and bottles in a cooler, if at all possible. If you know you plan shopping at a number of stores, plan to bring a cooler with ice. This way, you can store cans and bottles in the cooler while remaining out and about. As our summers seem to be getting hotter and hotter each year, carrying around a cooler becomes ever more important.
If you’re buying expensive beer, wine and spirits, then you definitely want a cooler. There’s no danger in storing wine at ice temperatures for a short time, but there is definitely a danger from wine becoming too hot. Same for beer and spirits. For soda or bottled water, it’s fine to remain in the car for a 20 minute drive home, but if it needs to remain in the car for hours, then you’ll want plan a cooler for these as well.
As we move into the hotter days of summer, plan to spend for and use a decent cooler for those days when you need to be out and about for longer than a few hours.
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What is Critical Race Theory?

Critical Race Theory is, as it is so named, a theory. The words ‘Critical’ and ‘Race’ define this theory, but not entirely. The handful of so-called academician drafters of this theory sought to explain the lack of improvement and standing from the mid-1960s into the mid-1970s for the continuance of societal inequality for people of color. Let’s explore.
What Critical Race Theory Isn’t
Too many people and so-called scholars believe that this theory encapsulates all law going back to the beginning of time. That’s false. Critical Race Theory was a theory designed in the 1970s to explain specifically why the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s didn’t bear much equality fruit for people of color… or more specifically, why that movement didn’t see changes to the body of law between the 1950s and 1970s. This theory is a thin attempt to explain why the racial divide didn’t shrink dramatically between these specific years. However, while CRT wasn’t intended to encapsulate every law in existence, there is certainly plenty of law to examine to determine if this theory might actually apply. In reality, it doesn’t apply to the word of law, but it may apply in other unexplored ways.
Complaint
In fact, Critical Race Theory is simply a complaint. It complains that the racial divide still exists and seeks to explain this continued divide simply by complaining. While the racial divide did shrink between the 1950s and the 1970s, those who put forth this theory weren’t at all happy with the overall amount of shrinkage in that 10-20 year span and, thus, those academicians penned this theory.
I’d argue the opposite. The Civil Rights Movement brought about significant change in the area of racial equality in that time period. No, the Civil Rights Movement results weren’t perfect. No, it didn’t give those of color the same standing in every single area of society that were afforded to white people by the mid-70s. However, anyone expecting that level of complete equality in that short time was honestly expecting way too much. Bodies of law simply don’t change that quickly. It’s a slow barge and it takes a very long time to turn.
Critical Race Theory, though, primarily seeks to offer a possible explanation over the existing body of law if viewed through a single solitary lens… a lens that is, by its every crafting, is already biased. However, complaints without solutions are also pointless… and here we arrive at the crux of the problem with Critical Race Theory. This article seeks to explain why CRT only complains, but offers no solutions.
Complaint Validity
Don’t get me wrong, complaints have a purpose, but only if there is some form of remediation attached to that complaint. For example, if you buy a defective item at Target and return it, the complaint is the reason why you returned the item. However, no one would head over to Target without said item in hand simply to complain that the item is merely defective. What point does that serve? The person you complain to doesn’t care about that and they’re not even in a position to do anything to solve your complaint. They’re there to accept exchanges and returns, not listen to complaints.
The one and only time filing only a complaint is useful is if injury or death is involved. However, you wouldn’t head to your local Target store to file that specific complaint. You’d file that complaint to a court in the form of a lawsuit.
No, complaints are only useful IF, as in the Target example above, you bring the defective item in for a return. Putting it all together, the complaint is why the item is defective, the remediation (or solution) is in the exchange or refund. The same goes for CRT. Simply that CRT postulates that law was created by “white” people for the agenda of favoring “whites” over “blacks” is merely a complaint. CRT doesn’t seek to change, alter or remediate that problem. It simply attempts to postulate such a problem exists.
Like the defective item returned to Target, a complaint over why the item was defective may not actually be true. For example, a so-called defect might, in fact, be simple user error. That the person using the product might not fully understand the use of said product. If you don’t fully read the instructions, you can’t know if the product functions in the way you want. For example, not all glues work on all surface types. If you bought a glue and assumed you could glue two pieces of Teflon coated plastic together and the glue fails, that’s not a defect, that’s user error. Even though Target will accept your complaint by calling it a defect and then exchange or return the product, that doesn’t mean the complaint is valid.
Likewise, Critical Race Theory doesn’t seek to modify new laws, change how laws are created or alter existing laws to “solve” a perceived racial injustice problem. Indeed, the complaint in CRT hasn’t really even been validated as a problem. It simply postulates that a problem might or might not exist.
Black Legislators
One issue with Critical Race Theory is that black legislators have been part of the body of lawmaking since at least 1868! Postulating that because “whites” have “always” crafted law and that law somehow disfavors “blacks” is, at worst, disingenuous and, at best, insulting to those black legislators who potentially helped craft some of that legislation.
That’s not to say that whites haven’t primarily been part of crafting and passing state and federal laws. However, few laws specifically include words such as race, creed, color or gender in its body of text. Most laws that actually touch on the topic of race are those laws which sought to free slaves or that specifically mandated such legislation as affirmative action.
Keep in mind that there are also many rules and regulations produced by private establishments that have nothing to do with federal, state and local laws. These rules and regulations are outside the body of law. While Critical Race Theory may be much more applicable to such rules and regulations, CRT reaches too far when attempting to explain (or rather, complain about) the vast majority of existing federal, state, county and municipal laws and statutes. While non-legal guidelines might have unfairly treated minorities, these guidelines were not issued by lawmakers, but by private owners and individuals. It can be difficult to establish where law ends and private rules begin.
Private Rules
Rules of private companies begin at the border of that private company, such as when entering a retail store (or even when using Twitter or Facebook). Every retail store has its own set of rules and regulations, some posted, some not. Every store adheres to these company chartered rules and regulations. For example, if a person enters with the goal of being loud, boisterous and with the intent of disturbing the peace, the store has every right to refuse service and eject that person from the premises. The difficulty comes not because the person was ejected, but the race of the person who was ejected.
If a white person is ejected, it would be seen as ‘fair’. If a black person is ejected, it will be seen as ‘unfair’. Herein lies one problem with Critical Race Theory. CRT doesn’t take into account this fair vs unfair argument, which is entirely subjective application of this theory. The store would then be seen as racist because they ejected someone of color, even though the store may have ejected just as many white people for the same exact reason.
Critical Race Theory then becomes less about actually being treated unfairly and more about ways to allow people of color to unfairly complain about racism in situations where they have actually been treated fairly. This also goes for application of laws.
Laws and CRT
Let’s get back to actual law. When a body of law is written, it is written and designed to solve a societal problem. Now, I won’t get into exactly how laws fail society simply because the philosophy behind law doesn’t actually do what it is designed to do… because that would make this article into a book. No. Instead, I’ll remain focused on a body of law as how people assume law functions.
Unless the verbiage of a specific law states that it excludes or includes a specific race, creed, gender or color, it doesn’t. That’s how laws work. Laws are written with specific words. Those words define the condition and resolution. Attempting to “read into” or “read between the lines” …. such as because the words may have been penned by a “white male”, that that situation, according to CRT, somehow makes the law biased towards whites and against blacks. CRT also doesn’t take into account that black and brown legislators may have read the wording of the law long before being adopted, and agreed with the text of it… even being given the opportunity to modify it if so needed.
Laws don’t work by reading between the lines. Laws should work as written. As I said, words matter. It’s all in exactly how the words are written. If no words define a specific condition, such as race, creed, gender or color, then no conditions around those qualities exist.
Critical Race Theory, nonetheless, seeks to apply its biased notion (complaint ), by reading between the lines across all laws regardless of how the laws are actually worded.
Legal Interpretation
With that said, CRT, in turn, fails to postulate legal interpretation. The written word defines the body of law. Unfortunately, it’s not the words that (fail to) do the job, it’s people. People must interpret those words into actionable content… and that’s where the police, attorneys and the courts come into the picture.
While words are merely words, people are free to take those words and twist the vagueness of those words into meanings that were not intended by the original author. This situation happens everywhere… with the Bible being probably the most prominent example of this. Part of the problem is intent. Because the Bible was written at a time and place that cannot be replicated today, anyone reading the text of a passage must interpret it with a current modern mindset. Today’s mindset didn’t exist when the Bible was originally written. Therefore, it’s almost impossible to understand a passage’s actual intent as written by the original author. That original intent has been long lost to time.
The same can be said of the body of law. A law written in 1870 might have been written for a condition which no longer exists today. The author of the law wrote it with a then existing mindset. In 2021, that condition doesn’t exist. Therefore, the law must be interpreted by someone to determine if a similar situation can be enforced today.
For example, there’s a California law that states, “You can’t pile more than six feet of horse manure on a street corner.” In the 1870s, horses were a thing. In that age, piling more than six feet of horse manure might have been a substantial city problem. Today, we don’t ride horses other than for recreation and not very often down city streets. Therefore, this law was penned to solve a specific problem using a specific mindset. That mindset no longer exists today and, thus, this law is outdated. Though, in some cities in California, horses might still be allowed down main thoroughfares even in 2021.
Mindsets and Words
With the above example in mind, Critical Race Theory was written in the 1970s under a 1970s mindset. Attempting to apply a 1970s mindset to every law that has come before (or, indeed, after) is both fallacious and disingenuous. It seeks to explain-complain about how laws may have been written. Though, laws are not about race, laws came to exist to solve a problem that may no longer exist today. The older the law, the more likely it is to be outdated. However, interpretation can read-into the word of law ideas which weren’t intended. It’s the vagueness of those written words which, unfortunately, allow these modern (mis)interpretations.
This is how CRT fails us (and how laws can fail us)…. not only in the fact that CRT is a complaint which offers no actual solutions, but because it attempts to apply a modern mindset and word definitions to much older laws… laws which may not even have applicable uses today. Unfortunately, both judges and attorneys alike prefer to find such nebulous and vague written laws which tie into and support their cases to uphold personal and legal convictions. Such laws may not have even been intended for such use, but modern interpretation lends itself to that agenda. This means that it is the people who are interpreting the laws and who may be adding racist intentions, not the laws themselves.
It goes deeper. Laws must start with police officers. Police are tasked to enforce laws, by force if necessary. However, because laws are written with words that don’t always express clear intent, too many laws must be interpreted. That means that, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” More specifically, because words are easily misinterpreted and because meanings of words can change over time (just check out Urban Dictionary), the current meaning of a word might not be the same as when the text of a law was penned.
Police officers are not necessarily hired because of their prowess with the English language. Instead, they are hired because they have the wherewithal to carry a weapon and put their lives on the line each and every day. However, because they are also tasked to enforce laws that don’t always have clear intent, they must interpret those legal words through their own personal lens. That means, once again, a potential for racism to creep in… not because of the words, but because a living breathing person is tasked to take those potentially vague words and interpret them in ways that they can enforce.
Is Critical Race Theory useful?
Critical Race Theory might have limited value in that it seeks to draw attention to the existing body of law in a way that shows that it needs oversight. However, it seeks to do so in the wrong way. Bodies of law, in fact, need both oversight and to be kept up-to-date. When laws become outdated either because the original intent no longer applies (manure doesn’t pile up on street corners) or because the condition no longer exists (we don’t use horses for general transport), these laws need to be stricken. In fact, new laws need to be written which enforces oversight upon the body of law and which can auto-stricken and invalidate outdated laws.
Unfortunately, such oversight is still missing in our body of law. This allows useless and pointless laws to continue to exist in perpetuity. This is the the kind of oversight that Critical Race Theory should attempt to put forward with functional solutions, but which it fails to do. In fact, having this entire theory named ‘Critical Race Theory’ both misnames it and turns it into something that makes it controversial. The word ‘race’ in its title automatically makes this theory divisive by the word’s very inclusion.
Though, I personally ignore that problem entirely. Words are just words. Just as laws are also just words. It’s the word interpretation by living breathing people where the words become ideas and where ideas can become a problem. It’s these misinterpreted ideas that are causing the problems, not the words. As long as attorneys, judges and juries all incorrectly agree on word definitions, then laws (even if not originally intended for a purpose) can apply incorrectly to situations unintended.
In other words, it takes people to interpret laws to determine if that law’s text applies to a specific situation. It is this interpretation where problems come to exist, not in the body of written law. Interpretation is the bane of human existence. It’s where people determine what is valid and what isn’t. To interpret, people must bring in their own prejudices, thought processes, teachings and values to reach a conclusion… conclusions which, yes, can become racist.
In short… It isn’t the body of law that’s racist, it’s the people who interpret those laws who are. This is exactly where Critical Race Theory fails us.
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COVID-19: Should I help out?
Here’s a solid question that may appear to not have a clear answer, but it really does. Let’s explore.

Emergency aboard a plane
Imagine you’re flying on a plane to get somewhere. Imagine that the person across the aisle from you appears to be having trouble breathing and is sweating. Then, imagine that same passenger begins having a seizure which turns into a medical emergency. Now imagine another medically trained passenger steps up and begins performing CPR on this now stricken passenger and continues performing this activity until the plane lands (i.e., over an hour).
This scenario just played out on a United Airlines flight on Monday December 21st. A scary situation to be sure. Is jumping in to aid a possibly COVID-19 infected passenger wise? Could this situation have been avoided?
COVID-19 has familiar symptoms including shortness of breath, sweating, fever, chills and other outward signs of infection. These symptoms, particularly when this severe, should be easily spotted. Yet, no passengers, none of the flight attendants, none of the airport or airline attendants did anything to question this clearly ailing man before boarding, while boarding or during the flight. How does this happen?
Airline Negligence
Before I get into the meat of this article, let’s discuss the side dishes. This side dish is negligence. When you’re flying on a commercial jet, it is the airport, TSA and airline staff’s responsibility to properly vet passengers all along the way for who may be showing outward symptoms consistent with COVID-19. How does an airport and an airline miss his condition? This is the job of those who run airports and airlines. This is partly why they get paid.
Clearly, this man should have been coughing and having trouble breathing even sitting in the terminal. COVID-19’s symptoms don’t appear at a moment’s notice. Clearly, not only is the airport itself, but so is United Airlines entirely remiss in spotting this ailing passenger at the many touch points of passenger check-in. Even the TSA failed to spot his condition!
How does an airport and a wide array of airline and airport staff miss seeing a sweating, ailing, coughing passenger in their midst? I’m at a loss here.
Passenger Due Diligence
It’s not really on the passengers to do an airline’s or an airport’s job. However, it is on every passenger to stay aware and vigilant of their surroundings. We’ve all been taught to stop, look and listen. During a severe pandemic, it is firmly on ALL of us to be aware of our surroundings. With the pandemic, we need to become even more vigilant and hyper aware of those around us by listening to and watching everyone around us. If someone is coughing, sneezing, wheezing or appears in any way distressed, you should not only move away from them, you should get as far away as possible.
However, when we’re sitting in an airport waiting for a flight, we’re trapped at that terminal. What that means while we can move away from someone who appears to be ailing, we must also notify those in charge that a specific passenger appears to be in a problematic state. At that point, those in charge would need to step up and determine whether that person is ailing, has a fever or appears to have any outward signs of COVID-19 and to pull that passenger aside and deny them access if necessary.
In other words, there were so many touch points that failed to identify this distressed United Airlines passenger, it really throws into question just how diligent and effective airlines and airports really are to screen infected passengers. It’s clear that they missed this passenger. It’s also clear that the passengers themselves missed notifying those in authority.
Passenger Aids COVID-19 Passenger
When the distressed passenger moved into a medical emergency aboard the flight, another passenger aboard that flight decided to jump in and perform CPR. The aiding passenger wasn’t entirely sure if the passenger was COVID positive. However, it has been reported that the wife of the passenger had later stated he had tested positive. This means that this aiding passenger should have known he had tested positive before performing CPR. Here’s Face’s tweets on this subject:


He claims that the distressed passenger’s wife never mentioned that her husband had tested positive. However, it has been reported that she had stated that he had tested positive. I’m not sure of this conflicting information, but it’s possible Face never asked her before jumping in to perform CPR. Unfortunately, his efforts to perform CPR didn’t succeed and the passenger succumbed to his COVID-19 medical fate and died.
As a result, this helping passenger has now tested positive himself. Should he have jumped in to help? Let’s understand this question a bit more in detail. It is also the meat of this article.
Helping in a post-COVID world
While Face may seem like a hero at a time when this passenger needed CPR most, the difficulty in performing this medical intervention is ultimately COVID-19. Coughing, sweating and fever don’t indicate a condition that warrants CPR. It indicates COVID-19. CPR may be required IF the person goes into cardiac arrest. However, let’s understand the position this distressed passenger was actually in.
This situation occurred aboard a flight while in the air. Flights have limited access to medical equipment, but planes do have a defibrillator… a defibrillator which should have been used first to attempt to resuscitate this patient before attempting CPR. Planes may have small oxygen canisters aboard for flight attendant use. It is unknown if this was used.
COVID-19 is an illness that can escalate into a life threatening situation quickly, particularly aboard an airliner where air pressure and oxygen saturation is reduced at 30,000+ feet. That means less oxygen is available when flying on an airliner. For someone with trouble breathing under the throes of COVID-19, boarding an airliner, as in this case, could end up a death sentence.
As I said, there is very limited medical equipment aboard a commercial jet. Let’s understand that even as hospitals get inundated with massive amounts of COVID-19 patients, even their ability to handle these patients is limited and in many cases fails leading to death. Why then would a good Samaritan think they can save a COVID-19 patient clearly requiring access to hospital equipment and oxygen?
Lending Aid
While I applaud Face’s willingness to jump in, the effort ultimately proved entirely futile. Worse, not only did it prove futile, Face became infected with COVID-19 by performing his good Samaritan routine. I applaud good Samaritans willing to self-sacrifice to help out another person, but at some point, you have to logically deduce the odds of success.
For example, if the wife had been forthcoming about her husband’s COVID-19 positive test, it would have been perfectly clear that this passenger was afflicted with COVID-19 and that almost no means could impact his survival short of a hospital visit. That means this first responder would know his odds. Considering that there is very little medical equipment aboard a plane, performing CPR alone would not be enough to stem the tide of what COVID-19 is doing to this person’s body. Logically, he should have assumed COVID-19 (based entirely on this person’s symptoms) and deduced his efforts would fail. Helping is great, but not when the risk far outweighs the reward.
Let’s better understand this logical dilemma. If hospitals with access to their best doctors, best procedures, best medicines and best equipment can’t save severe COVID-19 patients under that level of distress, what makes a basic trained first responder think that performing CPR alone can?
At some point, you have to calculate the odds of success and deduce when the risk is greater than the reward. For Face, this means the unknown of how COVID-19 would impact his health. Will he survive his own infection? Could he end up in a similar situation clinging to life?
That’s what we all face in a post-COVID-19 pandemic world. We must make critical decisions that can impact our own survival.
However, this situation could have been prevented if even one person had stepped up at the airport prior to boarding, recognized his symptoms and called an ambulance to get him to a hospital. Seeing how far along that he was with COVID-19, it’s possible that even a hospital couldn’t have changed his fate. However, that everyone missed recognizing his so obvious symptoms not once, but many times all along the way is disconcerting… no, horrifying.
Ever Vigilant
As we move further and deeper into this pandemic, regardless of the vaccines, we must acknowledge this virus’s effects on the world. We must remain vigilant to those around us no matter where we are and what we are doing. What that means is that if we’re at a grocery store or restaurant or at Target (or aboard a plane), we must remain hyper aware of those around us. We need to stop, look and listen. If someone is coughing, sneezing or appears to be sweating or having any other outward signs of illness or distress, we must move as far away from that person as we can get. You must always look out for you in this pandemic. No one else is.
If you can leave the building and come back later, even better. There’s no reason to stay and risk your own health or those of your family by bringing COVID-19 home. COVID-19 is clearly a devastating illness with severe consequences. Denying that these consequences exist is a recipe for exactly what happened to both Face and that distressed passenger aboard that United Airlines flight.
Worse, every single passenger and crew aboard that same flight could potentially face testing positive for COVID-19 following that flight. There’s no telling exactly what may have flown around in the air while that passenger performed CPR. That situation is a danger to everyone aboard that flight… which means that everyone aboard that flight can now become super spreaders unless the passengers are forced to self-quarantine for at least 14 days. Yet, I haven’t heard anything about this. I’m not even sure that everyone aboard that flight is even aware of what happened. Has United Airlines contacted the CDC with the passenger manifest? Has the CDC contacted every passenger to ensure quarantine? Doubtful.
Not only did United Airlines ignore this aspect of this COVID-19 positive man’s ride aboard the flight, the airline acts like everyone who was aboard is now perfectly safe.
This is why we must ALL remain vigilant. We must step up and call out people who appear to be ill. We must stop them from boarding flights or trains or entering stores. If an airline (or manager) refuses to take action, we must refuse to board the flight and choose to take another flight. Is it really worth risking your own health for the possibility of becoming infected while on a flight, all while knowing that a coughing and sneezing passenger is three rows up from you?
Air Travel During a Pandemic
With the pandemic quickly spiraling out of control, is it the best of ideas to be hopping aboard a plane? While I know that sometimes we must travel for family emergencies or other situations out of our control, we must also acknowledge when not to travel.
Right now, traveling aboard any airliner, train or other means and which affords contact with members of the public, isn’t the smartest of ideas. Worse, many airlines have been reducing their responses to COVID-19 by increasing passenger load aboard planes while the pandemic escalates into the highest infection rates and deaths we have seen so far. While I realize a lot of people don’t believe the pandemic is real, the above United Airlines story is a stark reminder of how very real COVID-19 is.
If you don’t need to travel during the pandemic, don’t. There’s no reason to sit next to other people who may not be as vigilant or as concerned about the pandemic as you are about your health. Unfortunately, our illustrious President has entirely downplayed the seriousness of this pandemic… even going so far as to ignore the worst surging portion of the pandemic entirely over the last several weeks since the 2020 United States Presidential election. This apathy has been taken to heart by many people who believe just as our lackadaisical President.
While we can’t control what others do, we can control what we ourselves do and how we respond. That means avoiding public transportation, avoiding eating at restaurants, avoiding shopping in stores, avoiding doing outdoor activities where we come into contact with the public in close proximity and choosing to not go out unless absolutely necessary. If you need to invite someone into your home, like cleaning staff, baby sitters, plumbers or electricians, require that they wear masks the entire time they are in your home.
Quarantine Period in the Home
For anyone entering into your home whom you don’t know, such as plumbers, electricians or even maid services, they can easily bring COVID-19 into your home. It’s important that you ensure that you protect your home and family. After someone has entered your home, you should avoid the room they have visited for at least 24 hours (if possible) and open the windows to allow it to completely air out. If you can’t avoid using that room, then you may want to use Lysol or another disinfecting product to clean the surfaces they have touched. If you can wait an hour or two for the air to settle, then you can use disinfectant on surfaces to kill any viruses they may have left behind.
For maid services, you should request limited services to limit their exposure around your home. Better, suspend maid services or limit them to once a month. It can be difficult to stop emergency home services, but optional services should be limited or eliminated.
It’s difficult to foresee every single possible exposure in your home, so just use your best judgement. If someone wants to enter your home and it’s not critical for your home, reschedule for them to come back after COVID-19 has passed.
Where do we go from here?
The pandemic is not going away. It’s also very real. Should we bank on the vaccines? No. It is a stop-gap measure. At first glance, it may appear to be the pin that punctures the COVID-19 balloon, but it may simply be a small bandage. That small bandage may prevent the balloon from popping when the pin is inserted. Instead, it may allow a very slow deflation which could take years to ultimately deflate.
Ultimately, the vaccine has promise, but it has not yet proven itself to be the single thing that halts this virus in its tracks.
The only person who can keep you away from infection is you. Taking the vaccine may help and is something that may be required eventually, but only you can prevent you from becoming infected. You have to decide when and how often to go out. You must decide whether you wish to attend a gathering where the vast majority of people are not wearing masks. You must decide how important your health is to you.
For example, the distressed passenger above took it upon himself to subject hundreds of other people to COVID-19 aboard a flight knowing that he tested positive. Who in their right mind does this? It’s clear he wasn’t in his right mind. This is the mind of, at best, a sociopath… someone who puts their own goals above all else and above all others. Karma had other plans for him. Many people don’t believe in Karma and Fate. Good on them. That doesn’t mean Karma doesn’t exist.
While movies like Final Destination take Karma and Fate to ridiculous levels by setting up highly elaborate Rube Goldberg machines that ultimately result in the death of a character, Karma doesn’t work like that. Karma is the act of making the unexpected happen at the most inopportune times, mostly as a result of a careless act by the individual.
For example, if a person is in the throes of COVID-19 and is already in severe breathing distress, the reduced oxygen and pressure on a plane at a high altitude is likely to cause a cardiac episode. Why? Because the body cannot get enough oxygen to support the body’s systems. While one might not think that Karma is at work, it is. Anyone who understands how planes operate must recognize this situation. If this man had realized his own level of lung distress, he would have turned around and checked himself into a hospital, not boarded a plane. By not understanding exactly how well a plane’s oxygen functions at high altitudes, he sealed his own fate (and potentially those he infected along the way).
His stupidity coupled with Karma sealed his fate aboard that airplane. There was literally nothing that anyone could have done to prevent that situation from unfolding. You can’t resuscitate someone with that low of an oxygen saturation level. Planes do have small oxygen tanks for flight attendants to wear in case of emergency, but it is unknown if those tanks were used or even if they were enough to help. Regardless, that passenger’s fate was sealed when he stepped onboard that flight.
What this all means is that you need to know what you don’t know. In this case, what he didn’t know about how oxygen levels work on a jet ultimately killed him. As I said above, even with the best of medical care in a hospital, survival of this virus can be a problem, particularly if the body becomes that level of distressed. There was no way a random trained individual could provide the level of care necessary for a COVID-19 infected person who was that far gone. No, that distressed passenger sealed his own fate by entering that plane. He may have also callously sealed the fate of all aboard that flight by infecting them. However, Karma stepped in to intervene, but not before allowing everyone aboard that flight to potentially become infected.
Ultimately, that man will no longer be able to spread COVID-19 to others, but unfortunately at the price of he himself dying.
Denying COVID-19
COVID-19 is a real and dangerous virus. It is at least 6 times more deadly than cold and flu viruses combined. For those who continue to deny that COVID-19 is a real, I feel for you. I don’t understand that level of delusion, but I can feel for you and pity you. The phrase “Ignorance is bliss” only holds true when that ignorance leads to something other than death. When death is involved, ignorance is most definitely NOT bliss.
However, for those folks who are willing to attend rallies and gatherings without masks, who visit bars and party like it’s 1999 and who choose to “Throw caution to the wind”, then there’s an award for that… The Darwin Award. If you bring COVID-19 down upon yourself by choosing to ignore your own personal safety and then subsequently die, then a Darwin Award waiting for you on the other end. Too bad you won’t be able to accept it when you’re pushing up daisies.
As the author of this blog, I’m perfectly okay with that. In fact, I wholeheartedly endorse allowing these folks to become infected. If they can survive, fine. If they die for their own stupidity, then the gene pool has been cleansed of yet another stupid person.
People can be kept from their own folly for only so long. Eventually, people succumb to their own bias and prejudices and will do whatever they feel they must. If that means hanging out at a bar with others drinking and cavorting in close proximity, well then “Hello, Mr. COVID”. If that leads to a Darwin Award, so be it.
I don’t wish harm on others, but I also won’t keep people from their own fate and folly. It’s not my place to tell people how to live their lives. However, I can write advice articles like this to inform. How someone utilizes this knowledge is entirely on them. If that knowledge is ignored, that’s perfectly fine.
I write these articles to relay my own knowledge and experience. My blogging goal is to use my knowledge and experience to help others become just even the wee bit wiser. If that happens for even one person, then I’ve done my job. I can’t save the world, but I can help save those who wish to read these articles and learn from my experiences on this earth.
Anyone who chooses to deny and ignore COVID-19 as though it doesn’t exist deserves whatever fate befalls them… that fate which has arisen from that ignorance. I shrug and walk away from those people. There’s nothing I can do for those who wish to remain ignorant. Darwin has other plans for them.
Full Circle
To circle back around, if you are a medical professional or a trained first responder, you need to rethink your own involvement with COVID-19 distressed individuals outside of a hospital setting. The only exception is ambulance drivers. These are not only trained professionals, they have a mobile hospital at their fingertips. They can then transport the distressed individual to the hospital quickly for further treatment. Outside of an ambulance setting, attempting CPR on a distressed COVID-19 patient at 30,000 feet up is not likely to succeed.
Everyone must be smart enough to calculate the odds of a COVID-19 breathing distressed patient. Even hospitals with their vast array of medicines, equipment and expertise can’t save every COVID-19 patient in distress. At some point, the patient must be left to see if their own body will overcome the illness. In the case of the distressed COVID-19 patient aboard the United Airlines flight, there was almost no way to save that person with the extremely limited amount of medicines, medical equipment and expertise aboard that airliner.
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Stranded by the Airline
Traveling by air is one of the most common means of travel and it usually goes without a hitch. But, what happens when an airline leaves you stranded due to technical problems? Whose responsibility is it? Let’s explore.
Stranded at the Airport
I’ve seen articles similar to this one discussing a 77 hour delay from Orlando to the UK. The difficulty I have with these situations is that many travelers seem to expect the airline to cover for or provide food, lodging and other accommodations while stranded.
A family stated of the British Airlines delay:
The passengers were treated inhumanely, all we wanted was some food and drink, somewhere to sleep and to be kept informed – and they failed on all counts no matter what they claim.
Other than being kept informed, is the rest the airline’s responsibility?
When you book your tickets for passage aboard a flight, you expect that flight to take place within the defined ticket times. If the flight can’t make those times, you should be notified by the airline of realistic timings when or if the next flight can make. It should also be the airline’s responsibility to find another plane as quickly as possible to make good on the flight. If a plane cannot be found quickly (i.e., within a few hours), then the airline should book you onto another carrier to get you to your destination. One way or another, they should make good on a flight within 24 hours. That’s a reasonable amount of time. I know we all want resolution in an hour or two, but sometimes that’s not possible.
If a flight cannot be located until the following day, then the airline should inform you of that information ASAP so you can find a hotel and make accommodations for a stay over. Who pays for that hotel should be you, the traveler… at least at that moment in time. You can negotiate reimbursement of those accommodations should the airline extend that courtesy, but don’t expect it right then (or at all), like some of the people interviewed for this article.
This BBC article describes a detailed account of what happens when travelers make the wrong assumptions about airline delay responsibility. This article describes that British Airlines left people stranded at the airport made worse by being in NY (which NY is always notoriously short on accommodations, unless you’re willing to drive to Newark or Queens or farther). Apparently, this wait took 77 hours. The flight was supposed to depart on Thursday and ended up departing on Saturday arriving on Sunday. The delay took slightly over 3 days in total.
Who has Responsibility?
For a 3 day delay, whose responsibility is it to make sure that you are fed, have shelter and have the basic necessities for living? It’s certainly not the airline’s responsibility. Travel problems are rare, but they do happen. YOU are the traveler. YOU need to accommodate yourself. It’s YOUR responsibility as the traveler to make sure YOU and your immediate co-travelers are accommodated. For example, if you have a family of four, expect that you will have to go find a hotel and pay for it out of your own pocket. This means having a phone handy or a device capable of using the Internet and WiFi. Use the airport WiFi if you have nothing else available. Just make sure you have an Internet capable device or a working phone with you.
Don’t expect the airline to do anything for you other than provide you with a flight. Unless the airline is holding you hostage on the plane on the tarmac, you can’t expect anything from the airline. When you’re at the airport terminal waiting, you need to assess your own accommodations and take action yourself.
It’s always worth asking the airline for help, but don’t expect the airline to do anything for you. The airlines are not obligated to do anything other than see to your flight. Sitting around at the airport complaining that the airline is not seeing to your personal needs is called over-dependence. You can only depend on yourself to manage your own personal welfare. You can’t throw your person at an airline and expect them to become your personal caregiver. It’s not their responsibility. It seems a lot of people completely misunderstand this aspect of airline travel. Your ticket also doesn’t require them to do this. You take care of you. At some point, you will need to understand taking this personal level of responsibility for yourself while traveling.
The only time that the airline is responsible for your welfare is when you are actually in your seat on the plane. That’s the only time when the airline needs to accommodate you and your needs. When you are sitting in the terminal awaiting a plane, you are firmly on your own. It’s not the airport’s responsibility nor is it the responsibility of the airline.
Stranded for Days
Being stranded by an airline is rare, but it can happen for various reasons. Reasons that may not make you happy as a stressed out traveler, but that are unavoidable by the airline. This is part and parcel of traveling by budget flights these days. Airlines are running their routes very, very lean. Meaning, they don’t have extra planes or personnel should the need arise. This means that you could be waiting hours or even days before a plane might become available should your original flight’s plane end up out of service.
As a traveler, you need to bring along enough money for (or have the means to handle) unexpected delays. If the delay extends beyond a few hours, it then becomes your responsibility to handle your own personal needs up to possibly even forfeiting your old ticket and booking separate travel arrangements yourself. In fact, if time is important to you, then you should already be looking for alternatives within 15 minutes of finding out about the delay. Don’t wait. You can always cancel the arrangements, but it can be difficult to make arrangements if you wait even 3 hours. If you need medical treatments, medicines, food, baby formula or other accommodations, you absolutely cannot expect the airline or the airport to see to those needs.
I realize airlines might string you along by saying “an hour longer” via the terminal attendants. However, by hour 6 or 7 of that stringing, you need to request a straight answer from the airline. If they’re unwilling to give it to you, it means it is time to seek your own alternatives. You can continue to wait if you like, but that’s on you. If waiting gets to the 24 hour mark, then you have waited far too long. At 8 hours, you definitely need to seek your own accommodations for food and lodging and perhaps even alternative transportation to your destination. Even at 3 hours of waiting (unless expressly stated on the ticket as a 3 hour layover), you should have already spent that time seeking alternatives.
You can spend time later fighting with the original airline carrier about refunds or other issues, but it is up to you to take care of yourself and see to your own needs and comfort. Throwing yourself at an airline, then complaining about it won’t make matters better. You’ll also have wasted a lot of time when you could have had hotel accommodations a lot sooner. Sure, you may not have planned for that extra time or that extra hotel, but traveling isn’t always problem free. At 24 hours waiting, the airline can’t expect you to hang around the terminal waiting forever for their plane to arrive. Even 8 hours waiting is expecting too much of travelers.
If you don’t have enough money to cover either alternative flight accommodations or a hotel (until your flight becomes available), I might suggest that you probably shouldn’t have traveled in the first place. You should always have enough money to realistically cover a few extra days including food, lodging and any other basic needs when traveling, just in case.
Airline Courtesy
The problem with many travelers these days is that far too many people think that the airline has 100% responsibility for their welfare the moment they enter the airport. That that ticket you’re holding is some kind of magical device that grants the airline 100% ownership of your person until you step off at your final destination.
This belief is 100% false. That ticket is simply a travel voucher. It lets you onto the plane and offers you passage to the end destination. When a plane is not available for that flight, the airline may be irresponsible in its notifications of when you might be able to travel, but you cannot expect the airline to begin accommodating your personal needs for the duration of that long delay.
That’s not part of the ticket you paid for. Perhaps this issue requires a special line of travel insurance. Perhaps the airlines (or booking agencies) need to offer delay insurance where you pay extra in case of delay. The delay insurance should cover accommodations at a local airport hotel for the duration of delay. It might cover for a single meal voucher for each person up to a specific amount. It might even cover for transportation to and from the hotel.
If you paid for such insurance (were it to exist), then if a delay occurs, you know exactly how it will be handled, exactly what you’ll get, exactly what the airline’s responsibility is to you and that your needs will be taken care of. It also means the airlines will be forced to support and accommodate travelers who buy this delay travel insurance. It means that the airlines must notify and then hold the plane until all insurance travelers are back at the airport, through security and on the plane after the plane is finally available (within reason, of course). Adding delay insurance means that instead of sitting around waiting, you now have definitive rules that must be adhered to by the airline personnel and when those accommodations kick in.
If it costs $50 to check a bag and $30 for each carry-on, what makes you think an airline is going to see to your food and lodging accommodations during a long delay? Are you expecting it out of their own ‘courtesy’ for free? I don’t think so. Those days are over. Adding delay insurance, on the other hand, means that you have paid for and know exactly what you’re going to get if an airline has a delay like British Airlines.
For now, no such separate delay insurance exists. Until such insurance exists, you need to see to your own welfare and make sure you have enough money when traveling to do so, even when stranded at an airport because of an excessively long airline delay.
As a side note, some travel cancellation insurance plans may include trip delay coverage. But, these delay benefits kick in under very specific conditions and may not cover a scenario like British Airline’s 3 day delay. If you’re curious if a plan might cover such a delay, you should contact a travel insurer to find out more.
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How not to run a business (part 10): Undermining Your Business
There are lots of very subtle actions that can be taken where you can unknowingly undermine your business success. Let’s explore.
Don’t fire a position multiple times in a row
While this somewhat depends on the position, it’s still never a good sign when you must fire staff from the same position over and over. Even if you’re disenchanted with the people you’ve hired doing the specific work and after firing a position more than three times, this says more about your needs than the position. It’s clear, what you need in the position and the type of people you are hiring is mismatched. You need to rethink the job requirements for the position and hire the correct talent to fit that role. When you fire leaders in this way (i.e., VPs, SVPs or C-Level execs), this situation is even more detrimental to your business.
How will this undermine your business? Firing a position more than three times says several things. First, it says you don’t know what you’re looking for. Second, for all of those people whom you’ve hired and fired, the word will get around that anyone who’s a competent candidate won’t even consider the position. Once you realize that the most talented pools are relatively small and that they do talk to one another, firing a position multiple times means the word will get around to not hire on at that company. Once the word gets around about this situation, it is never a good thing for your business. The higher the profile of the position, the stronger the word gets around and this will severely undermine your ability to acquire top-end talent.
Additionally, the word will also get around in the recruiter community and they also choose not to place talent at your company.
Don’t choose an industry without researching its requirements
When you’re setting up your business plan, you need to thoroughly research the industry your business will be in. For example, selling a product or service to the medical industry is profoundly different than selling it to marketing teams, which is also profoundly different than selling your wares to the government or doctors or lawyers or farmers.
How will this undermine your business? If you fail to properly research the types of clients you are working to obtain, you won’t understand their demands and requirements. Every industry is bound by laws and regulation (some industries more than others). If you fail to realize that the industry you are targeting requires strict compliance to laws, you may also fail to understand how those laws apply to your business and that your company’s compliance may be unattainable and far too costly. If you can’t comply with the laws, you may never be able to land the deals on which your business depends. Yes, for many companies, vendors must comply with certain laws, security requirements and industry standards before a company will agree to close your deal. Failing to research these requirements may undermine your ability to remain in business. Or, it may relegate your business to smaller companies needing much smaller deals.
Don’t fail to underestimate the power of word of mouth
Sites like Glassdoor exist for a reason. Before Glassdoor, there was no transparency except by word of mouth. Now, there is.
How will this undermine your business? Before Glassdoor, recruiters would make the determination of where to place candidates. Recruiters also won’t choose to place prospective employees in toxic environments. That is, environments where firings are common, where turnover is high and where employee morale is extremely low. They won’t place anyone for a very good reason… they know the new employee won’t stay long enough to allow the recruiter to collect their commission. Recruiters only get paid their commission if the placed employee stays for the specified duration of time (3-6 months depending on the placement contract). Recruiters, therefore, will not place would-be candidates into an environment they know will be a short lived role. It also likely means that when you do find recruiters who will work with your hiring needs, they likely are unaware of the problem. Though, once they place and realize they are making no money, don’t expect to hear from them again.
Additionally, with sites like Glassdoor, employees can remain anonymous and be brutally honest about their experiences at the business. This can also undermine your ability to hire. Sites like Twitter and Facebook just compound the problem. As work gets around and your business’s reputation becomes tainted, you’ll find that it can be nearly impossible to not only attract good talent, but also retain it. Word of mouth in an industry is as good as gold to a job candidate, but can be poison for a business. You need to make sure your word of mouth is always high quality praise. Never negative backlash. If you choose to ignore the word of mouth, it will be to the detriment of your company.
Don’t skimp on employee perks
Employees spend 8 or more hours of their day working for you (not to mention commute time). Morale is a big part of that work day. If morale sinks low, your employees will exodus. Perks help keep employee morale up. Choosing the right morale boosters is critically important to employee retention.
How will this undermine your business? The Shining said it best, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. I’m not recommending that you allow your employees to play. But, offering employees a place to relax when they are having a break is important. You also need to understand what other companies in your same vicinity are offering to their employees. While I understand that every company can’t offer all of the same perks, you need to offer at least some of them. Not offering perks to your employees is tantamount to telling would-be employees and recruiters, “Don’t place people here”. Word of mouth spreads, once again, and you’ll find it hard to hire strong candidates because the perks are better somewhere else.
Secondarily, this goes back to several of the previous Don’ts. Lack of perks in combination with more problematic industry and poor morale, leading to negative word of mouth, could lead your business into a tough hiring spot. You could find that it’s nearly impossible to hire staff across the board. What you’re left with hiring are people who are not the top end of the hiring pool and instead end up the middle to low end staff. Once your business is forced to hire lesser qualified staff, your business will tank.
Perks like free food, subsidized or free daycare, subsidized or free transportation to and from work. Other perks can include tuition reimbursement, travel discounts and store discounts. When you skimp on perks when other companies are not, you will find it difficult to hire and keep any talent, especially top end talent.
Don’t assume you can live without top end talent
Without top end talent, your business is doomed to mediocrity.
How will this undermine your business? Once you hit the mediocrity stage, your customers will, one by one, leave you. They will realize you aren’t providing the quality service that you promised. Oh, you’ll still get some new signups, until they also realize the mediocrity of your business. Competition is fierce and it’s guaranteed that your business will have competition. If your competitors are doing it better than you, then your product/service offering will end up behind all others. It’s important to understand that top end talent drives your business forward. Low to mid level talent, keeps status quo. Top end talent provides innovation, low to mid level talent doesn’t.
Once you understand this fundamental distinction between the levels of talent, you will understand why you pay top dollar to have top end talent. And note, I’m not necessarily talking about top-end talent in Director, VP, SVP or C-Level positions. While it helps to have top-end talent there, those positions do not typically get the work done day to day. It’s those doing the hands-on day-to-day work that are driving your business forward. You want motivated self-starters who are willing to own the work that they do. Low to mid-level talent won’t actually own their work. Ownership of work is critically important when looking for talented staff to hire.
Note that some industries are harder to hire for than others. If you choose, for example, to open a business that does email marketing, you’ll find it very difficult to hire into this industry no matter what the position. Most technical people understand spam and realize they don’t want their resume to contain anything to do with a ‘spam related’ business.
Don’t ignore the value of social media
Social media offers a brand new marketing approach. Social media now offers grass roots marketing team that you have at your disposal. For example, if you can get your business placed onto certain people’s Facebook or Twitter feeds, this can drive lots of people to your business.
How will this undermine your business? If you fail to understand the power of social media either by ignoring it or by assuming that it is pointless, you have deluded yourself and this immediately undermines your business. Every marketing technique is appropriate and should be exploited to its fullest. Interactive marketing is even better. If you hire people to actively scout Twitter and Facebook, they can write comments that counter any negative feedback. By hiring a team of people to manage all social media outlets, they can head off problems before they even start. By having an active team countering Twitter or Facebook posts, it shows your business is proactive and willing to counteract any negative postings by disgruntled customers.
Don’t ignore the power of mobile marketing
Smartphones are now ubiquitous. Yet, this technology as a marketing platform is still in its infancy. While in this infancy, you can latch onto this technology early and get an edge over your competition. Companies that choose to embrace mobile marketing now will have the upper hand when marketing on these devices becomes commonplace in the future (and when email is ultimately dead).
How will this undermine your business? If you fail to understand that mobile marketing is the future, you will also fail to understand how quickly you can reach out to your customers with the immediacy of a phone call. Email, for example, is a slow mechanism by nature. It can take anywhere between 5 minutes and several days for people to read your email. With push notifications, your marketing is given to the user instantaneously. They can then go find out what the hubbub is all about within seconds. Nearly every push notification is read immediately. Emails take far far longer and are prone to spam blockers, image blockers and link blockers. Mobile marketing, at least today, is under no such blocking constraints. If you take advantage early, you can add a significant advantage to marketing for your business.
To take maximum advantage, however, it must be with a solid and useful app. An app you can direct the push notification to and give critical information. If you’re a retail business, for example, offering coupon discounts for purchases can be the difference between a purchase and not, such as 20% off of a product. Discounts are always a good idea when done regularly, but infrequently.
Mobile marketing needs to be relevant, targeted and location based. You need to know exactly what this customer’s interests are and provide them with spot on marketing that gives them exactly what they need when they need it. For location based marketing, if they are close to one of your stores, you should immediately send a push notification to notify them of any special offers located with that store.
Don’t change upper management every year
Or.. even every other year. This is can be a hard one to actually accomplish depending on lots of factors and it can cause severe morale problems.
How will this undermine your business? Whether it’s through a firing, through so-called ‘voluntary’ severance (aka The Velvet Hammer), people quitting, demotions, promotions or lateral moves, frequent or regular departures in the upper management team creates more questions than answers for employees and, if a public company, stockholders. Stability in the upper management team (at least for 4-5 years at a time) says volumes about loyalty, stability and allows employees to recognize the upper management. Changing this team frequently says something is wrong internally. Not only do employees begin questioning what’s going on, these changes plant seeds that “maybe I need to seek employment elsewhere”. Operating a musical chair management team will undermine your ability to operate your business. It takes at least 6 months for any new hire to get his feet in a position. Changing critical management positions often means the person in the position never has time to get an understanding of what they need to get done. Worse, just about the time they are about to get something done, they’re being seen to the door.
You can’t operate your business with a constant stream of new people in critical management positions. If you aren’t absolutely sure the person is the right person, don’t hire them. It’s far better to leave the position vacant for just the right person than it is to fill it with a person you know won’t work out. Additionally, if you can’t ever find someone to fill the role to your satisfaction, perhaps you’re looking for answers in the wrong place. You might want to start by looking at yourself and your expectations of the role. If you can’t clearly define the expectations of that management role, don’t expect anyone you hire to magically gain this understanding and define it for you. That will never happen.
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How not to run a business (Part 9): Culture Clash and Acquisitions
Okay, so now your business is big enough (and making enough revenue) to consider acquisitions. But, making acquisitions can be tough. Part of what makes acquisitions tough is making the tough decisions to ensure the success of the acquisition. Yet, some companies haven’t the first clue about how to make these tough decisions, especially when involving company culture.
Don’t let the company you are acquiring dictate any company culture demands
In other words, walk away from any acquisition deal where the owners demand (as part of the deal) to be allowed to continue their current company culture. No, no, NO! Do not allow this! Never concede this by allowing the acquired company culture to remain as part of the acquisition. If you do, it will tie your hands when it comes time to merge the the acquired company into yours. It all must become a single company culture or you will never make the acquisition a success.
At some point, you must merge the people and the cultures. If you don’t nip having two cultures in the bud, you’ll end up with part of the company doing things one way and another doing things entirely different. You can’t have your company culture fractured across the boundary of an acquired entity or you will never get rid of culture problems. Basically, don’t tie your hands before the deal is done.
Don’t let the acquired company executives dictate how their section will continue to operate
This goes hand in hand with company culture, but is distinctly different. Executives of the company being acquired do not want to lose their tenure, authority, position or compensation after having been acquired. Ultimately, this is not possible. And, ultimately, it can’t be allowed. You can concede this for a short time during a transition period, but you cannot allow it to remain after the transition period. If the acquired company executives don’t like it, they can leave. If you concede this point, you will never successfully merge the two entities.
This is one of the hard choices you must make. For companies being acquired, you have to lay down the law. If the person can have a role in the new company and can accept your company culture, give it to them. If they don’t have a role, lay them off. If that person can’t accept the company culture, lay them off. If they are unwilling to work within the current constraints of your company’s goals and processes, lay them off. This is a hard decision, but a decision that must be made. You cannot keep the acquired company structure and processes around in your business. If a process you’ve inherited from the company makes sense, then yes, you can integrate it. But, typically this never happens. The company being acquired almost never has more mature processes than yours.
Don’t allow an acquired company to remain located in a separate city from your business
Another hard choice, but one that is entirely necessary. You cannot leave the office open in the city where the acquired entity was located. You should dictate as part of the acquisition terms that you will close it and relocate staff who choose to relocate to your headquarter offices. While you can leave the office open during the transition period, you cannot leave that office open. If you do, you will never integrate the staff into your business. They will forever retain their culture in that office. Acquired staff must move to your headquarters or leave the company. If that’s a deal breaker, walk away from the deal.
The only exclusion to this rule is acquiring foreign entities. If you are a US entity and acquire a Japanese office, this is the only time where you will want to keep that entity in its entirety. However, in the domestic US, the rule is close the office. You can re-open and restaff an office in that same city later, but the acquired entity office must be closed as soon as possible to set the tone that your company is one culture and one team.
Don’t make the staff of the company the most important piece of the acquisition
Unless you are a staffing firm acquiring another staffing firm, you typically acquire a company for its customer base or its technology, rarely ever for its staff. You will need to keep in perspective exactly why you are buying a company… and it’s rarely ever for staff. However, if you are buying a software company, it’s probably a good idea to keep certain few key developers for at least a short period of transition time. But, do not keep them on staff forever. Once they have turned over their braintrust and code to your engineers, usher them out of the building. I’ll reiterate, you buy a company for its technology or customer base, never for employees. However, if those key employees are willing to relocate and willing to accept your culture (usually not), then you can invite them to stay. Otherwise, you should put that key staff on a 6 month contract to transition the software and documentation to your team, then usher them out.
Don’t hire executives for more than a 1 year contract on acquisitions
When you buy a company, you’re technically hiring these employees and execs blind. Sure, you could assume that the employees there did something right to get the company to the point where you considered buying it, but you may be making the wrong assumption. It’s entirely possible that the people (or person) who created the product or service has long since walked and you’re buying a shell in maintenance mode. Based on this fact alone, you should be prepared to walk everyone in the acquired company to the door. If you aren’t prepared to do this, you’ll have no hope of successfully merging two entirely different cultures. If you’re not prepared to fire every single acquired employee, you shouldn’t be in the business of making acquisitions.
If the acquired employees are not acutely aware and accept that your culture is the dominant culture, they will not fit in nor follow your company’s processes. Even if they are aware of this fact, they may still choose not to follow your company’s processes (see allegiances below). You should be prepared to let any acquired employee go quickly. In fact, you should plan to let these employees go after the transition period is over. This prevents culture issues entirely.
Don’t get lulled into thinking that a technology acquisition will save your business
It won’t. Plain and simple. If your own product or service isn’t cutting it, any company you purchase will not typically be any more successful than yours. In fact, you may find that it may make no money at all and you’ll end up (best case) giving it away for free or (worst case) shutting it all down and dumping it.
You should understand that, like any business, ideas come and ideas go. Some work, some don’t. Buying a company for software, hardware or specific technologies isn’t without risk. Sometimes you gamble and win, some times you lose. There is no crystal ball for this. But, you must willing and prepared to throw away everything from an acquisition. This is yet another tough decision, but it’s one that needs to be clearly understood. If you are unwilling to acknowledge the failure of an acquisition, then you shouldn’t be in the business of acquiring companies.
Don’t create new positions for acquired executive staff
If there isn’t a position already open, do not create fake titles for executive staff. You should explain that there is no position available for their skills within your company, at the bargaining table, and make it perfectly clear that they won’t have a role in the new merged company. Of course, you can compensate them, but they will have no job. If they won’t accept that, walk away from the deal. Additionally, don’t create co-presidents or co-CEOs or co-anything. Dual roles in your business generally do not work. Not only will your staff be confused over to whom they report, double decision makers lead to decision problems, never solutions. Additionally, you likely don’t know any of these acquired executive staff. Sure, they might appear knowledgable, but they didn’t go through your official interview processes. They bypassed that process and became your employee through acquisition. There is no accounting for their knowledge, skills, background or abilities.
One other point I should make here is about allegiance. Keeping executives from an acquisition in a position of power, especially co-leader positions, enables acquired employees to retain their allegiances to their former leaders rather forming new allegiances with your leaders. These fractured allegiances are likely to lead to more problems in the future. This goes back to company culture above. If you keep acquired staff and executives on board, you are asking for culture clash problems. This can be eliminated by eliminating acquired staff after the transition period is over, including executives.
Don’t skip the interview process for acquired staff
If you want to hire on any employee from an acquisition, force them to go through your same hiring processes as any candidate. Have your teams interview them and determine if they fit with the position based on their skills. If the staff like and accept them, hire them. If they don’t, walk them to the door. Do not blanketly accept staff from an acquisition simply because the company was acquired. Follow your standard hiring practices when considering bringing staff on from an acquisition. Make sure that that the acquired company is fully aware that every staff member will need to go through a rehire process by your hiring managers. If they don’t fit the skills needed for an open position, don’t hire them.
Don’t avoid reviewing your acquisition progress yearly
Company technologies and staff don’t always integrate nicely, especially over time. You need to review the progress of any acquisition regularly. Don’t just assume that the acquisition is working perfectly simply because you hear nothing about it. Instead, you need to go digging for information. Ask people on your team what they think of the acquisition and if it was successful. Get opinions from your team members and understand what they are saying. If your team members won’t give candid information, then ask for them to fill out a survey and offer a notes section at the end for free form comments. Assuming the survey is truly anonymous, the employees will be open and candid with you. You need to know when company culture clashes exist. These cannot be swept under the rug.
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