I’ve seen ser­vice com­pa­nies sorely tempted (and I con­fess I’ve been there) to take on what­ever work is being offered. This is how web devel­op­ers become print bro­kers and graphic design­ers fancy them­selves brand man­agers. It’s a farce. In the midst of a meet­ing, some­body asks whether the project can be extended to include an addi­tional ser­vice, and the busi­ness qui­etly asks them­selves “Why not?” rea­son­ing that it can’t be all that hard. “Of course,” they tell the client. “We do that too!”

Call it unusual, but then again, I might be more intel­li­gent when I’m comatose. I had a dream wherein I was lis­ten­ing to a woman lament­ing the fact that she wanted to start a busi­ness, but couldn’t. She went on and on, bemoan­ing how she just didn’t know any­body and had noth­ing to put down in her diary except her birth­day. Tears punc­tu­ated her expressed inabil­ity to start a business.

“Fine,” I said, cut­ting short the next bar­rage from her pity party. “So write down your birth­day. Then write down all of your inter­ests. Let your inter­ests become events, and let the events become con­tacts. Then let the con­tacts become business.”

This is one of my pet peeves. When I’m pay­ing for some­thing — a meal, say — and the merchant’s Interac (kind of like a check card) ter­mi­nal advises me there will be an addi­tional 35¢ fee added to the trans­ac­tion. Even if the bill is only $20 plus tip, this is a bit of an insult, charg­ing me extra for my con­ve­nience of not hav­ing to han­dle cash — never mind that it offers the mer­chant this very same con­ve­nience. Yes, I know there’s an extra cost to the mer­chant to have the ser­vice… but I also hap­pen to know it’s about 9¢ per trans­ac­tion. If the mar­gin on the meal can’t absorb that, they need to close up shop and go home. Most times, I’m tempted to pull out a credit card instead, and make the mer­chant pay 2% or more for the same convenience.