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Anonymous

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cjdevito":i061dq41 said:
I am seriously, seriously kicking myself for not thinking of this and making it into a career all those years I lived in Los Angeles. Jobbing for a bunch of stores across the country would have beat the hell out of what I was doing for my day job then, that's for sure.

I would use a jobber but it would have to be someone I knew something about outside of strictly a business relationship. I used a jobber once and it did not go well at all.
 
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Anonymous

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I'm out of the running anyways - I moved back to NYC a few years ago 8)
 
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Anonymous

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cjdevito":br1ii7mi said:
I agree with you, I don't think it will change anytime soon, either. Too many of my fellow hobbyists are all too ready to buy into hype.

:wink: as I have said before....he's naked!!!

044ccaf4.jpg
 
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Anonymous

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cjdevito":2p3cs8hr said:
I'm out of the running anyways - I moved back to NYC a few years ago 8)

LOL well I'll give you three crisp 20's a week to go back and be my beotch.
 

M_Phobos

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JP..hittin' on the other forum members? tsk, tsk...;)

We've had previous bad experiences with a certain wholesaler/jobber in the past and now receive very few shipments from his establishment...if any. (The occasional specialty item...an octopus for an employee comes to mind..)
So I'm not sure how much that matters...

Later,
Austin
 
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JustPhish":36q1tq05 said:
Holy crap you look like Britney Spears!

...looks around to see who JP is talking to...
ashamed0002.gif
You can't be serious! I thought you agreed not to post after you've been smokin' chaeto and drinkin skimmate! ;)
 
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You look JUST like her if that's you in your avatar. Hell yeah, just like her.
 

M_Phobos

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Lawdawg wrote:
JustPhish wrote:
Holy crap you look like Britney Spears!


...looks around to see who JP is talking to...


Oh, good. For a minute I was afraid he might have meant me Shocked

Well....a few beers into the night....hmmmmmmmm

:lol:

Later,
Austin
 
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JustPhish":3d3uplaj said:
You look JUST like her if that's you in your avatar. Hell yeah, just like her.

Yes, that's me, and thanks for the compliment.
 
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JustPhish":3e70okj3 said:
[
Come on now. You guys are making it sound like just being alive is CA is an incredible feat in itself.

It is if you are a small LFS.

Why is it near impossible to find someone to do the work? From what I recall when I lived out in CA for a short time there was no shortage of workers. Skilled, maybe, but finding someone honest to help customers that can easily learn with some simple OJT is really that hard?

Yes, it really is that hard. And when you do find one, and train them up, the leave for some other job that is easier and pays more.

The reason I had a hard time finding employees was because of my own issues. Not because of a lack of physically capable bodies. For the one store you said closed down, I bet there are hundreds of successful stores out in CA.

Depends on how you define success. If success is barely being able to not close down, then sure. :D

I'm also not talking just about SF Bay area. Like I said before I'm not talking about anyone in particular. I am talking about CA. I refuse to believe that the playing field between CA and New England is level. No one has shown me anything yet that says it is.

Anywhere that isn't driving to LA to pick stuff up is pretty much in the same situation as anyone in the rest of the country. Overnight shipping takes a day no matter where you are. :D It think it might seem like proximity to LA makes it seem like its better in CA, but I am not sure if it really is.
Why wouldn't you fly someone out to LA once a week and have them pick stuff to be shipped back to you? 3 or 4 hundred dollar plane tickets for hand picking when you are already paying for shipping...

Great discussion!
 
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It think it might seem like proximity to LA makes it seem like its better in CA, but I am not sure if it really is.

I'm not sure I have an explanation for it, but I will say from personal experience that LFS in San Francisco and even Seattle have a far better (and nicer!) selection of corals than LFS in NYC do.
 
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Thales":1sl2jval said:
Depends on how you define success. If success is barely being able to not close down, then sure. :D
If you're making money and drawing a salary, you're successful.

Why wouldn't you fly someone out to LA once a week and have them pick stuff to be shipped back to you? 3 or 4 hundred dollar plane tickets for hand picking when you are already paying for shipping...

Great discussion!

Come on that's ridiculous. You're comparing driving to flying aross country now? It would cost me $700+ for a round trip ticket. Then I have to get the guy a rental car. Then he has to go to cargo and give them the boxes and they take it from there. Then return flight to come home? We're talking more than 24 hours for one trip for the guy. Pay for his time. Then the airlines still have the cargo. Still exposed to rough handling. Still exposed to delayed flights. Still exposed to long travel time, more than 24 since being bagged.

This is all supposed to be just as good as someone driving 6.5 hours one way and getting my livestock acclimated 8 hours after being bagged? What did I gain? Nothing except someone I knew saw the corals before they got bagged.

And overnight shipping is indeed overnight no matter where is started from and where it's going unless you use same day service. Please don't tell me now though that there are no flights leaving LAX that arrive somewhere else in CA or even the west coast the same day they left LAX. Stores can have their stuff booked on those flights and receive their goods the same day. In all the years I have been doing this that has NEVER happened with me unless the cargo was being shipped from FL.
 
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JustPhish":3mpnofaa said:
Thales":3mpnofaa said:
Depends on how you define success. If success is barely being able to not close down, then sure. :D
If you're making money and drawing a salary, you're successful.

So making a dollar in the black is successful?

Why wouldn't you fly someone out to LA once a week and have them pick stuff to be shipped back to you? 3 or 4 hundred dollar plane tickets for hand picking when you are already paying for shipping...

Great discussion!

Come on that's ridiculous. You're comparing driving to flying aross country now? [/quote]

No, I was asking a question in what I thought was a fun discussion.
 
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cjdevito":2rn9lwqe said:
It think it might seem like proximity to LA makes it seem like its better in CA, but I am not sure if it really is.

I'm not sure I have an explanation for it, but I will say from personal experience that LFS in San Francisco and even Seattle have a far better (and nicer!) selection of corals than LFS in NYC do.

Interesting. I have seen some shops in IL that easily compete with WC shops.
 
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You mean making money and drawing a salary to provide for your family isn't successful?

That's fine you can ask whatever you want. I thought we were being serious though. Why not tell me what I would gain by laying out all that cash to actually fly someone there to pick out my stuff? Cause as I already said the only thing I see is that someone I know saw my corals before I did. Everything else is exactly the same as before, except it cost me MORE money to do it.
 

M_Phobos

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Funny you should mention shipping times, JP....lol.

Two weeks ago (three now? hmmm...the week AFTER Thanksgiving..so there ought to have been NO excuses...) we placed our order on Tuesday as always for a Wednesday delivery. The usual flight path is LAX to Sea-Tac to PDX (Portland, OR) to EUG (Eugene). Wouldn't you know that our cargo didn't arrive in Eugene until 7:30 pm on THURSDAY night!! (that was one of our orders...the other was delayed until the following morning...) The cargo's flight path was as follows: LAX to Sea-Tac to PDX to Redmond, OR to Eugene and as I said previously...arrived almost 48 hours after it left LAX. Don't think just because we're on the west coast that our shipping takes any less time/makes fewer stops.

To finish the story...needless to say, the airline has since received a claim for a couple of thousand dollars in lost livestock.

Later,
Austin
 

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