Granny’s Biscuits |USB Console Cable | Sanitizer Dispenser Price Drop | Tech News
Happy Friday!
Welcome to the CablesAndKits CEO daily email. Read more about this email by scrolling to the very bottom.
I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard …
Johnny Cash took only three voice lessons before his teacher advised him to stop taking lessons and to never deviate from his natural voice.
Do you remember the old HBO movie intro? Back in the 80’s when I was a kid my brother would turn a movie on and this would play. I remember watching this opening scene like it was yesterday! I especially loved the part where the colorful lines move around the edge of the O.
Sometimes we want things to be the way they were before. Simpler. Videos like this remind me of what it was like when I was a kid and didn’t have the worries of today. It reminds me of where I was at the very instant I saw it the first time. I was roughly 6 years old, and in the lap of my “granny” (great grand mother) who was around 92 at the time. She had a rocker that she always sat in that was in front of the TV. I remember sitting there with her many times watching The Price is Right, and even Days of our Lives – until I got bored with it and ran off to do something else. But Bob Barker sure could keep my attention! Especially when they played Plinko!
We didn’t even have HBO. This was back in the day of the cable boxes with the turn dial. My brother, who is 8 years older than me, had figured out that if you stuck a piece of cardboard behind the dial, turned the channel between HBO and whatever was next to it, and SMACKED the side of the box, HBO would come in crystal clear! As a 6 year old I was pretty amazed at this magic.
I remember the azaleas in my granny’s front yard, and the white rocks that I had never seen anywhere else. I remember the shed in the back yard that we used to climb up on and JUMP off of. You should have seen granny fly! Kidding, hahaha … my and friends and cousins were the ones doing the jumping. I remember the spicket (spigot) in the back yard that I was standing near when I got into a minor fight with some boy – the first and last time I have ever fought anyone (I’ve come close a few times!). I remember my granny making biscuits by hand with no measurements on the bare kitchen counter in her old drafty house with single pane windows and flaking paint.
There was something so simple about it all. Peaceful. Fun. Comforting.
But then things changed. Age 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 …. My granny died. Family members got into a fight and put each other in ICU. My family fractured. I wasn’t allowed to see my grandmother. I got picked on and bullied in school. My mom wouldn’t work and I dropped out of school in 9th grade and got a full time job to eat.
As I got older I realized the world was not all biscuits and azaleas. You toughen up …. some maybe to the point of being closed off, bitter, jaded, cynical, etc.
Now, we have all been hit with the impacts of the ‘Rona – maybe the virus itself, maybe the sickness or death of a loved one, but most certainly the disruption of life as we know it. No more granny’s lap. No more Price is Right. No more jumping off the shed. Things have changed.
I think we long for “the way things were”. To a degree perhaps there’s nothing wrong with that but to a larger degree it’s impractical and truthfully, impossible. Even if you could create your life around some past moment in time, you couldn’t keep in there. Even if you stood still, the world around you would keep moving. Even if the world stayed still, you’d age, get sick, and eventually die. The only thing that stands still is Waffle House. Except when they started taking credit cards – that was weird – but necessary which is my point.
While we have been disrupted from the way we were used to living our lives, we cannot go back. At best, we may see some things return to close to normal, but the world has also moved forward. Your favorite restaurant that you went to every weekend may be gone forever. Movie theaters may never be the same, or will take a while to get back to some sort of normal – if they stay in business. Your morning trips to Starbucks on your drive to work may vanish …. since you may no longer drive to work.
What now? Do you pine for the past to the point of not living in the present? Do we focus on trying really hard to get things to go back to the way they used to be? Or, perhaps we start looking for what things will and should look like going forward. What are the things that matter the most? Instead of getting hung up on what’s NOT, focus on what IS, and what COULD BE or SHOULD BE.
Time with family. Time with yourself. Get outside. Go to a lake or a park. Watch some TV together. Maybe you do all these things and more, but do you do them while you wait for things to go back to normal, or do you do them AS normal? Create memories. Slow down. Make some biscuits with your kids or grandkids (or great grandkids).
I am sure my granny had seen a lot in her life, and she was old and could easily have dwelled on what could have been, or the way things were, etc. Instead, she showed me how she made biscuits, and let me in her lap to watch the Price is Right. And from my perspective at the time, things were exactly as they should be.
Today’s Product Spotlight from Rerun (AKA Rebecca):
Happy Friday! Congrats on making it through another week! I figured we’ll end the week with a product spotlight on a super popular, but under appreciated product… the USB to RJ45 Console Cable! We offer a 6 foot Cisco compatible USB to RJ45 console cable that will console your IT network by helping you communicate and configure a networking device. Our cables feature a USB A 2.0 connector on one end, an RJ45 connector on the other, and an embedded FTDI chip! These cables and plug and play and are 100% Cisco compatible!
If you want to learn more about console cables and what they’re used for, check out our Learning Center Article!
From Joe, our friendly Safety Supplies Product Marketer:
Happy Friday! Boy did this week fly by. Today I have some news about our floor stand dispensers. First, I’ve updated the layout to make customers’ shopping experience as easy and stress-free as possible, so check it out! Second and most importantly, prices have been updated. Our entire line of floor stand dispensers saw price cuts and our standard model is even on sale! This brings me to my next exciting piece of information! I HEAVILY encourage you guys to stay tuned for Monday’s email, I have something very special in the works that I can’t wait to share with all of you!
We’re Hiring for our Product Department! We have an opening, as detailed by Rerun (AKA Rebecca), below. Is this you or someone you know?
Product Marketing Specialist – Fiber Cables
Have you been reading these CEO emails thinking “Wow, CK sure sounds like a fun place to work! Wish I could be a part of the team and contribute to the CEO daily email like Joe the friendly Safety Supplies Product Marketer does!”? Do you love product marketing? Do you revel in the recurring nature of processes and relish accountability? If so, listen up! We are looking to expand our Product Team by bringing on a Product Marketer for Fiber Cables. This is a very process driven role in which the goal is to grow Gross Profit $ and increase inventory effectiveness by effectively marketing the products. We are looking for someone who is exactly like Joe… err… I mean, we are looking for someone who is hard-working, dedicated, diligent, organized, analytical, a great written communicator, and has a GREAT attitude and “can do” spirit! If you are still intrigued, please review the job post (and pay extra attention to the part about the CK Way – We take culture seriously here and are looking for team members who truly “fit”). If you think you do fit and are interested in the position, please send us your resume at [email protected] along with a written note telling us the character attributes, values, and interests that describe you and influence how you approach life and work. Who knows, you could be our next friendly Product Marketer!
I hope you are enjoying these emails. If you are, I appreciate it when you let me know! If not, or if you have ideas for how to improve, by all means, please let me know! Sometimes I “can’t see the forest for the trees”.
As always, please let me know how I can be of service to you. If you need assistance with something, advice, or even if you just need someone to pray for you, I am here and listening.
Blessings,
Craig Haynie – CEO
CablesAndKits
P.S. Don’t forget to go follow us on Facebook here: CK Facebook Page.
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Tech / Business News for Today:
- Right at 24,662,000 cases worldwide, with 17,117,800 people who have recovered, with 836,300 deaths AND 6,048,400 cases in the US with over 3,348,700 people have recovered, with 184,834 deaths.
- The White House announced plans to purchase 150 million of Abbott Laboratories’ rapid coronavirus tests, which can deliver results in 15 minutes.
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is now worth more than $200 billion. Bezo’s wealth has increased $57 billion since May.
- TechRadar has put together a list of the best wireless routers for your home network in 2020.
- Investments in 5G infrastructure will nearly double during 2020 as mobile operators around the world continue their investments in next-generation networks. According to Gartner, spending will increase by 96 per cent to $8.3 billion – accounting for a fifth (21.3 per cent) of all expenditure on wireless equipment. In 2019, 5G kit made up just 10.4 per cent of the market – the same proportion as 3G.
- A new web specification tabled by Google could have serious ramifications for the privacy of internet users and the transparency of the web, a researcher has warned. According to a blog post from Peter Snyder, Senior Privacy Researcher at Brave Software (developer of privacy-focused web browser Brave), Google’s new Web Bundles standard could afford advertisers and malicious actors the ability to circumvent privacy and security protections. The new standard could also render ad-blockers redundant, preventing them from intercepting website resources via the usual avenue.
- Walmart is partnering with Microsoft in an attempt to buy TikTok, as the popular yet embattled short-form video app seeks a US buyer amid intense political scrutiny. The retail giant told CNN Business Thursday it is participating in the negotiations with Microsoft over a potential deal. CNBC was first to report the effort by the two companies.
