Bob had an orange stand. Each week Bob was able to get 100 oranges and at the end of the week he had sold 100 hundred oranges. Bob was happy. Bob’s customers were very helpful and offered him business advice. Bob decided to hire a dancing cowboy to promote his oranges. His customers loved the cowboy! At the end of the next week Bob had sold 100 oranges and then he had to pay the cowboy. One day a man came to the orange stand and told Bob that he wanted a grapefruit. Bob told the man that they only sold oranges. The man said that the cowboy had given him a grapefruit on his last visit. Bob decided to sell grapefruits. Bob had an orange and grapefruit stand with a dancing cowboy. Each week Bob was able to get 90 oranges and 10 grapefruits and at the end of the week Bob had sold 90 oranges and 4 grapefruits and then he had to pay the cowboy. Bob was working harder than ever and making less money. Bob’s customers were very helpful and offered him more business advice. They told Bob to take pictures of all the oranges to help them decide which one they wanted to buy. Bob spent all week taking pictures while the cowboy danced. Bob was very tired. That week Bob was able to get 90 oranges and 10 grapefruits and at the end of the week Bob had sold 70 oranges and 2 grapefruits because he didn’t have time to run his stand. Then he had to pay the cowboy. Bob died poor, tired and unhappy. The End.

Notes: I wrote this story after “fighting” with some some members of a knife forum. Quite a few people were livid that my company doesn’t take pictures of each individual wood handled knife we sell. From their point of view I suppose it makes sense- since each piece of wood is different they want to see exactly what they’re getting. But if I sell every wood handled knife I can get as things stand why would I want to incur the expense of photographing them all? The assumptions people make about my business (i.e. the reasons that we do things a certain way) are often perplexing and almost always incorrect.  If I did some of the things they suggest I’d quickly be out of business. In any event, forum fighting easily makes my top ten “most frustrating things in the world” list.