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Business – Instant Sean

Tag: Business

A Wonderful Life

Dear Credit Card Companies,

Thanks for sending me the 4th reissued card for my wife and I in the last year. It’s so reassuring you are so security aware, wanting to keep me and my family’s finances safe.

But wait, what’s this? A $150 charge on my account from Houston is a shocker. I was actually in Orlando Florida, (even notified you that I was traveling to Florida). Yet this charge still litters my bill. That must be why you sent me another set of cards. I’m thinking if I actually saved all the cards that you give me in a year, I could start tiling a bathroom with them. Instead of using them as tile, I shred them. I don’t have the problem like Joanna had when she forgot the new card and tried using the old card at your business. That sure didn’t work out as well as she expected. So instead of using your card, giving you a chance to earn your pennies, she paid cash. I’m sure this was a mistake, a typographical mistake. You’ll credit the $150 on my account as soon as you sent out those cards.

What do you mean how could this be a fraudulent charge? How can my card be used in multiple places at the same time? It has to be a mistake, you’ll be crediting my account any day now.

14 days later and oh, the $150 charge? That’s still on my account. You know it’s fraud but you still haven’t credited it back to me. Racking up that interest that you will hit me with at the end of the month! Ah tragedy, what more should I expect from the friendly folks who lend me money from the “Potter bank”? They get mad when I pay you in full at the end of the month. I must be a nightmare for you. I borrow your money and then don’t give you a chance to make more than a couple of cents on the dollar.

I’m not the customer you want. I know it, but I’ll try harder next time.

April 3, 2017
Work Is Better When It’s Fun

Today, I got a reality check. I’ll tell you about it in a second but I need to tell you a story first.

For years I had tried to prove my worth to others I respected. I worked harder to the loss of my first marriage trying to get their approval and it never came because in all honesty, I wasn’t worth their approval.

There are people in this world who crave attention, they try their damnest to tell you why they are important and “things you need to listen to them about”. But are they truly respected or just in a circle of self-esteem needy people. Yes, I am wrong more times than I am right, but the times that I change a perspective have more meaning than the times it would be better for me to direct my concerns to a brick wall. I am not a yes man, I am a realist who looks at things with clear lenses not rose-colored glasses. I do not know everyone I should but I am a connection or two from the person who can help me. I have friends who I have talked poker, politics, sports, money and social media. I am not an expert in any of those, but my ability to communicate is my best attribute.

Some people do not understand my hatred of empty promises, of hype with no payoff. Do not tease me with “guess who’s coming” because 99 times out of 100, it is not me. I probably knew months ahead of you concerts, events and things that would blow your mind, but you will never hear me say them out loud.

I don’t have to prove that I am worth your approval. Because in all reality, you are probably seeking my approval. Stop guessing.

My dad hated guessing games. If we couldn’t tell him what we wanted him to pick up for dinner without arguing, we would end up eating fish sticks. “fuck em & feed em fish sticks,” he would tell my mom.

You want me to respect you?

Don’t tell me that you are going to tell me 12 ways to improve my social media , especially when #5 will blow my mind. It never does. 9/10 the crap you are telling me is stuff most people know. Give me deep insights and I will follow you & share/repost. Otherwise, you are just chumming the water. Some sharks will come to get caught, but most will stay away because they are smarter than that. Why is there always a story of an uncatchable fish? Because he’s smarter than his predators. He eats alone, doesn’t get caught up like the eager ones and is the patient one. Oh, so patient he is.

I have spent the last two plus years watching Twitter chats and other social media groups and it always comes down to the experts who share, the experts who want you to buy their latest book and everyone else who claims expert status.

My friends and people who couldn’t give a damn about the words from a 21+ year radio vet, it is not about chats or world-wide tweet ups. I want honest to goodness relationships with people who want to work together so we will both will succeed together.

I always tell my interns that my goal was to see them succeed and when they entered reality that they never worked a day in the lives but enjoyed their job. Today I received an ACTUAL MAILED THANK YOU CARD (they do exist) from a former intern that no one remembered but me.

It read:

Sean,

It was great to see you the other day! I’m so happy you remembered me. Maybe one day I can come spin some tunes on the air! Hope to see you again soon!

Thanks for giving me my first internship! You taught me that work is better when it’s fun!

This simple card made more of an impact than any other moment I’ve had trying my damnest to please others.

Sometimes you just have to please yourself and the rest will take care of itself.

If I can help you, please ask. If I can’t, someone you know could use my help, please give them my contact info.

January 19, 2017
Dear Lubbock Area Vet,

God knows how I miss Dr. J even more today. Everyone in Lubbock with a pet knew the legend of Dr J. But she is gone and I had to move to another vet. This afternoon Keegan started to bleed and we took him to the vet after Joanna all morning had called to try to talk to the vet. His first words wasn’t, “Lets fix Keegan,” or “What would you like to do?” but “Let’s me first talk about communicati…”

I shut down and walked out of the room and composed this letter.

Dear Anonymous Lubbock Area Vet,

Before you start to criticize my wife for calling you three times because she worries about our family member, I would appreciate if you would check the patient first.

Bleeding, as you told her later, “traditionally isn’t normal in a back injury” of a dachshund.

You aren’t Dr. House and I would rather burn money right in front of you than hand it over to you.

He isn’t just a dog. He isn’t just an animal. He is my family member and since you don’t treat him as such there will be consequences.

When this adventure is over I will be looking elsewhere for my family care. Because you may consider him your cash cow, but he is my son. He is my kids protector and my wife’s live heating blanket.

I left the room this morning not because of the tough truths that you were telling my weeping wife, but in the total lack of empathy you showed her. You treated my family as you do any other wallet that you can reach in and grab every dollar that you can see. My wife knew if I stayed in the room, I would have not only yelled right back at you but posted your name, address, phone number and Facebook page for the world to see.

I pray for your healing hands to help Keegan and resist the urge to take advantage of my wife as she wept.

I am a nice man, and I will chew on my tongue.

For now.

January 26, 2016
Quotes are meaningless unless…

If you take a look at Twitter at any time of the day, you can always find someone tweeting a quote. I don’t have a problem with the quote, but expand upon the quote, tell me why that quote is important to you, and when your account is nothing but links to other social media articles and quotes but no reason for me to follow you, you get a quick unfollow.

That is the problem with chasing a number. Social Media “experts” have to chase the followers and scores that give them notoriety which allows them to be invited to speak and be considered an expert. But are they really an expert? Probably not in my opinion because they are just a manufactured number given to them by a flawed system. Anyone can buy followers, and get reaction with paid sponsored tweets. The internet continues to move on, and you can’t just sit on your laurels celebrating your 75+ Klout score with 100k of followers.

I have 400 followers and try to respond to every message that I get back. Now imagine if you are someone who has a large amount of followers. You have to feed the beast and if you don’t it all crumbles. The world continues to spin, and with each day quality content is demanded by users. If you aren’t putting compelling content on your site, your followers and clicks disappear. Don’t give your fans an excuse to leave. Tell them a story so they may stay awhile.

[1]

When the poker boom of the turn of the 21^st century began, I was part of a group of bloggers that played poker, blogged about poker and couldn’t get enough content about poker from each other. From 2003 to 2011 this group of players were creating content, blogs, videos, podcasts, live broadcasts and poker players ate it up. Sponsorships and money flowed to users.

Then Black Friday happened[2] and poker as a fun gathering shriveled up. The weekly gatherings online were gone, and all of the content provided by these players disappeared.

Content was created because of a common love and gatherings of these players, friends, compatriots still occur, but the websites where content flowed are now like graveyards[3] of old airplanes.

The passion that hundreds of thousands of players had died on Black Friday, and poker media with it. Friends of mine watched as they sponsorships disappeared and the people who used to shill for sites went back to their lives.

This is just an example of the content explosion and implosion that happens daily with different groups around the world. All it takes is one event to change the pattern of how a group’s dynamics change forever.

So my friends, don’t give me just quotes, tell me why that quote has meaning. Make me feel like I am an insider into your life. Tell me a story where I find out more about you and enrich our relationship. Give me a reason to give you that retweet and you shall get it.

Because if you just give me a quote, it makes an unfollow so much easier to give you.

[1] Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg ,the unsealing of the indictment on April 15, 2011 killed online poker in the US.

[3] http://www.dtra.mil/press_resources/photo_libra

July 24, 2015
Origin story of my public twitter handle… InstantTragedy

Q: What is the background of your online name… InstantTragedy?

So I have tried to keep an optimistic attitude toward everything that changed after my wife of six years left me. I became a very bitter man. I did not understand the bad luck and fortune that had started to accompany me. I saw not the good in life but the more realistic in life. I saw the homeless that I had once pitied as someone that I could be. I saw the negative in anything. I had let my divorce affect who I was and what I saw in life.

That was a tragedy.

When I was at work one day I was reminded of a band that I had managed or saw named Tragedy, which played in Lubbock a long time ago. We were having all sorts of problems on the (WORK COMPUTER SYSTEM) and we were waiting for AV Tech support to call back.

Then it started to rain.

It was the beginning of a long day, and I told “Ah Instant Tragedy: Just Add Water” and a co-worker started to laugh asking me where that came from. “This is like some bad dream, some instant meal where all you do is add water and POOF, it’s done”.

So when I decided to go online playing poker I wanted to have fun and Instant Tragedy was born.

InstantTragedy is where I can be gonzo fun and not care about the consequences. I am a performer for a radio group and my life is truly never private. However I have a private Twitter handle / Facebook account where only the elite of elite ever gets to see behind the curtain. If anyone in the public asks, my handle is InstantTragedy. If people want to know the real me I’m @SeanADonahue , but the line is long for people to enter and I just don’t feel like moving the rope line yet.

For if I don’t understand where I have been, I will never truly know where I am going.

So @Ginaschreck that’s how I got my name.

What’s one fact about you that nobody would know about you but would find interesting.

I’m waiting…

June 20, 2015