CEO, BOB

About a week ago, the mailman delivered a five-pound catalog of every office supply you can imagine. The company is called Uline. I had never heard of them. I was mildly curious as to their motivation but, didn’t think a whole lot about it until Joan showed me the actual address label. The first line had my name, spelled correctly for a change. The second line said “Puzzling”, which at first was puzzling. After about 5 seconds, I said “Aha!”

I had forgotten for a moment about my own company, Puzzling.com, founded right here in Pittsboro, home of the Chatham County seat, in 2019.

The inspiration and motivation in forming the company was multi-faceted

— I wanted to know if I could actually create my own company. How is it done?  

And, maybe there’s money to made selling used jigsaw puzzles, or, selling jigsaw puzzle assembly coaching tips, or framing the 40-some jigsaw puzzles hanging in my garage and selling them on-line.

With my Psychology degree, maybe I could advise others on how to navigate through their “puzzling” life issues. After all, I do enjoy telling others what to do.

About 9 years ago, I added an article to my favorites list entitled, “How to Start an On-line Business for 100 Dollars”. I never purged it —- imagining, maybe, someday…… Someday was a day in 2018 after advising a family member to do the same. The instructions were clear and the cost was $38.00 excluding the cost of fuel to get to the courthouse. 

The ultimate trigger which motivated me to act was my fascination with jigsaw puzzles. The more I learned and after realizing how popular it actually is, I began to form ideas on how to make it pay me.  

My first action was to create a blog. I named it Puzzling.com. Why? I was going to use the metaphor of life being a lot like assembling a jigsaw puzzle and —- it was the first name that came to mind while I was on the phone with Victoria, my Director of Web Services, who is also, coincidently, my granddaughter whom we love dearly. After I said “Puzzling”, Victoria quickly checked to see if that domain was available. The cost is $48.00/year which brought my total set-up cost to $86.00. Done deal. Puzzling.com was born.

Since becoming a struggling mediocre writer I’ve learned that people more and more read less and less. Could it be that my writing is a tad too esoteric even to the point of being abstruse. Especially the blather, burble, and blether (even Word doesn’t recognize this one) that I put out. Yeah, I know! Go look’em up!!! 

My daughter recently explained to me why I have between zero and no “followers”. They’re called Podcasts. 
You can listen to or watch a podcast while you’re driving —- Reading? —- not so much.Using a Thesaurus — don’t think so. My son is no help either. His definition of a Blog, is “writing with the Quality Control button on OFF”.

Now I’m at a critical point in my post retirement career —— After becoming CEO of my own company which doesn’t do anything or make any money, or have any “followers”, should I continue chasing entertainment technology by attempting a podcast, or just relax, assemble puzzles, stack them on the ottoman in the extra bedroom, and stop generating e-mails to my followers who are apparently deleting without reading. Please let me know what you think, before you delete the e-mail.