Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Cheesy Whining, Part Deux

Okay, let the whining begin!

First off, if you are part of my Friend list on Facebook, you've no doubt heard me grumping a good deal about the Nextbook Tablet I purchased for myself shortly after Christmas. My main complaint with this thing is the camera installed in it, which just so happens to be a front camera and I can't figure out how to take pictures using it because it seems all I am able to photograph with it would be selfies and I absolutely loathe, abhor and despise "selfies!"

Not being blessed with photogenic traits -at least not good ones anyway -I don't like having my picture taken as it is but selfies? There is no way on God's Green Earth you will ever see a selfie of me!

So, since my formerly very easy to use and nice little camera I've had for about 4 years now quit functioning on me, and I wanted to have a means to photograph some of my recent embroidery projects as well as getting pictures of my favorite subjects -my grandkids -I had been looking for a good deal on a new digital camera.

And this past weekend I found one on sale at Walmart -on their Clearance shelf! It's a Nikon CoolPix that has a lot of things I like about a camera.

But that is where my good vibes end and the whine begins!

I got a memory card for the camera when I purchased it and tonight decided to try to upload what pictures I had taken to my computer. This is a whole new experience for me because with my "new" computer that has Windows 8.1 ya know, trying to figure out how to upload pictures from my card -well, definitely not the easy process it was with my previous little Kodak! First, I had to find the photos file -which by the way is not the same as the Pictures file with Windows 8.1 and then, once I did find that, then I couldn't find the stuff to upload the pics with! Okay after a good long period of time I finally found the photos place and also so other indicators as to how to transfer these pictures over to the computer. So far, the process of uploading about 20 pictures only took me about 90 minutes and then I wasn't sure they had even been saved because at no time did anything pop up asking me if I wanted to save them and where did i want to save them too wasn't showing up anyplace either!

You know, the more I deal with computers the more frustrated I get! They are supposed to be so much faster -that has never happened for me with any of the previous computers I've had and it definitely doesn't take place with this one I just got back in September! Slower than freaking molasses in January is how I would describe this unit and that's with having my internet on the high speed end via my cable service but speed -can't prove that by me and this unit nor with any other computers I've had relatively recently!

Cameras and convenience? Not happening here! Yes it is a neat little camera but what one has to go through to get the pictures taken over to where you can use them in any way, shape or form -anything BUT easy!

I bitched a good bit when I got the Kodak camera a few years ago because I really didn't like a lot of things about Kodak's wonderful "easy share" system as it was anything but easy for me to figure out how to get it to function properly but by the time that camera died, I had gotten fairly well accustomed to how to deal with that feature. Now, it's here we go again!

I have nothing against learning some new things but sheesh, could we please put a few more instructions in with each new computer and not just assume that it is an innate mental process that we all come with knowledge built in our brains as to how to operate a new computer? Sure wouldn't hurt to have a little bit of information available about how to use Windows 8.1 for openers and how to use this little computer too would be greatly appreciated as well.

I have the same complaint about operating instructions with my lovely little tablet too! Very sparse on the instructions of how to operate this damned gem!

And then of course, there's my standard complaints about selling the lovely stuff I try to peddle to what few customers I have acquired over the past 18 months since I went back to being an Avonlady! How it is that when I sold these products oh, about 24 to 40 years ago, I had a whole lot more customers then, but my orders in terms of sales per customer generally totaled about the same each campaign as they do today but I have a lot fewer customers now. What confuses the heck out of me though is how I made $300-400 in sales then and frequently have that size (money-wise) orders much of the time today but how much profit I make on my orders today by comparison to what I was able to earn 30 years ago -a huge difference! And one that is not to my benefit either I might add!

I love seeing my invoices from them every two weeks and they proudly print on each one of them approximately what I have "earned" with each order I have submitted. Strangely enough, somehow an order that they say I have earned around $120 ends up with me being lucky if I will clear $20 when it's all said and done! I attribute that to the costs of the demos I purchase, samples to give my customers that I purchase and of course, copies of each campaign book to hand out to my customers too and all of that comes off the top of the figure they say I have earned! So it does seem to me that it ends up being a royal pain in the arse then!

If it weren't for the fact that my customers are also mostly very good friends of mine and I decided that returning to be an Avonlady again would be a good thing for me to force me to leave the house more than once every week or two and thus, keep me from becoming a total recluse, I would very seriously consider giving this financial venture up completely! But I keep hoping one of these days things will "click" and I'll get on a better track with this stuff plus, an occasional extra $20 bucks does come in handy! But it would be a whole lot better if it was $20 extra guaranteed each week and not hit and miss as it tends to be now.

Oh well! Such is life in the fast lane of being an Avon Rep!

Now my next time sucking project I'm going to have to do is figure out how to figure out my actual income from this stuff so I can report it on my income tax this year! ARRGH! I'm going to have to file income tax now -again -on something that is far from supplying me with the kind of a little bit of extra bucks that they tout the reps earn!

Now, after spending about 2-3 hours this morning printing out invoices and draining my printer's supply of black ink, I'm going to have to get over to Walmart now and pick up another set of cartridges so I can finish printing out my damned sales, costs of demos, costs of samples, costs for bags and other trivia things one needs for this venture and also, how to calculate my mileage along with a few orders that I have that were never picked up and a few that were delivered but then, the customer decided to skip out without paying me so how to deduct that then from my earnings too ya know.

Okay that is going to be it for my whine session for today.

Let's hope (and maybe pray a bit too) that nothing else comes along to give me cause to do yet another Whine post!

Peace!

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