June 10, 2009 @ 1:11 am
Episode 109 : Negotiation
To make up for the long absence due to Gwen’s technical difficulties, we went storytime bananas this episode. Still working out the audio so the Elton John in Patrick is NOT satisfied with this quality. But hey, it’s not like you paid for it… yet. Also Patrick never gets around to divulging the secret of Zen in this episode. Maybe over a beer sometime?
- The Knoll Bertoia chairs Gwen almost scored for $40.
Books mentioned:
- Herb Cohen’s You Can Negotiate Anything.
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Posted by Ruth
June 11, 2009 @ 2:39 pm
I thought for sure you would have a link to paypal for your 6 listeners to each donate a buck. That’s all This American Life asks from their listeners. I was going to drop you a fiver, but I don’t see a donation link…..
Posted by admin
June 11, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
I know. We seriously don’t even have a donate button. We’re lame. I wish I could blame it on us being computer illiterate. Instead, it’s just plain laziness.
Posted by shelby
June 12, 2009 @ 5:32 am
i laughed out loud 5 times in the first half of this episode. hilarious.
can i get a rewind on that price is right line, “sit back and relax in mission style…”
ohh right, the architecture style.
Posted by Jimmy
June 12, 2009 @ 7:58 am
I feel ya pain, guys. Sometimes, I get into situations where folks don’t want to pay their full invoices (”I didn’t know the hourly rate didn’t include all those SFX and music cuts we used.”). I wish I could be more of a hard-ass but I usually end up caving and knocking some off their bill. Boo me.
Posted by vw
June 15, 2009 @ 4:57 am
$100/hr + travel expenses is a pretty decent deal!
Posted by Mira
June 20, 2009 @ 2:56 pm
I fear the day when I am out of college and will have to enter the jobby world. Fuck!
Anyway. A new episode is desired by all!
Posted by Bryan
June 21, 2009 @ 4:55 pm
lol. “Such a jew”. I almost spit out my food when I heard that. a lot of my peers say that.
Posted by Mira
June 21, 2009 @ 11:18 pm
Just wanted to let you guys know that in the absence of this weeks podcast, I went back and listened to an old one and I chose #100 where you let the listeners meditate. The stories in that episode were really freakin’ funny. Patrick talking about making out with oodles of women and Gwen feeling bad for the ‘meditating listeners’…
Posted by Mira
June 21, 2009 @ 11:19 pm
By the way I’m not some freako who needs my ZIS at the same time every week. I’m just extremely lazy and bored so I pick up all the entertainment I can get. There aren’t many good and reliable podcasts out there. Even NPR talks about boring things a lot of the time.
Posted by Scott Prengle
June 22, 2009 @ 8:55 pm
Uh, yeah, the “Such a . . . ” line probably nixed the deal with Cuban since he is a . . . (also, Gwen, get it right, he owns a basketball team, but don’t feel bad — I probably know that only because I live in Dallas and have literally bumped into Mr. C a few times around town.) More to the point of the p’cast: setting a value on your own services is probably the most difficult thing to do in business. Does one ever really know how much value the client derives from your efforts? Hell, no, and they don’t want you to. That would be giving away too much of what they are all about. So, at the end of the . . . oh, sorry, no trite biz-speak phrases if I can avoid it, you have to decide for yourself the answer to this question — “what are the things worth to me that I COULD be doing if I wasn’t doing this particular gig for the client?” It’s the age-old economic concept of the opportunity cost. If you are going to choose to do something, it has to be at least of equal worth to you as the highest valued thing you are giving up to do such-and-such instead. That is YOUR value and what others might get out of it really shouldn’t matter to you. That’s the “zen” part of the whole thing. You choose. It’s this life, this time/space, this energy, that you choose to share with someone else to assist in their pursuit of whatever it is they are all about. Does that help, or even make sense?? A lot of what you learn in a good MBA program is how to derive “value” out of all sorts of things, but like beauty, it really comes down to what the “eye’s of the beholder” sees. And so to you, my dear podcasting friends, the question remains . . . what is it worth to, not someone else, but to thee?
Posted by Tim
June 27, 2009 @ 9:18 am
Good podcast, thanks.
As the above poster noted Mark Cuban owns a basketball team - the Dallas Mavericks (I’m originally from Arlington, in the Dallas metro area). As an aside, Cuban was always a fan of the Mavs back when they were a real crappy team. He then sold out from his internet start-ups and bought a team that he liked (albeit a very sad team). He caught a lot of flack for it because he appeared to be some internet rich-boy playboy buying a sport’s franchise for kicks. However a few years afterwards he turned the team completely around and they have been one of the better NBA teams out there.
Also his blog is worth checking out - Gwen I think you may enjoy it:
http://blogmaverick.com/
I did a consulting gig back in January (analytical chemistry) and I billed $150/hour and in retrospect I think I sold myself short. As it was touched on, it’s not just your time that is “worth” something, but rather the experiences (or creativity) that is so much harder to nail down. I have ten years of scientific experience in the private industry, and I had - and still have - no clue on how to really translate that to a value. Furthermore the few bits of consulting (I got another opportunity coming up) are not “full-time” so I feel that I need to charge more to make up for the lack of hours.
Then again I am totally selling out of the scientific world and starting a MBA program at a respected university in a couple months. So perhaps in a few years I’ll figure out what my time is worth.
Posted by Active Disconnect: Giving the Abstract Form | Essence
July 22, 2009 @ 5:32 pm
[…] am reminded by the Zen is Stupid episode, “Negotiation“. “I think you have to disconnect,” says Gwen […]