If it’s Friday, it Must be Margaritas.


The other days are okay too…


I decided to pattern my life after the really successful people in this world. You know like CEO’s and other top executives. So I started paying attention to CNBC and the Wall Street Journal.

One of the strategies that comes up all the time is “leveraging.” Successful people and companies use it all the time. As for example the CEO who got a raise to up his salary to $10 million will leverage that success by requesting scads of stock options at pennies on the dollar. The board of directors won’t want to lose him so they give him the options. So then he leverages that success by weaseling out a golden parachute deal. You know what those are. If he ever loses the job the corporation is forced to pay him gazillions of dollars so he can afford to pay his kids college tuition after the job loss.

By the way, don’t confuse the golden parachute with the “Golden Handcuffs.” The handcuffs deal means the poor CEO can’t leave the company even if he wants to. They just pile on more and more compensation. Like when money won’t buy him anymore, they might give him New Zealand, until he screams, “Ok, ok I’ll stay and take New Zealand, but make sure it’s tax-free.”

So I thought this a pretty good strategy. I’ll try that myself. I reviewed my situation to see what I could leverage. Right now I don’t have a job, so I thought how can I leverage my unemployment. And almost immediately the thought struck me. I might as well sleep late every day. It’s perfect leveraging strategy to unemployment. You don’t have to get up early anyway so you might as well sleep in, get it while the getting is good. So now ten o’clock only comes in the evening for me.

Next I looked at my financial situation. I got all these credit card bills, so I figured to leverage this by getting some more credit cards. This is a perfect leveraging strategy. Credit card companies love to give charge cards to people who already have them. Since I get about three credit card offers every day it was really easy to sign up for more of them. Now I got a couple of dozen and I can probably wheel the balances from one to the other for the rest of my life. Hey I thought that’s pretty good leveraging!

The next one leveraged itself out magically. My wife saw our situation so she decided to get a job. Now I don’t have that much pressure about finding a job myself. I can spend more time on the net. Hey this unemployment leveraging is getting easier and easier!

But seriously, when things get tough, you just have to hunker down and exercise your brain a little. You know the old saying – If life hands you a lime, make margaritas! So that’s what I’ve been doing - making margaritas! The cool thing about being home now is that the wife is away working. I got the house to myself the whole day. I can have a two-margarita lunch if I want to. Try THAT in today’s antiseptic, straight, ice-tea corporate world.

And while I’m thinking about it I better call my wife to remind her to get a jug of margarita mix on her way from work. I think I’m running low.


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My favorite: The basic margarita, as recommended by 'Trader Vic's'

Courtesy of Trader Vic's:

Juice of Half a Lime
Half an Ounce of Triple Sec
One Ounce of Tequila
Shake with ice cubes.
Strain into chilled champagne glass with salt around the rim.

Enjoy!


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~ Helga Marion Ross ~

Copyright 2000