Author Archives: Guus

Service and honesty

I am starting to believe more and more that running a business is indeed about service and honest, and not about money. As whenever I am dissatisfied with anything it is mostly, or maybe even always, about service, or honesty, or maybe not being heard, feeling heard, but the last of course back to service, listening to your customers, serving your customers.

And the reason I am writing this article now is because of the behavior and service of the undertaker my mam has hired for taking care of the funeral of my sister, who died last week. And one would expect especially an undertaker to be very careful in dealing with family, as I can also understand it can be very difficult not to become greedy in situations of death, where there is a lot of grieving and where people would very easily say ‘yes’ to all kinds of things and not really think about the cost too much as their mind is somewhere else.

But wait a minute, that is exactly what my complaint is about, not about cost, but about service. As I live in The Philippines and my sister was buried in The Netherlands. And as I don’t have the budget to go and also just didn’t like to go, I suddenly thought it might be a good idea to attend the funeral through Skype, through internet, with some kind of video conferencing tool. And I didn’t really care about the cost, as I just didn’t want to travel, but I would have liked to attend the funeral online. And I didn’t even care what the cost would be. I even mentioned, or at least thought, that if they would charge € 1,000.00 or so for it, that would be okay. As I wouldn’t have to pay for it anyhow as my sister who passed away has money enough, at least enough for such a thing. So cost was not really an issue, unless my other sister and/or my mam would have disagreed with it. So it was really about service, and I would have been willing to pay big time for it and would have praised, promoted the person who would have arranged it.

But no, my remark about possibly attending through Skype, through video conferencing was put down with ‘there is no internet available at the location’. And this is about the funeral of my sister, imagine. And I understand it was not the undertaker who made that remark, but I guess a good undertaker, a good businessman, would have picked up the request and would have made it happen, would have find a way. And I guess it wouldn’t even have been that difficult. As I can’t imagine there would not be some kind of wireless internet nearby. Or maybe even wired. So the undertaker could have earned big time, just put some laptop somewhere, arrange an internet connection for two times one hour, church and cemetery, pay maybe € 100.00 or probably less, and charge € 1,000.00 or something. Everybody happy.

And as I guess you already figured out something fully different happened. As somehow it seems the undertaker was only focused on getting the confirmation of the order for the funeral, the signature of the person who would pay for the funeral. And of course I can imagine that side also, as funerals are expensive and it may not always be easy to collect the money from the heirs. So yes, getting a signature from someone giving the order for the funeral and taking the obligation to pay is part of the business, how cruel or unethical that may feel. But that’s the business of undertakers. And as far as I know they are paid quite well for it. And I guess they deserve it also, as I wouldn’t want to do their job. But the way how he did it is in my opinion unethical, maybe even criminal. And don’t get me wrong, I was not there, so I don’t know the facts. But I do know my mam, and I guess she was seen as the ‘weak person’ and the ‘target’ having the money, or control of the money. So somehow the undertaker made my mam believe that she was the only heir and responsible for everything, which as far as I could find out is not true. So he made her sign for all kinds of things, five signatures, probably including the order for the funeral. And yes, what option did she have? She was probably still in shock, as my sister died very unexpectedly after being ill for only one day or so. So what else would you do if there is so much pressure as of course cooling equipment needs to be arranged as soon as possible. And would you check if it was all true what the undertaker said, as he deals with these things daily? Or ask another undertaker to make another proposal? I don’t think so, I even thing I wouldn’t do that, even though I am aware of all this ‘business’ around death, around funerals and cremations and such.

And please don’t get me wrong, business is business and people have their own responsibilities, even in a situation when someone died, although if it’s your daughter I’m not sure if you could consider the mother taking proper decisions. So it’s okay someone asks for a certain price in a certain situation, same as a can of coke in the middle of the desert could be worth a fortune. But my point is that I think this undertaker made some big mistakes by not telling my mam that my other sister, my mam and I are responsible together for everything. And it would have been in his advantage if he would have involved me, as I happen to know how much money my sister has. And I wanted the funeral arranged as my mother wanted it. And I would have probably pushed for cars in procession provided by the undertaker, as I would have wanted my mam (and my sister) to be comfortable in such a situation, where now they used their own cars, even cars from other family members as there was not enough space. And I wanted to have the internet connection, which was very important for me. And I wanted to pay for it.

So by not focusing on service, but apparently focusing on ‘money’ and ‘signatures’, this undertaker not only missed something like € 3,000.00 additional turnover for the online video feature and the procession cars for himself. And he did not only created a very dissatisfied client, me, or maybe even multiple dissatisfied clients, as later on also my mam and my sister may join me in my dissatisfaction, but probably even lost money and has to deal with a complaint or even lawsuit as I have the feeling he misrepresented the legal situation by making my mam believe she was the only person responsible.

And I still don’t get it, as I asked my mam to pass on my phone number and e-mail address to the undertaker the very first moment I was involved, like them being on the way to “De Losserhof” to arrange everything for the funeral. And imagine, I am the brother, so to me it would have even be just plain courtesy to just call or e-mail me and send condolences, no matter the matters to arrange or the legal matters or the payments or the budget.

But no, he decided to deal with my mother only. So well, I decided to deal with him, even if it were only to let him know that I believe he made some mistakes here.

Inspiration from death

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I am a bit in a mixed mood today as it is the day one of my sisters is being buried and I decided I cannot attend. Main reason is budget, but somehow I also don’t want to attend as I don’t really see the reason to take on a 24 hour journey to attend a half day ceremony or so. And I guess I would have made an exception if my mam had asked me to come, but she didn’t. Ah, and also being fifty one years old life and death, especially death, is not that a big issue anymore, as people just die and I even almost died myself around five years ago. And most people who died were relatively old, like my grandparents and my dad, the people closest to me who died. And my sister was a special child with also body problems, so somehow it was already a miracle that she lived for almost fifty years.

The death of my sister made me thing yesterday though, as it brought me back to my youth, my very young years, about which my parents said I was very close with Janneke, my sister. So I was looking for a photo I remember of her and me, but I couldn’t find it. But I kept thinking about ‘life’, how we as people, as human beings are being born, live, and then die. So I thought about my sister, about what she had given to the world, as somehow people with disabilities appear so, well useless, not contributing. On the contrary, they take a lot of care, like my sister was in an institution for mentally handicapped people, so there are a lot of people needed an available to care for her. And yes, they need to be paid. And in The Netherlands that is all arranged by the government, and my sister even got an allowance from the social security department in The Netherlands. And then today I got an e-mail with the content, the preparation for the church and funeral ceremonies. And the staff who had taken care of Janneke all had made some kind of poem. And then I remembered the below photo they had sent me earlier, from the internal memo about Janneke’s death. And especially that photo reminded me of how she was, with such an enormous, I don’t know how to say in English properly, happiness. Like how she could shine, as you may see in below photo.

Janneke

And then I read the poems that the staff had made. And they all mentioned how much Janneke had given, and not, as one would expect, how much she had ‘taken’, consumed, used. And no, I am not really the type of person who thinks like that. I am more the material and career guy, even though I have big dreams and talk and write (and do) about valuing humans more, valuing humans above organizations and material things.

So yes, when thinking about those things, reading the poems, seeing the joy in the photo and remembering how Janneke was, I just know that a human is just very special, even if he or she is born without the ability to contribute to the material and such.

Left out?

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I had a very good phone call with my mam today. At least I thought. Until the moment I told her about my feelings. Things like that I would have expected a phone call instead of a text message when my mam and my sister found out that my other sister was very sick. And that I felt a little left out with the decisions around the funeral of my sister. As everything has been decided without me.

And yes, I can imagine a bit that they sent me a text message instead of a phone call, as it was the middle of the night here. And no, of course they didn’t know that my sister was going to die so soon after. But looking back they had spent hours and hours in the hospital. And is it then so strange to call your son, your brother if your daughter, your sister is in the hospital? And yes, somehow I can imagine you would send a text if you realize it is too late to make a phone call to someone on the other end of the world, especially if you realize that it is the middle of the night for him. But somehow going to the hospital around 12 noon or something when it is something like seven pm in the evening, spending hours and hours in the hospital with all kinds of examinations and knowing that I am a ‘late’ type of person and where I am even the legal representative of my sister, well that hurts a bit, that leaves me a bit left out. But well, the reasoning of my mam was also valid, that they were just supporting Janneke and didn’t have the opportunity to call, like having no balance in their mobile phones. And no, at that time of course they didn’t know how bad it was. Although the text I got from my sister, later, in the middle of my night, made clear to me that something serious was going on. So they knew, so they must have known earlier.

And as I don’t have the funds to go and attend the funeral, together with some other private reasons, I asked if it would be possible if I could attend using Skype or something. And I heard all kinds of reasoning going on between my mam and my sister, like friends of my sister might be able to arrange that. But I suggested they would just ask the undertaker, which they apparently did, as I heard afterward he had said something like there might be no internet on the locations of the service and/or the burial. So that is what I heard yesterday. So today I was bringing up the subject again to my mam, but it seemed nothing had been arranged. And right now it is evening here, and the burial is tomorrow morning Dutch time, so not much, or practically spoken no time all to arrange something like Skype. So again, is it so strange I feel a bit left out? As it seems the undertaker has not done anything, like calling me or e-mailing me to test some video setup or something. And no internet? Well, this all takes place in The Netherlands and here in The Philippines there is internet everywhere, Skype everywhere, like practically all my friends have a smartphone with internet. So that wouldn’t be possible in The Netherlands, one of the countries with the best internet in the world? And an undertaker would not make any effort to try to find a way so the brother of the person who passed away could attend the funeral online? Would that not be a common request in 2014? And wouldn’t it be easy to set up? And yes, even in 2014 I would test that beforehand. As often it is not as easy as it seems. But time is running out, kind of has passed away already. And in my opinion there was time enough, but not anymore.

So no, I guess I won’t attend the funeral tomorrow. And looking at all of this nobody considered I also might have wanted to be part of all the arrangements and such. Like who would be invited, where it would be held, what the time would be,what the priest would say and things like that. And yes, I know that I wrote to the people of “De Losserhof” to arrange everything as my mother would want it. And yes, of course I meant that and of course I will honor that. And I keep telling myself that that was my message. And that my mother lost a child, which of course somehow is the worst thing in the world,even though Janneke was a special child and my mother had a somehow different relationship with her than a ‘normal’ mother and child relationship. But somehow deep inside me something tells me something is wrong. And that I am indeed being left out. That they could have at least asked what I wanted, if I had any ideas about how it should be, especially after I indicated this to my mam this afternoon when we called.

And at the end of the phone call we talked about some practical things, like payments and such, e.g. for the funeral. And my mam just insisted that she was the one in charge, that she was responsible for everything and sign the stuff and such, where I had found that my mam, my other sister and I are responsible together, not she alone. ‘But the undertaker had told her so’, so it was true. And I was wrong. And where I was just trying to help, share the responsibility, make things easier, my mam just got more upset. So in the end the help arrived, so she wanted to stop the call. And yes, maybe I insisted a bit too much to make my thoughts, my wishes clear. But then the connection was lost. And I couldn’t call her again. So I’m not fully sure if she hung up or not, but it appeared so. And that made me a bit lost, yes maybe made me feel left out, again.

So yes, my mam lost a child, her child. And maybe that does more to her than I think, as I indicated that she had a special relationship with Janneke, not the common ‘mother child’ relationship.

But still, she always tells me she does everything for me, that I am everything to her. And that she always worries about me. But I don’t see it, I don’t feel it. As in the end it is always my sister, my other sister, who is right and who she is close to. And right now I wasn’t even asked one single thing, one little input for the funeral of my sister, not even a word to write or to say, not even flowers to be chosen, as my name is already there.

So can you imagine that I feel a little left out? And that I probably won’t attend the funeral tomorrow, even if they somehow would manage to setup some kind of video conference facility? As I just feel left out.

Ah, yes, and of course I am writing ‘again’ negative things, about my mam, about my sister and about who else. As that is what she hears. As she doesn’t even take the effort to read what I write,every day. As she is too old. And yes, I know I can write complaining type posts, like this one maybe is. But I also wrote a kind of celebrating post where I mentioned my sister as some kind of shining star, which you can see in the photo in my Dutch post of today.. And the same photo I posted in Facebook, I think in a very positive way, saying goodbye to my sister.

And strange, my mam doesn’t seem to see how proud I have become about my writing, my posts, the discipline I have learned and things like that. But she doesn’t even agree, even if I doubt she even read one post,so how can she know if it is good or bad. And even if it is bad, so what?

So I hope one day she will be proud of me.

Janneke

Bye bye, Janneke…

Denied

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Alternative for Kickstarter

Well, it seems I can’t post my project on Kickstarter because I’m a resident of The Philippines, so I’ll just post here what I just entered: Makes me think if I really did the right thing backing someone on Kickstarter. So it’s okay to receive my money and letting me enter my whole project, but not to give something to me just because of my location.

Short description

It is about time Inspiration for Success comes alive, yes, with photos’, so a decent simple camera would be very welcome.

Description

I have been working on the site Inspiration for Success for more than one and a half year now. One of the things I want to change in the world is to honor effort directly instead of indirectly, meaning I want to ‘receive’ things or money or whatever directly and not e.g. through advertisements or affiliate links. Until now that means I have not received anything related to the site, except support from previous team members, some e-mails from people liking my quotes, visitors to the site, a lot of experience writing and thinking and more material things. As I want to enhance the site with photo’s as I often write about my own experiences, I need a camera, which I don’t have and for which I don’t have the budget. My asking for it through a text in the right widget did not give any result yet, so I encountered Kickstarter just now and thought this may be the way to receive my camera so I can enhance the site with photo’s and of course also enjoy making photo’s in general of course and for my web development business..

Risks and challenges

There are no real risks involved, but it may be a challenge to put profiles and photo’s of 76 people in the site as I cannot fully predict how much time that would take. And a challenge would be to find and put at least one photo for each post after I get the camera, a challenge I am deliberating right now.

Give and receive

Well, I wanted to receive EUR 750.00 for a decent camera with two ‘give backs’:

A maximum of 75 ‘givers’ being honored on a page in his site (minimum donation EUR 10.00).
One ‘giver’ to be honored in the right widget where my current camera request resides (minimum donation EUR 100.00).

Strange

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it was strange, one or two hours ago, when my mam called and told me Janneke, one of my two sisters, died. And it was strange especially as I received a text last night from my other sister Suzan,asking me to call her as soon as possible. And I am re-reading it now, and indeed, there is urgency in it, but it arrived fully wrong with me. As if one of my sisters is dying I would expect someone to call me and not send me a text to call them.

So this afternoon I got a call from my mam telling me that my sister was not only severely ill, but even died last night. And again the request to call her back right now, implying that I should use Skype to call her on my sisters phone, right now, right after. And again, I was hesitant, as I was about to go out and someone was waiting for me, so calling back straight away would be quite a hassle for me. Partly because my computer was not yet on and partly my current opinion about these things is that there is nothing really urgent about. Someone died and that’s it and it’s a common thing. And yes, I guess I may sound a bit weird with this kind of statement, but when my father died five years ago I did everything I was supposed to do and I am still suffering from it, as I borrowed money for the ticket which was the start of my borrowing, something I could never imagine doing before. But as I had no money at the time and as I presumed I was to go I just did what I thought I was supposed to do and bought tickets for my partner and me with borrowed money.

And yes, getting older made me also more relaxed with things like death. As people just die and there is nothing much special about it, even though of course it is a significant event. So yes, of course I am considering going to the funeral or something. But just doing it ‘because I am supposed to do it, because society expects it’, I am not sure if that’s the right way. Especially as that first borrowing for my dads funeral was the start of the deep financial shit I am in right now. And don’t get me wrong, it was not the reason, just the start. And there were very good reasons for all those decisions I made afterwards, especially the first one or two years after. But finally reality caught up with me and I didn’t know what to do anymore as I saw no way out anymore.

So am I acting strange? I guess so, as the more I think about it many people avoid me after a while, leave me behind. So there must be something in what my partner said last night, that I have some autism type behavior when I didn’t want to entertain him anymore as I felt provoked by his questions and statements about me. As in my experience if he is in a mood like that anything I say just makes it worse, so I better keep quiet, even though of course that also doesn’t solve anything and also makes him more and more annoyed. But I guess it is still better to just keep quiet as at least then I don’t give him any new ammunition for further complaints and accusations about what I am doing wrong.

So strange, feeling relatively quiet, relatively relaxed after the message my sister just died, even though after I arrived home after a short errand it suddenly hit me and I started to cry. And yes, there is more, but that is too private for me to share herein public. But maybe I should share I also felt relieved, as this event of my sister dying might solve some things within our family, things that should have been solved a long time ago, but where I didn’t know how to do that.

And it is strange, as last night I was talking with some people and we talked about something like changing the other person. And I said I think I can’t change my partner, but actually I meant I don’t want to change my partner. And also related to the problems my sister and I have, my mam often tells me I can’t change my sister.

But the question is if I shouldn’t try if I think there is something wrong with the other person. But that raises another question: who decides what is wrong and do I have the right to change another person. Or is the opposite true: am I obliged to point out ‘wrongs’ in the other person.

And right now of course I am thinking what ‘wrong’ and what is ‘right’? And I don’t know the answer, but it is an interesting question to keep in mind.

So yes, looking forward to your comments on this.