Unthinkability

I am loving woot! at www.woot.com

Where else can you get a bag of random “crap” for only $1.  Sure, it will cost you $5 in shipping, but what do you expect?

It is not entirely an April Fool’s joke.  They suggest that “YOU WILL WASTE FREIGHT IF YOU ORDER FEWER THAN THREE.”  They warn you “not to complain about the crap you get.  Here is a list of commandments that they wrote about buying their bags of crap:

I. Thou shalt expect nothing beyond one bag of some kind and your chosen quantity of crappy items (which should be THREE).

II. Thou shalt not whine and complain when some people’s crap turns out to be nicer than yours.

III. Thou shalt take a moment to consider whether you might be better off just not buying this crap.

IV. Thou shalt not order just one crap and blame it on anything but your own inattention.

V. To paraphrase Stephen Stills, shalt thou not get the crap you want, want the crap you get.

Don’t you wish you could write a set of commandments like that for your customers? 

As a software designer, I know that [our company]’s flagship products are golden; hand-crafted with the greatest of care and attention, and sprinkled with magic pixie dust and three coats of lacquer.  But some of our fringe software apps really are just crap, and we wish we could be that honest about it. 

You know what I’m talking about.  How about that single one-off utility application that you wrote in 25 minutes to import the suchAndSuch.xml data from the whatchamacallit.ascii file?  You know, the one that the VP’s wanted to start selling as part of the software implementation package?  We software engineers would feel less guilty if we sold it for a $1; That would give us license to say “What did you expect?  It only cost you a dollar!” 

As it is, however, we are left with dull pangs of guilt and mild feelings of resentment towards that stupid little one-off application that got too big for its britches, that small brown bag of random crap that got placed in a much larger, prettier gift bag.  (We can’t take the our crappy little app out of the little brown bag because the bag is what is holding it together!)

By the way, reasonably-priced bags of random crap are popular;  Woot sold out.  Click the screenshot to embiggen.

Staplers.  You wince each time you have to use one and say to yourself:
“please work, please work, please work…” ka-krunk.

I had resigned myself to a sort of surrender each time I use the stapler… until last week.  I discovered what I call “The Dyson of Staplers.”  Dyson changed how I think about vacuums, and PaperPro has changed the way that I think about staplers.

This is not hyperbole.  This is not a sarcastic rant.  This is pure customer devotion.

Unfortunately, I can not tell you what the PaperPro stapler is.  You have to experience it for yourself.

At $11 each for the 15-sheet PaperPro model, you can buy two for the price of just one Swingline “25-sheet reduced effort stapler.” 

You owe it to yourself to buy a PaperPro stapler.  You will not be disappointed.

These high gas prices got me thinking about how we use our vehicles.  When I need a single $0.28 screw to attach a storm window, I often hop in my minivan and spend $4 in gas to go to Lowes.  Brilliant.

So, we are being more prudent and consolidating our trips when convenient.

We normally take two vehicles to church each week because it save me from an extra 90 minutes of un-needed church time.  This luxury comes at a cost:

• 17 miles round-trip to church
• 17 mpg @ $3.40/gallon
• $3.40 per vehicle per week
• 2 vehicles = $6.80 per week
• 52 weeks/year * $6.80/week = $353.00

So… my family can save $176 a year by driving only one vehicle to church.  That is equivalent to one client dinner at my company, three XBOX 360 games, an elaborate date night with my wife, or [nearly] a Nintendo Wii.

With gas prices expected to be $4.00/gallon this summer, I guess that settles it; we’re taking one vehicle, and I’ll be going to Sunday School.  How ’bout that.

UPDATE: 2008-07-25 – At $4.10/gallon, it saves us $213 a year.

I created the character “Complexitor” to embody our tendencies to over-build projects.  That is why Len Peralta’s “The Cleverer” caught my eye.  Len is doing ‘villains’ for his summer “Monsters By Mail” theme, and he created “The Cleverer” for one of his customers.

You must go check out Len’s work, and you should order your own custom/personal/one-of-a-kind villain for just $25.  It’s a ridiculously-cheap gift idea for yourself, or for the one you love to hate.

See “The Cleverer” at Len’s Villains photo stream on Flickr, and visit his Monsters By Mail site for the details no how to get your own.