Habibi's Oranges.
Image source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGojKtrUcAAxEY8.jp
Perspective!
In my life I had 3 father figures. Backgrounds; business, engineering, and diving. Bernardus, Hendrik, and Wing-wa.
This is the story of Habibi, حبيبي ..a Lebanese Merchant who ordered a Truck load of Oranges and had them delivered in the morning, sending them back in the afternoon saying they were rotten.
Wing-wa: Those are not our Oranges. Send him a new Truck load and we'll bill cabrón for the extra Oranges later.
Hendrik: We'll let a Judge deal with that. Those are not the Oranges we sent him and we can prove it.
Bernardus to the Truck driver: Dump the rotten Oranges in the Ocean and return for a new load.
He then walks into the Office and says: Attention everybody!
From now on Habibi pays 1 penny more for everything he buys. If we sell it by the pound; 1 penny more, by the case; 1 penny more, etc. Everybody clear on that? Good, keep this to yourselves.
This was in all likelihood the most profitable truck load of Oranges ever sold and Habibi spent years boasting how he ripped off Bernardus while still paying for it 20 years later...
Truth & Truth blended, the 3 never shared the same space in this capacity, nor would their perspectives have been equally effective in each other's disciplines. One would have lost all, the second may have broke even, but the third had the long breath in this matter, even if he never knew how to dive.
Deceit for common good, and a minor contribution to the stock of good public humor.
Sometimes we're blind and need to find a guide in matters where we have little insight.
Thank you for your time.
Dear Managing Director of Steem Wallet,
I hope you find this here under the blog of this deprived writer.
So sorry to trouble you, but I am in no small amount of confusion why a vote of $0.03 (as indicated per your statistical overview) comes out as $0.02 instead.
Rechecking the nifty and colourful % gauge I saw it drop to 2% before my very eyes. This too, I could not explain to myself, having 94% power, which should give $0.03 until it drops to 75%. However this was only momentary, for not a minute later my votes are back to indicating a voting power of $0.03. So what is it now, when I go and bless another one of our community members??
You probably have the experience and empathy it takes to imagine, how first, I was overjoyed by my great fortune and could not wait to spend it, and then I was bitterly disappointed when I increased the balance of a post payout only from $0.03 to $0.05. According to my fingers I miss $0.01.
I just thought I would bring this confuscation of mine to your attention, without suggesting there are odd blips in the system. It is probably a mere trifle of my overlooking the other numbers which factor in. I felt the need, however, to share my disgruntlement, surmising I might not be the only one at times confused.
While I extend my appreciaton for the pretty dial which certainly motivates us alphas to visit our statistics, might it be able to correspond more obviously with the actual value of my vote? I will not say that the current system is downright misleading, but perhaps, it all could be a little clearer.
I hope to see improvements all round so that I will nor remain discouraged to make precise transactions to people who value precision.
Looking forward to your explanations which may clear up my confusions,
Yours Sincerely,
Your humble supplier of content,
Sukhasanasister.
Dear Suki,
Your current vote has been reduced, as has mine, due to the recent drop of the Steem price to $0.18. The price has since come back up to $0.19 so it will go up again but this will take a while as our votes are based on the average price of Steem. This is one thing I warned about when I delegated to you, that "it would be a struggle to keep the vote above $0.02." To make certain that I wouldn't have to adjust the delegation very often, I tried to set yours at $0.03 knowing in advance the value of votes would drop.
Since I have detected that this caused some distress I could power up more Steem to remedy this issue for you.
Sincerely,
Your most appreciative consumer of content and managing director of wallet,
Onno Vocks.
Dear Managing Director of SteemWorld Wallet,
You have delegated my writing to you specifically - whose name I don't know - a writing I would never have sent to my kind investor Onno Vocks who is patiently waiting for his $0.03 vote returns.
The man with a heart too big you hardly deserve him on your staff list, has of course taken up your request to reply to me promptly, which at least informed me of the additional features of the pretty dial. I would never have written to his department directly concerning these matters in my upset tone, because unlike with you and the ceaseless confusion at your end of things, I have no grief with him and he and I are communicating most transparently. He had warned me well in advance of the struggle to keep my vote above $0.02 and informed of the drop in steem immediatly; while I saw for myself already today that it is now rising again. I learn, but you, SteemWorld Wallet director need to get better designers on the job.
When I opened my account with you, I got no manual on how to understand my wallet. Content providers with no financial sense are hereby, clearly, very much duped. I resent the lack of intent to educate us. As if it's more convenient to keep us dumb. That was the reason for my writing to you specifially with the urge to understand how such aspects are surely to remain uninviting for others to join the platform, and it is regretful that we have wasted OV's precious time (he has many, many more pressing tasks to attend to).
So now we know there are always "more numbers" and I still only have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs. Perhaps, it will help to go barefoot on Steemit, to also have ten toes at my disposition, concomittant with the growing spaghetti junction of numbers here. We do not know, however, how to change the setting on the colourful dial to make my reality convene with the real value of my vote.
Yours sincerely,
Sukhasanasister, not your Suki.
P.S. I shall be consulting with my private account manager OV, as his Suki, on what to do with CCC. I don't understand the tribes. If I stake 188.9939 (groan... out of toes: what kind of power does that add up to? Can't find conversion tables.) - what I have earned there so far - to creative power what do I get? Any effect on my steem account/power?? Do I want to stay involved with creative coin and use the hashtag? Why can't they be bothered to come over to my place at steem? It's an inconvenient site to be on, excluding so many other followers, but looking so much the same you forget where you are at 3 in the morning.
Is it a different currency or affiliated, or what.... I can't find a comparison with the tiny bit I know about money in real world. I presume it doesn't want to be "lost"/ transferred to steemit for steem power instead of CCC power... but what's the net difference (in power? or in $? or in market position?? )
Should I then stake what I have so far? Should I carry on exploring what can be made there. I don't the value of CCC so how much did I make thanks to them? How to "close"such an account, anyway? Or is it precisely an option you think we should keep open... It sort of just happened so it might well serve a purpose I can't identify. Your call.
Hi Suki,
Not da managgher, ..uhgain. He's out on a Boca Raton Golf course having a Beer with Rush Limbaugh and Alice Cooper. At this point I would not stake anything, nor would I advice to buy more Steem. At this time I'm moving things around which will take 5 days. At that time I will make a determination what I will do next, but, I'll probably reserve enough Steem to float the both of us for a while and power down and sell the rest if the situation worsens.
I know nothing about CCC, zip, zero, zilch, nada, nessuna cosa.
Since management is getting hammered, erm, schnackerd on the Golf course, I took the liberty to prepare a little sump'in' for ya to help you get an accurate readout for yer vote value. Just follow the bouncing ball, oh wait, ..we don't use them anymore since most balls end up in the canal or lake with the Alligators by the golf course. Ok, I'll number the steps for ya, how's that?
The magic happens at step 3, use the drop down arrow to change the 2 to a 4 so it no longer fools you into thinking you have $0.03 when in reality you have 0.0281 which rounded up will show as $0.03.
What to do with the rest of the platform is not up to me, and Steemit management has ignored me for 2 years so in all likelihood will continue to do so. Lucky me! Who wants the job now, eh?
Actually, the German guy behind Steemworld is awesome!
Regardless of what happens to Steemit, or if they fire me like Frumpf, I will leave with something precious they can't ever take from me: fond memories of Suki..
Who is stopping the German guy's awesomeness from dripping down?
I only said that because you mentioned SteemWorld Wallet, but the Wallet is Steem and Steem World is Steemchiller who is an awesome programmer, and a really nice guy. Just making sure no one takes offense where none was intended. Probably a moot point if no one reads my blog, but you never know.
Edit: a comment went missing about the buttons.
I set my pretty dial up to show 4 places behind the decimal point.
The rip off only exists if
THEM are not referring to the SAME oranges, right?
I finally see what you mean: Habibi gathers all the rotten oranges he hasn't been able to sell till he has a truck load full of them and then returns them as if they were the one's just delivered. Very elaborate ploy concretely for oranges but it happens all the time in one form or another.
Still, the confusion was compounded by my interest in calculating/estimating HOW MUCH of a rip off it was with the penny increase being the same for either a truckload or a pound, or a case (or a bag). I have almost got my socks off to figure out how much more he probably is paying than one penny sounds like; Plus to me it sounds like Bernardus is still more down (for a long while) with two truckloads for the price of one sold. Depending, maybe on how many truckloads a week/day are sold?...
But this is terrible. My confusion destroys the whole poetry. As I said I get the beautiful conclusion, and the whole piece oozes a simple plea for us getting real in business by becoming ethical people first, and being smarter about deals with larger perspectives formed by many cojoined. It exalts cooperation and shows how trust can only exist between the pragmatically trustworthy. Tough negotiation is fair in business. There is no place for sore losers. That is the kind of buisness I am used to (from my father)
I think my analysis of it is out a curiosity for the textworld you are in and I have not enough ease of mobility in yet. I was keen to break down the analogy which has to be in there iron cast, knowing you.
So you don't have to explain anything. But feel free to hand any additional notes.
Yes what he did was theft, returning rotting oranges refusing to pay for the fresh ones we had sent. If we had called him on his deceit, he would have lost face, and would purchase everything from a competitor. By raising the price of all goods in the future by a penny in return for 1 truck load of oranges was huge, and he didn't notice the increase. This guy ran a supermarket and we supplied a lot of his meats, fruits, vegetables, cheese, juices, dish soaps, frozen goods, you name it. Immoral to raise the price? No, he was at liberty to buy elsewhere. Giggles!
ah, that was not mentioned.
Well it was in the return, it usually means you want your money back when you return merchandise to a store, but I was being minimalist so a lot was left up to deduction. I'll try not do that again because it may confuse other as well.
No deduction is not the problem. The lack of context. Return to a housewife means: no refund, but you can pick out another orange.
am I losing my marbles: I thought I saw numbers somewhere in a second comment, but where did that go.
Knowing about the theft, interpreting the "saying" as such a (vague) implication. then "those our not our oranges" gets a very different slant too. THEY are much more deceptive than the not so bad decision to raise your prices.
See, much more realistic world than I could know. Makes a difference too, helping to decode with outher pragmatic readings.
No, my arguments are nonsense. I must have a weak spot for orange sellers, feeling I could get him off any charges pressed against him for lack of evidence.
Eventually, I suppose we, the reader, to feel satisfied that Bernardus is a champ, would have had to trust it was HABIBI'S large scale rip off. The oranges were indisputably never rotten in the first place (trust the lawyers working for Hendrik to be on the side of truth). And forget he is a modest orange seller who buys the occasional truckload (filled in because of insufficient information).
He tried to steal, and he was not a man of modest means. He had a supermarket and a warehouse. When you return merchandise other than what was delivered, and demanding money back, is theft.
Say you sell me a pair of Jeans, and I then come back with a ripped pair saying the Jeans were defective and demanding a new pair, am I not stealing from you?
Where is any of that in the text?
It isn't, it is explained later.
Yes. But .... is my confusion about the explaination or the text. Do you think?
I think the text, because the plot was not laid out in advance, rather referred to later in character statements. Like James Joyce's direct quotation of thought, the detail often not immediately clear.
The literary critic meets the businessman at last. Or not even. The good heart.
Your real life story is very simple for me. I would have done exactly the same.
Nothing immoral about it.
I even feel bad about returning something truly defective because how is it the shop's fault...
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