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MY NAME IS S-S-S-STEVE AND I’M IN LOVE WITH JAY!
I promise I was not mocking Jay just now! This is a fairly lengthy post, but it won’t be nearly as creepy as my intro might suggest. Please, allow me to explain myself:
Frankly, I was insulted by the listener email. If I had received that, I might be tempted to tell them to piss off. I’m impressed with how well Jay handled the situation.
OK, let me explain. I too am a lifelong stutterer. Actually, my affliction mostly manifests as a stammer (like Jay in the earlier podcasts). That is, it’s more common that I have trouble getting words started (“blocks”) than repeating syllables. And let me tell you, both are incredibly frustrating. There have been in my life when my speech was pretty nearly fluent, much like what we are used to hearing from Jay in the podcast.
But most of my life – like now – has been plagued with frustrating, embarrassing stuttering/stammering. I only wish I could speak nearly as well as Jay. Like he pointed out, it’s a condition that – for some – improves with age. But that’s not also so. I too have been through speech therapy several times throughout my life. I too am 46 (as of July 9th).
For me, speaking on the phone is incredibly intimidating. For me to initiate a call (especially to people I don’t know) can be profoundly stressful. And here’s why: stuttering is one thing. But imagine making a call and not being able to explain who you are, why you’re calling and/or who are wishing to speak to. I’ve made calls where I just can’t get words out; or bumble through them. The person on the other end then assumes it’s a prank call and hangs up. Or outright insults me.
Stuttering is bad enough. But when the person you’re trying to communicate with can’t SEE that you’re actually just having a hard time getting the words out, it’s awkward and can dramatically increase the stress level.
For me (and probably a majority of stutterers, to varying degrees), mood, anxiety, energy level, confidence, stress, familiarity with my interlocutor, etc.. all play critical roles in my ability to speak at any given moment. My dad stutters too. His affliction was a lot worse when I was a kid, but he’s almost completely overcome it. Me, not so much.
ALSO… And it’s funny that Jay said this; I ALSO have Tourette Syndrome! Yup, I’ve been dealt a double whammy! Now, I don’t have the “type” of Tourettes that causes people to shout out obscene words. When I cuss, it’s because I’m fucking pissed or just want to stress a point. I’m an adult and am allowed to use grown-up words on occassion.
As Jay commented about working so hard to hide the stuttering, I work hard to hide my stuttering AND my Tourettes. SO many people out there in the word don’t really understand. They see my twitching, head movements and grimaces and think I’m a “retard”. Or hear my speech and assume I’m somehow “dumb”. Not everyone is so insensitive.
But it’s Human nature to be wary of what we don’t understand. But that fear of rejection and of being thought less of aggravate both my stuttering AND my Tourettes. Some of the same things that worsen my speech (especially anxiety (usually caused by fear of embarrassment) and stress) also worsen my Tourettes symptons. And I call them “symptoms” because I detest the term “tics”. Just like I cringe when I hear people speak of an autistic individual as “stemming”. It conjures images of clinical disabilities and gives many people (including myself, to a lesser degree) a sense of your being “special” of somehow less capable or less Human.
Dammit, stutters (and Tourettes sufferers) and people too! Funny that Jay mentions some people who he’s known for ages not even knowing he stutterers. That’s my case too, but only with my Tourettes. I’ve told (“admitted”, in my mind) people I’ve known for years – sometimes decades – that I have Tourettes and they’ve thought I was bullshitting or trying to be funny. But hiding it is physically and emotionally exhausting. Sometimes I just need to be alone to give myself a break for the physical exhaustion. Also, like my stuttering, the severity of my Tourette ebbs and flows over time.
I’ve been a HUGE fan of Scavenger Life for a while now. I’ve heard the current episodes, working backwards until about the episode where Jay put the wrong fuel in an overseas rental car before realizing it’s silly to listen in reverse order. So I then started from the beginning and have recently passed episode 210. Eventually I will have heard every episode at least once.
So as far as what’s made it to the podcast, I’ve heard a range in the intensity of Jay’s stuttering. And I suspect there are times when it’s a lot worse. Jay, let me tell you, as a fellow stutterer, I notice when you use tricks and techniques to lessen your stuttering. I won’t say what those are (no need to put other listeners on the conscious alert for them, if they haven’t noticed them on their own).
I know you don’t need my validation. But I still want to say that I’m incredible proud of your and your courage. I wish I could do what you do. I have a YouTube channel (Wood ‘n’ Stuff w/ Steve French). In many of my videos, I have the video sped up. Not to conceal my stuttering, but to keep within a reasonable time limit. But my videos require me doing a LOT – A WHOLE LOT – of takes most of the time. To the point where I barely even bother taking in videos anymore. Plus, I don’t have the extra time I once did, so I haven’t even put out a new video in a year.
Oddly, the video in which I speak the most fluently was one I did during my last stint of speech therapy, on a particularly good day. It was a video ABOUT my stuttering and I think my speech was damn near flawless in that one. But it’s actually extremely rare that I speak even remotely that fluently.
Alright, I could go on for a much longer time. About grown adults – even customers of mine at my old electronics shop – who have opening mocked me because of my speech; or about the day-to-day struggles or a stutterer and how we sometimes do things differently (things others may not have even ever thought of); the importance of putting OTHER PEOPLE at ease with your stuttering and so on. But I already risk having bored the hell out of everyone her, including Jay!
That said, I definitely wouldn’t mind sharing more on the topic. But for now, since I’ve been wanting to mention to Jay about our common struggle for a long time now, I couldn’t possibly let this door stand open without walking through. I also greatly admire Jay AND Ryanne for their eBay prowess and have learned a LOT (and changed some of my reselling ways) as result.
Jay, I love you! And I hope now you understand why a little bit more!
P.S. Ryanne was right: there ARE other stutterers listening to the podcast.
Great show, as always! I have so much going on that I rarely get to actually sit down and work it out the numbers. I had a few slow weeks, but have been working on increasing my active listings (as well as doing a lot less auctions, per Jay & Ryanne’s advice). Been squeezing in between about 20 and 40 new listings a week for the past couple months now (ABL!). Not gotten a huge amount up and it’s been slow overall, but I’m still increasing my number of actives and working on raising the average value of my listings.
So I’ll try this numbers thing:
June 23rd – 29th
* Sales: 20
* Gross (not including shipping): $283.75
* COGS: $27 max (tough call; mostly from lots that have long since paid for themselves)
* Average sale price: $14.19
* Highest sold price: $50 (record album)
* Lowest sold price: $4.25 (N64 game)
* New listings: Approx 22
* Current number of listings: 348
* Spent on new inventory: $40
* Death piles: Yes, some. But I actually do work through them.To the point of buyers asking for lower shipping prices: On many of my listings that will run above about $10 in shipping costs, I put the following at the end of the description:
“You are paying the actual shipping cost, as determined by eBay’s USPS shipping calculator.”
(I used to put it in all, but have been omitting it lately on lower weight items.)
@ Vintage Treasures: Never message via eBay messaging about selling ANYWHERE off site. You mentioned that you offered to sell to them through ETSY. Ebay takes any attempt to do business outside of eBay very seriously and can suspend or completely shut down your account if they find out.
Please be very careful about any verbiage that even implies an intent to take business off site, such as exchanging phone numbers, email addresses or any other such information. And if a buyer asks you to, disengage and move on. It’s not worth the risk of being banned from eBay.
This was mentioned elsewhere already, but I figured I’d close the loop here as well for the benefit of those who missed it.
Ebay finally fixed this issue, as described in the latest (June 26th, 2019) selling announcement! I can take no credit, but I was one of, I’m sure, countless people complaining to them about this issue several times over a long stretch of time.
It’s funny seeing (or hearing) Jay use the word “hustler(s)”. I know how much he dislikes it. And so do I.
The pallet return lots seem way too expensive to make it worth the time and effort. Not only have I seen plenty of Amazon returns “haul” videos on YouTube, but I worked for an auctioneer friend years back. One of the things I did for him was go through the semi truck loads of WalMart / Target / Sears general merchandise returns and shelf pulls he was buying. He’d buy 10-30 pallets at a time to get the best price.
Yes, there was value in the stuff. But it was so heavily skewed towards things like HBA (health & beauty aids), low dollar toys, office/school supplies, broken rice cookers, low end DVD players, toilet paper, granola bars and misc. crap that it was really hard to make profit. How do you sell inexpensive commodity items for even close to their actual value at an auction, where you’re forced to lot everything up? In a pawn shop, where people want things dirt cheap? Or even online, where shipping prices you out of the market?
And a huge percentage of the electronics needed repair and were either too time consuming or the parts were unavailable/too expensive (I was an electronics repair tech for most of my working life).
I really wish eBay would have the “New-Other” option for all categories. The choices they make as to which categories get which options seem awfully arbitrary sometimes.
Yes, finally! The latest announcement confirms that they are now “fixing” it behind the scenes. Though, the fact that none of my listings were ever already “mobile friendly” was a problem/fault on their end, not mine. https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/All-Listings-Are-Now-Mobile-Friendly-by-Default/ba-p/29966484
Anyway, they finally fixed their stupid “mobile friendly” nonsense. I’ve complained to them about this many times. There is no excuse for eBay to have gone so long without automatically “fixing” for mobile compatibility. Their system obviously can detect if a listing is or isn’t AND is capable of making it so. So it made no sense to require us to manually click to “check” then click again to “fix”. Especially since I (and most others, I’m sure) routinely forgot to check.
If the watcher you’re sending an offer to is watching via the promoted listing (as opposed to the “regular”, non-promoted listing buried farther down the search results), the sale will be considered as having sold through the promoted listing.
Yeah, it’s a stationary/writing desk. I see similar patterns in a lot of old (50’s – 80’s era) woodworking project books. My guess is someone made this in their home workshop using plans from a book or magazine. It seems these were popular at the same time as “telephone / gossip benches” were a thing.
In my absolute amateur opinion, it looks like a case where a beginning painter used a picture they found as a guide to help them learn proportion, composition and so on. Almost like tracing artwork.
Sigilini, then I guess I too will admit that I’ve seen a few pieces of furniture in there I really liked. They weren’t particularly well made (or what they appeared to be, material-wise), but still pretty cool looking. It’s definitely a great place to get ideas for my own woodworking projects.
When I walk around Hobby Lobby, all I see is cheap, fake Crap. The look of fake vintage is a huge turn off for me. I feel lied to and cheated. Like my intelligence has been insulted.
It seems like a dumb, useless idea to me. I have no idea how or why it would be needed or preferred. Or even desired. By anyone. Perhaps I’m only showing my ignorance.
