kniiiiives

I'm into knives. Not only for the beauty of them, but I use them too. I've always got a well-cared-for switchblade on me or near me that was made by a friend who hand-makes them with his dad and they're totally awesome.

My parents have given me some knives over the years, but they aren't INTO into them.

Until I showed them this one that has a little flashlight in it.



Now both of them want one for their bedside.

I tried to explain that the blade isn't long enough to do damage to an intruder (unless they happen to get the neck or inner thigh just right) even if they did manage to grab it when they're confused and disoriented in the middle of the night with a burglar standing over them.

They don't care.
They both want one.

And now I'm remembering the couple we got in the ER years ago who were both starting to get dementia. One thought they heard a noise in the middle of the night, went to investigate. The second woke to the noise the first made, went to investigate.

They both ended up calling the cops on each other from separate ends of the house and thankfully didn't have weapons to use on each other.

I'm betting on my mom winning in the above scenario so I'm going to get them the knives and hope they both aren't heading for dementia.

Mostly because I want one too :D

social media misman

I've got a social media manager named Kayin. She's a friend of the family living in Uncle Charlie's house. I agreed to "hiring" Kaylinas a social media manager in return for room and board at their house.

I knew from the beginning it was a bad idea (because she's definitely a product of her parents dad=manipulative bastard and mom=manipulative drama queen who starts shit, and both leave behind devastation), but it was either watch her live there for free or have some help with the social media stuff.

I don't have time to do the stuff I already should be doing, and social media always loses out when I prioritize what I need to do.

Granted, Kaylin is really nice to people who ask questions online and she gives them contact info for my artists when people want a tattoo.

She presented herself as a social media manager. Her deal sounded good. Like she knew what she was talking about.

I'm not social media illiterate, but I'm also not that good at it. I don't know the algorithms. I'm not super social so backlinks don't really happen for me other than the manufacturers I distribute for. Etc.

She's been doing this for almost 2 years now and it actually seems like she's hurting more than she's helping.

Even though she's only 30 years old, she has an old soul. Unfortunately, she doesn't realize it and thinks she's young and cool and cute. She's also manipulative-flirty and thinks it's cute.

So when she makes advertisements, it always looks similar and it always looks like something you'd see in a fashion catalog from the 60s.

She has no clue what's popular right now even though she's into fashion.

It's really sad that I know what's in fashion right now and she doesn't considering absolutely no interest in fashion and never have. I have 2 pairs of black jeans and 15 of the exact same black shirt that (before the pan/demic) I wore to the shop every day.

She also isn't good at tailoring her advertisements to her audience. We're advertising to artists, specifically tattoo artists, and everything she does is a 16-year-old girl living in the 60s.

It's boring with bland earthy tones. It's not exciting. It's not in line with any tattoo styles, of which there are TONS to choose from.

It's to the point where when my mom and I look at her advertisements, we're actually annoyed by them.

I KNOW tattoo artists. They have certain styles, and they don't like cute and/or fake. Kaylin is so fake and tries way too hard to be cute when she's not.

But if I fire her, Charlie won't start charging her rent, so I'm kinda stuck.

I also don't know if I'm expecting too much of her. I've never used a professional social media manager, but I've watched them work on projects I've been involved with online over the years including comic-con advertising.

The amount that Charlie isn't getting on rent would get us 60 advertisements a month created by people who know how to use graphic design programs and know how to use hashtags and link to products. None of which Kaylin seems to get even though I've shown her how to do it multiple times.

I also bought a subscription to Hoosuite so she could schedule posts. I gave her a lit of what times it's best to post adverts on each social media app. But she can't even figure Hootsuite out and when she does schedule posts, she does it for 10am across all social media.

I had her watch the instructional videos Hootsuite put out, but she still doesn't get it.

No one else in my family can use graphic design programs, none of us are artistic, and I'm the only one who has any useful knowledge of social media. Marissa has some, but it's just because she posts pics of her dinner on Insta and FB.

Any time I post an advertisement, I get tons of interaction (not as much as I could be getting if I was good at this), but the most Kaylin gets is maybe 2-10 views, no likes, no shares, no comments. And after 2 years of doing this, she has gotten exactly ONE click from Google posts to our store. ONE.

But I don't have time! I don't have time for a personal life or even enough time to do everything else for the shop that needs to be done.

I know the social media aspect is hurting the shop, but I feel stuck. If I could clone myself or Kaylin could step up, that might be another story.

*WHINE*