JasonGlaspey.com

Ok, so I’m a bit biased. But, I’m pretty proud of my old man, and he’s one of two mechanics at a really great auto repair shop in Eugene. They didn’t really have much of a website, so I put one together for them over the weekend. It’s small, but it does the job. Their shop is called Wagon Works.

However, I do have to say, if you’re in the market for a mechanic in Eugene, you’d have a hard time beating Wagon Works. He’s been working on my cars for as long as I’ve been driving, and has kept them running smooth and happily despite some of my best efforts. Once, “fixing” even meant going to work with a crowbar and a sledgehammer. But that’s another story.

They’re also the kind of shop I can easily promote, as he treats all his customers the same way he treats me. First, let’s make sure that car is safe to drive. Then, let’s talk about what it needs and what it doesn’t. If you can handle a few inconveniences, he’ll tell you which upgrades and fixes are worth doing now, and what you can put off until later (or never). It depends on what you want and can afford. But he’ll give you real options. He’s also the kind of guy who won’t charge you for shit you don’t need, and he won’t tell you to fix something just because they need to make a sale. They’re also about $25/hour lower than a lot of their competitors, because they have almost no overhead. Just two mechanics, working on cars. Saves them money, saves you money.

OK, as I said. I’m really proud of my dad, and I wanted to give him a little shout out. Now, go get your car fixed. Ask for Ron, and tell him his son loves him.

Last night at Urban Airship, Portland had the opportunity to welcome Jason Mendelson and Brad Feld of Foundry Group and the author’s of Venture Deals.

Through the evening, I kept lamenting the fact that I have decided to not take funding with Paleo Plan. Not for the money’s sake, but because when you are backed by guys like Jason and Brad, you get access to them as advisors, and their introductions to other mentors, not to mention possible partnerships.

Paleo Plan has been bootstrapped from day 1, and I’ve poured hours and hours and quite a few of my own dollars into making it what it is today, and I’m super excited to have the good fortune to run my own business (not to mention, some great help from my partner Neely).

However, I really do miss the opportunity to work with senior advisors, who are passionate about my company succeeding. I know I can reach out and find my own mentors, and I should. But I’ve been missing it thus, and am looking forward to trying to find some in Portland now that I really have come face to face with what I’m missing.

So, if you know me much, you know I fancy myself decent at parallel parking. Today, I feel I accomplished some of my best work to date. If you don’t like bragging, turn away now. ;)

I got this with only the slightest of bumping. Honest. The other cars didn’t even shimmy. And at most 4 “Austin Powers Turns” to get in.

That’s about 1 inch in the back.

And maybe 4-5 inches in the front.

And a nice total overall shot:

But this shows it the best.

Closing a door while another opens. Saying goodbye while saying hello.

blah blah blah.

Every time someone in the tech/web industry leaves a job, they write some sappy blog post about how it’s with a mix of “great sadness and overwhelming excitement that they say goodbye to great friends and begin a new journey…”

I hate those.

But, there is some truth to them–somewhere in there if you can get passed the sappiness. So, instead, I give you my own take. My Dear John Letter to Urban Airship.

Dear Urban.

Look, I think we should talk.

These past 9 months have been amazing. All the time we’ve spent getting to know each other. Talking about mobile, and the future. It’s been so exciting, so… expansive. What we could do, and where we could go, and how we were going to change the world. I’ve treasured those days.

And, you’ve been incredible. Really. I can say without a question that you’ve been the best job I’ve ever had. You’ve been fun, given me amazing opportunities to travel and meet cool people. We’ve laughed over beers and the Whiskey Wall, over Ping Pong and Darts and Arm Wrestling. Hell, you even put a gym in the basement. No other job has even come close to caring about me the way you do. The way your insurance covers me and Holly so completely, making sure even our teeth and our eyes are healthy. You’ve outdone yourself.

But you see, I’m going through some things. And, right now, I just don’t know that I’m ready for a job.

And before you ask. No. There isn’t another employer. I haven’t been running off to work for someone else while I say I’m home sick. I swear.

And it’s not somebody else’s desk that’s wooing me away.

It’s just that, right now, I need to be free. I need to work on other things.

No, don’t say that. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s that I need to be true to me right now.

I’ve been thinking about working on Paleo Plan full-time since I created it. You’ve seen me spending time with Paleo on nights and weekends, you know how much it means to me. I just want to give it a shot.

And look, we can still be friends. I’ll be just up the street at PIE. We’ll still bump into each other, and I want those to be happy times. I don’t want to sit here, trying to be everything you deserve, while in my heart, wondering what Paleo could be like. I want you to be happy, and you’ll find someone to fill that place in your building where I am now. And that person will be perfect for you. But it’s not me. I’m sorry.

And I mean it. I’ve loved our time together. All of you are so special to me and I’ve learned so much and grown so much being part of you. I’ll really miss you.

Jason

Yeah. I’m saying goodbye to Urban Airship and their amazing and talented team. The only thing that could pull me away was the chance to work on my own project (Paleo Plan), full-time, without the need for freelance. It’s been several years in the making, but I’m now there, and beginning Monday, will be working back at PIE–another project I’m in love with. :)

Thanks UA for a fantastic trip. You don’t even need my luck, you’re already killing it.

Over the past year of running Paleo Plan I’ve encountered just about every possible customer service request imaginable. I’d seen it all. People registering, not liking it, wanting a refund, people needing to change their information, people wanting specific information about this or that, regardless if that is what we offer in our plan or not.

People sometimes need help, and I’ve always felt that in this small, paleo community, I couldn’t afford to not do everything I could to accommodate people, or at least, give them a well-written response on why I couldn’t do something. And like I said, I’d seen it all.

Or so I thought.

Today, I got something that left me literally dumbfounded and at a complete loss for words. I got a piece of mail from a person asking if they could sign up, and if I would call them so they could order. They explained they didn’t have a computer, but wanted to join “Paleo Brands.”

I sat there for a while trying to figure out what to do. This woman had somehow gotten my address, and was hoping to hear back from me with information and meal plans, shopping lists, and recipes.

Every week we make PDFs for the meal plans and recipes, and I could easily print out a few of those and send them to her… but what about the recipes? We only have those online. And if she didn’t have a computer, our meal plans would be worthless.

I thought about printing those out too, but that would honestly take me a few hours to organize, and I just wasn’t quite ready to print out 70-100 recipes plus a few week’s of meal plans and shopping lists, and then send them to her.

After about 20 minutes of just mind-numbing bewilderment, I had an idea. Send her Robb Wolf’s book, The Paleo Solution. It is an amazing source of information, and it has a full month of meal plans and recipes in the back. It’s more than enough to get anyone started, and it is available at Amazon for $13. I probably couldn’t even ship the recipes to her for under that (I’m also on Prime, so I have free shipping).

So, with that, I wrote a little note in the Gift column, ordered the book, and hopefully, provided her with the information she needs.

I’m not sure it’s the best solution, but I felt I wanted to do something, and this seemed to work.

Running a company has taught me a tremendous amount about customer service, and I’ve also had the privilege of finding out how rewarding it can be to hopefully solve someone’s problems in a win-win way. Hopefully, this is one of those cases.

The hand-written letter is shown below.

Notice that she addressed it to HTTP Paleo Brands COM. I spend so much time on the computer each day, I forget that for lots of people in the world, URLs and domain names are confusing.