Service Must be Excellent AND Good AND Priced Right

Shortly after my University graduation, I worked for the local regional schoolboard as a floater, which means I went wherever there was a need (and there were LOTS of needs!). My favourite assignment was working for the Director's office. There, I performed admin support duties for the top folks at the board headquarters. I caught wind of high-level conversations - I worked in the media room - I opened mail and delivered updates. It was all very high level stuff and I was like a fly on the wall. It was fascinating, particularly knowing that my dad Charles Tomori had aspired to work there one day too (he had been a principal in that same board).

Another of my favourite assignments involved working in the print shop. There, we saw mandated policy bulletins arrive (from the aforementioned Director's Office), get plated, then rolled through the mechanisms of unwieldy machines that noisly shook and clanged away. I got to review outputs for alignment and errors before collating and/or boxing things up for distribution throughout dozens of schools and offices (often by me!). Seeing both ends of the spectrum from inputs to BIG ideas through to outputs and distribution, was never a dull day. That they paid me just made it all that much more satisfying. It was at the tail end of my tenure at the school board where I built a new student database to house Ontario Student Records (OSR's) and then moved to teaching community internet classes. My first customers came from those classes and I ventured out as an entrepreneur from that nice little ramp.

In that printshop, they had these funny little signs that reflected the philosophy of the 2 gents who ran the joint. One read: "You want it when?" (with a little cartoon character rolling with laughter). Another read: "You can have it fast, cheap or excellent - pick any two". That one made me laugh because the guys in the shop always seemed to deliver on all three of these expectations. I took inspiration from them and to this day, I hold the view that none of the three should displace either of the other two.

In every role I had there and at other positions, then finally in my entrepreneurial pursuits, one thing has remained steadfast: Every Day Is Filled With Problems, yet every day, those problems are opportunities to do something useful and make a mark.

When I was a kid, Crystal Beach had a theme park that was filled with rollercoasters and bumper cars and ferris wheels and hawkers. The image that stands out the most for me is that of the Wack-A-Mole game. I might be dating myself here or you might actually know the game (or perhaps a digital version of the game!). For certain, holding a big mallet and smashing each "mole" as he popped up from the game console was a challenge of reflex and hand-eye coordination. Most importantly, it required non-stop attention and an eagerness to keep the moles from popping up and staying up. One would win the game by playing the longest. Yet, the faster you wacked a mole back down, the faster they seemed to come up. You knew you were destined to be bested at some point, but the fun was in the challenge of trying to keep up.

Business is like that. And, I love it.

Do you need a company who LOVES to solve problems fast and reliably and at reasonable cost? Give us a call.

Do you like our philosophical approach to business? Drop us a line. We look forward to working with like-minded people and companies.