I turned 55 today. It’s not really a “big” birthday but it feels sort of like one. As one of my friends pointed out, I’m closer to 60 than to 50 (and feel free to point out that I might need new friends). Maybe in golf terms I’ve made the turn but there’s lots of real estate left to navigate.
The thing that keeps rattling around in my head is how different the world is on each birthday. When I was born, the last Russian forces were still leaving parts of Austria – leftovers from World War II – and West Germany became a country. A vaccine for polio – which killed and crippled millions – was approved. A Daley was mayor of Chicago. The President (Eisenhower) sent troops overseas (to Vietnam), and someone planted a bomb on an airplane (United flight 629) which blew the plane out of the sky. OK, so maybe some things haven’t really changed. But much more has, even if the scourge is now AIDS, we’re sending troops elsewhere, and the start of our current wars is actually about as far back as the end of WWII was to my birthday. But there’s the lesson. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: August 2010
The Double Nickles
Filed under Thinking Aloud, What's Going On
Getting Started
I had a lovely meeting this morning with a friend of a friend who’s trying to get started in the business world. She’s bright, well-educated, personable, and kind of lost. As we were talking, I realized that she’s in a situation similar to lots of folks so I thought today I’d briefly share some of the things we discussed in the hopes that since you’re on one side of the hiring equation or the other (looking for work or looking for workers) you’ll chime in. Continue reading
Filed under Growing up, Helpful Hints
False Advertising
Don’t you get angry when you buy a product and find that it’s not at all what you were expecting? Sometimes I’ll see new products in the supermarket and look at the package and try it. Of course, the beautiful dish on the box looks nothing like the soggy mess on my plate. I never know at whom to get mad – the marketer for doing their job or myself for being such a dope.
The same thing happens in catalogs or on-line. Lovely product descriptions that are only marginally like the thing that arrives in the box a few days later. The funny thing is that people do this every day and they often do it with the single most important thing they have to sell: themselves. Continue reading
Filed under Growing up, Helpful Hints, Reality checks
Consult Keith 