Tag Archives: advice

December 24, 2020 · 1:42 pm

Problems With You People

This will be the last post of this annus horribilis. Beginning next week, I’ll be posting the most-read posts of this year. I’m writing this Christmas Eve, the morning after Festivus. If you’re unfamiliar with this holiday, you can read up on it here or, even better, watch the video below.



So it’s in the spirit of Festivus that I say I got a lotta problems with you people, and now you’re going to hear about it! That’s right – I’m ending the year with a little self-indulgence but I hope some of it rings true.

First, what kind of idiot conflates science with politics? I refer, of course, to those folks who deem wearing a mask or staying at home a violation of their fundamental freedoms. Here’s the problem. Your freedoms end where mine begin (and vice versa). You have no right to infect me, even unknowingly. I’ve written many times here that each of us should know our limitations, and unless you have an advanced degree in virology or epidemiology, maybe you ought to be listening to those who do when it comes to dealing with the horrible pandemic. Rather than violating temporary bans that officials place on bars, restaurants, assembly, etc., maybe you ought to look at how other countries have been dealing with the same issues and what their results have been. I think you’ll see that there are solutions that have kept the citizenry and many businesses quite safe while reducing the incidence of infection and death.

While we’re on the topic, some of you have got to quit believing everything you read on the Internet. Here is an article published in Forbes (a reputable source) that discusses how to identify a reputable source of information along with a list of sources you can check. Get your news from these places and you’ll be less likely to fall for “fake news.” More importantly, you won’t do your friends and others a disservice by spreading lies. You don’t like being lied to, do you? Neither does anyone else.

When I traveled with my eldest child in Italy many years ago, one thing she took away from our nightly dinners was that life is too short for sh$tty wine. What that really means is to treat yourself well. Don’t be so hard on yourselves. I realize that not everyone can afford everything they’d like to have but spending a bit more or fewer things or even just granting yourself an hour to do nothing. The problem I have is that as an older person now I realize I should have taken more time to smell the flowers. Maybe the pandemic has given you that insight was well since we’ve all got a bit more time without commutes, business trips, etc.

My final grievance is this: we need to be nicer. The pandemic has brought out the worst in many of us. Just be nice, as the T-shirt from one of the barbecue joints I frequent reads. Wearing your damn mask is being nice. Not wearing it is being disrespectful to the rest of us (you don’t want to kill someone’s grandma, do you?). Getting the vaccine when it’s your turn is being nice (funny how many folks who denied the virus was really a problem are rushing to the front of the line, right?). One silver lining of this hellish year has been that it demonstrates how we really are all in this life together and how many of the people we depend on might not have been on our radar before. Don’t forget that when this year and this virus are behind us. 

Happy New Year. See you in ’21!

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December 11, 2020 · 4:34 pm

Fritters

Let’s think about fritters this Foodie Friday. If you’re an American, fritters are usually apple or corn. The former type is sold in donut shops while the latter might be on a menu as an appetizer or side dish. Occasionally you find other types of fritters. Conch comes to mind as do other sea creatures as being sometimes seen in the fritter manifestation.

Of course, that raises the question of what exactly IS a fritter? Is it a puffy, round doughnut-like thing covered in icing and filled with apple? Is it a ping-pong ball-sized lump of batter? Technically, it’s any form of battered meat, seafood, vegetable, or fruit which is then fried. There are sweet fritters and there are savory fritters, and that definition opens up a lot of other foods to fall into the fritter category. Tempura is a fritter. They serve fritters of peas or pineapple or potato with fish and chips in England. Were the potato latkes folks had for Hanukah fritters? They might be, actually.

Why do I bring this up? Because depending on where you are in the world, a fritter can be very different. It raises the issue of YOU knowing what you mean when you say something but your listener just might not be understanding your words in the way you intend. I think we’ve all had the experience of telling a friend or family member or coworker something only to later find that he or she completely misunderstood you—or never heard you at all. There are a lot of reasons why this happens and one of them is that the meaning of any of the words is unclear.

We’ve all played “telephone”, the game where one person says a longish (12+words) sentence to someone who then repeats it to the next person and so on. How often does the original sentence come back intact? Rarely, in my experience, and the likelihood decreases when we use words like fritter that can have many meanings (and that’s just in its noun form!).

What you think you are saying may mean something quite different to someone else—particularly if you start in the middle of a thought, choose a wrong word or speak too quickly. You might order an apple fritter expecting something you’d get in a donut shop and end up with a dough ball that looks like a hushpuppy containing some apple. Remember that we don’t speak to hear ourselves talk (at least I hope not). We speak to communicate with others and making sure that they understand what we’re saying is just as important as what it is we’re saying. Otherwise, we’re just frittering our ability to communicate away. You with me?

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December 4, 2020 · 4:02 pm

Savory Cookies

Let’s consider, this Foodie Friday, the so-called savory cookie. I don’t know about you but when I think of cookies I think about sweet or maybe even salty/sweet. Savory is not an adjective that comes to mind and yet savory cookies are, apparently, a thing.

There’s a temptation here to revert to the “is a hot dog a sandwich” question we pondered in this space not long ago. When you look at what’s in many of them – flour, sugar, butter – they read like most cookies. It’s the addition of the savory items – herbs, cheese, more salt – that transforms them. Of course, biscuits (in the Southern sense) and crackers have the same butter/sugar/flour components as well, so why are these cookies and not crackers or biscuits?

I’m not here to debate if these cookies are, well, cookies. Instead, I’d like us to think for a minute about our need to label them. Notice how when you affix a label – in this case, cookie – you also affix a stereotype (cookies are sweet!). That’s our business point today.

I’ve found that people tend to label other people. The marketing guy. The accounting gal. The reality is that placing labels on people, or stereotyping them, results from making general assumptions about an individual with little or no personal knowledge about them. I’m an older guy. What could someone my age possibly know about social media marketing or technology? Bad assumption, by the way. Phrases like “OK, Boomer” are manifestations of a stereotype. So is thinking that a woman with children is less devoted to her work and career than a single man. While some blondes may, in fact, be dumb, so are quite a few folks with dark hair.

Labeling people is counterproductive. It may cause you to make assumptions about assigning work, partnering in projects, or buying from someone. I once had a boss who gave me a raise that was lower than my older peers because “what does a kid (I was 26, my peers were in their 40s) need with that kind of money?” I was the savory cookie and he had no clue what exactly to call me so he called me a kid, a kid who obviously shouldn’t be paid like his adult peers.

I’m keeping an open mind about savory cookies. You should too, just like you should keep an open mind about the people you meet in business. Very few of us fit into stereotypical pigeonholes. I don’t. Do you?

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