Sometimes I worry that technology is moving so fast that I have no hope of keeping up. For example, I know how to use an Excel Spreadsheet. That is I can handle the basics. When I watch my younger counterparts in the office manipulating data, changing scenarios and moving numbers around at the speed of light, I think about God’s wisdom when he created retirement. (On the seventh day He rested.)
Coping with technology in the workplace is not an easy task for people over a certain age. Some of us can still remember when an adding machine had numbers you punched and a crank to get those numbers imprinted on a slip of paper. The idea that paper itself, not to mention the machines, would one day be unnecessary occurred only to the wizards that invented the technology.
Adapting to rapid change isn’t limited to the work place. Even as consumers we are forced to deal with the intricacies of an electronic, cyber driven world and the seeming absurdities of time saving technologies. The other day I was trying to get a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich at a local eatery. The woman behind the counter entered the information into the cash register. Did I say cash register? This was a high powered, intelligent, touch screen marvel that happens to dispense cash but more importantly perhaps, collects oodles of information about our preferences. Unfortunately, she made a mistake. No doubt you’ve had this experience a time or two. She was flummoxed by the register, immediately trumping my blood pressure medication in the process. I knew we would be extending our relationship well beyond the amount of time it usually takes to exchange the money, get the coffee cup and move on. I’m sure she was a nice lady but I had more important things to do. My cell phone call was ringing.
Our transaction (and relationship) over, I walked away thinking that technology which is supposed to make life easier often does the opposite. With an old fashioned cash register the woman would have punched the keys, the drawer would have opened and she would have handed me my change…quickly. If she made a mistake she would not have needed a manager to help her figure out how to decline white cheddar and insert pepper jack cheese in its place. Although the guy making the sandwich was not more than ten feet away, she did not have the option of saying, “Yo! Sam make that pepper jack instead of white cheddar.” The correct cheese had to be in the computer for him to do his job and for me to get my change.
As we get older it’s tempting to assume that everything was better in the so-called old days. On reflection though, the restaurant incident isn’t exactly a prima facie example of technology run amok. For one thing, the information collected by these computer driven registers helps managers to manage their inventories and keep their costs down. That keeps our prices lower. For another, it’s not a bad thing when proprietors can validate consumer preferences rather than fly by the seat of their pants. For my money we would still be able to buy Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy if only Big Brother had come around sooner.
Then too, in the old days we didn’t use credit cards for everything and traffic in stores wasn’t nearly as heavy as it is today. Lines would certainly be longer if we didn’t have technology. The truth is that putting up with a delay caused by an occasional mistake is a small price to pay for progress.
When it comes to technology there are always tradeoffs. Like wonderful new curative drugs, side effects are found in the fine print. Great technical advances have drawbacks.
Recently, my friend Chuck observed that a major difference in today’s technology advances is that they are no longer passive. Radio and TV were passive advances. Our grandparents sat in the parlor and gathered around the radio to be entertained and hear the news. Not so today. From video games to blogging, it’s an interactive world. So many jobs today demand creativity engineered by computerized applications. We can no longer rely on the geek in the tiny cubicle to “work this contraption.”
Listen: We can spend as much free time as we like remembering the good old days. But the deal is this: Get in the game or you will have even more time to reminisce. Now, when is the next Excel class?
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
You Struck Out? Wonderful! It Wasn't Always Like That
I was talking to my friend Evelyn the other day about childhood. Specifically, we were reminiscing about summers spent in the streets playing baseball, riding bikes and running around the neighborhood seemingly without parental oversight. As recently as 40 years ago it was still possible for mothers to tell their kids to go out and play without worrying about what might happen to them.
When I was a kid we spent summer days playing hardball in the street, touch football and other ball games from morning till dinnertime. After dinner we were back out there for more. We organized ourselves into teams choosing sides, the older boys usually doing the choosing. If there were an odd number of kids it might mean as the youngest or the worst player you were left out. It happened every day. Not a single kid in my neighborhood had a nervous breakdown because he didn’t get picked that day.
We didn’t have adults coaching us either. No fathers showed up wearing baseball caps, ready to supervise our games. We didn’t have to put up with practice two nights a week so we could play one game on Saturday morning. We played two and sometimes three games a day, often with as little as three guys on each side. A pitcher a first baseman an outfielder and a little imagination were all we needed. Our mother’s did not come out to watch us play. In fact if a boy’s mother showed up it usually meant he would be leaving and we would need little Jimmy after all if we wanted to keep playing.
And you can be sure that striking out with the bases loaded was never met with a few words of encouragement let alone praise. In those days one of your teammates would no doubt say, “You stink Lenny. Why don’t you go play with dolls?” It hurt to hear those words but the next day we were out there again trying to make like Mickey Mantle. In the process we learned something about resilience.
The world has changed beyond our wildest imaginations since I was a kid. Homogeneous neighborhoods gave way to subdivisions around the same time married women entered the workforce. Without all the moms around to secretly keep an eye on their progeny, giving the kids free run of the neighborhood became impossible.
Fast forward to the brave new world we live in today. I have attended my grandson’s little league games. “Way to go Timmy. Nice swing.” This after the kid swung three times and missed a ball sitting big as a grapefruit on a tee. I find myself wondering how these kids are going to cope with failure and criticism later in life when everything they do is met with a cheer.
The praise is constant in our politically correct world now. The experts have somehow convinced us that we can do permanent damage to a kid’s psyche if we even hint that he’s not as good as every other kid out there. Results are irrelevant. Effort, talent and determination are not important if you’re a kid. Apparently, showing up is the great equalizer. The really stupid thing about this is that the kid getting a pat on the back for letting the ball go through his legs can easily tell the difference between the tepid sign of approval (You’re still a good person Jason) and the all out riot that takes place when one of the other kids manages to hit the ball over somebody’s head. Imagine an error prone boy's shock twenty years later when his boss tells him he’s fired if he doesn’t make a sale soon. (But I looked for the customer’s office. Is it my fault I couldn’t find it on MapQuest?)
There’s probably nothing to be done about this. Certainly I’m not suggesting that adults tell the lousy players they stink. But that type of talk isn’t even allowed kid to kid. If one of them were to say, “Hey Brian, we lost because of you,” any parents overhearing that remark would be all over the poor kid who said it, making sure he knew that it’s better to say nothing if telling the truth will hurt another boy’s tender feelings.
Who knows, maybe it’s better this way. I never liked being told I wasn’t any good at something. Inevitably though, it happens. I get criticized. It hurts. But the next day I just try to make like Andy Rooney again.
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
When I was a kid we spent summer days playing hardball in the street, touch football and other ball games from morning till dinnertime. After dinner we were back out there for more. We organized ourselves into teams choosing sides, the older boys usually doing the choosing. If there were an odd number of kids it might mean as the youngest or the worst player you were left out. It happened every day. Not a single kid in my neighborhood had a nervous breakdown because he didn’t get picked that day.
We didn’t have adults coaching us either. No fathers showed up wearing baseball caps, ready to supervise our games. We didn’t have to put up with practice two nights a week so we could play one game on Saturday morning. We played two and sometimes three games a day, often with as little as three guys on each side. A pitcher a first baseman an outfielder and a little imagination were all we needed. Our mother’s did not come out to watch us play. In fact if a boy’s mother showed up it usually meant he would be leaving and we would need little Jimmy after all if we wanted to keep playing.
And you can be sure that striking out with the bases loaded was never met with a few words of encouragement let alone praise. In those days one of your teammates would no doubt say, “You stink Lenny. Why don’t you go play with dolls?” It hurt to hear those words but the next day we were out there again trying to make like Mickey Mantle. In the process we learned something about resilience.
The world has changed beyond our wildest imaginations since I was a kid. Homogeneous neighborhoods gave way to subdivisions around the same time married women entered the workforce. Without all the moms around to secretly keep an eye on their progeny, giving the kids free run of the neighborhood became impossible.
Fast forward to the brave new world we live in today. I have attended my grandson’s little league games. “Way to go Timmy. Nice swing.” This after the kid swung three times and missed a ball sitting big as a grapefruit on a tee. I find myself wondering how these kids are going to cope with failure and criticism later in life when everything they do is met with a cheer.
The praise is constant in our politically correct world now. The experts have somehow convinced us that we can do permanent damage to a kid’s psyche if we even hint that he’s not as good as every other kid out there. Results are irrelevant. Effort, talent and determination are not important if you’re a kid. Apparently, showing up is the great equalizer. The really stupid thing about this is that the kid getting a pat on the back for letting the ball go through his legs can easily tell the difference between the tepid sign of approval (You’re still a good person Jason) and the all out riot that takes place when one of the other kids manages to hit the ball over somebody’s head. Imagine an error prone boy's shock twenty years later when his boss tells him he’s fired if he doesn’t make a sale soon. (But I looked for the customer’s office. Is it my fault I couldn’t find it on MapQuest?)
There’s probably nothing to be done about this. Certainly I’m not suggesting that adults tell the lousy players they stink. But that type of talk isn’t even allowed kid to kid. If one of them were to say, “Hey Brian, we lost because of you,” any parents overhearing that remark would be all over the poor kid who said it, making sure he knew that it’s better to say nothing if telling the truth will hurt another boy’s tender feelings.
Who knows, maybe it’s better this way. I never liked being told I wasn’t any good at something. Inevitably though, it happens. I get criticized. It hurts. But the next day I just try to make like Andy Rooney again.
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Secret to Good Customer Service
“Good morning!”
“Can I help you find something?”
“Did you find everything you were looking for?”
These days, shopping in a supermarket or chain drug store is a love fest. Everyone working there cares about me. Whether the employees are high school students working part time or grizzled veterans with worn out name badges, they are always glad to see me and happy to help. Have you noticed this too?
How can that be? A lot of these people are paid low wages. And let’s face it, high school kids aren’t even sure you exist if you’re over a certain age. Any actual eye contact is purely accidental. So how do store managers persuade their employees to behave with such grace? Do they just have a knack for picking happy people, the kind that would be soup kitchen volunteers if they didn’t happen to see an opening for a supermarket cashier? Is the training so fantastic that employees are motivated to provide consistently high levels of service with multitudes of smiles?
Perhaps the orientation session goes something like this:
“Class, when a customer walks into our store looking for milk and bread he is counting on you for more than just the correct change. His entire day, nay his very life, depends on your smile, your encouraging words and your helpful suggestions.”
“But Mr. Kelloggs, a lot of the customers are talking on their cell phones while they walk down the aisles and even when they check out.”
“That’s true Ms. Del Monte but that is merely a sign that they crave attention. We want them to think of our store as an extension of their lives, beyond their cell phones, a place where the price of ground beef runs a distant second to the joy they see in your face whenever they glance your way even as they decide between peach pie and pound cake.”
Something is very wrong here. I mean if you were a student making the minimum wage, hoping to be the next American Idol winner, would customer satisfaction be a priority for you? The fact that your drug store’s sales only rank 29th in the region, probably doesn’t keep you awake at night. Your manager may fret but she’s trying to climb the corporate ladder.
So how do they do it? How do these stores whip their employees into shape? Ready? They use secret shoppers. Yes, they hire people to shop in their stores and spy on their employees. A friend of mine who manages a department in one of the big supermarket chains let me in on the secret. It works like this. Employees are told how to act and what to say. In his store for example, employees are expected to approach customers based on the so-called ten-by-ten rule, which means if a customer is within ten feet of you for ten seconds, you ask how their day is going and whether you can help them.
If a secret shopper happens to catch an employee in the act of behaving like a normal human being, i.e.; minding his own business, the employee is written up. Three write-ups can get you canned.
Since my friend’s revelation, I have become a less enthusiastic shopper. Before I learned about secret shoppers, I was happy to believe store employees were excited to see me. Now I am suspicious of everything they say. The other day I stopped at the local drug store to pick up a carton of milk. It was 7:30 a.m. The woman at the register said, “Would you like to add a couple of Kit Kat bars to your order?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Why would I want a Kit Kat bar at this hour?” I said. “Is it something good to dunk in my milk for breakfast?” She got very nervous. I could see her expression change from a bland smile to a worried frown. Immediately I assured her that I wasn’t a secret shopper. She wasn’t convinced though. She said, “Oh, I treat all customers the same no matter what.” I felt bad and resolved to be more careful in the future, unless of course, the service is bad.
What’s it like to be a secret shopper? I can only imagine the pep talk managers must give people who take these jobs. “As a secret shopper you can help us make sure that customers get what they need. Someone who wants a Crenshaw melon should be able to ask any employee where to find it. Don’t you agree?” Indeed and I’ll bet the job pays more than minimum wage too.
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
“Can I help you find something?”
“Did you find everything you were looking for?”
These days, shopping in a supermarket or chain drug store is a love fest. Everyone working there cares about me. Whether the employees are high school students working part time or grizzled veterans with worn out name badges, they are always glad to see me and happy to help. Have you noticed this too?
How can that be? A lot of these people are paid low wages. And let’s face it, high school kids aren’t even sure you exist if you’re over a certain age. Any actual eye contact is purely accidental. So how do store managers persuade their employees to behave with such grace? Do they just have a knack for picking happy people, the kind that would be soup kitchen volunteers if they didn’t happen to see an opening for a supermarket cashier? Is the training so fantastic that employees are motivated to provide consistently high levels of service with multitudes of smiles?
Perhaps the orientation session goes something like this:
“Class, when a customer walks into our store looking for milk and bread he is counting on you for more than just the correct change. His entire day, nay his very life, depends on your smile, your encouraging words and your helpful suggestions.”
“But Mr. Kelloggs, a lot of the customers are talking on their cell phones while they walk down the aisles and even when they check out.”
“That’s true Ms. Del Monte but that is merely a sign that they crave attention. We want them to think of our store as an extension of their lives, beyond their cell phones, a place where the price of ground beef runs a distant second to the joy they see in your face whenever they glance your way even as they decide between peach pie and pound cake.”
Something is very wrong here. I mean if you were a student making the minimum wage, hoping to be the next American Idol winner, would customer satisfaction be a priority for you? The fact that your drug store’s sales only rank 29th in the region, probably doesn’t keep you awake at night. Your manager may fret but she’s trying to climb the corporate ladder.
So how do they do it? How do these stores whip their employees into shape? Ready? They use secret shoppers. Yes, they hire people to shop in their stores and spy on their employees. A friend of mine who manages a department in one of the big supermarket chains let me in on the secret. It works like this. Employees are told how to act and what to say. In his store for example, employees are expected to approach customers based on the so-called ten-by-ten rule, which means if a customer is within ten feet of you for ten seconds, you ask how their day is going and whether you can help them.
If a secret shopper happens to catch an employee in the act of behaving like a normal human being, i.e.; minding his own business, the employee is written up. Three write-ups can get you canned.
Since my friend’s revelation, I have become a less enthusiastic shopper. Before I learned about secret shoppers, I was happy to believe store employees were excited to see me. Now I am suspicious of everything they say. The other day I stopped at the local drug store to pick up a carton of milk. It was 7:30 a.m. The woman at the register said, “Would you like to add a couple of Kit Kat bars to your order?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Why would I want a Kit Kat bar at this hour?” I said. “Is it something good to dunk in my milk for breakfast?” She got very nervous. I could see her expression change from a bland smile to a worried frown. Immediately I assured her that I wasn’t a secret shopper. She wasn’t convinced though. She said, “Oh, I treat all customers the same no matter what.” I felt bad and resolved to be more careful in the future, unless of course, the service is bad.
What’s it like to be a secret shopper? I can only imagine the pep talk managers must give people who take these jobs. “As a secret shopper you can help us make sure that customers get what they need. Someone who wants a Crenshaw melon should be able to ask any employee where to find it. Don’t you agree?” Indeed and I’ll bet the job pays more than minimum wage too.
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Air Conditioners Never Die in Winter
So our air conditioner decided to die. Naturally they never die when it’s 80 degrees. There is something built into the mechanism that guarantees that they will only fail when the temperature is above 90 degrees. It works the same way with washing machines. They never fail until the tub is full of water and there are six loads waiting to be done. Car batteries never die in your garage on a Saturday morning in March when you have all day to do something about it. No, batteries go to heaven on Tuesday nights after Sears closes and you are parked in the mall in twenty degree weather.
No one in the history of this planet has ever had a water heater die quietly after she’s taken her shower on a blustery winter day. Water heaters are programmed to fail at six o’clock in the morning on the day you have the big interview or the meeting with an important client. If you check the fine print on your warranty it says it very plainly: Within 30 days after the expiration of your warranty, this unit will break down and die at a time most inconvenient for you in accordance with the manufacturer’s secret agreement with installers that will then charge you outrageous fees to replace the unit that you cannot live without.
I mentioned my plight to a friend of mine but got no satisfaction. The only thing this guy wanted to talk about was life before there was air conditioning, as if reminding me there was a time when sweating to death was a routine side-effect of summer would make me feel better. Listen: We keep things ultra cool in our home. The thermometer in my hot little office says its 79.4 degrees in here. Now for most people 79 degrees probably doesn’t sound that bad. I can hear some of you saying, “What’s the big deal? That’s only about nine degrees warmer than usual.”
You don’t understand. You don’t live with my wife. Around our house it’s never more than 63 degrees regardless of the weather outside. We set the thermostat to 60 when we retire for the evening. Whether it’s 90 degrees outside or 30, that’s the setting. Sometimes I pretend I’m a detective on a stakeout who’s grabbing some shuteye in a meat locker, waiting for the bad guys to show up. As if that’s not enough, we have a ceiling fan with a torque comparable to a prop plane traveling at 300 MPH. A temperature in the seventies is unheard of in our house. Since I doubt we’ll be getting a replacement unit installed before the day is over, it will no doubt feel like a night in the tropics this evening. I wonder if I have any Marriott points I can use tonight.
In the old days, the ones my friend was romanticizing about in the cool of his air conditioned office, we would endure the day watching black and white TV. The windows would be wide open. For relief we took turns standing in front of the window with the fan. Through the rotating fan blades we could glimpse the loading dock of the turtle soup factory across the street. The smell of the turtles was channeled into our living room by the fan. We were too hot to be nauseous.
We alternated between watching TV and checking out the goings on at the factory. The factory was usually more promising. A sea turtle could escape into the street for example. My mother would give us iced tea if we behaved ourselves which meant that we didn’t complain every other minute that it was hot and why didn’t we have a pool like the kids who lived in houses that had window air conditioners?
When there was a real heat wave it stayed miserable even at night. Since there was only that one window fan in the living room, we all slept on the floor. My mother got the couch while my father and my brothers and I camped out on the floor in make shift beds my mother prepared. I can remember with complete clarity the impossibility of sleep under those conditions. Around four in the morning the combination of the outside air and the fan would cool things long enough to give us a chance to sleep. Promptly at six the first tractor trailer would pull up to the turtle soup factory and blow the horn.
I suppose I could go on but the repair guy is here. Now where did I put my checkbook?
Copyright Len Serafino 2009. All rights reserved.
No one in the history of this planet has ever had a water heater die quietly after she’s taken her shower on a blustery winter day. Water heaters are programmed to fail at six o’clock in the morning on the day you have the big interview or the meeting with an important client. If you check the fine print on your warranty it says it very plainly: Within 30 days after the expiration of your warranty, this unit will break down and die at a time most inconvenient for you in accordance with the manufacturer’s secret agreement with installers that will then charge you outrageous fees to replace the unit that you cannot live without.
I mentioned my plight to a friend of mine but got no satisfaction. The only thing this guy wanted to talk about was life before there was air conditioning, as if reminding me there was a time when sweating to death was a routine side-effect of summer would make me feel better. Listen: We keep things ultra cool in our home. The thermometer in my hot little office says its 79.4 degrees in here. Now for most people 79 degrees probably doesn’t sound that bad. I can hear some of you saying, “What’s the big deal? That’s only about nine degrees warmer than usual.”
You don’t understand. You don’t live with my wife. Around our house it’s never more than 63 degrees regardless of the weather outside. We set the thermostat to 60 when we retire for the evening. Whether it’s 90 degrees outside or 30, that’s the setting. Sometimes I pretend I’m a detective on a stakeout who’s grabbing some shuteye in a meat locker, waiting for the bad guys to show up. As if that’s not enough, we have a ceiling fan with a torque comparable to a prop plane traveling at 300 MPH. A temperature in the seventies is unheard of in our house. Since I doubt we’ll be getting a replacement unit installed before the day is over, it will no doubt feel like a night in the tropics this evening. I wonder if I have any Marriott points I can use tonight.
In the old days, the ones my friend was romanticizing about in the cool of his air conditioned office, we would endure the day watching black and white TV. The windows would be wide open. For relief we took turns standing in front of the window with the fan. Through the rotating fan blades we could glimpse the loading dock of the turtle soup factory across the street. The smell of the turtles was channeled into our living room by the fan. We were too hot to be nauseous.
We alternated between watching TV and checking out the goings on at the factory. The factory was usually more promising. A sea turtle could escape into the street for example. My mother would give us iced tea if we behaved ourselves which meant that we didn’t complain every other minute that it was hot and why didn’t we have a pool like the kids who lived in houses that had window air conditioners?
When there was a real heat wave it stayed miserable even at night. Since there was only that one window fan in the living room, we all slept on the floor. My mother got the couch while my father and my brothers and I camped out on the floor in make shift beds my mother prepared. I can remember with complete clarity the impossibility of sleep under those conditions. Around four in the morning the combination of the outside air and the fan would cool things long enough to give us a chance to sleep. Promptly at six the first tractor trailer would pull up to the turtle soup factory and blow the horn.
I suppose I could go on but the repair guy is here. Now where did I put my checkbook?
Copyright Len Serafino 2009. All rights reserved.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Drowning in Books
I’m drowning in books. There’s a mini library in my office. I love books and once I read a book I find it almost impossible to part with it. Space is a consideration however. No matter how attached I become to the books I’ve read, there comes a time when, like the laundry overflowing the hamper, something has to give.
So, there I was, going through my office bookshelves the other day trying to decide which ones to put up for adoption. It’s usually a good bet that the local library will take loving care of them. As I browsed the rows of books it occurred to me that if I went by the titles alone, I could probably provide an accurate barometer of how well my career was going when I bought them. When I purchased Socratic Selling for example, I’ll bet I had just made a big sale to an important customer. I must have been feeling intelligent and full of unwarranted assumptions about my ability to understand Socrates, a prerequisite for anyone reading that book. On the other hand, I was probably feeling desperate when I picked up Send ‘Em One White Sock.
One of my books is entitled, Your Marketing Sucks. Sitting next to it is a book called, Buyers are Liars and Sellers are Too. I don’t recall being particularly angry with the world, but these titles certainly suggest I had some unresolved issues. By the time I bought How to Become a Rainmaker I must have been feeling much better.
Not all of my books are about sales and marketing of course. My collection includes 21 titles on public speaking alone. Is it possible there are 21 ways to make eye contact with your audience? When it comes time to prepare a speech it’s not like I consult any of these tomes for guidance or inspiration. I just write the speech, make sure there’s a beginning, middle and an end and hope that I get through my talk without valium or needing a 911 call to revive me. One thing I can tell you for certain is this: When you’re in front of an audience, having read Do Not Go Naked into Your Next Presentation will not make you sound like the next Martin Luther King Jr.
Then there are books on writing. I’ve stopped counting how many of those I have. Have you ever thought about writing a book? Permit me to offer you a tiny bit of advice. Buying a book that promises to teach you how to write one is no place to start. Over the years I’ve been a real sucker for books on writing. It’s easy to fall into that trap. “Say, I think I should write a novel. I know… I’ll buy a book that will show me how it’s done.” Thus, The Weekend Novelist, for example. By the time I finished reading that book I had decided to write a play. The Elements of Playwriting sits on my bookshelf next to the place I was going to put my Tony Award. You get the idea. Naturally, I have two books on column writing, neither of which is helping me get this column written.
I have even more books in my loft. I have a lot of biographies, works of fiction and social commentary. I still have a few books that were required reading in high school, like A Separate Peace, Red Badge of Courage and Jack London’s Call of the Wild. These shelves get overloaded too. When I absolutely must have more space for new books I wait until my wife is out shopping so I can pull hers off the shelf and take them to the library. I’m certain she would approve. Of course she may be dropping some of mine off when I’m out of town. I haven’t noticed really.
So why is it so hard to part with my books? You might think I’m eager to impress people with what I’ve read. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if you picked one of these books and asked me to discuss it, I’d be in serious trouble unless it was made into a movie that I happened to catch on cable last week. I think deep down I believe that one day I’ll have time to read all of them again at a leisurely pace.
When that day comes I know just where I’m going to start too, at the beginning, which for me was Fun with Dick and Jane.
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
So, there I was, going through my office bookshelves the other day trying to decide which ones to put up for adoption. It’s usually a good bet that the local library will take loving care of them. As I browsed the rows of books it occurred to me that if I went by the titles alone, I could probably provide an accurate barometer of how well my career was going when I bought them. When I purchased Socratic Selling for example, I’ll bet I had just made a big sale to an important customer. I must have been feeling intelligent and full of unwarranted assumptions about my ability to understand Socrates, a prerequisite for anyone reading that book. On the other hand, I was probably feeling desperate when I picked up Send ‘Em One White Sock.
One of my books is entitled, Your Marketing Sucks. Sitting next to it is a book called, Buyers are Liars and Sellers are Too. I don’t recall being particularly angry with the world, but these titles certainly suggest I had some unresolved issues. By the time I bought How to Become a Rainmaker I must have been feeling much better.
Not all of my books are about sales and marketing of course. My collection includes 21 titles on public speaking alone. Is it possible there are 21 ways to make eye contact with your audience? When it comes time to prepare a speech it’s not like I consult any of these tomes for guidance or inspiration. I just write the speech, make sure there’s a beginning, middle and an end and hope that I get through my talk without valium or needing a 911 call to revive me. One thing I can tell you for certain is this: When you’re in front of an audience, having read Do Not Go Naked into Your Next Presentation will not make you sound like the next Martin Luther King Jr.
Then there are books on writing. I’ve stopped counting how many of those I have. Have you ever thought about writing a book? Permit me to offer you a tiny bit of advice. Buying a book that promises to teach you how to write one is no place to start. Over the years I’ve been a real sucker for books on writing. It’s easy to fall into that trap. “Say, I think I should write a novel. I know… I’ll buy a book that will show me how it’s done.” Thus, The Weekend Novelist, for example. By the time I finished reading that book I had decided to write a play. The Elements of Playwriting sits on my bookshelf next to the place I was going to put my Tony Award. You get the idea. Naturally, I have two books on column writing, neither of which is helping me get this column written.
I have even more books in my loft. I have a lot of biographies, works of fiction and social commentary. I still have a few books that were required reading in high school, like A Separate Peace, Red Badge of Courage and Jack London’s Call of the Wild. These shelves get overloaded too. When I absolutely must have more space for new books I wait until my wife is out shopping so I can pull hers off the shelf and take them to the library. I’m certain she would approve. Of course she may be dropping some of mine off when I’m out of town. I haven’t noticed really.
So why is it so hard to part with my books? You might think I’m eager to impress people with what I’ve read. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if you picked one of these books and asked me to discuss it, I’d be in serious trouble unless it was made into a movie that I happened to catch on cable last week. I think deep down I believe that one day I’ll have time to read all of them again at a leisurely pace.
When that day comes I know just where I’m going to start too, at the beginning, which for me was Fun with Dick and Jane.
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Flying Soon? You'll Survive
I’ve been reading a book entitled The Survivors Club. It’s all about why some people survive and others don’t. It’s a fascinating read. One section that really got my attention was the one about flying. As someone who flies regularly, I was more than a little bit interested in learning anything I could that would improve my chances of surviving a plane crash. I know what you’re thinking. Is this discussion absolutely necessary? Let me start with the good news.
Everybody doesn’t automatically die when a jetliner crashes. The survival rate is as high as 95%. Even in the most serious crashes more than 76% survive. And, your chances of dying in a plane crash are only about one in 60 million every time you fly.
In spite of such encouraging news, Ben Sherwood, The Survivors Club author still felt it was important to give his readers tips on how to make sure you are one of the survivors in the event of a crash. Here are some of his suggestions along with a bit of commentary from this observer.
Recognize that the first 3 minutes of a flight and the last 8 are the most critical. Okay, that means you’re most likely to encounter a problem during takeoff and landing. That’s when you should be at your best, ready to jump out of the plane as soon as it stops careening along the runway just short of long term parking where your car is waiting. Most flyers are so nervous about being confined to a metal cylinder traveling at 500 MPH that being alert is the exact opposite of what they want to feel. They want something to calm them down.
If most flyers had their way, the security checkpoint would offer a shot from a tranquilizer gun right after the X-ray. Isn’t that why every airport I’ve ever been in has a sports bar? No matter what time of day it is, the bar has customers. A couple of vodka martinis not only take away the jitters. By the time you step on the plane you’re convinced that should the pilot bail out, you could guide the plane to a safe landing on any runway including I-75.
The author also recommends that when the flight attendants are giving you the safety instructions you should pay strict attention. They are trying to help you save your life. Maybe so but I never detect even the slightest sense of urgency in their voices. They might as well be talking about a recipe for macaroni and cheese. If they want to get our attention maybe they should begin their announcements by saying, “Thank you for flying with us today. There’s only a one in sixty million chance that you’ll die but just in case…
And honestly, does anybody really believe the seat cushion is a flotation device? If I’m taking anything with me when I jump off the plane I’ll take my chances with my laptop. It’s lighter than the seat cushion and, resting my chin on that as I float through the debris sounds a lot more appealing then putting any part of my anatomy on a well traveled seat cushion. Plus with wireless access to the Internet maybe I could get a few emails done while we wait to be rescued.
Speaking of seats, which seats are the safest? Conventional wisdom says it’s the back of the plane but government experts disagree. According to a study, done at the University of Greenwich in London, survivors move an average of 5 rows before they escape. So the best seats are within 5 rows of the nearest exit. With this kind of information available why are any of the seats more than five rows from an exit? Are the airlines too cheap to add a few exits? When they make seat assignments are they telling me the truth about which seats are available or do they have some formula based on age and looks that determines how far you sit from an exit? That might explain why my seats are always 14 rows from any door including the bathroom.
Here’s one I completely agree with. Make sure your seat belt is properly fastened: buckle your belt low and tight across your hips. If only the shuttle bus from the parking service had seat belts. Talk about a harrowing ride.
Plane crash survivors are Darwinian types. They wear lace up running shoes and they drink a caffeine drenched protein supplement moments after they board. Members of the survivor’s club are prepared to climb over seats and force their way past people frozen with fear and blocking their way out. I wonder if they use the seat cushion to help clear a path.
copyright 2009 len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Everybody doesn’t automatically die when a jetliner crashes. The survival rate is as high as 95%. Even in the most serious crashes more than 76% survive. And, your chances of dying in a plane crash are only about one in 60 million every time you fly.
In spite of such encouraging news, Ben Sherwood, The Survivors Club author still felt it was important to give his readers tips on how to make sure you are one of the survivors in the event of a crash. Here are some of his suggestions along with a bit of commentary from this observer.
Recognize that the first 3 minutes of a flight and the last 8 are the most critical. Okay, that means you’re most likely to encounter a problem during takeoff and landing. That’s when you should be at your best, ready to jump out of the plane as soon as it stops careening along the runway just short of long term parking where your car is waiting. Most flyers are so nervous about being confined to a metal cylinder traveling at 500 MPH that being alert is the exact opposite of what they want to feel. They want something to calm them down.
If most flyers had their way, the security checkpoint would offer a shot from a tranquilizer gun right after the X-ray. Isn’t that why every airport I’ve ever been in has a sports bar? No matter what time of day it is, the bar has customers. A couple of vodka martinis not only take away the jitters. By the time you step on the plane you’re convinced that should the pilot bail out, you could guide the plane to a safe landing on any runway including I-75.
The author also recommends that when the flight attendants are giving you the safety instructions you should pay strict attention. They are trying to help you save your life. Maybe so but I never detect even the slightest sense of urgency in their voices. They might as well be talking about a recipe for macaroni and cheese. If they want to get our attention maybe they should begin their announcements by saying, “Thank you for flying with us today. There’s only a one in sixty million chance that you’ll die but just in case…
And honestly, does anybody really believe the seat cushion is a flotation device? If I’m taking anything with me when I jump off the plane I’ll take my chances with my laptop. It’s lighter than the seat cushion and, resting my chin on that as I float through the debris sounds a lot more appealing then putting any part of my anatomy on a well traveled seat cushion. Plus with wireless access to the Internet maybe I could get a few emails done while we wait to be rescued.
Speaking of seats, which seats are the safest? Conventional wisdom says it’s the back of the plane but government experts disagree. According to a study, done at the University of Greenwich in London, survivors move an average of 5 rows before they escape. So the best seats are within 5 rows of the nearest exit. With this kind of information available why are any of the seats more than five rows from an exit? Are the airlines too cheap to add a few exits? When they make seat assignments are they telling me the truth about which seats are available or do they have some formula based on age and looks that determines how far you sit from an exit? That might explain why my seats are always 14 rows from any door including the bathroom.
Here’s one I completely agree with. Make sure your seat belt is properly fastened: buckle your belt low and tight across your hips. If only the shuttle bus from the parking service had seat belts. Talk about a harrowing ride.
Plane crash survivors are Darwinian types. They wear lace up running shoes and they drink a caffeine drenched protein supplement moments after they board. Members of the survivor’s club are prepared to climb over seats and force their way past people frozen with fear and blocking their way out. I wonder if they use the seat cushion to help clear a path.
copyright 2009 len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Help! My Friends Are Poking Me
When the editor of the weekly newspaper invited me to be her friend on Facebook, I couldn’t resist. I had no idea she wanted us to be friends but I was excited to receive her invitation. She is one of the movers and shakers in town and she is a very nice lady. There was only one problem: I wasn’t a Facebook member. If I wanted to be friends with my editor I had to sign up. So I did and now I have 24 friends, some of whom I am well acquainted with, some I’ve met once or twice, and a handful of relatives to round things out.
For my money, it was a lot easier to find friends in the third grade when the kid sitting next to you in class just whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Hey jerkweed, wanna be friends?” I’ll confess that I am bewildered at times by Facebook. For instance, I always thought that relatives automatically qualified as friends even if you hate them. Not that I hate any of mine. I’m just saying. And, now that I’m friends with relatives, they can follow my every move if I’m foolish enough to post them. If my kids were to see a notation like, “Went to Vegas for the day but told my wife I had business in Phoenix,” I have no doubt they would squeal on me. What can I really post that will be interesting and keep me out of hot water?
Some of my Facebook friends post messages describing what they are doing at this very moment, along with photos to burn the image in my mind. One friend, perhaps a bit bored with life, (or maybe he has kid problems too) wrote he was eating potato chips on his couch. I loved the picture, one hand dipped in a giant bag of salt and vinegar chips the other holding the remote. His elderly mother probably isn’t interested in social networking. She doesn’t even own a computer. Too bad because I would like nothing better than to invite her to be my friend so she could see what’s clearly visible in the picture. My friend was getting crumbs on the couch and even worse, he didn’t have a napkin nearby to wipe the grease off his fingers. If the poor woman could see this site she would be beside herself. She’s very old fashioned though so rather than email chiding words to him she would reach for the phone and call.
My friend Cindy poked me a couple of months ago. I had no idea what that meant. I still don’t. I can tell you she hasn’t poked me again but I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe I was supposed to give her a poke. To be honest I haven’t been able to get a full night’s sleep since she poked me, worrying that my social networking skills might be costing me friends.
I have no doubt that my clumsy business networking activities are costing me many fine opportunities. Linkedin, a business networking site geared toward business contacts, is a case in point. Some of my Linkedin connections are also Facebook friends. There’s no place to hide. I have a whopping 32 Linkedin connections. Obviously I’m not exactly a ball of fire on this site either. My friend Don has 149 connections. Rick has more than 250.
And, I’ve already had one very unpleasant experience on this site. I was asked to connect with someone I thought I successfully disconnected years ago. I refused her invitation, an option Linkedin clearly provides. I thought that was the end of the matter but instead I got a nasty message back from my suitor which, in its own way, provided ample justification for my refusal. Still, it must be painful to be turned down. One of my connections wanted to recommend me to others. I refused that too. He said something about my track record that while accurate in every way, didn’t create the value add you expect from such things.
Social networking can be fun and it does offer a way to keep up with people that live far away. I have heard that some people actually get addicted to social networking. They become so immersed in the lives of their friends and business connections that they spend hours on these sites. I am not worried about that in the least. I lead a balanced life, filled with…hold on, It’s my cell. There’s a tweet from Twitterer…Can I get back to you in a sec?
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
For my money, it was a lot easier to find friends in the third grade when the kid sitting next to you in class just whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Hey jerkweed, wanna be friends?” I’ll confess that I am bewildered at times by Facebook. For instance, I always thought that relatives automatically qualified as friends even if you hate them. Not that I hate any of mine. I’m just saying. And, now that I’m friends with relatives, they can follow my every move if I’m foolish enough to post them. If my kids were to see a notation like, “Went to Vegas for the day but told my wife I had business in Phoenix,” I have no doubt they would squeal on me. What can I really post that will be interesting and keep me out of hot water?
Some of my Facebook friends post messages describing what they are doing at this very moment, along with photos to burn the image in my mind. One friend, perhaps a bit bored with life, (or maybe he has kid problems too) wrote he was eating potato chips on his couch. I loved the picture, one hand dipped in a giant bag of salt and vinegar chips the other holding the remote. His elderly mother probably isn’t interested in social networking. She doesn’t even own a computer. Too bad because I would like nothing better than to invite her to be my friend so she could see what’s clearly visible in the picture. My friend was getting crumbs on the couch and even worse, he didn’t have a napkin nearby to wipe the grease off his fingers. If the poor woman could see this site she would be beside herself. She’s very old fashioned though so rather than email chiding words to him she would reach for the phone and call.
My friend Cindy poked me a couple of months ago. I had no idea what that meant. I still don’t. I can tell you she hasn’t poked me again but I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe I was supposed to give her a poke. To be honest I haven’t been able to get a full night’s sleep since she poked me, worrying that my social networking skills might be costing me friends.
I have no doubt that my clumsy business networking activities are costing me many fine opportunities. Linkedin, a business networking site geared toward business contacts, is a case in point. Some of my Linkedin connections are also Facebook friends. There’s no place to hide. I have a whopping 32 Linkedin connections. Obviously I’m not exactly a ball of fire on this site either. My friend Don has 149 connections. Rick has more than 250.
And, I’ve already had one very unpleasant experience on this site. I was asked to connect with someone I thought I successfully disconnected years ago. I refused her invitation, an option Linkedin clearly provides. I thought that was the end of the matter but instead I got a nasty message back from my suitor which, in its own way, provided ample justification for my refusal. Still, it must be painful to be turned down. One of my connections wanted to recommend me to others. I refused that too. He said something about my track record that while accurate in every way, didn’t create the value add you expect from such things.
Social networking can be fun and it does offer a way to keep up with people that live far away. I have heard that some people actually get addicted to social networking. They become so immersed in the lives of their friends and business connections that they spend hours on these sites. I am not worried about that in the least. I lead a balanced life, filled with…hold on, It’s my cell. There’s a tweet from Twitterer…Can I get back to you in a sec?
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
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