So I’m sitting in my hotel room in Anaheim, California not two blocks from Disneyland and I have nothing to do. Now some people might take a stroll over to the famous amusement park and take in the sights, jump on a few rides and buy a set of Mickey Mouse ears. Not me.
Call me boring but the idea of visiting a place that has loads of couples and families reveling in the Magic Kingdom is unattractive to say the least. As I write this I’m not lonely. I have a book and my laptop to keep me company in my non-smoking, king bed cocoon. Yet, if I were to venture out to be among all these people, loneliness would set in like the thick fog that settles into the smoker’s lounge at the airport. Not having someone to turn to and say, “Isn’t that Dumbo over there” is depressing you know?
This is the nature of business travel really. My work here is done. All I have left to do now is fly back to Nashville tomorrow morning. People that don’t travel for business often think the road warrior’s life is glamorous. To be honest, when you first start traveling it is exciting. You feel as though you are doing important work; so important that the company is sending YOU to the meeting in Boston. It’s YOU that is flying off to San Francisco, through two or three time zones, to meet with the prospect that can change everything. Certainly cities like Boston and San Francisco come to mind when non-travelers fantasize about hitting the road. It never occurs to them that, more often than not, people are headed to places like Springfield, MO and Waterloo, IA.
And it’s not until you’ve done it for a while that you notice the looks on the faces of other business travelers. They look weary. They look bored. Some of them look angry. When you’ve run your laptop and shoes through airport security checkpoints enough times, eaten a fishy tasting piece of chicken in yet another chain restaurant, and slept in a strange bed for enough nights that it adds up to years of your life, glamorous is not the word that comes to mind.
Yes, business travel has its perks. There are travel related points that you can use to pay for vacations. (If your vacation requires air travel, your companion may have to resort to gunplay to get you to board.) You meet many fine people you would otherwise never know. I’ve made friends that have made my life immeasurably better. Of course, business travelers also meet people they could live two lifetimes without meeting and be eternally grateful. Then there are a few people who make it clear that you fall into that category for them.
Another travel perk is you might get to sit near a famous person on a flight. I’ve sat behind Fred Thompson, (bored) across the aisle from Bob Dole, (weary) and within shouting distance of one of the Mandrell sisters who definitely looked angry. None of them said or did anything I could blog about though.
You do get to see landmarks and other points of interest. Mostly you see them from your rental car, often limited to a fleeting, accidental glimpse because you are lost. Having no chance to make it to the all important meeting on time, you aren’t actually happy to see the Washington Monument when it comes down to it. Speaking of Washington, years ago I attended a seminar there that was worse than a sleepless night in hot, muggy weather. A colleague and I decided to skip an afternoon session to see the White House and the Smithsonian. It was delightful but another employee thought it was a good idea to tell my boss about it. That’s something non-travelers probably don’t consider when they are envying your expense account. Squeezing in a little time for sightseeing isn’t as easy as you might think. The boss was kind but only because my colleague had actually witnessed him shaking hands with Goofy on another trip. I’ll bet he wouldn’t have done it had he been there alone.
I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone form taking a job that requires travel. The pay tends to be good and here’s the best part. No matter what you tell people about the trials and tribulations of business travel, they won’t believe you. They’ll think you have it made.
Copyright 2009 len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Ever Work in a Factory?
Have you ever worked in a factory? It’s been many years for me but I remember well the summer jobs I had while in school. They were punishing enough to make me long for fall semester, classes and even homework. I have no idea of what factory work is like in 2009, but in the sixties it was like this:
• The work was repetitive and boring
• There were long stretches of sitting or standing in one place
• Breaks were few and far between
• Wages varied from minimum wage to a living wage but no amount of overtime could make you rich
• Nobody thought a thing about workplace ergonomics or workplace environment
As I saw it, men held the great majority of factory jobs back then. No doubt, factory floors had plenty of women, just not in the industries where I found jobs. With apologies to the women that worked their fingers to the bone under bad lighting, I’ll speak of the men I watched and worked with, knowing that for women it must have been infinitely harder.
There wasn’t much to keep laborers going in plants like these. There was nothing attractive about the surroundings or the smells. Foremen stood watch to be sure workers kept working. Not much to look forward to but a lot to fear like layoffs, accidents and debilitating illnesses. How did they do it? These men lived on dreams. For many the dreams were about quitting time, about Fridays and making it to payday so they could pay the rent and buy groceries. And on a good week there might be a little left over for a beer at the corner tavern on the way home.
Some men stood over their lathes, knees hurting, and shoulders aching; dreaming only about boilermakers, the kind one drank after all those very noisy hours staring at a machine. For them, bliss was the shot that took the edge off, allowing them to forget the bone crushing, spirit smashing work they had to do every day. The tavern was a second home for some of them. Some let their wives worry about raising their kids. And, one way or another, they paid for their sins.
Men working a drill press, packing parts and pieces for shipment, loading those packets onto long hot…cold trailers bound for places they would never see, were dreamers too. They silently counted the long days until they would have a week off. Spare change placed in a can, their wives scrounging for a few extra pennies, sons and daughters collecting pop bottles for the deposit money, just so they could spend a week, a glorious week, at the beach. Never in the big cottage of course, but thanks to a little overtime, maybe a night or two on the boardwalk, Philly cheese steaks and snow cones all around. Later they watched the kids thrill to the Tilt-a-Whirl ride, wondering as they sweetly held hands, whatever happened to their childhood.
Some of the men; forklift drivers, men that put tires on new Buicks or riveted their way from skyscraper to skyscraper, dreamed bigger dreams. Johnny Junior would get an education. He would not go to work every day wearing a workman’s uniform with his name on it. He would not have to lather his hands with sand soap when the work day ended. Little Linda Sue would be a nurse or a teacher and live with her husband in a fine A-frame home that they owned. What really drove those men to work day after day were their families. Home was a sanctuary. It made their labor possible and gave it meaning.
Most of us work in service industries today. There are difficult challenges to be sure but most of us come home clean, our lungs clear. I have never met anyone that experienced both a drill press and data processing that would choose the former, given a choice.
Factory workers then and now have done their jobs. America grew and became greater than ever thanks to the strong backs, the iron wills and the dreams of these men. Labor Day is a great day for a barbecue, a swim in the community pool and yes, a day off from work. But we wouldn’t be where we are today without the men that answered the whistles call and punched the time clock. Just before you take your first bite of a hot dog, before you dive into the deep end, remember someone in your family who was willing, as JFK said, “To bear any burden,” Then whisper these words: Thank you.
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
• The work was repetitive and boring
• There were long stretches of sitting or standing in one place
• Breaks were few and far between
• Wages varied from minimum wage to a living wage but no amount of overtime could make you rich
• Nobody thought a thing about workplace ergonomics or workplace environment
As I saw it, men held the great majority of factory jobs back then. No doubt, factory floors had plenty of women, just not in the industries where I found jobs. With apologies to the women that worked their fingers to the bone under bad lighting, I’ll speak of the men I watched and worked with, knowing that for women it must have been infinitely harder.
There wasn’t much to keep laborers going in plants like these. There was nothing attractive about the surroundings or the smells. Foremen stood watch to be sure workers kept working. Not much to look forward to but a lot to fear like layoffs, accidents and debilitating illnesses. How did they do it? These men lived on dreams. For many the dreams were about quitting time, about Fridays and making it to payday so they could pay the rent and buy groceries. And on a good week there might be a little left over for a beer at the corner tavern on the way home.
Some men stood over their lathes, knees hurting, and shoulders aching; dreaming only about boilermakers, the kind one drank after all those very noisy hours staring at a machine. For them, bliss was the shot that took the edge off, allowing them to forget the bone crushing, spirit smashing work they had to do every day. The tavern was a second home for some of them. Some let their wives worry about raising their kids. And, one way or another, they paid for their sins.
Men working a drill press, packing parts and pieces for shipment, loading those packets onto long hot…cold trailers bound for places they would never see, were dreamers too. They silently counted the long days until they would have a week off. Spare change placed in a can, their wives scrounging for a few extra pennies, sons and daughters collecting pop bottles for the deposit money, just so they could spend a week, a glorious week, at the beach. Never in the big cottage of course, but thanks to a little overtime, maybe a night or two on the boardwalk, Philly cheese steaks and snow cones all around. Later they watched the kids thrill to the Tilt-a-Whirl ride, wondering as they sweetly held hands, whatever happened to their childhood.
Some of the men; forklift drivers, men that put tires on new Buicks or riveted their way from skyscraper to skyscraper, dreamed bigger dreams. Johnny Junior would get an education. He would not go to work every day wearing a workman’s uniform with his name on it. He would not have to lather his hands with sand soap when the work day ended. Little Linda Sue would be a nurse or a teacher and live with her husband in a fine A-frame home that they owned. What really drove those men to work day after day were their families. Home was a sanctuary. It made their labor possible and gave it meaning.
Most of us work in service industries today. There are difficult challenges to be sure but most of us come home clean, our lungs clear. I have never met anyone that experienced both a drill press and data processing that would choose the former, given a choice.
Factory workers then and now have done their jobs. America grew and became greater than ever thanks to the strong backs, the iron wills and the dreams of these men. Labor Day is a great day for a barbecue, a swim in the community pool and yes, a day off from work. But we wouldn’t be where we are today without the men that answered the whistles call and punched the time clock. Just before you take your first bite of a hot dog, before you dive into the deep end, remember someone in your family who was willing, as JFK said, “To bear any burden,” Then whisper these words: Thank you.
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Just Like Larry
Occasionally people ask me why I write columns and then post them to my blog. Since we’re in the dog days of summer and I’ve been out in the heat, I’ll tell you why I write the Observer. I’m waiting to be discovered. I want to be a media big shot like Larry King. You don’t think it’s possible? Was Larry born behind a microphone? I realize he might well die behind a mike, but I can assure you he was a nobody before he was a somebody.
With every column I write I hope this is the one that goes viral, the one that everyone forwards to fifty of their closest friends. Then those people send it on to even more people. Eventually somebody, not thinking clearly perhaps, sends it to his cousin who happens to be a bigwig at MSNBC. Upon reading my stuff she says, “Get me Serafino.” Yes! A well stocked limo picks me up at the airport. My agent negotiates a long term contract. (Possibly I’m having a touch of sunstroke.)
Why would I want to be on television? The same reason Larry King likes being on TV. Being a celebrity is the only thing really worth being anymore. Like other celebrities, wherever Mr. King goes, he creates a buzz. Whether it’s the 21 Club, Charlie Trotter’s or The Dining Room, when someone like Larry strolls into these elegant spots, people notice. Well I have no trouble admitting that I want people to notice me. When I’m waiting for a table at the Cracker Barrel, I want to overhear someone say to his wife, “Isn’t that Serafino over there? The guy looking at the banana Moon Pies.” And don’t tell me you don’t want the same thing either. I know you do.
I’ll be smart like Larry too. He used to interview former presidents, well regarded actors and fabulously successful business people. Now his shows seem to focus a lot more on people who are either missing or dead. I mean really, who wants to hear what a former Secretary of State has to say? If you want to keep making all that money (I almost forgot. I want the money too) you must change with the times. Above all else keep your ratings high. Otherwise you’ll find yourself standing in line with everybody else at the local Olive Garden. No way! If you have to run a “Michael Jackson is dead” show every night for a couple of months to avoid that unhappy fate, then do that.
My show will be everything we have come to expect from cable news today and more. Not only would I have the Jackson siblings on, Michael himself would be my special guest. He probably wouldn’t say much but since his body is still around, why not break new ground? And don’t tell me you wouldn’t be watching. When you hear the promo, “Tonight on Serafino Speaks, Michael Jackson live…more or less,” you’ll be watching, TiVo-ing and tuning in for more.
I’ll be rubbing elbows with other celebrities too, all of them eager to tell us stories about their latest project, explain their most recent faux pas or best of all, share their outrageous plans for the future. “Len, I want you to be the first to know. I just signed a deal to host a new reality show called, Wedding Moos, BAAAs and Oinks. Contestants will marry farm animals, move to the city and compete for big prizes.”
Another great thing about being a TV celebrity is that behaving badly actually gets you more attention. That means higher ratings. And, of course, even more money. Listen: One day I mentioned to my wife that with my own show I could afford a trophy wife. She kinda put a damper on that one though. “I am your trophy wife,” were her exact words; hard to argue with the truth. But celebrity offers other opportunities for foolishness like speaking out on complicated issues without the advantage of understanding them. Real knowledge is hardly the point. High ratings equal gravitas. Wait till you hear my thoughts on neuroleptic discontinuation.
Having my own cable TV show, making millions of dollars and being famous to boot, doesn’t seem that far fetched to me. If I’m willing to put my scruples in the corner, consider shame an outdated emotion and feel my responsibility to viewers is secondary to my status among the media glitterati, I can have it all. But, until that glorious day I’ll have to keep writing the Observer. Keep forwarding please. CNN is this close.
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
With every column I write I hope this is the one that goes viral, the one that everyone forwards to fifty of their closest friends. Then those people send it on to even more people. Eventually somebody, not thinking clearly perhaps, sends it to his cousin who happens to be a bigwig at MSNBC. Upon reading my stuff she says, “Get me Serafino.” Yes! A well stocked limo picks me up at the airport. My agent negotiates a long term contract. (Possibly I’m having a touch of sunstroke.)
Why would I want to be on television? The same reason Larry King likes being on TV. Being a celebrity is the only thing really worth being anymore. Like other celebrities, wherever Mr. King goes, he creates a buzz. Whether it’s the 21 Club, Charlie Trotter’s or The Dining Room, when someone like Larry strolls into these elegant spots, people notice. Well I have no trouble admitting that I want people to notice me. When I’m waiting for a table at the Cracker Barrel, I want to overhear someone say to his wife, “Isn’t that Serafino over there? The guy looking at the banana Moon Pies.” And don’t tell me you don’t want the same thing either. I know you do.
I’ll be smart like Larry too. He used to interview former presidents, well regarded actors and fabulously successful business people. Now his shows seem to focus a lot more on people who are either missing or dead. I mean really, who wants to hear what a former Secretary of State has to say? If you want to keep making all that money (I almost forgot. I want the money too) you must change with the times. Above all else keep your ratings high. Otherwise you’ll find yourself standing in line with everybody else at the local Olive Garden. No way! If you have to run a “Michael Jackson is dead” show every night for a couple of months to avoid that unhappy fate, then do that.
My show will be everything we have come to expect from cable news today and more. Not only would I have the Jackson siblings on, Michael himself would be my special guest. He probably wouldn’t say much but since his body is still around, why not break new ground? And don’t tell me you wouldn’t be watching. When you hear the promo, “Tonight on Serafino Speaks, Michael Jackson live…more or less,” you’ll be watching, TiVo-ing and tuning in for more.
I’ll be rubbing elbows with other celebrities too, all of them eager to tell us stories about their latest project, explain their most recent faux pas or best of all, share their outrageous plans for the future. “Len, I want you to be the first to know. I just signed a deal to host a new reality show called, Wedding Moos, BAAAs and Oinks. Contestants will marry farm animals, move to the city and compete for big prizes.”
Another great thing about being a TV celebrity is that behaving badly actually gets you more attention. That means higher ratings. And, of course, even more money. Listen: One day I mentioned to my wife that with my own show I could afford a trophy wife. She kinda put a damper on that one though. “I am your trophy wife,” were her exact words; hard to argue with the truth. But celebrity offers other opportunities for foolishness like speaking out on complicated issues without the advantage of understanding them. Real knowledge is hardly the point. High ratings equal gravitas. Wait till you hear my thoughts on neuroleptic discontinuation.
Having my own cable TV show, making millions of dollars and being famous to boot, doesn’t seem that far fetched to me. If I’m willing to put my scruples in the corner, consider shame an outdated emotion and feel my responsibility to viewers is secondary to my status among the media glitterati, I can have it all. But, until that glorious day I’ll have to keep writing the Observer. Keep forwarding please. CNN is this close.
Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Could Technology Have Saved Turkish Taffy?
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.
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.
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.
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