Today’s project: apply for a “Get travel points” American Express card and cancel my generic American Express card. The whole experience was an eye-opener. But apparently only to me. It points to a company gone sadly wrong, and even worse, a culture dissolving.
The company’s losing it
Twenty years ago, Amex was famous for customer service. No [...]
I’m watching Congressman Vitter reporting back to work, after being exposed as a hypocrite, being a big proponent of the Sanctity of Marriage, despite having visited the DC Madame.
I was wondering why it always seems to be the Conservatives who ooze hypocrisy. Rev. Haggard, preaching hatred against gays while happily enjoying “massages” from a male [...]
Oh, man. I saw a query on PR newswire asking for experts on Job Dangers of MySpace. You see, your future employer is watching. That drunken picture of you will soon destroy your career. You’ll be broken at age 21. Defeat. Loss. Despair. You’ll end up in a gutter, covered in your own filth, [...]
How much of our prosperity is driven by innovation, hard work, productivity, yada, yada, yada, and how much is simple demographics?
The Long Now is an organization that encourages long-term thinking. The have free seminars about long-term perspectives. I just finished listening to The Depopulation Problem. The author talks through many economic and social issues, all [...]
I had dinner tonight with a friend graduating from Harvard Business School tomorrow. Her family needs an extra ticket to the graduation ceremony. A fellow classmate is offering to sell her his spare ticket for $100. The catch? The administration has specifically told students they’re not allowed to sell tickets for cash, and if they [...]
I’ve been at a conference these last couple of weeks and am here for yet another week before returning to the relative sanity of my office. Meanwhile, a friend pointed me at this gem:
http://indexed.blogspot.com/2007/02/relatively.html
Keeping up with the Joneses. Illustrated perfectly.
Keep in mind that you get to choose whether or not to live in that world…
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I was just reading an article on the impending water shortage. Most of us are totally in the dark about it, but for years, people who track such things have been warning that our water usage is coming close to surpassing the world’s available fresh water supply. MIT’s Technology Review magazine was writing about it [...]
Insurance is a weird beast. Basically, we all band together and put in money so if any of us hits misfortune, the pooled money can be used to help out. It works because typically, most of us do fine, and we can cover the misfortunates.
This is basically what communities do. We take care of [...]
Wow. I knew we were in deep sneakers when it came to the preparedness of our next generation to become productive members of society. I had no idea how bad it’s become.
“According to scores on the 2006 ACT college entrance exam, 21 percent of students applying to four-year institutions are ready for college-level work [...]
Being betrayed by those around you is just no fun.
I was watching the finale of Bravo’s reality-based TV show, “Top Chef” the other night. The finalists were Tiffany and Harold. Tiffany lost. Her food was good. She took some risks, and some of her dishes paid off. But the other Chefs unanimously said she ran [...]
