Archives for February 2024

Of the approximately 200 emails I receive daily there are a few that contain valuable life lessons that I freely share with you.  Your appreciation and an occasional infusion of cash funding is thanks enough for me.  Etiquette is a finely honed skill I possess making me the premier authority on how to offend.  Over 20 years in the training arena allows me to provide you with many life lessons and I know you look to me to tell you how to run your lives; a responsibility I take quite seriously so join me now for another “Teachable Moment” regarding inadvertent offensive behavior.

• Wearing too much scent:  Cut back on the perfume and after shave, especially when dining out.  You can accomplish the same thing by bathing regularly.
• Don’t call people of your own age bracket “Sir” or “Madam.”  They may think you find them to be older and less aware than you.
• Telling someone to shut their F*&*#ing mouth is always frowned upon unless they display incredible ignorance, like wearing a MAGA hat. 

It is a slippery slope, navigating proper inter-personal etiquette.  I am here to help!

“If Hot Dogs are wrong I don’t wanna to be right!” Doug Heffernan, The King of Queens.

There is no “meat-adjacent” food as delicious as a hot dog.  Kosher, bun-length, all meat, all beef, chicken, Oscar Meyer, Ballpark, Hoffy, Bar S, Sabrett, Hebrew National, Vienna; it doesn’t matter.  Whatever scraps are scraped up off the processing plant (more palatable term then “slaughterhouse”) floor are chopped and formed into a cylindrical flavor bomb.  Especially good are the crunchy ones tightly packed into the intestines of some unknown creature.

One posting is not enough to sing the praises of this delicacy so look for future insights into the wonderful world of sausage dining.  But for now I end with a pop quiz.  I hope you took notes:

Who sells more HOT DOGS each year than the total of all the major league ballparks in the United States?  Give up?

Costco!  Over 150 million hot dogs and over 100 million rotisserie chickens.  It seems to me with these numbers Costco should not bother selling anything else; only hot dogs and rotisserie chickens.  I have sent them letters suggesting as much but to date have not received a reply.  You’d think that someone with my demonstrated business acumen would be pursued by a major executive search firm.  Another of life’s perplexing mysteries.

This from Nice News:  “The concept has blown up on social media thanks to a content creator named Hope Zuckerbrow.  She began posting videos of her early morning workouts in 2022, and they quickly took off.  Cozy cardio rejects the idea that exercise has to be vigorous and intense. It involves walking on the treadmill in sweatpants (or even pajamas), lighting a candle, making a cup of tea, putting on your favorite comfort show or movie, and doing whatever else allows you to slow down and simply enjoy the movement.”

I did further research and found the trend does not end Cozy Cardio.  Here are some other new takes on exercise enticing people off the couch and into the gym!

• Cheezy Chest Press:  No heavy weights required as these are isometric and work off muscle resistance.  There are three levels:
  Beginner:  Over the Shirt
  Intermediate:  Under the shirt over the bra…Sports bra.
  Advanced:  Total skin-to-skin contact!  May lead to the next exercise, 
• Takes 2 to Tango Push-Ups:  Do I have to spell it out for you?
• Cutsie Curls:  Do 3 sets of 10 forearm curls using nerf weights while sipping herbal tea.
• Blissful Burpees:  Consume a carbonated drink like a chocolate phosphate, eat a dill pickle and finish up with a bean burrito from Taco Bell.
• Sublime Squats:  Typical cool-down from Blissful Burpees.

At last.  An exercise program we can all stick with.  Enjoy your workout!

If you are looking for work and partial to any of these you are in luck.  All three positions are immediately available.  Basic requirements per postings on LinkedIn.

• Missionary Position:  The position is available in Calcutta, India.  Duties include the giving up of all personal possessions, ministering to the poor, washing others feet, living at the bare subsistence level and sacrificing all forms of worldly pleasure until death when you will reap your much deserved rewards.  Must be available immediately.  Fugitives and republicans welcome. 
• Cowgirl Position:  Must be familiar with a cow’s udder and be able to massage a teat to rapidly extract milk.  Those skilled at mucking a stall and spreading hay with a pitch fork will receive priority interviews.
• Doggy Style:  Minimum requirement is a Bachelor’s Degree in dressing canines from an accredited fashion school.  Candidates with experience in European pet style trends are highly regarded.  Must be physically able to be on your hands and knees for extended periods of time.

Please email for more details.   Résumés with graphic photos attached are always appreciated.

Apparently it’s my lucky day!  Opening up an email this morning from our local grocery “Hyper” store Fred Meyer, a division of Kroger, Inc., I discovered I won and they are giving me oodles of cash discounts.  Look at these amazing offers:

• If I buy $20.00 in produce I get $4.00 back.
• If I buy $40.00 worth of coffee and creamer by February 25th I get an ADDITIONAL $4.00!  (Yes, there’s more).
• I get $15.00 my first delivery order of $75.00 or more.

Let me catch my breath… With all this additional income I can quit my day job!  Oh wait, I already did, seven years ago.

How time flies when you’re having fun!

Cerebral People with an unrequited desire for knowledge want answers to the following:

• Why there are no bidets in U.S. Bathrooms?
• What happened 5 minutes before time began?
• Why do insurance companies require us to wait 5 years between much sought after Colonoscopies?
• Why did Elaine Benes threaten the Soup Nazi, depriving Upper West Side patrons of world class Mulligatawny?  No soup for you, Lainie!
• When visiting the zoo, are we the ones in cages looking at the animals run free?
• Why didn’t I buy Microsoft stock in 1986?
• If you can use Tinactin for both athlete’s foot and jock itch, what else can you do with Preparation H?
• Which Milky Way came first, the candy bar or the galaxy?

The quest for truth continues!

Our company, with revenue in the $30-$40 million range, was purchased by DuPont in 2008.  We soon learned some lessons on how a major conglomerate operates; certainly much different than a smaller privately owned company.  There were two overriding principles:

1. Pay exorbitant amounts of money to outside consultants to make decisions we should make internally.
2. Do whatever it takes to make short-term revenue goals regardless of long-term effect; what they call the “we’ll cross that bridge…” plan.

Examples:

1. They paid $500,000 to a consultant to come up with a new name we scrapped in 6 months
2. The Einstein they put in to run us sold our very attractive URL for a single large payout that made our numbers and got him a bonus but, in the long-run, cost us millions of dollars in lost revenue.  He soon retired and left the mess for the next person.

I always…well most of the time…did my best and worked hard to make my goals.  When the inevitable redundancies began, DuPont was very generous, giving long-term employees what amounted to a year’s salary and benefits.  I loved our company, but the spirit that built us was gone and I was not without other opportunities. I would not have been crushed if I was offered one of those severance packages.  In my phony benevolence I even volunteered to save a co-worker by telling them I would sadly accept a pink slip accompanied by a big payout.  But, alas, it was not to be.  My boss told me I was a needed thought-partner and not to be concerned; something I would have loved to hear years before when I had kids at home and was living paycheck to paycheck, but not so much now.

So, the lesson to be learned?  Wives, husbands, family, partners, coworkers:  When you see someone slacking off, showing no initiative and generally doing just okay, but not enough to be invaluable to the group; enough to keep their job but also be first to go when the cuts come, have patience with them.  They might be executing a well thought-out business plan to secure their future.

All this experience sitting at home, an untapped resource.  I am available to help.  If you have $500,000 and need a technology consultant with encyclopedic knowledge of today’s business landscape, feel free to contact me.  I’m sure you still have my pager number or send me a note on My Space.

Four of the more popular GLP-1 medications — Ozempic and Mounjaro (approved for diabetes) and Wegovy and Zepbound (approved for weight loss) — have all shown good results in our never-ending struggle to lose weight.  But the encouraging fact is that all the drugs similar side effects.  The most common side effects include:

• Nausea
• Diarrhea
• Vomiting
• Constipation
• Stomach pain

For approximately the same cost as these medications you can achieve the same results and include your food in the total.  Simply eat all your meals at Denny’s Restaurant!  I know that may not be possible and for it to work you must be constantly experiencing all the above side effects. But take heart!  Preliminary studies show you can seamlessly achieve the same results by eating at IHOP, Applebee’s or McDonald’s.

Mix and Match for a truly memorable weight-loss journey!

Join me in a short flight of fancy.   I know I am retracing old steps but imagine a world where there was no hatred based on gender, religion, ethnic origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation or any other of the infinite reasons we find to hate each other.

I recently tripped as I was walking in the airport and fell flat.  Two men quickly rushed over to me and offered to help.  My first inclination was to hide my humiliation and politely refuse telling them I was fine.  But I wasn’t fine and better sense took over.  I let them each take a side and lift me to my feet.  I sincerely thanked them and they returned to their original path.  30 seconds out of their day and they helped make a stranger’s day a little better.

What if our government representatives spent their time seeking solutions to climate change, rebuilding a crumbling infrastructure, feeding the hungry and housing the homeless rather than calling each other names and swearing vengeance on their political rivals?

I suppose I could work to make small, positive changes and hope the positive energy creates a universe where love, cooperation and peace are the natural order, but I’d  prefer to see all misguided, lying politicians sharing cramped quarters on Rikers Island.

Yes, I can understand where you might see me as a hypocrite, but I prefer to think of myself as Ironic.  Another reason I should run for office.  To be a giant asshole and still think you can save the world with your narrow point of view is a spot on description of an insane politician! 
(P.S. You must also love money as well, and who doesn’t put money first?)