Seated in the courtyard of a sports bar during a playoff game in the home city of one of the teams, it was an energetic crowd that Sunday. While we’d come for a quick bite to eat, we caught a glimpse of a play now and then as home-team enthusiasts roared their approval during the first half. When a man sat down next to us with two friends, ordered a pitcher of beer and maneuvered around to glimpse the game, we barely noticed. But when he hassled the waitress every few minutes trying to intimidate her into getting him a table closer to the TV where none existed, his rudeness and her apparent... (Read More ...)
“You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.” What if Elvis believed this Grand Ole Opry manager’s critique after his l954 performance? Or the Beatles listened in 1962 when Decca Recording Company responded, “We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out.” What if Rudyard Kipling quit writing when the San Francisco Examiner told him, “I’m sorry, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.” Or as a struggling artist, Walt Disney took seriously the words of a prospective... (Read More ...)
Thanks to frequent-flyer points and a vacation club exchange, we spent a week in Hawaii for the cost of a rental car and food. While a fun and relaxing vacation, it was strange to be at an ocean-front Maui resort during peak tourist season, without the tourists. Several restaurants on this forty-acre property were even closed. The bellman who showed us around told us he’d been working at the resort for eleven years and hadn’t seen anything like it. “I used to work full-time,” he told us. “Now I’m on a rotation with sixteen others and lucky to get one day a week.... (Read More ...)
Thirteen percent. That number should make you pause if you manage staff, lead a group, or own a business. It’s a number recently released from an on-line survey reported by Reuters. According to Right Management, a subsidiary of Manpower Inc, only thirteen percent of employees surveyed said they “planned to stay in their current positions.” Two-thirds reported they’re looking to change jobs in 2010, and another twenty-one percent indicated they’re networking now, just in case. Pent-up frustrations and workplace treatment during the economic downturn were the primary... (Read More ...)
From the iron age to nearly the industrial age, blacksmiths prospered. Villagers needed plows, shovels, iron tires for wagons, nails and tools to build their homes, all of which the blacksmiths forged. They needed their horses and oxen shod and their tools repaired. Being a blacksmith was a sound professional choice. Yet despite flourishing for centuries, this vital profession was all but eliminated in a few generations. Who could envision affordable mass-produced items lining the shelves of big box stores, or anticipate societal changes incomprehensible at the time? How many current professions... (Read More ...)
