The Writer's Stike is Over. Do We Care?

NPR heralded the news that the Writers Were Set to Vote on a Strike Deal that would garner them some reimbursement for works that appeared on the Web.

I'm not sure if I still care.

The last writers' strike gave us reality TV. Um, yay! This one has allowed the greenlighting of television programs that should never see the light of the morning sun. Here's how we descend to hell: The Surreal Life plowed the field with its tawdry mix of has-beens and almost-beens who live together (kind of like "Big Brother" where no one gets voted out).

Then, because that was so good (and we just couldn't turn away from the Flavor Flav / Brigitte Nielsen...I'm not even sure what to call it...we got Strange Love (2005). As this romance fizzled, we saw the brain trust at VH1 set us up for Flavor or Love (2006, now in its third season). That gave us I Love New York (for Tiffany whazzername, the two-time loser with a mother who other contestants swore has an Adam's apple) and Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School (the recycling program for the rest of the...ladies...Flav didn't cotton to). The Surreal Life also gave us The Surreal Life: Fame Games (oh, God. Make it stop) and My Fair Brady in which Adrianne Curry and Chris Knight (who played Greg Brady on the Brady Bunch), a new couple with a theraplist on speed dial.

Now, MTV, not wanting to be left out of the spin-off war, have cloned their A Shot at Love with MySpace star Tila Tequila (born Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen) and her spin off. The critics loved it . Now, given the wild success of that program (it topped out at over 6 million viewers for the finale, an MTV record), they've spread the love with spin-off, That's Amore with...who cares.

Those writers. They owe us and they'd better start paying up--quick.

Oops! Gotta run: Flav's on.

(Cross-posted at the American Values Alliance)

What are some of the worst things you can say in a work setting?

OK, you've mastered what not to say in your personal relationship (or at least you can sleep at night believing you do): "Yes, you actually do look fat in that"..."That receeding hairline does make you look older"..."You didn't mind me having drinks with my old boyfriend/girlfriend/hubster/wife"....

Nope. These kinds of comments don't garner much love and happiness and though the couch really does fold out into a bed as promised, a cardboard box on a steam grate would be much, much better.


Now, turning to work, I know that I've heard some stunning things in work and professional settings. Some are just silly and some are career killers. Here are a few of my favorites:

• That's not my job (from someone who kept telling me that he was promotion-ready)


• I got so smashed at that conference (from a woman who later said that the men in the firm didn't take her seriously)


• Can I touch your hair (this from a man I'd just, just met who was considering hiring me as his business coach. Use your imagination on what I might have said to him when he just stuck his hands into my hair...at a Starbucks...over a cuppa joe and a chai latte)

Now, dish. What are yours? Karma credits if you tell us how you found a helpful way to bring the poor schmuck back from the cliff's edge. Karma demerits if you tell us, with great gusto, how you pushed the silly fool over!


All the Very Best,

Lalita

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Queen Bassist Made Chancellor

You know how there were bands and artists from your youth that you followed throughout your life? For me, one was Queen. Fat Bottom Girls, Bohemian Rhapsody and all the rest were anthems to me. Almost orchestral, with lyrics that had me looking stuff up in the enclopedia (Scaramouche, like Freddie, was "born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad") I remember where I was when I hear that Freddie Mercury has died and it struck me more than the passing of John Lennon or Elvis Presley.


Now, Queen's guitarist, Brian May has continued to amaze me. Before joining the group in 1970, May had completed a Baccalaurate degree in science (with honors) had already started work on a PhD at the Imperial College London departments of Physics and Mathematics, "studying reflected light from interstellar dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the Solar System." Um, damn!

Yesterday, it was announced that he had been selected Chancellor for Liverpool John Moores University, succeeding Cherie Blair (wife of the former PM).

He's written Bang! The Complete History of the Universe and a host of scholarly articles in astrophysics.

Certainly May and Queen have challenged conventional wisdom. They're role models to me of working from a uniquely inspiring vision and having at it!

Pimp My Hearing Aid

You know, I'm rah-rah for all things technology--particularly at the smaller end of the spectrum (must come from my days selling Systems 36 and 38 for IBM). But when I saw this, I just didn't quite know what to think. We know that we're not supposed to rock out with the volume on the old iPod pegged at the max, but do we listen? No. We can't hear anymore. At least that's what hearing aid design and manufacturing firms are hoping for.

Designs are getting hipper (the first wave of the MTV Generation has just turned 50, ya'll) and have a more youthful appeal. The little gem pictured above (from Widex.com) is slathered with diamonds (I couldn't have foreseen this one if I tried) and sells for a staggering $49,000! Quite a lot of cabbage, I'd say. I think they're getting ready for Paris and all of her friends.

I can't wait for a design brainiac to combine an iPod and a "Personal Communication Aid." Maybe they'll combine it with an iPhone and get the most out of this possible convergence device.

Now that I've put that in the blogosphere, I'll wait for my check from Apple.

Whole Foods, Wholly Effed-Up

John P. Mackey, the co-founder of Whole Foods Market, has been my hero. He's a vegan (and doesn't look like a prison camp survivor). He's instituted open book management, a style of management in which leaders give employees all relevant financial information and the training they need to understand it. They're also give their employees responsibility for the numbers they contribute to as well as a stake in how the company performs. At Whole Foods, they took this so far that every one of their 6,500+ employees were considered insiders by the SEC.

Sounds good so far.

Mackay, acknowledging that his company wasn't performing quite up to snuff, even paid himself only a buck in direct compensation. Very different.

But he had this little "hobby" that was a tad problematic. Seems, in his spare time, he was chiming in on Yahoo Finance’s bulletin board under the nom de plume of Rahodeb, a variant of his wife's name (ever the loving hubby). In his posts, over 1,000 which spanned over seven-years, he championed his company’s stock and, for spice, poked at competitor, Wild Oats Markets with his pixel stick (sometimes poking at Whole Foods as well). Not long fooled, other posters on the site would comment to his posts -- "John, er I mean Rahodeb..." Choice.

Problem was: Whole Foods found itself in the process of attempting to purchase said Wild Oats. Oh, and the F.T.C. found out...and the Wall Street Journal...and us.

Ew, mercy!

My Keyboard is Covered in WHAT?!

The computer keyboard on my black HP laptop looks pristine every time I type there (and you know how I feel that this laptop is charmed by angels). So, when I heard the NPR report on grimy keyboards, I walked quietly over to a computer with a less heavenly pedigree...my company's file server, steaming cuppa tea in hand, and gave that off-white keyboard a look.

It was disgusting. There was some kind of junk on the most used keys and the color...well, wasn't exactly factory fresh (to describe it, I'd say a brownish-gray crayon had melted on it). I've washed it but have resigned myself. over the years, to the junk as a cost of doing business.

Hospitals and other health care centers, routinely scrub down their keyboards for more than aesthetic reasons: "The average keyboard harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat" -- germs that can lie in wait for the unsuspecting typist for an entire day.

So, what have people done to ease the microbial burden on their keyboards? Of course, put them in the dishwasher! The keyboard comes out spotless...yay! But after it's scrubbing, it doesn't work...boo!

Enter in the Seal Shield company, whose keyboards are dishwasher safe (I kid you not). Now, rather than worrying that the hospital staff will be passing along colds, flu's and other contagions, they can be easily scrubbed every day.

For those of us who share keyboards, this is something to consider. Unless, of course, you like looking at that yearly accumulation of the sweat, tears and Diet Coke from projects gone by.

And the Pope Says "Thou Shalt Drive..."

This is summer. Summer tends to give us more time behind the wheel...time behind the wheel on the road with the sweaty, unwashed masses (but not us, of course). Those of us who travel for a living, either between cities or between appointments, can attest to the fact that people are getting a little more (choosing words carefully here) aggressive.


I saw one man get flipped off and almost ran off the road laughing. The chick with the finger was sporting one of the spanking new "In God We Trust" license plates on her rage-mobile (still laughing just thinking about it).


So, now Il Papa (the Pope, for those of you who don't know the two words of Italian I know) has waded into the fray with a 36 page document put together by a blue-ribbon papal panel. In it, they say things like:

• Make the sign of the Cross before you travel and pray while on the road (not bad advise if you drive in Boston, LA or Atlanta!)


• Thou shalt not drink and drive


• Thou shalt not make rude gestures behind the steering wheel

The document goes on to remind us that driving can bring out our most "primitive" nature and we can get caught up in our vehicles as vanity-stroking, status-announcing ego machines.

Still, we get ourselves wound up tight before we even get to our important meeting--so much so, that it steals our calm and focus. Me? I know that late afternoon drives on the north/northeast side of town may be somewhat, um, troubling, and plan accordingly. It's so much easier not to be an ass (let someone in it you can see an exit coming up and they're trying to get over) if we leave early.

Watch the BBC report. Something to consider!