Recently I was interacting with someone at work on an issue, and as we were finishing up our call the person said: “Thanks–I appreciate you.” As is typically the case when I hear that new approach to expressing gratitude, it kind of embarrassed me.
In my experience, “I appreciate you” began to make inroads on “I appreciate it” several years ago. The first time I heard it, I thought the person saying it had misspoken, but then it became clear that this was one of those linguistic developments that happens every so often. And this phrasing seems to be gaining in popularity–although some people seem to find it awkward or otherwise off-putting. I imagine the people who use that phrase like it because it is more directly focused on the person who is providing the help, whereas “I appreciate it” is a bit more abstract and focused on the help that person is providing.
It is undoubtedly for that same reason that it’s a bit embarrassing when I hear that new formulation, just like it’s somewhat embarrassing to hear any personal compliment. I appreciate the sentiment, however–and maybe that’s the whole point. The change in wording take the expression of appreciation out of the rote sentiment category, and into a realm that is more intentional. If someone has given some specific thought to how to say “thank you,” it makes the whole effort more meaningful, doesn’t it?
This morning I thought of something I wanted to do at work. To make sure that I remember it when I get to the office, I sent myself an email.
On Saturday we were going to have dinner at our friends’ house. We wanted to bring a nice bottle of wine as a housewarming gift, so I turned to my photo library and scrolled through it until I found a photo I had taken several months ago of a bottle of wine that I liked. That’s what we picked up at the neighborhood wine store.
These are two common examples of how the multi-purpose cellphone is displacing other methods of keeping up with your tasks and maintaining useful information. There may be some people out there who use paper reminder pads and to-do lists that stick to the refrigerator door, but it’s got to be a shrinking number, as more and more functions are concentrated into that handy handheld device that fits into your pocket.
It’s interesting, too, that the technology concentration effect isn’t limited to replacing paper methods, but also applies to other software on the cellphone, too. I’m confident my iPhone includes standard apps that are specifically intended to provide digital substitutes for to-do lists and reminder statements, but I’ve never used them. I don’t like swiping through multiple pages of app icons to try to find the right one. Because email and the photo library can easily perform those functions–and a lot of other ones, too–I’d rather just use them so I can focus my phone use on a limited number of multi-functional apps.
I don’t know if I’m alone in that impulse or whether others, too, are trying to eliminate cellphone screen clutter and bringing focus to their phones, but the concentration process reminds me of a TV commercial that was broadcast when cellphones were new and apps were a novelty. It featured different apps that did different things and used the tag line “there’s an app for that.” If they were making that commercial today, maybe it would show multiple features and the tag line would be “there’s one app for that.”
In the Midwest, Mother’s Day is often associated with flowers–not because of the bouquets given to Mom to honor her on a special day, but because Mother’s Day is viewed in these parts as the traditional weekend to fill out your garden beds. If you wait until Mother’s Day to plant flowers, the folk wisdom goes, you’ll avoid the risk of your plants dying from an unseasonably late frost.
As is so often the case, this time-honored rule of thumb reflects a significant kernel of truth: May is a wonderful time to grow things in central Ohio and elsewhere in the Midwest. Russell was in town for a visit this weekend, and he remarked on how green everything looks around here, with most of the trees fully leafed out, the grass growing like crazy, and flowers and flowering shrubs everywhere you look. As the picture above shows, in this season Ohio is a study in green. The air, freshened with recent rains and the fragrance of growing things, smells good, too.
Happy Mother’s Day to each and every one of the Moms out there. When you’ve been fortunate enough to have a great Mom, you know just how important and influential mothers can be. Enjoy your day–you’ve earned it!
While courts consider the constitutionality of the student debt forgiveness initiative, the plan is also going through the “notice and comment” process that applies when the federal government issues new regulatory proposals. The “notice and comment” process is designed to allow people who may be affected by proposals to weigh in on the terms of the new regulations and–theoretically at least–allow the federal government to revise the proposal, or its specific terms, in response to the comments received.
We’ll have to see whether that happens in this case, but one thing is clear: student debt forgiveness must be a hot button issue, because tens of thousands of people have left public comments. The avalanche of feedback has set a new record for comments on regulatory proposals dealing with student aid, and the comment period isn’t even closed yet. You can read some of the comments, on both sides of the proposal, in the articles linked above in this paragraph. Not surprisingly, students who feel saddled with debt are in favor of the proposal, and the people who don’t have such debt are opposed because they don’t think the federal government, and ultimately all taxpayers, should pick up the tab.
It’s pretty amazing that so many individuals–34,000, at last count–would leave so many comments on a regulatory proposal. It makes you wonder whether the President’s student loan proposal, assuming it survives judicial scrutiny, will be a significant issue in the upcoming presidential election. It’s obviously a proposal that a lot of people feel passionate about–passionate enough to leave a public comment with a regulatory agency.
Yesterday I had an appointment. Last night, when I got home, there was the inevitable email with the request for a rating and a review. I groaned inwardly. Sometimes I delete ratings requests, sometimes I fill them out to be a good customer. Last night I hit the delete button. I just wasn’t in the mood.
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve had it with getting requests for reviews every time you have any kind of appointment or use any kind of service. For example, our computer calling app at the office requests a review after every call. Seriously? I’ve long since stopped doing that, but I’ve found myself wondering: if you really wanted to give a meaningful evaluation of a video phone call on a 10-star scale, what would distinguish a six-star rating, say, from a seven? If the image freezes and you have to wait for 10 seconds for the other participant in the call to unfreeze, how many stars should get deducted? Should you adjust the rating if the frozen picture of the other participant is hilariously unflattering? What should be the impact, objectively, if there is some kind of audio fuzziness or other glitch in the call?
Say what you will about old-fashioned desktop phones–they may have cluttered your desk, and the fact that the cord often had to be unsnarled was annoying, but at least they didn’t beg you for reviews every time you hung up the receiver. Ma Bell evidently had too much pride for that.
The review request overload leads me to two conclusions. First, any time you see some commercial enterprise bragging about their reviews, take it with a hefty grain of salt. It’s going to be the product of responses from only a tiny fraction of actual customers, and those people who did respond probably didn’t really give much thought to the ratings they were assigning. And second, I wonder what would happen if businesses started to advertise that they will never, ever, bug you for a review if you use their services. All things being equal, I’d gladly choose a service provider who agreed in advance to leave my email inbox free of sniveling requests for reviews.
Recently, a research team from the U.S. National Institutes of Health looked into whether men and women have different reactions to hot and cold ambient room temperatures. According to one news report, the study concluded that there were “very slight gender differences in temperature perception of a room at ambient conditions and very few gender differences in physiological response to a perceived chill.”
“Very slight gender differences”? Is this what passes for science these days?
You can read about how the study reached that erroneous conclusion, but all I can say is that they ran the wrong kinds of tests. If they had attempted more practical, real-world analysis, they would have reached the correct conclusion: women tend to be far more sensitive to cold than men, and it really isn’t even a close question. Here are three obvious tests that the research team should have included in their study:
The Office Space Heater Test. Surprisingly, the research team did not ask which gender is more likely to have a space heater in their office. Based on personal experience, I’d say it’s got to be women, by a factor of about 999 to 1. In some of the offices in our firm, space heaters are cranked up to maximum output and it is so hot you could grow African violets in there, and the female occupants are nevertheless complaining of the cold.
The Sweater Test. Another obvious oversight was the failure of the research team to go into the closets of study participants, count the number of sweaters they owned, and evaluate the bulkiness of those sweaters. I think that exercise in the scientific method also would have yielded a clear result: women tend to own more sweaters, and bulkier sweaters, and wear them more often.
The Fleece Blanket Test. In the most egregious omission, the study did not conduct a simple but conclusive experiment: put a study participant on a couch in front of a TV in a reasonably cool room, put a folded fleece blanket on the couch, and see whether men or women are more likely to use the fleece blanket. A reasonable follow-up would be to again look at where the study participants live and count how many fleece blankets they own, and whether they are strategically positioned in every room.
This kind of news story does raise troubling questions about the validity of the scientific research results we are getting these days.
Lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of eating sundried figs. I’ve always had a taste for them, ever since I first bit into a Fig Newton as a kid and crunched down onto those tiny little pods that are found in figs. A month or so ago, I bought a package of sundried figs, tastefully packaged in an attractive rotary design, and I’ve really enjoyed reconnecting with them.
As snacks go, figs are pretty interesting. For one, they have an exceptionally long history with humans and a rich literary past. Figs were eaten by virtually every ancient culture in the Mediterranean and Fertile Crescent regions and are mentioned in the Bible and in Greek myths. They’re right up there with apples, olives, and pomegranates in the human lore category. They are interesting scientifically, too. Figs are technically a syconium–a type of fruit with flowers on the inside. The little seeds that give a fig a crunch are called achenes, which also are found on the surface of strawberries.
Figs are supposed to aid in digestion, and the package says they are a good source of fiber. I don’t know about that, but I like having one after dinner if I feel like something on the sweet side. An individual fig is small and not overpowering in the sweetness category, and I feel like I can have one without running off the dietary rails. It’s kind of cool to eat something that connects you to ancient cultures, too. And I still like to experience that crunch.
At Ohio State, the University recently cleared out an encampment, invoking school space rules. The University also has locked some buildings, to prevent occupations in connection with the protests. In all, more than 40 people have been arrested on the Ohio State campus in connection with the protests, which means the current activities have produced the most arrests of protesters at Ohio State in more than 50 years.
The reference to the most arrests in more than 50 years takes us back to the ’60s and early ’70s, viewed by many as the “golden age” of American protests. In reality, protesting has a very long history in the United States, where the country itself was the product of protests, like the Boston Tea Party, that led to the Revolutionary War and the formation of a new nation. And in virtually every era since then, people in America have been protesting about some issue or another–whether the issue is taxes, or tariffs, or slavery, or the ability to unionize, or women’s suffrage, or Prohibition, or civil rights, or foreign wars. The issues may change, but the fact that our country is founded on principles of free speech means that people have the ability to protest and advocate for a cause–and therefore the push and pull between protesting and maintaining public safety and order will always be with us.
The ’60s were a weird time, when it seemed that every news broadcast featured stories on marches, riots, protests, assassinations, and other forms of civic unrest. Viewed with some perspective, what’s going on now seems like a pale imitation of that era. But as chaotic as the ’60s were, the chaos ultimately ended, and the country turned to the leisure suits and disco music and bad cars of the somnolent, self-obsessed ’70s. I expect that what is going on now, too, shall pass. i
It’s always gratifying to see a news story in which qualities like persistence get rewarded. In this day and age, those kinds of stories often arise when an individual concludes that some unfairness has occurred and refuses to give up, even in the face of institutional resistance, multiple defeats, and great odds, because of the principles at stake.
The Wall Street Journal recently published one of those stories. The persistent figure is Stuart Harrow, a Department of Defense employee who believes he was wronged in 2013, when budget cuts and resulting furloughs briefly forced him out of work. Since then, he has been pursuing every avenue to recover what he says he is owed–which amounts to about $3,000, plus interest. He met defeat in the Department of Defense, before an administrative law judge, before the Merit Systems Protection Board, and before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He’s lost at every step in the process, but he kept plugging, and in March his case was argued to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Technically, Harrow’s case before the Supreme Court is about whether a missed filing deadline is fatal to his ability to recover–even if the circumstances suggest it wasn’t really Harrow’s fault. In this instance, the circumstances include a five-year delay in the Merit Systems Protection Board hearing Harrow’s case because it didn’t have a quorum, and then its eventual decision being sent to the wrong email address because his agency had changed email servers–which meant Harrow never got the long-delayed ruling. But Harrow kept at it, found two law professors to take his case, and the Supreme Court, which has been trying for years to clarify the rules on court deadlines, accepted his appeal.
That’s how a case about $3,000, plus interest, ended up in the highest court in the land. Behind it all is one man who wouldn’t give up. The Court will decide whether Stuart Harrow will finally recover the $3,000 in pay he thinks was wrongly withheld, but what’s also true is that Harrow has already prevailed in a very real sense. Deep down, I suspect Harrow would agree–although I’m sure he’d also like to get that $3,000. Through his persistence, he’s brought attention to an issue, held enormous bureaucracies to account, and ensured that his concerns have been heard. Win or lose, Stuart Harrow’s persistence has made a difference.
Yesterday we visited the Dawes Arboretum, located on the outskirts of Newark, Ohio, about 30 miles east of Columbus. It was an overcast morning, but we hoped the weather would cooperate in allowing us to get in some good hiking, including tackling the Timber Run and Gorge Overlook trails. Alas, Mother Nature had a different idea.
The Dawes Arboretum occupies a big plot of land that covers familiar Ohio landscapes, from deep woods to rolling meadows and ponds–with some rarer territory, like a cypress swamp, thrown in. The grounds feature an extensive variety of plant life, all of which was blooming on a damp spring day. After paying our senior discount fee ($8.00, rather than the standard $10.00), we took the advice of the Arboretum employee at the entrance gate and did a drive around the grounds on the north and south loop roadways. Our first stop was the hedge letters, shown above, which spell out “Dawes Arboretum.” We climbed a viewing tower to get a better look and check for misspellings, but the hedge designers aced the test.
Our next stop was Dawes Lake, located next to the hedge letters. It’s really more of a big pond, with a mowed trail around the circumference. We took a nice stroll around the edge of the lake, encountering some geese and a bullfrog in full throat, when the sprinkles began. With the perversity that you often encounter with Ohio spring weather, the rain began to fall in earnest when we were precisely halfway around the lake, at the maximum distance from our car. By the time we got back to the Lincoln the rain was pelting down at a heavy rate and we were pretty well soaked.
The rain didn’t stop us from completing our auto tour, of course, and we saw some pretty scenes with some of the blooming plants and wildflowers that were drinking in the rainfall. Regrettably, however, the intensity of the rain increased, and it was obvious that the Timber Run and Gorge Overlook trails, which run for several miles to the east of the main arboretum grounds, would have to wait until another day. The employee at the entrance gate had cautioned us that they would be muddy from prior rains, and the new downpour wouldn’t make the hike any easier.
Before we left, however, I did get a chance to take in the Bald-Cypress Swamp, shown below, which has an interesting, otherworldly appearance. I half expected to see Yoda hobbling out from behind one of the trees. Swamps and wetlands are not common in the modern Buckeye State, but Ohio originally had extensive wetlands, located primarily in the northwestern part of the state. The Bald-Cypress Swamp at the Dawes Arboretum gives you a glimpse of an Ohio scene that undoubtedly was very familiar to the indigenous people who once roamed the Ohio forests.
After taking in the swamp, with no break in the rain in the offing, we decided the better course was to head back to Columbus, dry out in the car, and stop in Granville for lunch. We’ll have to return to Dawes for the trails when conditions are drier and Mother Nature is in a better mood.
We’ll be heading out to the grocery store to do some shopping this weekend. When we get there, we’ll use a device so familiar to Americans that we typically don’t really give it much thought: a grocery cart. We’ll disengage the closest one from the long line, wheel it in, and start heading up and down the aisles.
The humble grocery cart is such an integral part of the whole supermarket experience it’s hard to imagine one without the other. It’s one of those devices that seems so obvious now, viewed in retrospect, that you’d think it wouldn’t even need to be invented.
Goldman’s ingenious idea swept the nation and revolutionized the grocery business. Shoppers who formerly were limited to what they could fit into a handheld basket now could buy even more. Throw in the concept of people driving to grocery stores, and you’ve got the two basic elements of the modern American big grocery store run. Goldman’s daintier device quickly morphed into the big, heavy, honker grocery cart that we all know so well. I do, in particular, because my first job, at the Big Bear supermarket, involved going into the parking lot at the end of the day and retrieving every orphan cart that had been left behind by shoppers and returning them to the store.
So when we will be loading up our cart this weekend, we’ll have Sylvan Goldman to thank. Now, if we only knew the back story of the unlucky shopper who got the first “folding basket carrier” with a rogue wheel . . . .
Last night we went out to dinner with a college chum we hadn’t seen in a while. We had a fine meal, and it was great to catch up,
I like going out to eat on Thursdays. Fridays and Saturdays are the traditional top dine-out nights, when you expect the restaurants to be crowded–and fully staffed–and your fellow diners will give off that special “it’s the weekend” energy, but Thursday night is a pretty good option, too.
Thursday night dining has a vibe all its own. The restaurants aren’t quite as packed as a weekend night, but everyone at every table knows they’ve made it through most of the work week and there is only one more workday to go before the weekend–and there is a kind of deep, anticipatory glee at that prospect. I’m apparently not alone in my view that Thursday night is prime time for a meal out on the town, because the restaurant we went to last night was doing a brisk trade and people seemed to be having a really good time . . . including us.
It’s fun going out on Thursdays, but you also have to watch it and not overindulge–because there is, after all, a workday dawning bright and early the next morning. Experienced Thursday night diners have to know when to say when.
Drive into any sprawling retail shopping area in the United States and there’s a good chance you’ll see a Red Lobster (or maybe an Olive Garden) in one of the outbuildings as you enter the parking lot. That may not be the case for much longer, because Red Lobster is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
What happened to Red Lobster, which was once a successful business? As is usually the case with corporate failures, it’s a complicated story, and it didn’t happen overnight. Often, it is the last bad decision that gets blamed–but in reality that decision is just the final domino to fall in a chain that began to topple long before.
In Red Lobster’s case, the bad recent decision was to make “endless shrimp”–which had been a promotion offered only for a limited time–into a permanent menu item. Red Lobster hoped that “endless shrimp” would attract more customers, but instead it just attracted people who consumed enormous quantities of shrimp. If you’ve ever planned a party and included a shrimp bowl, you know this result was entirely predictable. Some people just lose all control at the sight of a shrimp bowl and shamelessly load their plates or camp out at the bowl until every last shrimp is gone, before the ice in the bowl is melted. It’s hard to believe that anyone in the food business would not know this basic truth–but that apparent lack of management experience in the food business has been part of Red Lobster’s problem.
By any measure, the “endless shrimp” option was a disastrous decision–one that Red Lobster itself blamed for the company losing $11 million in the third quarter of 2023, followed by $12.5 million in losses in the fourth quarter. But, as the Business Insider article linked above shows, the shrimp fiasco was just the tip of the iceberg.
The roots of Red Lobster’s current struggles started long before, when a private equity firm bought the company, sold its real estate to create a quick return, then had the company enter into leases for that same property–leases that required rent payments that quickly became a drain on the company’s revenues. Add in the company being shifted around to different investor groups, changing customer tastes, a failure to adapt to new competition, and a tough economic environment, and you’ve got a recipe for a business poised to go into the (lobster) tank. .
The American economy is fast-moving, fueled by the ever-changing tastes and habits of American consumers. Past profitability is no predictor of future success, and a series of bad decisions, often caused by a desire for short-term gain, can lead to eventual doom–endless shrimp or not.
Back in the ’70s, when I first began working as a “bag boy” at the Big Bear supermarket in Kingsdale Shopping Center in Upper Arlington, I would get off work on a Saturday afternoon, head to the nearest McDonald’s, and get a quarter-pounder with cheese, regular fries, and a Coke for pocket change. The prices were like those shown in the photo above, and the entire meal cost well under $2. That is true no longer–especially in California.
On April 1 California implemented a new minimum wage of $20–but only for fast food workers. That’s a hefty increase from the prior minimum wage for such workers, which was $16. No surprisingly, fast food chains responded by increasing the prices of their offerings. Since April 1, fast food prices have gone up an average of 10 percent–causing patrons of the restaurants to experience what the Wall Street Journal described as “sticker shock.” At Chick-fil-A, for example, the price of a spicy chicken sandwich has increased from $6.29 to $7.09. The price increases further increased the gap in prices between California, which already had among the highest fast food prices in the country, and states like Ohio.
My fast food consuming days are behind me, I’d never pay $39 for something from Chipotle, and I don’t live in California, so I don’t expect to be much affected by what California is doing. It seems weird, however, that a minimum-wage hike would apply only to workers in one specific part of the economy. It makes you wonder if, under the guise of providing a “living wage” in what used to be an entry-level job for kids who still lived with their parents, California–which isn’t shy about trying to legislate healthy living and environmentally friendly activities, isn’t actually trying to get people to eat less fast food thanks to the price hikes.
If so, I expect California might be in for a surprise. Some people will shy away from the higher prices for a burger and fries, and some will grit their teeth, pay the higher prices, and complain about it. But don’t expect fast food restaurants to sit idly by while California legislators and regulators mess around with their price points. Expect California to see new experiments in self-serve ordering, robotic workers, and other activities that can restrain escalating labor costs. The workers who are currently getting $20 an hour for flipping burgers may soon find themselves out of a job.
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Webner House 