“I Appreciate You”

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?

Thursday Night Out

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.

Kid Sports

Yesterday we went to watch a girls’ basketball game in which one of the teams was coached by our niece. It was the first kid’s sports game we’ve watched in more than 15 years–since our kids graduated from high school–and it was . . . refreshing.

There’s a pleasant innocence about kid sports that you forget about if you aren’t exposed to it for a while. Yesterday’s game involved two teams of sophomore and junior age girls, and it was fun to watch. They hustled, they ran actual plays, they blocked out and rebounded, and they made some clutch shots. For both squads, it was very much a team game, and so far as I could tell no one complained or sulked when they were taken out for a substitute or groused when a teammate made a turnover. There were no apparent prima donnas; the players on both teams seemed to like their teammates and enjoy playing a game with them. The parents for both teams behaved, too. It was a close, well-played game, and when the horn sounded both teammates went through the handshake line without any rancor.

As I said . . . refreshing.

At some level team sports loses its innocence, and some ugliness creeps in. The results of the games take on paramount importance, and basic things like whether a player improves and develops their skills over a season are minimized. That’s the point at which many kids drop out of team sports, and that’s too bad, because being on a true team teaches kids some very important lessons and causes them to develop some very useful qualities that will serve them well during their professional careers. Be competitive, sure, but be a supportive teammate, too. Be willing to do the small things that advance the team goal. Recognize that everyone has a part to play.

Every employer wants employees with such qualities.

When you read about misbehaving professional and high-level collegiate athletes, you tend to forget about the kids like the girls we watched yesterday, who are enjoying playing a game and working hard to improve and sharpen their skills. But fortunately for all of us those kids are out there–and the society is better because of it.

Faces On A Screen

We were out to dinner at a casual spot last night–one of those places that seems to have TV screens covering every inch of wall space. As we sat down and I looked around, I was struck by how many of those screens featured close-ups of talking heads at that moment.

If your TV is tuned to a news show, or any kind of sports talk show, you’re bound to see a lot of faces on a screen. And now, with so much of daily communication happening through video calls on your computer, you get the same point-blank exposure to human faces on screens at work, too.

This didn’t used to be the case. Once, news shows or sports shows would feature footage of actual news events or highlights of key plays from a big game, with an occasional shot of an anchorman or a reporter on the scene. As some point in the past, however, somebody decided that actual film of events wasn’t really needed–probably for cost reasons–and head shots of people arguing with each other about the event would suffice instead. Add the onset of video calls into the mix, and the result is that we now get a steady diet of head shots, like the big screen footage of Big Brother in the Apple 1984 ad.

Babies are known to be naturally attracted to human faces, and studies have found that adult brains tend to look for human facial characteristics in various objects, like the fronts of cars. If in fact we’re hard-wired to appreciate human faces, this must be a golden age for homo sapiens, because I think it’s safe to say that this generation is seeing more close-ups of other human faces than any other generation in history.

NYC’s “Congestion Pricing” Proposal

New York City has come up an interesting approach to trying to ease congestion on Manhattan’s famously jammed streets: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“MTA”) has proposed assessing a fee on people who drive into the city’s core business area. The congestion pricing proposal would charge commuter cars $15 a day for entering the Central Business District below 60th Street, place a surcharge on cabs and for-hire vehicles, and charge trucks from $24 to $36.

The MTA says the proposal will generate billions of dollars in revenue that will be used to modernize New York’s aging subway system. The MTA is accepting comments and will hold virtual and in-person hearings on the plan, which is considered the first “congestion pricing” plan to be proposed by an American city. The comment period will extend until March 11. 

Some people in the area aren’t waiting for the hearings and comment period to voice their opposition to the plan. Several lawsuits have been filed, including a recent lawsuit by Lower East Side residents who say the plan will have a devastating environmental impact on their neighborhoods. Other objections to the plan have been voiced by elected officials who represent constituents in NYC “transit deserts,” where there are no viable public transit options and commuting by car therefore cannot be avoided, while others question the MTA’s ability to carefully spend the billions of dollars it forecasts will be generated by the fees.

The MTA says a thorough environmental analysis has been done; opponents say it was a rubber stamp of the proposal. You also have to wonder just how the MTA can accurately forecast what the impact of the fees will be. Manhattan’s commercial real estate market has been devastated already by the COVID pandemic and the shift to work from home policies; making those who are commuting to work pay $75 a week for the privilege of driving on Manhattan’s clogged arteries isn’t going to help that trend. Moreover, if more businesses shift to remote work approaches because employees don’t want to pay the added commuting costs, how is that going to affect the viability of the restaurants, bars, and storefronts that are key elements of the NYC economy? 

That distinct possibility makes you wonder whether the MTA forecasts of billions of dollars in revenue are actually going to be realized, or are based on assumptions about commuting that will prove to be baseless in the face of changes that companies and their employees might implement in response to the tax. And even if significant revenue is generated, given the cost overruns we’ve seen in large-scale American public works projects, can New Yorkers really count on the MTA to spend the money wisely and complete subway update projects on time and on budget, without concerns about politicized sweetheart deals, inefficiencies, disruption, and delays?

We’ll see how this all plays out, but for now I know one thing: I’m glad I don’t live in a city where I’m taxed for simply going to work.

Excitable Email

We’re trying out a new email system at the office. It has an AI feature that suggests simple responses, and also proposes the next word or phrase as you begin to type. The idea is that you will be more efficient and productive if you are helped along in responding to the barrage of emails that hit the inbox every day.

It’s a good concept, and Lord knows that we can use help in responding to the daily email onslaught. But here’s the thing: the tone of the proposed email responses is often a bit too excited for my tastes. They suggest liberal use of exclamation points–far more than I would use in the normal course–going well beyond the standard “Thanks!” response to include messages like “Great!” or “Terrific, thanks!” I think some of the simple suggested responses may also include emojis, although I’ve tried to shut that out of my conscious mind.

Since AI responses are based on some kind of training, the excitable response proposals mean that someone has trained the AI on the notion that boundless enthusiasm and lots of exclamation points are good things when responding to emails. I’m not sure that is the right way to go. One of the tough things about email communications is how to bring an ongoing thread to a respectful, but definite, termination point. Indicating that you are thrilled by a humdrum response to a question you posed may just precipitate further responses by someone who thinks you are eager to learn exactly what they did to answer your request for information–and no rational person would want to prolong an email chain unnecessarily. Or, such a response may cause the other party on the thread to wonder whether you are being sarcastic, or have an appallingly low excitement threshold, or have guzzled 15 cups of coffee already.

One of the challenges involved in the use of content-generating AI in the business world will be striking just the right tone. When it comes to email responses, being a fountain of positive, exclamation point-filled energy may sound good in the abstract, but may not be the right course in practice.

The True Cold Warrior

The weather app shows that this morning’s temperature is 7 degrees with a nine-mile-an-hour breeze, which will knock the “wind chill” temperature a few degrees lower. We’ve been experiencing a severe cold snap over the past few days, the kind that hits Ohio at least once every winter. It’s the kind of cold that feels like a frigid slap in the face when you venture outside, making it painful to breath the frosty air. And even though every brain cell is urging you to stay inside at all costs, you know you’ve got to bundle up and head off to work.

And that is where I turn to an essential winter ally: coffee. Coffee before I venture into the cold, and especially coffee immediately upon reaching the office. Coffee, to delight the nose with scented steam from a freshly brewed cup and seize the tongue and the palate with the first gulp of sultry, brown, creamy goodness. Coffee, to provide that welcome, warming gush of hot liquid down the gullet, directly into the body’s core, to heat up the innards and fortify them against the chill. Coffee, to sharpen the senses, increase the alertness, and ensure that you tug those gloves on a bit tighter, cinch the headwear down, brace yourself for the outdoor arctic blast, and watch for thos icy patches on the sidewalks and crosswalks.

Yes, it’s pretty clear: coffee is the true, essential cold warrior. On a day like today, what would I do without it? 

The No-Degree Option

When I was a kid, the statistics were pretty clear: if you wanted to get a good, professional job, you needed to go to college. A lot of companies had college degree requirements built into their hiring criteria. That reality made going on to college the default option for many young Americans, and no doubt also made at least some students more willing to take on student loan debt because the sheepskin was seen as the key to a good-paying job.

It looks like that underlying reality may be gradually changing. Recent news reports indicate that more and more companies are dropping the college degree requirement from their hiring criteria. Walmart, the largest private employer in the U.S., announced last year that it would not be mandating a college degree for certain corporate positions, and some companies in the tech industry have also moved away from considering only applicants with a college education for many positions. 

Job posting statistics for what once would have been considered “college-level occupations” show that a decreasing percentage specify a four-year college degree as one of the criteria. The percentage of postings specifying a degree has fallen from 85 percent in 2010 to 78.5 percent in 2023. Of course, that is still a healthy percentage of college education requirements–but it is the potentially accelerating trend that is of interest.

Why are some companies moving away from looking only at college graduates? Those that have done so say that they are focusing on the specific skills possessed by the candidates, rather than viewing a four-year college degree as a kind of surrogate for those skills–or at least, for the ability to learn and acquire those skills. In addition, dropping the degree requirement is seen as a way to broaden the applicant pool and ease hiring shortages for some positions. Those in the hiring business say this trend is opening the door to internal applicants who may not have a degree but whose actual performance at the employer demonstrates that they have the skills to do the job.

This movement away from college degree requirements is something to keep an eye going forward–particularly if you are associated with a college or university. If more companies drop the degree criterion, how will it affect the pool of high school graduates considering whether to take on the debt needed to secure a college diploma? The “gap year” phenomenon shows that some students want to defer college in favor of getting immediate travel or life experiences; that attitude could be broadened to sampling the job market, seeing if it is possible to work up the ladder, and avoid the college expense altogether. If I were working in administration at a college or university, I would keep an anxious eye on company hiring practices, as well as my enrollment and applicant data, in connection with deciding how much to charge for tuition.

Mind-Setting Soaps

New hand soaps have been rolled out at the firm since the start of the year, and I am thrilled to report that we continue to boldly broach new frontiers in curious soap names.

I’ve written before about how our workplace hand soaps have eschewed simple brand names, or even straightforward identification of the key ingredients that might give the soaps their unique aromas. The soap producers first veered off the traditional naming path with evocative monikers like “sunshine and lemons,” but now they apparently are adding random adjectives to the mix that don’t seem to be related to any aspect of the soap. 

Consider the soap name above, for example. Could any soap really be described as “cozy,” no matter what its fragrance might be? ”Cozy” is a frame of mind associated with physical and mental sensations of warmth and relaxation. You might use “cozy” in connection with settling down on the couch in front of a blazing fireplace with a snifter of brandy and a good book, or snuggling into a favorite fleece blanket on a cold winter night–but a soap? And the “vanilla almond” doesn’t make the “cozy” any more rational. Vanilla almond sounds like a cookie or a candy bar or an ice cream flavor, none of which you’d consider particularly cozy, either. You might call the vanilla almond combination sweet, or delicious . . . but not cozy.

And if we’re going to be adding random adjectives to soap names, shouldn’t we try to make them more suitable to the setting in which the soap will be employed? Workplaces typically aren’t seen as “cozy,” nor do they aspire to be. It’s time for the soap makers to break out the roster of words that job applicants add to their resumes to convey the attributes they think potential employers are looking for–adjectives like “innovative,” or “dynamic,” or “creative.” How about “focused vanilla almond,” instead?

A Look At “Social Security Retirements”

Many Americans have been carefully setting aside some of their income and saving and investing for retirement during their working years–but many others don’t do that, for a variety of reasons. If you’re in the group of retirement savers, you might wonder: how do the people in the second group get by when they finally do reach the point of retirement?

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published an interesting article that attempts to answer that question, by interviewing people who rely on Social Security for most of their retirement income. As the article reports, the Social Security check isn’t chicken feed–for the average worker, it comes to $1,900 a month, which replaces about 40 percent of the average worker’s monthly income–but it’s not a gold-plated nest egg, either. For most Social Security recipients, of course, you also need to consider that a chunk of medical expenses will be covered by Medicare.

The takeaways from the WSJ article are about what you would expect. The retirees who rely primarily on Social Security have had to cut their expenses, and of course reduce their debt, out of necessity. They downsize their housing costs–some by living with relatives, or taking advantage of subsidized housing programs for seniors–and are careful about their budgets. But they manage to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.

There is no one-size-fits-all retirement. Every individual retiree will have different personal, family, and social resources, different interests, and different approaches to their lives. The WSJ article provides an alternative perspective that contrasts with the investment fund ads featuring happy seniors living in big houses and taking lavish vacations. Living primarily on your Social Security check clearly can be done–the question is, is that what you want in your retirement years? 

 

An Alternative Take On Retirement Planning

As we move closer to what we think will be the end of our working years, we inevitably start reading more about retirement planning. Usually such articles focus on the financial aspects of retirement planning, seeking to help you tackle the toughest question of all: how much do I need to have saved, really, to retire? In most of those articles you’ll see all kinds of formulae, investment tips, and planning concepts that will supposedly help you attain a financially comfortable retirement life.

CNN recently published an alternative take on retirement planning. The writer’s bottom-line point is that many Americans are too obsessed with accumulating retirement funds. Instead, he argues they should be focused on creating great memories and accumulating enriching experiences when they are still healthy and active enough to do so–and helping out their kids at earlier ages, when they really need the money the most. The idea is that the retirees can then reflect on those happy memories in their dotage, when their health might not let them engage in many expensive, physically taxing activities.

It’s an interesting perspective that is contrary to many articles that take the position that most Americans don’t save enough for retirement. But it reflects what I think is a fundamental point: there is no one “right” way to look at retirement. Some people will be comfortable with following the writer’s approach, spending more at earlier points in their lives, and saving less, like the grasshopper in the fable. Others will be like the ant, because they know that they don’t want to risk a retirement where they don’t have enough and are beset by money worries during their so-called golden years. Underlying both scenarios, and others along the spectrum, is knowing yourself and what you really want your retirement to be.

Once you realize that retirement is not a math test and there is no single correct answer, it becomes a little easier to accept that you can only do your best, based on your own circumstances and interests and self-awareness. That’s a liberating notion.

The New Coffee Machine At The Office

We’ve got a new coffee machine on our floor at the office. After an unholy, one-day period where there was no functional coffee maker on our floor–which required the coffee-seekers among us to shuffle down to the first floor, cup in hand, in our search for a caffeine infusion–this new gizmo, with new coffee options, appeared.

Other than the enforced day of coffee abstinence, I wasn’t sad to see the old coffee maker go. It had the unfortunate habit of occasionally producing an explosion of coffee grounds that coated your cup and required you to dump out the coffee, rinse the cup, and start all over again. The fact that the explosion tended to happen at the very end of the coffee-making process, just as you were anticipating that first gulp of caffeinated goodness, made the old machines even more unacceptable. It clearly was time for them to go.

The new machine is more complicated than the old machine, giving you a number of different options for hot and cold brew and different sizes, but once you get the hang of the process it’s easy enough. So far, there has been no unseemly exploding grounds incident. And best of all, the new machine makes the coffee under an unearthly blue glow, which makes the coffee look a bit like a sorcerer’s brew–which, given the magical properties of java, is entirely appropriate.

From National To International

I don’t often write about my law firm, Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, LLP, but I reserve the right to brag about it from time to time–such as when we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the firm’s founding in 1909. This month, the firm recognized another milestone with the announcement that it is opening its second international office, in Berlin, Germany.

Like all great institutions, VSSP is not static, In the modern world, even law firms must change with the times, or they won’t be around for much longer. Our firm has done a good job of modifying its approach–in its flexibility about work schedules, in its use of technology, and in countless other ways–while still holding on to the qualities and cultural touchstones that really define Vorys as an excellent law firm and a great place to work.

Growth has been one of those areas of change. When I started at the firm, it had four offices: in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Washington, D.C. Since then, we’ve added four new offices in the U.S., in Akron, Pittsburgh, Houston, and Orange County, California, as well as two international offices in London and Berlin. All have fine lawyers, paralegals, and hard-working staff that I am proud to call my colleagues.

Of course, there are much larger, globe-girdling law firms, but that doesn’t detract from what our firm has accomplished. The spreading geographic footprint is something I wouldn’t have necessarily predicted when I started at VSSP in the ’80s, and I’m sure it would be mind-boggling to the four founding partners who started the firm in downtown Columbus in 1909. Unexpected or not, the growth and spreading footprint is a testament to the hard work and creativity of Vorys lawyers, who have built on a solid foundation of teamwork, collaboration, professionalism, and an overarching focus on client service that was established by our predecessors–but enough with the bragging already.

I’ve been to and worked at all of the Vorys domestic offices. I hope to make it to the London and Berlin offices one of these days–and to whatever future new offices may be coming down the pike.

Manners Can Be Fun

I ran across a news article recently that discussed the results of surveys of parents in 24 different countries about the qualities they prioritized in their children. The United States ranked dead last among the surveyed nations in attaching importance to good manners, with only 52 percent of parents identifying polite behavior as a point of focus. That number is down sharply from 1990, when 76 percent of American parents said good manners was very important, and far behind countries like Egypt, where 96 percent of respondents said teaching kids about courtesy should be a top priority.

U.S. parents make it into the top 10 in assigning importance to developing other attributes in their kids, however. American parents tend to value imagination, tolerance and respect for others, hard work, and independence more than parents in other countries. (The last result will no doubt come as a surprise for anyone who have read about or seen evidence of helicopteritis in the current crop of American crop of American parents.)

It’s interesting that parental focus on drilling their children on the importance of good manners has declined over the years. It was a point of emphasis in our house when I grew up, with Mom insisting that we addressed adults as “sir” and “ma’am,” opened doors for our elders, kept our elbows off the table, didn’t interrupt, tried to keep the noise level down to a dull roar, and followed countless other rules of etiquette, courtesy, and interpersonal behavior and conduct. We even had a great book called Manners Can Be Fun by Munro Leaf, two pages of which are pictured above, that taught manners lessons using funny drawings and that had a big impact on how we acted around adults and other kids.

I find it hard to believe that current American parents think good manners are unimportant; my guess is that the rankings were affected because other qualities, like imagination, have become more of a priority than they used to be. And any parent who values tolerance and respect for others, as the survey indicates American parents do, is teaching attributes that are part and parcel of having good manners in my book. But to the extent some parents out there are giving politeness short shrift, I would encourage them to reconsider: there are very few jobs or careers out there where personal conduct and proper behavior aren’t the subject of evaluation on personnel forms, because no one wants to work with a boorish jerk.

The Most Regretted Major

It’s not surprising that many college graduates look back on their years of higher education with some regrets. College is by definition a learning experience and a growing experience, and you are bound to make some choices that, in retrospect, weren’t the best choices you could have made.

But I was shocked to see that a recent Zip Recruiter survey identified journalism as the most regretted major, with 87 percent of J-School grads wishing they had gone in a different direction. The survey reached out to more than 1,500 college graduates who were looking for a job, 44 percent of whom regretted their choice of major. Journalism was at the top of the list, followed by sociology, general liberal arts study, communications, and education rounding out the top five on the roster of collegiate regret.

I’m surprised by this because I’m a journalism major, and I found my time in the J-School taught me practical skills that have been extremely useful in the workforce. News writing is different from the long-winded papers churned out by students in other majors; you need to strip out the jargon and the filler and get to the point. And, when I was in journalism school decades ago, you also needed to separate your personal views from the story you were covering, and present the facts in an orderly, objective way. We learned a straightforward approach to writing that easily translates to law, business, and other fields.

Journalists also need to be able to think critically about how to find and authenticate facts they want to report and then sift through those facts and determine which ones are the most important–because those are the ones that need to get reported first. Other helpful training includes organizing yourself to conduct interviews, developing interpersonal skills to get potential sources to trust you, and being able to proofread and self-edit your own work–and accepting it when your work is edited by others.

I’ve never regretted my journalism degree. So, why do today’s journalism graduates seem to regret their choice of major? I suspect that the withering away of print journalism and other traditional sources of newsroom jobs has a lot to do with it, but I also wonder if the current approach to teaching journalism students bears part of the blame. Maybe schools of journalism need to go back to really focusing on teaching the nuts and bolts of old-fashioned, “shoe leather” reporting, and the useful, flexible practical skills that were part of the journalist’s stock in trade.