'Bred Crumbs

12:23 PM It has been suggested that my list of bad corporate terms for "customer-service employee" should have contained Disney parks' ubiquitous "cast member," but the very ubiquity of the term -- it applies to all employees of the parks -- disqualifies it. (Some would say I'm just rationalizing having forgotten about it, and they might not be wrong.)

Send e-mail

08:54 AM Copy of an e-mail I sent just now to ew.com:


So, like I don't have enough problems lately, I go to EW.com this morning, and it's suddenly, drastically redesigned. First problem: In my preferred browser, Opera 5, there's a big gaping space where probably some image should be. I go to IE and find that the space is occupied by an ugly, annoyingly animated thing. Then I don't know where to go to find anything I want to read. (Or maybe it's just that, now that EW is back in full-on "Survivor" mode, there ISN'T anything I want to read.)

Thanks for ruining one of my daily website pleasures.

Send e-mail

05:01 PM One of the things that sucks about The Year That Sucks, a k a  2001, is that it's sucking for so many people. Another: good things, like Blogger, are getting pulled down the drain as all the investors who overreacted in a beneficial way a year ago are moving into knee-jerk panic, and as the oft-stated fears of a slowing economy become self-fulfilling prophecy. Truly good ideas are getting trod on in the collapse after too many people bought into truly bad ideas. Sigh.

Send e-mail

01:34 PM Sen. Joseph Lieberman, you can go away now.

Send e-mail

11:41 AM Top-three list: ridiculous corporate terms for "customer-service employee":

3  "advocate" (Sprint)
2  "ambassador" (Sony Metreon)
1  "barista" (Starbuck's)

Send e-mail

10:35 AM Barron, bless his twisted soul, directed me to this wondrous critique, which I love not just because it asserts that Godzilla vs. Megalon is a gay-rights movie or because it contains the line "Jet Jaguar is the Pony Boy to Godzilla's Patrick Swayze," but also because of its hilarious tangential rants about racism and the sexlessness of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Send e-mail

01:40 PM The New York Times on advertiser distress over Temptation Island:

"Several ad executives and network sales executives said in interviews that reality shows may start to break down into two categories: those with acceptable family-friendly content, like 'Survivor' ... and those with unacceptably racy content, like 'Temptation Island' ...."

How nice to learn that back-stabbing and Machiavellian maneuvering are considered "acceptable" and "family-friendly."

Send e-mail

02:22 AM I was witness to a staff meeting at Pasta Pomodoro (Bay Area fast-ish pasta chain). The manager gathered everyone around, and while I didn't know the exact lingo, he seemed to be exhorting them that resetting tables was the staff's priority this evening (except that, this being early 21st-century America, where English is dominated by bureaucratic atrocities, business buzzwords, and ignorance of the language, he repetitiously said it was the "top priority"). I would have hoped attending to customers would have been at the top of the list, but no. He also said he didn't want to hear excuses, the implication being his staff is a bunch of whiners; while that may be true, reminding them of it hardly seemed an effective motivational technique. Indeed, after the very short meeting broke up, a tall kid behind the counter, who had been doing little of anything before the meeting -- certainly, he was not bothering to wait on me -- simply resumed his slacking.

The scary thing is, the manager's lame team-building oration was far and away not the most counterproductive "motivational" speech to employees I heard this past week. The winner in that category was an address that was far more important -- and far more destructive in its ineptitude.

On the brighter side, I got shockingly friendly service at the Church and Market Safeway deli, which certainly is the first time that has happened at any Safeway, or perhaps any deli, in the history of the world.

Send e-mail