Newsletter/Blog
Be the Bartender of Your Brand
I waitressed for two summers during college and met some pretty interesting people. The first summer I worked the counter of a Bloomingdale’s restaurant in Hackensack, New Jersey. I served two Secret Service agents who were trailing Pat Nixon and her daughter Tricia who were eating in the dining room of the restaurant. Nice guys, easy going, and tipped well.
Prior to my sophomore year I worked at a 24-hour diner called The Forum. The Saturday night shift went from 5 pm to 4:30 am. As you could imagine, the crowd here differed from Bloomingdale’s.
Ugg Me, Ugg Me Not
Walk into any public middle school or high school on a winter day, and you’ll notice the girls’ cool weather uniform. Not a mandated uniform, but a voluntarily adopted one. It consists of a Northface fleece jacket and a pair of Ugg boots.
In September 2010, as my now 11-year-old daughter Fiona was entering the fifth grade, she developed an acute desire for these items. I wasn’t entirely surprised as my neighbor’s 14-year-old daughter had expressed the same desires a couple of years before.
But I didn’t realize how widespread the girls’ conformity went.
Don’t You Love Me Anymore?
Is there anyone out there who hasn’t heard a parent utter the golden rule? Treat others the way that you would like to be treated.
Well, okay, my father once said the golden rule was “those who have the gold make the rules.”
While the former golden rule is the more prominent and accepted one, the latter seems to be the one that newspaper companies follow.
Except that newspaper companies’ gold is long gone.
Though the newspaper industry’s need to change its business model has been painfully obvious for years, the industry has clung to past practices.
Try Before You Sell
One day last summer my husband and I were in the kitchen coordinating preparations for a huge party when we were stopped in our tracks by a deafening noise.
Was it thunder? No. Police siren? No. Earthquake? No. Avalanche? Atomic bomb? The Red Sox beating the Yankees? No, no, and no.
It was my husband opening two bags of Sun Chips.