Things About Work I Wish I Knew Earlier – Part 8

August 27, 2010 Leave a comment

We’re on to Part 8 of this series.  Last week I wrote in Part 7 about being patient.  One of the reasons I urge patience is because of this week’s topic.

8. You aren’t as good as you think you are

This was a tough learning for me and is one that many younger employees and employees new to their current company don’t realize early enough.   This learning is important to consider for three reasons.  First, it helps you calibrate the timing of your advancement.  Second, it focuses you on constant improvement.  Third, it keeps you humble.

Whether you believe it or not, experience counts.  Wine gets better with age.  Cheese gets better with age.  Employees get better with age.  Notice I didn’t write “smarter.”  I wrote “better.”  Many employees are smarter than their bosses and even their boss’s boss.  But being smarter, doesn’t mean better.  I ask, how many really smart people do you know that don’t cut it in your company?  Probably quite a few.

Smartness, however, doesn’t account for experiential knowledge.  The longer you work, at one or multiple companies, the more you experience and re-experience the same types of problems, situations, people, and processes.  The book-smart way to do something may not be the best.  A less experienced employee will gain a lot of points by asking the “older guys” how things are done and, with that understanding, proceeding down his or her own path.

There is reason that the only time you see very young CEO’s is when they founded the company and, even then, the founders often bring in the “gray hairs” to take over at a certain point.  Yahoo did that.  Google did that.  Take a look at a list of Fortune 500 CEOs when you get a chance.  Most are over 50 with many years of experience in the business world.  I’m sure they approach problems differently than you do, and, from time to time, you think they do things wrong.  Without their experience, however, you don’t know what you don’t know — and you realize that you aren’t as good as you think you are.

Even when you get up to a position of responsibility and authority, you can’t forget this learning.  You need to maintain humility and a focus on constant improvement.  More often that not, you aren’t as good as you think you are, and understanding that opens the door for improvement.  Your President or CEO isn’t as good as he or she thinks she is and, hopefully, understands that.

The concern I have in writing this is that many younger folks in the workplace don’t believe this advice.  They think, “Spidey – you weren’t as good as you thought you were, but I am as good as I think I am.”  They think that, once they get a chance, they could easily do jobs above them in the org chart and do it well.

For these people I have news.  At some point in your life, you’ll realize that half the music you listened to in college really sucked, that 9o% of the stuff your mom & dad told you is right, and that in the early days of your career, you really weren’t as good as you thought you were.  I promise all three will occur.

Filed under Jobs and Business Tagged with ,

In Praise of Sports Club Stats

August 26, 2010 Leave a comment

Sports Club Stats is one of the neatest sites for sports fans to monitor the ongoing success of their sports teams as they progress towards qualifying for their league’s playoffs.  Once I found this site, I can say honestly that I visited every day during the last NHL season to watch the progress of the Washington Capitals towards the playoffs and towards capturing the President’s Trophy for the NHL’s best record.

Sports Club Stats keep track of leagues from the first game to the last and tracks the probability of each team making the playoffs and the probability of finishing in a particular spot in the league.  It does this by replaying the rest of the season over and over and over – as in 10 million times each day for major league baseball now.  It replays the season two different ways:

  • “Weighted” – which considers records and home field advantage to predict each game’s likely winner
  • “50/50” – which gives each opponent an equal chance at winning every game

As I monitored the Caps, “weighted” in mind was a more optimistic view and “50/50” was a conservative view.  If the Caps looked good under the 50/50, then they were in good shape.  Because Sports Club Stats also shows which games that day have the most impact, fans can determine exactly whom to root for and whom to root against to help their team the most.

The site is fascinating because, by replaying the season and calculating the probable records, it automatically takes all the games and the specific opponents.  This means that teams are both eliminated from consideration and clinch playoff spots on Sports Club Stats long before they “officially” clinch in media outlets.  This also leads to some intriguing information (from this morning’s “weighted” scenario):

Sports Club Stats Says the Yankees Have a 95.5% Chance of Making the 2010 Playoffs

  • The Padres and the Rangers are the most likely teams to make the playoffs at 98.4%, higher than the Rays (97.5%) and Yankees (95.5%), which both have better records than the Padres and Rangers.
  • Because of the Rays’ and Yankees’ records, the Red Sox only have a 6.7% chance of making the playoffs.
  • Even though the Rays and Yankees have the best records, the Rays have a 20% greater likelihood of finishing first than the Yankees.  This may reflect an easier schedule and more home games for the Rays going forward.
  • The Cardinals can go 15-23 the rest of the way and still make the Wild Card in one scenario and can go 30-8 in another scenario and miss out on the playoffs entirely.

Sports Club Stats cover the major college and pro leagues in the US and soccer leagues from around the world.  (For what it’s worth, Chelsea, Blackpool, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Blackburn all have over a 9% chance of wining the Premier League title in England, but it is early days.)  Unfortunately for some, it looks like their auto racing tracking has lapsed a bit.  You can also can give the site with the league structure and schedule of your fantasy league, and the site will run projected finishes.

There is a lot more detail than I can possibly explain here.  If you like over analyzing your team’s chances and knowing exactly where they stand, you will enjoy the site as much as I do.

For example, I know that the Cardinals chances at the playoffs drop from 52% to 45% if they lose to the Nationals tonight.  If the Cards win, the likelihood increases to 56.4%.   As I write, the game is 10-10 in the 12th.

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Something New and Frustrating From an Air Canada Flight Attendant

August 25, 2010 Leave a comment

Writing tonight from Toronto on a quick trip from St. Louis.   After meetings tomorrow, I’ll be back in S t. Louis by dinner time.

After an unexpected experience on my flight tonight, I was reminded that airline service is 100% correlated to the people, not to the airline itself.  There are good people on bad airlines and bad people on good ones.  Tonight, I had the latter.

Tonight I heard something from a flight attendant I have never heard before.

Air Canada's CRJ - My Plane from St. Louis to Toronto

The flight up was on Jazz, Air Canada’s regional airline.  It was a CRJ, direct from St. Louis to Toronto.  This CRJ has two seats on either side of the aisle and 13 rows.  It’s a squeeze for most people and relatively uncomfortable.

I was seated in row 2 on the aisle, and the window seat next to me was occupied.  The man seemed nice enough, but I could tell by the placement of his arm on the center armrest, that he was not going to move it for the length of the flight.  His elbow was well into my space.  Already squeezed, I felt even more so.  However, the two seats across the aisle were empty.  Score!

When boarding ended, the guy next to me politely asked whether I would want to move across the aisle.  Of course I did.  However, I had heard the flight attendant tell another passenger that he couldn’t move until we were in the air and the seat belt signed was turned off.  That was very odd.  Very odd.

Wanting to respect the flight attendant, I asked if I could move across the aisle.  The FA said no.  He said gave me the same answer I had overheard.  The conversation then went something like this:

Me:  “I’ve never heard that before.  People move all the time before take off to get more comfortable.”

FA:  “You need to wait until the seat belt sign is off after take-off.”

Me:  “Ok, but I don’t understand why.  I’ve never heard that before.”

FA:  “It’s for weight distribution.  This is a small plane.”

Me:  “You’re kidding.”

FA:  “Do you want to go talk to the pilot?  I’ll go get the pilot.  He can explain it to you.”

Here’s the thing — the flight was 2/3 full, and there was no way that me moving from one aisle seat across to another aisle seat was going to throw the plane out of balance.  If he had just said it was Air Canada or Jazz policy, I would have bought that.  He acted as if our seats were assigned based on weight distribution.  Of course that’s ridiculous.

About two minutes later, the FA gets on the speaker and announces that he needs two people from the front rows to move to the rear of the plane “for weight distribution.”  He is staring right at me as he says this.  He says we can’t leave until someone moves.  By this point, I was frustrated, and I got snippy.

Me:  “I don’t want to move to the back.  I want to move across the aisle.”

FA:  Row 11, 12 or 13. (Still staring through me.)

So – I moved and we left.  My luck – this FA will be on my return flight tomorrow.

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Dropping Me Off at College 26 Years Ago

August 24, 2010 Leave a comment

In life we all have moments that we’d like to take back and do over.

I’m not thinking about redoing a missed free throw at the end of a basketball game or retaking a test you should have aced.  I’m thinking about doing over a moment where you made a poor decision.  Maybe you yelled at someone when a softer approach would do.  Maybe you were late to an event where someone counted on you to attend.  Maybe you took things too fast or too slow on a date, ending a relationship that could have been something.

This week, as a few of my colleagues left to drive their children to college to begin their freshman year, I was reminded of a moment in my life I’d like to take back.  It occurred just about 26 years ago, give or take a few weeks.

Now that I have a 15-year-old, I can see this drop-off day coming for me.  Three years from now, God willing, Mrs. Spidey and I will be delivering our oldest to his first year of college.  I now know something I didn’t know back in 1984, when my parents took me to Williams College for my freshman year.

I now know that this delivery or visit or drop-off or whatever you call it is more significant for the parents, more emotional for the parents, more trying for the parents that it is for the child.

My Freshman Dorm at Williams. My room is first floor, 4th window from the far right.

Back in 1984, I didn’t realize that, and I’d like a do-over.  I’d like a do-over, because after my parents and I found my dorm room in the freshman quad, after we unloaded the car, after we picked up my linens (those were the days!), I basically pushed my parents back into the car to go home.  My mother wanted to help me set up my room.  She wanted to help me make my bed.  I assume, because I am her oldest and was the first going away to college, that she wanted to make sure that I was comfortable and had what I needed.  Unfortunately, I all but yelled at her to stop making the bed.  I wanted to do it myself and move on with my life.

I’m not going to claim I know exactly what happened after that, but I’m sure it involved my parents leaving and me moving on with my life.  I now know that it also involved my parents moving on with their life, but from a much different perspective.

There’s no preachy ending to this post, no admonishment to the incoming frosh and no words of preparation for their parents.  This is just a reflection on a moment 26 years ago for which I want a do-over and a note to myself on how to prepare for August 2013, when I’ll be the one my oldest dropping-off.

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Week 3 – 194.6 Pounds. Just Off the Pace, But No Worries

August 23, 2010 2 Comments

I weighed in this morning at 194.6, which is 0.2 pounds more than last week and only 2.8 pounds less than my starting point of 197.4.  I want to lose one pound per week for 20 weeks, but have now lost only 2.8 pounds in 3 weeks.

Oh well.

I don’t mean to dismiss this as something really awesome, but I’m getting to a good spot after three weeks.  I ran six times last week.  I splurged on a Nike+ sensor for my shoe, and I can now see my workouts online.  I would have easily stayed on pace this week, but I slipped a bit with an in-office potluck lunch on Thursday and dinner out on Saturday night.  I have to be more focused on those times not to slip as badly.

I know I could be on pace, because, as I type this after dinner on Monday evening, I’m a pound lighter than I was this morning.  All you dieters know that we are always lighter in the morning than in the evening, so I’m in good shape for tomorrow morning.

Stelter's Tweet from May 3 Recalibrating His Weight Loss Goal

For those of you who have tweeted me back or written me separately, I appreciate your support.  You may have noticed that this week, I put my weight in the title and, thus, on Twitter and Facebook.

I did this after reading an article by Brian Stelter over the weekend in the New York Times.  The article, “Tall Tales, Truth, and My Twitter Diet,” explains how Stelter used the support of over 600 followers on Twitter to lose 75 pounds in 25 weeks, surpassing an initial target of 25 pounds in 25 weeks.  While his pace of three pounds a week is a bit fast for my taste, I admire what he did.  I also admire his honesty for posting his weight on a daily basis.

As Stelter mentions in his article, Drew Magary did something similar on Deadspin. Point #3 of Magary’s Public Humiliation Diet is posting his weight on Twitter daily.

In the past, I have lost 20 pounds by using loss aversion on Stickk.com, where I had to give to charity each time I fell off my weight loss pace.  That was definitely motivation.  However, it seems to me that telling the world your weight goal and goal date, and then posting your current weight on a daily basis is even more motivating.

You can follow Brian on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brianstelter25.  Join me.  I just followed him, and I’m number 1,295 – which shows what a New York Times article can do for you!

Brian and Drew have definitely given us something to think about.

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What If Clemens Had Apologized in 2007?

August 22, 2010 Leave a comment

Roger Clemens Testifying Before Congress in 2008

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens was indicted last week for obstruction of justice, making false statements, and perjury based on testimony he gave to the U.S. Congress in February 2008.  Clemens had appeared voluntarily to answer questions about his possible use of illegal steroids and human growth hormone.  If found guilty, Clemens could face up to five years in prison per perjury charge.

I’ve wondered for some time whether admitting drug use and apologizing makes any difference at all in the perceptions of the fans, the baseball community, and the Hall-of-Fame voters.  I think it can, but for Clemens it’s too late now.

Imagine if, in December 2007, Clemens had held a press conference, surrounded by his family, and said this:

I am embarrassed by the facts released in the Mitchell Report, but they are true.  In order to compete against stronger batters in my career and to stave off the effects of age, I knowingly took steroids and human growth hormone.  I have no one to blame but myself.  I wish it had never happened.  I respect the opinions of the fans and the baseball community.  I honestly did what I felt was necessary to compete.  I now understand this was very wrong.  For all the young kids and baseball players, I urge you not to follow my example.  Let your natural talent take you where it will.  For other players named in the Mitchell Report, I urge you to step forward and admit what you’ve done, if you are guilty.  Let’s not continue the sins of the past.

Had Clemens taken this course of action, it might have changed things.  Clemens could have been viewed as a sympathetic figure.  He could have been given further opportunities to rehabilitate himself through speaking engagements and interactions with baseball players.  Clemens could have started down the path towards improving public opinion and, possibly, a spot in the Baseball Hall-of-Fame.

At the same time, it might not have mattered at all.  Pundits would have vilified Clemens for his actions.  He would have been ostracized from baseball for at least a short time.  But, at least the issue would have been put to rest once and for all, opening the door for longer-term rehabilitation.

Timing is critical in the apologies.  Mark McGwire apologized in 2009, eight years after his career ended.  Too late.  The anger built up over the years by fans and writers is too great.  His chances of getting into the Hall-of-Fame are generally believed to be zero.

Had Clemens Listened to One Republic's Lyrics, History May Have Changed

Andy Pettite and Alex Rodriguez apologized during their career, and the issue became a non-story, coming back up only on occasions of milestones or Hall-of-Fame discussions.  No longer can a reporter ask either whether they did steroids.  Question asked and answered.

Clemens, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, and Sammy Sosa have let the denials go on too long for apologies.  Unless exonerated by a higher court, they have no opportunity to undo sins of the past.

Ironically, One Republic had a massive global hit in 2007 with “Apologize.”  The chorus of that song?  “It’s too late to apologize.  It’s too late.”  It’s a shame Clemens wasn’t listening.

Lance Armstrong — Do you have One Republic on your iPod?

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Things About Work I Wish I Knew Earlier – Part 7

August 20, 2010 1 Comment

In the first six parts of this series, I focused on what I wish I knew earlier about keeping oneself out of trouble, as a precursor to a long career.  I termed it “staying off the radar.”  If you read these posts, much of the advice focused on what not to do, as opposed to what to do.  Eventually I will get to advice on what to do, perhaps as early as next week.

This week, I  want to focus on maintaining the right mindset as you strive to expand your responsibilities or to get promoted.  This is definitely something I wish I put into practice earlier.

7. Be patient all the time about everything

I think this is the single most difficult piece of advice for young people to understand and believe.  Every ambitious person I have met wants to move up an organizational ladder as fast as possible.  They think they can do more challenging jobs.  They think they are better than their boss and better than colleagues promoted ahead of them.  This leads to a tremendous amount of impatience.  I now know that career growth and the world in general never moves as quickly as we believe it should.  I really wish I had believed others who twenty years ago told me to be patient.

On the job, there are two types of impatience:  1) day-to-day impatience and 2) career impatience.  I recommend that you eliminate both.  Your blood pressure and heart rate will decline, and you will be more successful.

Day-to-day impatience occurs when you are waiting for someone to return a phone call, respond to an email, review a presentation, get you some materials, etc.  Sometimes these requests are open-ended, and others have deadlines.  It is very frustrating when someone doesn’t get back to you as quickly as you want them to.  Sometimes, it impacts deadlines for a larger project to which you have committed, and that can be a problem.  When we suspect that things aren’t happening as planned, we have a tendency to repeatedly check in with that person.  We have a tendency to pester and ask them if they need help.

In these instances, you are best served by relaxing, placing yourself in the other person’s shoes, trusting they will get the work done, and considering logical reasons why they haven’t responded.  They could be at the doctor’s,  in meetings, in bed sick, at a child’s concert, etc.  Even if you put “urgent” on the message, sometimes the person just can’t get around to returning the message.  They could legitimately have been asked to complete other deliverables that are more important than yours.  Pestering is never good, and we know from part 4 that offering help is also a no-no.    I have found that there is almost always a logical reason for someone not responding.  If you can stay patient, not fire off repeated notes, texts, or voice mails, and wait, then you’ll be more respected and viewed as someone easy to work with.

Career impatience is the desire I mentioned above to be promoted or to gain more responsibilities as soon as possible.  The fact is that none of us gets promoted or expands our responsibilities when we think we ready.  It always happens later.  I’ve come to learn that most of these decisions are right.  We tend to over value our capabilities and contributions at work and over value the importance of immediate job advancement in a long-term career.  Impatience for job advancement can lead you to vocalize your impatience and show your frustration, neither of which will endear yourself to your boss, their bosses, and your co-workers.

I encourage you to look around you at your company and make a realistic assessment of people’s career paths.  My guess is that you will see some very good people who have been  in the same job or at the same level for three, five, seven or more years.  Why should you be different and move more quickly up the ladder?  I urge you to listen to the guidance your boss gives you about when you might be considered for promotion and set that as the earliest possible date.  If she says three years, then three years it is.  There’s a reason why this guidance exists.

If you are 25 and reading this, I’d bet my house you don’t believe me.  Remember, I’m writing here about what I wish I’d learned earlier.  I wish I had just relaxed in my roles, done a good job, and focused less on how quickly I could move up.  I would have been calmer, happier, and would probably have gotten promoted earlier.

I encourage you to put things in perspective.  How old is your CEO?  How long has your boss been with the company or doing their job?  After 20+ years in the work place, I can tell you there is a reason why leaders are often on the older, more-tenured side.  Set a pace that gets you to their job at their age.  Stay off the radar.  Have the patience to get there.

Filed under Jobs and Business Tagged with ,

In Praise of OpenTable

August 19, 2010 Leave a comment

Each Thursday, I have shared a web site that you that I find very useful, and this week is no exception.  Mrs. Spidey and I don’t eat out often, but when we do, more often than not we make reservations through OpenTable.

OpenTable has been around a while.  We first used it in 2006 on a trip to San Francisco to get a table at Sutro’s at Cliff House in Golden Gate Park.  For the average consumer, the application is very simple.  You choose your city, the time you want to eat, and the number of people joining you.  The site then shows you what restaurants are available at or near that time.  When it presents this list, it also give you a sense of how expensive each restaurant is and the type of cuisine that the restaurant serves.  When you find something you like,  you click on the specific time you want at the restaurant, and a reservation is confirmed.  It’s really that easy.

According to their website, OpenTable has over 14,000 restaurants in its database.  Its core business is restaurant management software, and it manages the reservations book for all or most of these 14,000 restaurants.  That’s why, when you make a reservation, it is instantly in the restaurant’s book.

Like similar sites, OpenTable also asks diners to rate their experience and provide comments.  The site includes more detail on the cuisine, menus, web site information, credit cards accepted, etc.  OpenTable also allows you to download your reservation into Outlook and send the invite to others.  It is a very robust site.  As an example, one restaurant not too far from us, but about 40 minutes outside downtown St. Louis, has 97 reviews.  Restaurants in larger cities will easily have hundreds of reviews.

OpenTable also allows you to make special requests.  At Sutro’s, for example, we requested a table by the windows overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  Sure enough, the table was waiting when we got there, and we watched a beautiful sunset.

Tables by the Window at Sutro's Give You a Great View, Especially at Sunset

As a further incentive, OpenTable has a rewards program that nets users discounts of up to $100 based on points accumulated from making reservations.  If you are a restaurant goer and make reservations anyway, you might as well use OpenTable for the rewards.  Normally, reservations are worth 100 points, but OpenTable offers bonus points for specific restaurants or times.  Rewards start at 2,000 points (a $20  certificate), and sometimes there are 1,000 point bonus for a single reservation.

While we use the Web site, the most spectacular feature is the mobile accessibility of OpenTable.   It has applications for the Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, and Nokia systems.  The big benefit is with GPS-enabled phones.  You can ask OpenTable to “find restaurants near you.”  That really narrows things down quickly.  I have an iPhone and have used the OpenTable application more than the web site itself.

Here are three true stories that have led me to be a big fan of OpenTable:

  1. One spring, we took the kids skiing in Park City.  As we waited for kids where the ski lifts converge mid-mountain (with a pitcher of Bud Light), Mrs. Spidey suggested the two of us go to dinner without the kids that night.  Sitting there, a gondola ride up the mountain from our hotel room, I pulled up the application, found a local restaurant called Chez Betty, showed Mrs. Spidey the menu and made reservations.  It took maybe five minutes to do all this.
  2. This summer, in Las Vegas, we were heading to the Palazzo to see Jersey Boys.  In the cab, Mrs. Spidey told me about, Dos Caminos, a Mexican restaurant she had seen in the Palazzo casino when she picked up the tickets earlier that day.  When the cab got to the Palazzo, I told the application to find restaurants near by.  The restaurant came up, and we made reservations to eat after the show as we passed by the restaurant heading to the theater.
  3. Just last weekend, we were deciding to go out, and we remembered a nearby restaurant that we had heard good things about but had never been to.  It was about 7:40pm or so.  I opened the application, told OpenTable to find restaurants nearby.  The restaurant we wanted, Villa Farotto, came up as available for 8:00pm.  I chose it, and we were off.  It ended up being a very good meal.

In short, I just don’t think you can beat OpenTable for volume of restaurants, for reviews, and, most importantly for ease of use.  Well done.

Filed under Other Sites I Like Tagged with ,

The Most Worthless Business Travel Article I’ve Read in a While

August 18, 2010 Leave a comment

Here are a few phrases you won’t hear in our home:

  • Honey, next time we’re in Capri visiting our manufacturing plant can we get stay at that hotel where the bathrooms overlook the Faraglioni rocks?
  • Those circular soaking tubs at the Amanfayun Spa in Hangzhou, China were awesome, and I’m glad the client took us there.
  • Thank goodness they had clay tennis courts at my hotel in Marrakech, because cement courts would have been way too hot when Bob and I played between meetings.

This snarky intro is reflective of my reaction to an article in the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek.  The article, The Hotel Amenities Arms Race, describes amenities at various hotels across the globe with the kicker:  “Properties old and new are getting creative to lure business travelers.”

The Pool at the Qaryat Al Beri Hotel in Abu Dhabi

At first blush, it sounds interesting.  I have an international job, and I like to travel.  We love reading the articles, for example, in American Express’ Departures, even though we might never be able to go to some of those places.  But the article completely misses the mark by providing incredibly useless information about locations that don’t really attract their share of “business travelers.”

The article cites amenities in places which global travelers frequent, such as London, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney and Paris.  Sounds good.  But it also includes hotels in Hangzhou, Marrakech, Majorca, Capri, and Kathmandu.  These are certainly very interesting places, but are not prime business locations.

The article cites amenities such as the best points program (Starwood), business center (Park Hyatt Sydney), room service (Chambers Hotel, Manhattan), and gym (La Mamounia in Marrech) — things in which a business traveler is interested.  But, the “amenities” designed to “lure” the business traveler also include a spa, bathroom, wine list, sporting venue, and golf trip.  Just how is the Meydan Hotel in Dubai “luring” me there because it has a rooftop pool that allows me to swim and watch horse racing at the same time?

It’s possible people like Larry Ellison or Richard Branson would be “lured” to these places, but even they probably focus on business when they travel and certainly choose locations based on business, not based on amenities.

The Punta Tragara on Capri: Will Your Company Cover $2,300 per Night For This View?

The article, of course, doesn’t list prices.  No worries.  I looked a few of them up for you.  If you are like me, they exceed your company’s hotel expense policy maximums by quite a bit:

  • $2,300 per night at the Punta Tragara in Capri to get the same view shown at right.
  • $714 per night including breakfast at La Residencia on Majorca, where, according to the article, you can ride a donkey through a forest to have a picnic of homemade foods.
  • $580 per night for a basic room at the Amanfayun Resort in Hangzhou, where, apparently, the spa is to-die-for.
  • $510 per night for a basic room at the La Mamoudia in Marrakech.
  • $231 per night for a basic room at the Qaryat Al Beri in Abu Dabi, where you get a temperature-controlled, saltwater infinity pool (that’s the photo towards the top of this post).

So, in summary, thanks to Bloomberg Businessweek, I know about some intriguing amenities (that few have time for on business trips) at hotels (that my company won’t and shouldn’t pay for) in specific cities (many of which almost no one travels to for business).

Please don’t say “you’re welcome.”

The Hotel Amenities Arms Race

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First Day of School – A Tale of Two Kids

August 17, 2010 Leave a comment

Today is the first day of the 2010-2011 school year for my kids.  Back when I was their age, we didn’t start school until the Tuesday after Labor Day.  Then again, we didn’t get out until the middle of June.  My kids are normally done just before or just after Memorial Day.

Although both believe that summer vacation is entirely too short, my children took very different approaches as the first day of school neared.

One child got on Facebook to compare schedules with friends to see who is in which classes.  The other didn’t look at their schedule in detail until just yesterday and only grudgingly admitted knowing a few people who were in the same classes.

One child did extensive shopping with my wife to find the perfect backpack and the perfect school supplies.  The other was dragged to look for a backpack and then poked through a pile of school supplies on the kitchen counter before pronouncing that what was needed was there.

One child packed their backpack early yesterday evening without being asked to make sure they had everything ready to go.  The other child was prompted to pack their backpack after 10:00pm last night, gave us a blank stare, and then threw a few things in.

One child tried on multiple first-day-of-school outfits last night, asking both me and my wife which looked better, only to change to a different outfit this morning.  The other didn’t consider what to wear until they got out of the shower and then grabbed whatever was clean (or at least what looked clean to us).

One child popped out of bed this morning, got dressed early and waited for the bus.  The other got up on time but then lay down on the couch to get as much sleep as possible until the last possible minute they could leave for marching band practice.

One child is starting 7th grade.  The other is starting 10th grade.

One child is a girl, and the other child is a boy.

Both are excellent students and get good grades with many outside-of-school activities.  This stereotypical (yet true!) tale of two kids proves there is more than one way to get the same results.

Best wishes to parents and students for a successful school year.

Filed under Family Matters Tagged with , ,

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