Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line: FunnyBusiness

High School Tennis is no love match

One day you're on the team. The next day you're chosen to lead the team. As anyone who's been in that situation knows, just because you are chosen to be leader, doesn't mean that all of our co-workers will think of you as 'the leader."

It's the stuff that's made many a consultant wealthy. It reminds me when you are talking about team dysfunctionality the details often sound like high school stuff.

I've been thinking about that a lot as I've watched my 17 year old daughter transition from varsity tennis team member to Co -Captain. There are some definite bumps. Particularly with a team member who thought she should be the team captain rather than my daughter.

When Berit was chosen as co-captain of her tennis team  last spring, there was one tennis player who was visibly upset. That girl happens to be the best player on the team, and she was counting on a tradition where the best player is chosen captain.

When the team chose my daughter, they were breaking tradition. Berit is far from being the best player. She's probably one of the worst players on the varsity team. So the other girl's distress over being passed over was understandable.

From my daughter's point of view, the girl  has had plenty of time to adjust to the situation and is  now trying to usurp her authority. When the other girl  called offering to design practices ( a responsibility of the captain), Berit thanked her and declined the offer.

When  the girl  called team members to remind them to come to practice ( the job of the captain)  Berit reminded her that she had already called the girls.

And, when Berit learned that the other team member told players that she was calling to remind them about practice because Berit wasn't doing her job, Berit decided  that it was time to confront the other player.

But what about the girl?  Are her intentions as nefarious as Berit suspects? Until Berit was told that the team member was saying disparaging things, there was that bit of doubt that maybe Berit was being overly sensitive. Maybe  Berit should have welecomed the girl's overtures and  figured out a way to make her feel valued. 

What do you say to a team member who believes the wrong person was selected for the job? How do you get them on board?  And most importantly what do you do if she continues to undermine you and tries to establish an alliance with part of the team?

Being a leader is hard work--especially when you are 17 and haven't had an real training in how to manage team members who don't want ot be team players.

  When I asked her what her strategy was going to be, she said, "I'm going to deal with her just as her boss taught her to deal with the bullies at camp, " Kill her with kindess." Then she added, " I'm going to remind her that I am the captain and she's not."

Advantage Berit. 

On The Road at Blogher06 -- Signal Strength Low

If you can get over the fact that the hotel doesn't have an elevator and you have to drag your oversized suitcase up the stairs (yes, I could have asked the bellman for help), the rooms are fine. In fact, they are lovely.  The bed is comfy. I have a bathrobe and slippers. There's a  balcony.The air conditioning works. It's San Jose. It's delightful.

The price is definitely right .Since I am here to attend Blogher 06, I am paying the conference room rates. They are very reasonable. I'm happy  with everything--except the one thing that really matters -- THE SIGNAL STRENGTH..

At times very low , at others non-existent, this is the most unreliable Internet  access that I have experienced in years.

Did I mention that there are 700 women bloggers attending this conference--that would be 700 women with laptops who expect to use them  on a regular and frequent basis?

I wouldn't call it a disaster-- people are having way to much fun to allow a little thing like technology ruin the conference, but it's definitely a strain particularly for the women who are trying to "live blog" the conference.

Signal Strength Matters.

Even before the random access, I was less than pleased with the wireless setup at the hotel. They still charge for Internet access.  I am  not amused .My expectation is that free Internet  access is an amenity. I am not alone in my expectations.

 Last October, Wi-Fi NEWS reported on the situation, sharing links to articles in both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. The two papers had different takes on the situation. While the WSJ ( subscription required -when will they ever learn?) reported on the trend to offer this as a free service.....

"Robert Mandelbaum of PKF Hospitality Research, an industry adviser, estimates that from 2000 to 2004, hotels lost 55% of the revenue they used to make from telecommunications. One of the only areas where they're turning profits on in-room technology is from Internet fees.

In an attempt to win and retain customers, hotels have recently pushed hard to upgrade their rooms with everything from flat-screen television sets to pillow-topped mattresses and 350-thread-count sheets. Complimentary high-speed Internet access is just the latest move in the hotel industry's amenities arms race.

The NY Times (subscription required --when will they learn?)  business columnist Joe Sharkey wrote about the tendency for the "big hotels" to charge for wireless access.

...the pricier the hotel, the more likely you are to pay an extra fee to check your e-mail from your room, said Bjorn Hanson, the head of the hospitality and leisure division at PricewaterhouseCoopers. That is because three-star chains like Hilton's Garden Inn, Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites and Marriott's Courtyard, Residence Inn and Fairfield Inn cater to price-conscious travelers, while the swankier names figure you won't much care about the extra few bucks.

Corporate travel managers are now trying to negotiate with four-star and five-star hotel brands to include Internet access in the room charge in future contracts, Mr. Hanson said

If the hotels are smart, they will concede the point. While baby boomers still outnumber them, Generation Xers spend more per capita on business travel, and have little patience for either dial-up connections or the general idea of paying for high-speed Internet access, which they have been accustomed to having free since college.

Moreover, with two-thirds of business travelers now using computers in their hotel rooms and with those in sales and training jobs often juggling big download files, the fees are becoming more of an irritant to just about everybody.

After a day of getting kicked off the Internet at the most inopportune times, I went to the front desk to discuss the fees. The women at the front desk indicated that they could not remove the charge from my room because it's billed to an outside service. She agreed to leave a message for the manager.

This morning, living by the motto that "hope runs eternal"  and thinking that the hotel technical staff had to have spent the entire night figuring out what was wrong, I again paid my $9.95 for a day of access. I was just getting ready to hit the submit button for my reservations at the Metropolitan Doubletree in NYC for a trip next week when I lost signal strength--again.

So instead of making my reservations on line, I called and talked to a very friendly reservation assistant Parochial for sure, but it worked.

 Oh, and it looks like I will have to pay $10.77 for Internet  access in New York....unless I go to a coffee shop or park--it seems like you can get free access just about anywhere you want--except where you need it.

Powered by QumanaTags: Hyatt, Blogher, Wi-Fi, Internet, Blogher06, business, travel

On The Road To BlogHer-First Stop Atlanta aka What's with all these supersized electrical plugs?

On any given business trip there are a certain amount of electronics that accompany me. Can anyone explain why we have to have such big honking plugs? Unless you travel with a power strip ( which didn't occur to me until this very second)   you have to use a divide and conquer strategy for plugging in all your stuff in the hotel room because  these plugs --or are they adapters ( and what is the difference?)won't share a standard two plug outlet...they're TOO BIG.

A few months ago I purchased this iGo adapter.    I use it for my blackberry. The idea is that you you can use I adapter and then change the tip for your various electronic devices.Which is a great concept except when you need to charge two devices at the same time. Say when you need to charge your blackberry at the same time you want to listen to your iPod.

Along for the trip is my adapter for my Sony mini recorder. I detest this adapter/plug. It will only fit in the bottom outlet. The prongs fold when its not in use.I guess the idea is for easy packing but it takes a tool to pry out the prongs from their resting position and then when you think you have it good to go, it snaps back into the resting position. Who has time for this?

And, then there is the  plug for my RAZR(so I could take these pictures). I can charge my blackberry with this charger but I can't  charge my RAZR with  my Blackberry  plug.

Last but not least the plug/adapter for my laptop. It has stuff coming and going from both ends.

If I hadn't lost the plug to my portable speakers to listen to my iPod  when I moved in October I would have brought that along as well.

In the short-term since hotels can't offer more outlets,  I want hotels to offer powerstrips.  In the near future I want everything to go wireless. No more plugs. No more long cords.  I want to take one standard Bluetooth mega charging thing ( that is small and cute and easy to pack) and then I want to be able to charge everything from that one source.

Where are the Jetsons when you need them?

Once and For All an Explanation on How a Computer Works

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Nuff said.


This animated gif was sent to me by a friend. The artist is unknown.

Getting Balanced Virtually

After spending 12 years working with the UN in Central and South America, and the Carribean, Jennifer Britton returned to Canada two years ago and started her own coaching business. Last November Jennifer decided it was time to start blogging. So she started three of them.

There's the Business Toolkit- the "Biz Toolkit focuses on practical tips, tools and ifnormation for your business. The blog shares book reviews and busines news.

Then she writes Group Coaching: Ins and Outs..a blog billed as 'tips, tools, Informaiton and Insights about Group Coaching for Coaches.

The third blog is Your Balanced Life--Information, Resources and Exercises regarding life-work balance and balanced living. Britton's original concept was to blog once or twice a month. She has now revised that thinking and she is committing to posting about twice a week on each blog.

She says her biggest surprise since blogging is it's reach and how many people who she has worked with around the world are now getting back in touch because of the blog. In addition to blogging, Britton who specializes in running group retreats has now begun offering virtual workshops.

Her first was on creativity and in August she is running a 6 hour virtual workshop on Life Balance. Every hour from 10-4 pm eastern time, the group will convene on the phone and in between Britton will give participants exercises to do in their  own space. Britton talks about facilitating a virtual retreat in this podcast.

Image Credit: Flickr member Dave Cowie

Cross posted at Blogher

AOL'S Little Black Book

When AOL fired " John", a customer service rep  caught on tape  making it very hard for Vincent Ferrari to close his account, there were some of us who said, "John shouldn't have been fired, he was doing his job."

Turns out The Consumerist, now has evidence that the former AOL employee was indeed just following company policy. You can now read the complete AOL Retention Manual for Yourself.

   "A plain manila envelope arrived on our desk this week. Inside was the eighty-one paged "Enhanced Sales Training for AOL Retention Consultants" manual. Upon opening, the flowchart, "Guide to a World-Class Retention Call," fell out.

One thing quickly becomes evident after reading the pages of tips and tactics. Callers are viewed not as customers, but prospects. Under the heading, "Think of Cancellation Calls as Sales Leads," the manual reads...

 

From the Manual....

"If you stop and think about it, every Member that calls in to cancel their account is a hot lead. Most other sales jobs require you to create your own leads, but in the Retention Queue the leads come to you! Be eager to take more calls, get more leads and close more sales. More leads means more selling opportunities for you and cost savings for AOL."

Meanwhile according to Reuters, New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer is not amused.

"Last year, Spitzer investigated AOL's customer services policies and how it paid service representatives after about 300 New Yorkers complained about how difficult it was to cancel. AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc. (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research), in August agreed to reform its procedures, provide fee refunds and pay New York $1.25 million in penalties and costs.

Yet AOL may not be out of the woods. On June 28, lawyers from Spitzer's office sent a letter to AOL demanding more information about its customer service and is seeking a meeting with its executives."

Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah, aka When your dream job turns into a nightmare

What do you do when it's not the camper who is miserable, but the counselor? Back in April,we called it her "dream" job. On paper it sounded perfect.

Hello Muddah, hello Fadduh.
Here I am at Camp Granada.
Camp is very entertaining,
And they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining.

As a tween she had gone to overnight camp and loved it. She particularly enjoyed her relationship with her counselors.


As a teenager, she is an enthusiastic babysitter( okay the lucrative $10 an hour is an incentive but she truly loves playing with kids.)

Unfortunately, when you add up "loved camp" +"love babysitting" you don't get " I'll love this job."

What we had not considered  when we were talking about her spending the summer as a camp counselor  was well, the "job". It is not an ideal  job for a kid who relishes her "down time". Who knew camp counselors don't get  any down time.

As she tearfully explained, " I'm always with the kids."

Except ,of course ,when she's in the bathroom on her cell phone talking to me. By this time the camp must think she has a  serious lower tract condition.

I went hiking with Joe Spivy.
He developed poison ivy.
You remember Leonard Skinner...
He got ptomain poisoning last night after dinner.

All the counselors hate the waiters,
And the lake has alligators,
And the head coach wants no sissies,
So he reads to us from something called "Ulysses"

If she could, she would  definitely quit. She wants to quit. She wants me to say it's okay to quit. I won't say that. And even if I did say it was okay, she wouldn't quit. She just wants to vent and to make absolutely, completely certain  that I am totally aware that she is suffering  an incredible hardship.

I got the message.

As miserable as she is (and in all of her 17 years, I can honestly say my daughter has never been this over the top, this distraught, this miserable in her entire life. ) We both know that quitting is not an option. Ranting is.

Being a camp counselor is a tough job to quit. It's a temporary job that doesn't pay well. It required a week of training and well, she gave her word that she would work there for the summer. So while she really hates this job, she knows she has to stick it out.  And that makes her hate the job even more.

Now I don't want this should scare ya, But my bunk mate has malaria. You remember Jeffrey Hardy... They're about to organize a searching party.

Take me home, oh Muddah, Fadduh, Take me home, I hate Granada! Don't leave me in the forest where I might get eaten by a bear.

It is a day camp. Typically she goes to work in the morning and comes back at night. Except this week.On Friday she started her week as an overnight counselor. If she didn't like her job as a day counselor, being an overnight counselor is much worse.

It's 100 degrees in Minnesota .The cabins don't have airconditioning.  Everyone spent the first two nights sleeping on the floor in  the one big room with AC. Did I mention this is a kid who really appreciates air conditioning , doesn't like sleeping on the ground and oh, yeah, she really likes  her down time?

Take me home, I promise I will not make noise,
Or mess the house with other boys.
Oh, please don't make me stay,
I've been here one whole day.

Dearest Father, darling Mother,
How's my precious little brother?
Let me come home if you miss me,
I would even let Aunt Bertha hug and kiss me.

On Saturday she went to her boss and told him she didn't think she could make it. He told her she had to make it through the night. She did.

Yesterday she txted messaged me to say she had 96 hours left. Things are improving.

Wait a minute, it stopped hailing,
Guys are swimming, gals are sailing.
Playing baseball, gee that's betta,
Muddah, Fadduh, kindly disregard this letter!

Note: According to Wikipedia, Alan Sherman released this song from camp in 1963 on his album " My Son, The Nut."

While the words are in the form of a letter, narrating a summer camp experience that alternates between horrifying for the child, and horrifying to the parents, the tune is the sprightly "Dance of the Hours" by Ponchielli, as seen dramatized with dancing ostriches, hippos, elephants and crocodiles in Walt Disney's 1940 classic Fantasia. The contrast between Sherman's everyman voice, the banal choice of topic, the hilarious imagined situations, and the dignified classical music has kept the tune alive in memory even now, over 40 years later.

Unlike most song parodies, "Hello Muddah" seems to have crossed language and culture boundaries. Cornelis Vreeswijk's Swedish version, "Brevet från kolonien" ("The Letter from Camp"), has passed into folklore, and is still sung by and to children all over Sweden. In Norway, it's known as "Brev fra leier'n", as recorded by Birgit Strøm ("Titten Tei") in 1967. The song has also been translated into Esperanto and other languages, like Dutch (where it took the form of a letter from a soldier abroad and an equally silly answer from his parents). "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" has also been used as the title for a 2003 travelling theatrical revue of Sherman's works.

 

Working Holiday

What's wrong with this picture?   The cartoon was featured as part of a recent article in Work/Life Today,which bills itself as "the newsletter for work/life professionals".

In my version of this cartoon instead of the man in the flowered swimming trunks there would be a mom in an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini on the surfboard with laptop, cellphone(wireless ear piece-natch), rubbing SPF 40 suntan lotion on a  small child while giving them a Ziploc bag full of cheerios.

Am I missing anything? Perhaps the pet dog is on the back of the surfboard too.

The article was in response to Expedia's sixth annual survey on the vacation habits of work prone Americans. According to the survey, which was released shortly before the 4th, Americans are forfeiting 574 million vacation days. When you realize that Americans have the smallest amount of vacation to begin with,(France has over 30 days a year)the reality of those four days left in the office is magnified. As Nina at Queercents wrote in her post on the issue....

Jo Bronson at Time recently penned a commentary about Americans and their inability to relax. He believes that we have begun to prefer brief snippets of what he calls “stolen time” to the long stretches of authorized vacation. He notes, “According to travel agents, the growth trend in travel is the half-week sneak-away built around a weekend. Families still hit Disneyland and Paris, but we cram the experience into three or four days. We don’t get to relax, but we come away feeling as if we got a bargain for our precious time. Fewer workdays off means less catching up.” Why are so many Americans not taking their vacations? He concludes, “One of the top reasons given for not taking a vacation is that it’s too much extra work. We have to get ahead of our workload in order to leave, and then we have to catch up on our workload upon our return. The longer the vacation we take, the bigger the stumbling blocks appear. So only 14% of Americans will take a vacation two weeks or longer this summer. Bottom line: it’s simply become too stressful to relax.”

The technical term for this growing trend is Vacation Deprivation. According to the folks at Word Spy:

"vacation deprivation n. Foregoing vacation days because of busyness at work.
—vacation deprived adj.

In addition to providing citations of how the term is being used, Word Spy also lists the earliest citation it could find. Turns out that honor goes to The Dallas Morning News on October 29, 1995.

While many of us fret over the vacation days we leave at the office, Tula Connell who blogs for the AFL-CIO puts the entire vacation deprivation issue into perspective

The survey cites 14 days as average for an American worker, a number that doesn’t include federal holidays. But citing 14 days as an “average” figure also minimizes the extent to which millions of workers get no paid vacation, even while working two or more jobs.

In fact, 25.5 million private-sector workers in the United States do not have paid holidays and 22.2 million private-sector workers have no paid vacation, according to a survey of benefits by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Work at Avis car rental? No paid vacation. Tend to our elderly in many of the nation’s nonunion nursing homes? No paid vacation.

In this corporate mind-set economy, where workers are getting further behind even as they work longer hours, musing about the “vacation gap” may seem like fretting over not having a garden when you can’t even afford a house."

 

Iraq's Only All Women Radio Station

If there is one thing that unites all small businesses it's cash flow. Yesterday as I was driving in my car and listening to the Satellite Sisters  I heard them mention the campaign to save radio Al-Mahaba--the only first all independent women radio network in Iraq.

They are having some serious cash flow problems and need to raise $100,000. It seems that a roadside bomb blew up their transmitter. A new one costs $100,000.

The fund raising is being managed by  OKIINC.org—Opportunity for Kids International, a nonprofit  American relief organization that helps the street children of Iraq. OKIINCwas instrumental in starting the station with a grant from the United Nations Development Fund for Women.According to the Satellite Sisters, "100% of the donations will go directly to the radio station for a new transmitter and other operation expenses.

The fund raising campaign started last October. At the time the radio station did receive a great deal of media attention including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today
Mona Mahmoud wrote an article in USA Today...

A woman called to say she had been beaten by her husband so much she feels like killing him. Another  woman said she was afraid of her husband at the outset of her marriage, but she has learned to assert herself. Now he is the one who is  afraid.              

Other women said they never wore a hijab but are now being forced to wear the head covering because of pressures or threats from  newly powerful religious groups in their neighborhoods.

Launched earlier this year, al-Mahaba, which means "love" in Arabic, is the first independent women's radio station in Iraq. The format is a mixture of news, music and talk.

Ruwaida Kamal, 30, who hosts a program, said callers address a slew of personal and political issues that affect them as women,  including family relationships and the wearing of head scarves.The station receives between 70 and 100 calls a day, says station executive director Ali Abbass Hamoudi, 42.

And as Donn Esmonde wrote in the Buffalo News

"The station is the 21st century version of Radio Free Europe, which broadcast the sweet               breeze of freedom across the Iron Curtain's stale air. The same message falls now on ears of Iraqi women still in shackles who fear that the new constitution will turn extremism into law."

 

Your support will be appreciated.

Famous last words: "We'll get back to you"

  In January 2005, Chloe took her teenage daughter to the eye department of a major department store to buy a new pair of glasses. There was no way that she could know that the transaction would  become her "own Kafka moment" and change forever how she feels about a respected department store, her insurance company, and consumer rights.

Since her health insurance picked up a portion of the cost of eyeglasses, Chloe innocently asked the clerk to call the insurance company to find out what amount they would cover. She waited while the clerk found out that information and then immediately paid the balance.

As Chloe says, " I have a superior credit rating. I pay my bills on time, I don't carry a credit on my credit cards. My husband and I are good money managers."

That's why she was surprised, when two or three months later she received a bill for the eyeglasses.And thus began the insanity of the bill that just wouldn't go away--even though Chloe had already paid for the glasses.

Being a rational human being, Chloe thought that a call to the vision department would clear up the confusion. It was not to be. " Every time I called the person answering the phone would say, " You have to talk to the manager."

Chloe called again. And again. And again. Finally after several weeks she managed to talk to the manager person to person.

It was not a great conversation. " She said she would have to do some research and she would get back to me."

When the manager finally did get back to her, she quoted a different payment arrangement than the insurance company had quoted on that day back in January. Chloe had now called the vision center about 10 times. Their final response, " You'll have to call the insurance company."

When Chloe called the insurance company they read to her directly from their CRM ( customer information service)  quoting what they ( the insurance company) had paid the vision center  and when they had paid the vision center.

Did I mention that Chloe is an executive who manages a multi million dollar budget and is used to working with invoices? Of course the numbers the insurance company quoted Chloe did not match the numbers that the vision center had on Chloe's bill.

Eventually, out of frustration, Chloe  decided it was time to write a letter to the store's customer service department.However, when she tried to look up that address, it was no where to be found. "I called the main number of the department store and no one there could give me that information either."

Chloe decided to send her letter to the president's office. In that letter explaining the entire situation. "I told them I was willing to pay any remaining balance but I needed to understand exactly what I owed and why I owed it."

Turns out that office couldn't help her but they gave her an address and phone number of the department to contact. Chloe once again sent the letter.

Once again she heard nothing. She called. Their response, " We never got the letter."

"No problem, " said Chloe, " I'll send it again.

"Before I got the letter in the mail, they called" said Chloe.  " They  said they had suddenly found my letter."
Not surprisingly, they said " We'll get back to you."

After several weeks, Chloe contacted them. She was delighted when they said, " We've got good news. We've got it resolved."

Chloe, relieved, said, " That's wonderful. I would like it in writing."

A week or so later Chloe gets the letter. It states, " Contact the Vision Center directly to resolve this issue."

It's now over a year. Chloe continues to get calls from the collection agency for $130.

Chloe says she's deflated. She wants to write the Better Business Bureau but says she doesn't have the energy.
Just to make matter worse, during the same time Chloe received a  different bill from her insurance company for $375 for surgery she did not have. After lots of calls back and forth, the insurance company said they had cleared the matter up and  she only owed a $10 co-pay.

A week or so ago, Chloe got a bill from her insurance company. For $375.
As to her daughter 's glasses. She lost them.

Note: Chloe is a pseudonym.

Image Credit: Flickr member Daily Pic