Category: Uncategorized

Ups and Downs

These tales, from the WSJ’s follow-on to their past “Women to Watch” lists:
Lucky Erin Callan, who was ousted from Lehman Brothers, now leads Credit Suisse Group’s global hedge-fund business.
Vanessa Castagna, passed over as chief executive of J.C. Penney, was elected a director of Levi Strauss and is considering new positions with retail companies.
Carly Fiorina: nuff said.
Diane Greene was terminated as chief executive of VMware and is evaluating her options.
Sallie Krawcheck left Citigroup due to “tension” with Chief Executive Vikram Pandit and “doesn’t have another job lined up”.
Mary Minnick was passed over for the number 2 job at Coke and became a partner at Lion Capital.

Oprah and Me

We scored similarly on Dr. Phil’s personality test:
The Loyal Friend
Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful & practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest. Not a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who’s extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expects the same loyalty in return. Those who really get to know you realize it takes a lot to shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a long time to get over if that trust is ever broken.

An “Apology”

Post-election, Salon ran a much commented upon and vastly quoted Gen-X screed An open apology to boomers everywhere.
The editors highlighted a few mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy responses, but examining some of the 500+ letters published before comment was cut off led to the discovery of some real treasures.
I’ve copied a few here and only wish non-anonymous attributions had been included, since there are some terrific writers in the group.

Continue reading An “Apology”

One Can Only Hope (2)

I am no fan of Bill Richardson’s. I thought his pandering to illegals during the Democratic Presidential candidate debates was despicable. I didn’t appreciate his ethnocentric campaign, and I sure as hell didn’t appreciate his disloyalty to Hillary Clinton.
So, I hope Robert Byrd was right back in 2000 when he said that Richardson “would never again receive Senate support for any office he sought”.
At that time, Richardson, who’d left his post as U.N. ambassador to serve as energy secretary, raised hackles by delaying testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding security lapses at Los Alamos National Laboratories.
As far as I’m concerned, Bill Richardson has a chip on his shoulder the size of a Redwood and a sense of entitlement the size of Rhode Island. I understand why Obama feels under obligation to him, but I sincerely hope the President-elect doesn’t waste political capital on his confirmation.

My Truck Was Made By People With Ethics

Screw GM and Ford, I’m glad I bought a Toyota.
Unlike their counterparts GM and Ford, Toyota has always taken a long-term strategic view about their employees. Toyota understands that laying off thousands of employees for slowdowns or plant retooling is counter productive. They wisely utilize the time to redistribute their workforce to understaffed plants, provide additional training for the new products, and leverage their workforce to speed the transition for newer products. Their philosophy has avoided labor disputes and staffing shortages. It has kept the company as a leader in quality and profitability over its shortsighted competitors.
Amen

Great American Smokeout

So, today is the “Great American Smokeout”. I stopped smoking over 9 months ago, thanks to a comment one of my neighbors made about Americans not wanting to be “uncomfortable”, thus explaining why some of us don’t quit.
I got through the first hours and days of withdrawal by remembering the simple fact that the urge to smoke lasts up to two minutes at most, figuring I could handle feeling “uncomfortable” for two minutes at a time.
I do occasionally think about falling off the wagon, but fear that if I tried even one cigarette, I’d end up dead, nicotine and the other toxins having such an immediate, radical effect on heart rate and blood pressure.
Meanwhile, not sure what value there is in having a smoke-out day. I used to resent having anti-smoking messages shoved in my face, and imagine most of my fellow addicts feel the same way.

Arriba!

Over the weekend, I asked my 3 grandkids this question:
Of your several ancestries (Polish, Italian, Ukrainian, English, Scottish), which do you relate to the most?
Robert (I knew he would) immediately replied, “English”. When he was much younger, he once expressed the wish to sit in a red velvet chair and drink tea.
Emmeline, sensibly, said she didn’t know enough about any of them to make a decision, but it might be Italian, since she likes the food.
Picking up on her lead, James, who loves tacos, said “Mexican”.