Tag Archives: Values

Half Empty?

machine

I met with the purchasing director of a company once, and he was explaining the challenges of his position.

“I could save half-a-million dollars a year by switching all the vending machines at all our facilities to either all Coke or all Pepsi,” he told me. “But I can’t or there would be an uproar.”

Now it’s important to note that this was not a restaurant or other business with primary involvement with food or drink. That meant that employees and customers were spending millions on vended soft drinks. He couldn’t appreciate the massive secondary income that was generated, only the effect it had on his part of the equation.

I’m guessing that if there were only one choice, the net revenue would be reduced significantly – especially with something like soft drinks where it is a non-essential and there is significant brand loyalty.

How many times do we take the positive for granted and instead focus on some minute shortcoming in our lives?

Baby Daddy?

man_reading_newspaper_clip_150

There was a letter in the paper today that set me off. It was to an advice columnist – (although I like the British term “agony column” so much better.)

The writer was relating how her unmarried daughter with two children had moved in. Then there was the baby daddy.

Baby daddy?

A male human being who impregnates a female human being without taking responsibility is a baby daddy?

Apparently we now assign cutesy titles to bad behavior.

I have better titles.

How about irresponsible? How about incompetent?

How about loser?

Gangsters

The_Sopranos_wallpaper-

With the death of James Gandolfini and the latest attempt to find Jimmy Hoffa, CNN had an article examining why we like gangsters [link]. There’s the Godfather and the Sopranos on one hand and “Gangsta” on the other. (Curiously, Word 2013’s spell checker accepted “gangsta” as written.)

I wonder what the world would be like if we were fascinated instead by people who demonstrated strong moral character and positive values.