Rent garment in Orwigsburg, PA. (This is a sad story…)

One of my first jobs was working in a shoe factory in Worcester.

This was, of course, a kabillion years ago, when there were a lot of factory jobs to be had in Massachusetts. At some point or another, most of my friends spent a summer doing unskilled factory work. (Small plastic toys, sausages…)

Some of what was made here was clothing.

When I was a kid, our family took a tee-shirt buying jaunt each summer to Ware, Mass., where there was a mill that made unbranded (in my recall, mostly boldly striped) tee-shirts. Sometimes we went to Fall River, which also sold tee-shirts in factory stores.

I had a short-term Kelly Girl job at a factory in Boston that made Old Glory jeans. Around the corner, Forecaster of Boston made and sold raincoats (which you could buy off-price: I owned one).

These jobs, of course, went South (and after that East, far East), leaving us to build a higher-end, higher-skilled economy, with more highly educated, highly paid workers. Most of the folks who worked in the low-end factories found their way into lower-end services work.  Overall, our economy and region were pretty much upgraded.

But I wonder what happened to all the folks who worked at H.H. Brown Shoe when it closed. (I believe that the building itself is now condos.)

The summer I worked there, most of those on my floor were women. Our work was the least skilled in the factory. We glued in the “heel pods”, cleaned glue off the leather, polished raw seams, put boots in boxes.,, Finishing work – low-skill, ill-paid (although some of the women were pretty fast and made a bit more than the pathetic hourly wage through their piecework). The women I worked with were French Canadian, Polish, Cuban. Immigrants or the daughters of.

I remember Marie, one of the older women on the floor, who on the day before payday would have no money in her pocketbook.

Men had most of the higher-skilled jobs. At the top of the pyramid were the cutters, who would take the cow-hides and cut out the pieces that would be made into boots and shoes. The trick was to get as many pairs out of a hide as possible, leaving minimum trimmings on the floor.

At the next skill layer were the stitchers.

And so it went, each floor in the factory taking another step towards turning raw material into finished good.

Maybe the jobs weren’t great, but they were jobs. Jobs making things.

There’s always some residual nostalgia for the days when we made things, material things, tangible things. Even though it makes more sense to make so many material and tangible things – tee-shirts included – somewhere else. (Especially if we’re willing to turn a blind eye to terrible working conditions, child labor, environmental depredation… Out of sight…)

So even though the clothing factory closing is in Pennsylvania, not Massachusetts, I was saddened to read that FesslerUSA has turned off its sewing machines after over 100 years.

FesslerUSA had survived war and depression, free trade and foreign imports, producing millions of knitted garments from its base in eastern Pennsylvania. Five years ago, third-generation owner Walter Meck and his family were feeling so good about the company’s prospects they doubled capacity, moving into a former pencil factory outside the small town of Orwigsburg.

They were still setting up shop in the new place when the Great Recession hit. (Source: AP on Boston.com)

And now Fessler’s run out its string. They’ve shut down production, laying off 130 garment workers who pretty much have nowhere to go. Where do you go after 30 years in the garment industry? Nursing home attendant? Housekeeper at Motel 6? Waitress at Denny’s?

I don’t imagine that there’s a lot out there in Orwigsburg, PA.

There were some interesting factoids in the article I saw.

One was that “19 billion pieces of apparel [were] sold in the United States last year.” That’s about 60 pieces of apparel per capita. I’m sure a lot of that was necessaries: undies, socks. But that’s still a lot o’ apparel. And don’t bother “looking for the union label”: 97% of it was made somewhere else, primarily Asia.

Surprisingly, although garment industry employment is way down – it accounted for 621,000 jobs in 1998, and has 151,800 today – I was surprised that there are still over 150K garment workers.

Fessler had survived this long:

…by pivoting from high-volume, mass-market apparel toward higher-end pieces made with more expensive fabrics, a segment of the market that foreign manufacturers were unable or unwilling to touch. Fessler thrived because it could produce quickly and in small quantities, and its fashionable tees appeared on the racks of such retailers as Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom.

Every once in a while you read about how the U.S. should retain some manufacturing capacity “just in case.”

So maybe we don’t need fashionable tees from Bloomingdale’s, but there is something comforting about the idea of self-reliance, however far-fetched and/or quaint it may be in such a globalized economy.

We do keep some manufacturing at home to some extent in the hard goods industries  - all those Jeeps in Toledo – and in food production. For soft goods like apparel, let’s face it. Most of us could survive on what we already own for a good long time. All those walk in closets…

Maybe all the what gets manufactured where will all get solved when we use printers to manufacture everything we need, perfectly customized for us. Bespoke for the masses.

Until then, sad (but not surprising) to see another little factory fold.

The roof over your head

It is stunning to see the pictures of the destruction that Sandy visited upon the Jersey Shore, Staten Island, Rockaway/Queens…

We’re used to seeing hurricanes tear up the Outer Banks, but to see it happen it such a densely populated and populous area. And happening this colossally. And happening this colossally close to home. Wow…

For the folks in lower Manhattan and other places who have “just”  had to cope with power outages – challenging, annoying, chilly, uncomfortable.

I sort of know what they’re going through.

We lost power for a couple of days after the Blizzard of ‘78, and we bundled up and survived. (Of course, in those days, there was less to do without.) When the banks reopened – this was before the ATM – we were limited to taking out $50. Cash in hand, I went to the neighborhood market, which had just gotten its first bread and milk delivery. They weren’t rationing, but there was a sign up requesting that people take only what they needed. As I waited to use part of my $50 to pay for my pumpernickel, I could not help but notice that the woman in front of me in line apparently had the need for a dozen loaves of bread. Maybe she was making bread pudding. Or stuffing. Or was off on a mission to feed all the starving birds on Boston Common.

But that was then, and this is now, and now there are so many whose neighborhoods are almost completely underwater, and so many whose neighborhoods look like a bomb went off. So many have lost pretty much everything, entire towns that are pretty much lost. The thought of starting over must be just overwhelming. Where do you begin, and where do you even start over.

Are some of these fragile, vulnerable, edge-of-the-encroaching ocean communities even able to be rebuilt? Should they be?

The ocean level’s getting higher, the weather’s getting wilder.

Shouldn’t new construction at least think about retreating inland?

There are so many haunting scenes:

The bathtub Madonna and the garden firefighter gnome that were still standing in the wreckage in Breezy. (Can’t say I’m looking forward to the Miracle of Breezy stories, I must say. Still, seeing that statue was plenty eerie.)

The Seaside Heights roller coaster collapsed into the sea, which must be just terrible to see for anyone who hung out at the Jersey Shore as a kid, or who took their kids there. (Ain’t no one who wants to see icons of their childhood disappear, or icons of their kids’ childhoods. Harsh.)

The plentiful videos of folks tromping over the wreckage of their homes looking for anything to salvage – a wedding picture, a Christmas ornament, a teacup, any little old thing. One woman on Staten Island told a reporter, ‘I just want to go home.’ Only her home had blown a mile down the road and smashed to smithereens.

I guess if there is any upside to the devastation, it’s that construction workers up and down the East Coast are going to have plenty of work over the next year or so.

And then there’s EagleView Technologies:

EagleView specializes in automating manual processes through technology. The insurance and construction industries rely on EagleView's patented technology and methods to provide detailed, accurate measurements from aerial imagery. The company continues to develop new technologies that lead to improved efficiency and increased profits for businesses and is expanding this concept to several new industries.

Way out west in Bothell, Washington, EagleView’s phone is ringing off the hook.

With the construction season winding down, the company was starting to decrease the hours for their employees. Then the destruction season started.

EagleView’s software pulls existing aerial photos of buildings and determines the size and pitch of the roof, measurements that would otherwise need to be taken by a person climbing up a ladder. Barrow says orders are up nearly tenfold from a normal week, with more than 20,000 daily requests, most of them Sandy-related. (Source: Business Week)

You can look at this as cutting into the opportunities of the “person climbing up the ladder”, whose services are no longer needed. But if that person is the claims adjuster – who with insurance companies and contractors are the prime audience for EagleView – he can now get to a damaged property in half the time. So, more work without having to risk life an limb climbing up the ladder.

Orders from insurance companies started pouring in Tuesday morning, [Eagle View CEO Chris] Barrow says, as homeowners on the East Coast began filing insurance claims. “It kind of surprised us a little bit,” he says. “The winds were still blowing.”

So now all the folks whose hours were being reduced are back in business. Good news!

EagleView has an interesting back story.

A couple of problem-solving brothers-in-law got together to, well, solve a problem.

One was a roofing contractor who “struggled with the process of measuring roofs accurately and safely.” He got together with his software engineer bro-in-law to come up with a better way. (Better living through software.)

The software engineer half of the duo did his initial prototyping with his wife’s ornamental birdhouses. (Better living through birdhouses.)

Anyway, I’m delighted for the EagleViewers, happy for the construction workers who’ll be getting more construction work, and hopeful for all those who just want to go home, and find that they still have a roof over their head.

Bunker Down

I certainly hope that I’m not one of them, but, one way or another, by 11 p.m. Eastern tonight – maybe even at 8 p.m. when Ohio is called - approximately half the (voting) citizens of the U.S. of A. will be predicting that Armageddon begins tomorrow.

Then there’s Sandy, which is prompting most sentient human beings to start thinking at least a teeny-tiny little bit about climate change. Which leads, for those of us who live in Low Lying Districts near The Ocean, to starting to think about flood insurance.

And somewhere along the way last week, I read an article somewhere about the prevalence of superbugs in Boston’s hospitals. Which, given how much time my husband and his faithful companion have been logging in at least one Boston hospital this year, is somewhat worrisome.

Then, of course, there are the generalized, niggling little worries ratcheting around in the background: rogue states, loose nukes, splashdown meteors…

Some folks aren’t just worrying about bad stuff, they’re trying to do something about it – if not for the common good, then to save them and theirs.

For the Corbis of Los Angeles, security ‘r us.

The Corbi family's house looks like many other modern homes in the Hollywood Hills, with white walls, large glass windows and views of downtown Los Angeles. But it has some key differences from its neighbors. The house has been built to withstand nearly every type of disaster scenario imaginable, from storms to high-magnitude earthquakes to wildfires to pandemic to a rare but potentially crippling high-frequency electromagnetic pulse attack triggered by a nuclear bomb, solar flare or specialized weapon. A wine cellar in the basement doubles as an underground bunker. If all else fails, a rooftop helipad allows for a last-ditch emergency exit. (Source: WSJ Online.)

Well, maybe it’s not quite security ‘r us. Maybe it’s more like security was us, or we sometimes wish that security was us.  It’s no longer up for grabs, but last January, Chez Corbi was on the market since January, when it was going for a cool $5.9M.

Check it out, but take my meh for it: cold, over-designy, and uninviting.

From the perspective of the owner, this house makes plenty of sense, as Al Corbi is the President and Founder of SAFE – Strategically Armored and Fortified Environments, which is dedicated to “self reliance through preparation.”

And how does SAFE define self reliance?

The ultimate measure of self reliance is the ability to survive without outside assistance.  At a minimum this means operating independent of all public utilities and governmental services such as medical, protection, sanitation, shelter and sustenance.

Hmmm.  I can see how you could keep on keepin’ on with your own electric and sanitation. How you could stockpile enough  canned pineapple, linguini, and cashews to last you a while. How you could protect yourself from a lot of things, including the aforementioned “crippling high-frequency electromagnetic pulse attack triggered by a nuclear bomb, solar flare or specialized weapon” – whatever a specialized weapon may be. (Could it be specialized enough to attempt a bunker buster on the wine cellar doubling as a bunker in the Corbi manse?)

But, short of having an MD (at at least a nurse practitioner) on staff 24/7, along with a fully-stocked pharmacy, X-ray machine, diagnostic lab, transfusion capability, etc., how does one become medically self-reliant? I guess there’s always Christian Science…

Anyway, the Corbis aren’t the only ones bunkering down.

Out in the Show Me state, Steve Huff is showing everyone with a 70,000 square foot, ahh, I guess it’s a house. It just looks like a hotel.  No one better try to huff and puff and blow this house down, as it’s tornado-resistant. Which makes total sense out there in tornado alley.

And in Florida, a 40,000 square foot hurricane-proof house is going up at water’s edge.

Even lower end – if not exactly low end – places are getting in the act when it comes to Mother Nature proofing, taking advantage of all kinds of bleeding-edge construction materials technology.

I’m fine with the weather-proofing, with the caveat that if you’re building on water’s edge, all the weather-proofing technology in the world is not going to save you if the waterfront that used to be 50 yards out is now 50 yards back. Unless the technology includes placing your foundation on a raft that turns your 40,000 square foot cottage into a houseboat.

But I’m all for using enhanced technology to make homes more weather- and natural disaster (think earthquake) -resistant. Good stuff!

And I can even see, if you were super-wealthy and prominent enough to be a potential kidnapping or whatever target, why you might want to have extra-special ways – beyond a hardware store chain lock – to keep the bad guys out.

On the other hand, I do question the super-paranoid Corbi-style fortress approach. If only because I have absolutely no desire to survive a nuclear strike going off, given that, if “they’ve” hit Boston, “they’ve” probably hit pretty much anyplace I’d want to live. I just don’t want to end my days in a radioactive wasteland, thank you. If dirty bombs going off on every corner becomes the new reality, I’ll take the ‘give me death’ option.

Maybe I’d feel differently if I were half my age, but I doubt it.

But there is, of course, a market for folks who feel otherwise.

Al Corbi, the better safe than sorry guy:

…says he can outfit homes with underground bunkers up to 30 stories below ground. He has designed one bunker in the style of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, with ceilings painted with clouds to give the impression of being outside, as well as spas and movie theaters and enough provisions to keep families entertained for months of underground living. The cost can be upward of $10 million for the most elaborate facilities.

A Caesar’s Palace-style bunker, eh?

Nouveau riche, as my mother would sniff. Which meant that, if we were riche, we would be as restrained and tasteful as old money. Which I guess means stirring our martinis and stiff upper lipping it. Thumbing through old stacks of New Yorkers while waiting for The End.

Keep calm and carry on for as long as it lasts without going to extreme measures.

Sounds like a plan.

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Note to MME: Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen!

Pigeon-holes

Remember when they used to call horse racing the sport of kings?

Well, move over, Sea Biscuit. Hold your horses, Man o’ War.

Pigeon racing is no longer the province – if ever it were - of some eccentric guy in the Bronx whose most significant relationships are with the fine feathered denizens of a decrepit coop on the top of his tenement building.

It seems that the Chinese are getting into in a big way. And they’re driving up what it takes to purchase a racing pigeon capable of competing in China’s Iron Eagle triple crown race, which has a prize pot worth $500K.

First off, I find it interesting that a pigeon race would be called the Iron Eagle. For a couple of reasons.

Most obviously, shouldn’t a pigeon race be named after The Pigeon, not The Eagle. I know, I know, pigeons aren’t as noble and glamorous as eagles. But rather than pretty much insult pigeons by using the name of another bird, wouldn’t it have ruffled fewer feathers if they’d chosen a more neutral name: The Iron Speedster race. The Iron Mercury. The Iron Courier.

Or, if they wanted to keep it in the animal family, why not The Iron Cheetah?

Which brings up another point: does one normally associate the word "iron” with ‘flight”?

Maybe something’s lost in translation.

Anyway, the fact that China even has a triple crown pigeon race is something else.

Most of the pigeons being raced there are from Belgium, which is to the pigeon world what Switzerland is the watches and Ireland is to Aran sweaters.

Up to half the birds in the race were Belgian-bred, reflecting both Chinese owners’ love of high-flying foreign birds and the stakes on offer. Thomas Gyselbrecht of Pigeon Paradise (PiPa), a Belgium-based auction house, says that of the 11 pigeons worth over €100,000 it has sold, nine went to Chinese buyers, five in the past year. In all, Belgium sold 8,000 pigeons to China last year: three-quarters of the country’s pigeon exports by value. (Source: The Economist.)

And that value is going up.

Even a pedestrian pigeon, which would have run you a mere $500 just five years back will now run you $3K.

Which, needless to say, is annoying to the pigeon fancier with the chicken wire coop on the roof:

“Whoever bought them are just idiots,” says Zheng Yijie, a racing-pigeon enthusiast in Beijing. “They don’t understand.”

If Zhen Yijie thinks that only an idiot would pay $3K for a pigeon, what must he make of his fellow countryman who last January forked over €250,000 for one of these little critters. Thomas Gyselbrecht (of the auction house Pigeon Paradise) believes that the point’s in sight when someone will pay €500,000. (I have to say, even though I find urban pigeons rather nasty, the ones you pay for are rather handsome, maybe even as noble as an eagle.)

Why Belgium, one might ask? No word on why they started pigeoning to begin with, but in the here and now:

Centuries of breeding and expertise make Belgian pigeons the best in the world. They comprise three-quarters of the European Union’s pigeon exports.

As in everything else in life, the pigeons in the 1% live large, while the less costly fellows, well, not so much:

The rich have marble and gold lofts…while the poor keep pigeons in their kitchens and bathrooms.

Marble and gold lofts? Vs. living in a toilet?

I’m pretty sure that the pigeons don’t mind either way. Still, it really does underscore just how stark the divisions are between the world’s us-es and the worlds thems.

Anyway, the Chinese Racing Pigeon Association has over 300,000 members. And lots of pigeon-related sites, including one that bills (bills and coos? beaks?) itself as “the fairyland of pigeon amateurs.”

Fairyland of pigeon amateurs…

I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m walking through Boston Common and a flock of pigeons takes off just over my head.

I’ll forget everything I ever heard about pigeons as the Air Force that rats would have, if rats were to have an Air Force.

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Pigeons seem to be all over the news these days. How about this story from Huffington Post:

A retired probation officer in England cleaning out his chimney recently was startled to sweep up a 70-year-old secret amid the soot: the skeleton of a World War II carrier pigeon with a coded message still attached to its leg.

The man’s home was near the wartime HQ of General Montgomery, so that “coded message” may turn out to be something of interest.

I can’t wait to hear what’s in the message once the code-breakers at Bletchley Park get a look at it.

Dropping a dime: NYC experiences a post-Sandy payphone renaissance

Whenever I pass a payphone – which is not very often here in Boston (the only ones I can think of are some bright yellow ones in front of the firehouse on Cambridge Street) – I ask myself two questions: Who still uses a payphone? How long are these suckers going to be around?

Since I’m married to the only person in the USA over the age of 9 and under the age of 90 who doesn’t own a cellphone or smartphone, I do have a partial answer to that first question. But unless my husband has to make a call while passing by the firehouse on Cambridge Street, he’ll be out of luck. Still, he always makes sure to have a quarter on him when he leaves the house.

As for how much longer they’re going to be around, that’s anyone’s guess. With throwaway phones, drug dealers and other criminals no longer use them. So who does?

There’s now a partial answer to that question, too: those living in the Manhattan flood zone.

Natural disasters tend to vindicate the public pay phone. With their clunky bodies mounted high and sometimes behind glass stalls, they generally remain serviceable during power outages, even amid flooding. When times get tough, in fact, the biggest challenge is often keeping the devices free of coin overloads. (Source: WSJ Online.)

Ah, the payphone.

When I was in college, students didn’t have phones in their rooms (let alone a cellphone; our only mobile devices were our feet). There were a couple of payphones on each floor of the dorm, and we used those. The phones were “manned” (or, in our case “wommaned”) for a few hours in the evening, when the freshmen in the hall had to take turns answering, and running down the upperclassmen to alert them to a call. Failing to find them, you would take a message. People would sometimes post their whereabouts on their dorm door “Kitchen,” “Library,” “Smoker.” And if they were in the smoker– a bleak room in the dorm basement where students could, well, smoke – you would call down there to inform them that they had a call.  (The smokers were also where students played bridge. I maintain that the reason I never learned to play bridge was that I didn’t smoke.)

One time when I called down to the smoker, the line was busy, so I left the girl (as we were then known) a note on her door, letting her know who had called, etc. Well, a couple of hours later, wasn’t Mary B. – a senior – pounding on my door, bat out of hell, screaming at me because I hadn’t trekked down the five flights of stairs to get her and tell her she had an ultra-important call.

Anyway, the payphones were how we called home, communicated with friends, heard from boys (as they were then known) and, in general, conducted our off-campus lives.

I remember when one of the payphones in our dorm was broken, and could be used to make “free” long-distance calls.

Word spread quickly throughout our small campus, and pretty soon there was a perpetual line outside the lucky payphone.

Alas, someone dimed the phone, and the long distance callers were out of luck.

In those days, if you were out and about and had to call someone, you made sure that you had a dime with you. If you didn’t know the number, most payphones had a phonebook chained to them. Or you could call information. For free.

Of course, back in the day, most of the important numbers were memorized. And once you memorized a number, by golly, it stuck with you. Although she’s been dead nearly 17 years, I still remember my aunt’s: 244-6532.  I could probably dredge up the numbers of my friends from high school, if I had to.

Now, of course, the only numbers I know are those that friends and family had before the adoption of the cell phone. Thus, I readily remember my sister Trish’s home phone number, because she’s had it for nearly twenty years. But my sister Kath’s – given that she moved from one exchange to the next – I have to struggle with – lots of 7’s and 1’s. That’s because she acquired that number after I had a cellphone (and speed-dial on my home phone).

In any case, payphones have been heavily relied upon since Sandy, which knocked or flooded out power and cell phone towers,  and, in general, was no kinder to communications than it was to roller coasters, beachfront cottages, and subway lines.

Some folks of a certain age, however, when confronted with such retro “technology”, can’t quite figure out the plot. One young (24 years old) woman interviewed for the WSJ article admitted that she “lost a lot of coins” before grocking to the payphone way of life.

I’m a bit sympathetic here.

The first time I went to Europe, where as I buzzed in and out of twenty different coutries -  I was frequently calling ahead to hostels. I remember the challenge of figuring out payphone systems that were unique to each country. You dialed, then put the coin in. You put the coin in, then pressed the unmarked button, then dialed. You didn’t put a coin in: you had to get a special jetton somewhere and use that. 

And this was before every major European city put English language instructions on everything.

I used to know how to pantomime ‘how does this work’ in a lot of different languages.

Although I haven’t used a payphone in years, I’m quite sure that my muscle memory would hop to, and I’d remember how to drop the coin, wait for the dial tone, and punch in the number.

New Yorkers are, of course, a savvy bunch, and they’ve figured the low-tech out payphone just find. Such that:

"Phones that normally do two dollars a day are taking in $50 a day," says Peter Izzo of Van Wagner Communications, one of 13 local pay-phone-operating franchises. "In times of distress, the people of the city love them."

At two dollars a day, I don’t imagine that payphones have much of a future. Even at $50 a day, they’d have to be pretty much maintenance free to bother investing in.

So the payphone’s one more thing to wax nostalgic about.

No, not about the dirty, smelly payphones that were in booths – the ones with the partial dangling phonebook, with shredded pages paper-mache’d to the floor with urine instead of water – but about the slower pace of the world where no one felt the need to be always on. It really was a lot easier in so many, many ways.

Meanwhile, the thought of young folks struggling to learn the mechanics of a pay phone reminded me of my niece Molly’s puzzlement at our Yankee Swap last Christmas.

My brother-in-law had brought his mother’s old Bakelite rotary dial phone as his swap “gift”. When Molly got it, she looked at the dial face, saw the letters, and asked, “Is this how you used to text?”

A reasonable enough question, but LOL to that.

Telecommuting? Not so fast track.

For years, we’ve been reading all about the future of working, a telecommuter’s paradise in which everyone will bask in the tele-presence of colleagues laboring a few miles or 16 time zones away.

Telecommuting, we are told, will save money – companies won’t need to build out as much office space. Telecommuting, we are told, will save the environment – just think of all those internal combustion engines, no longer internally combusting. Telecommuting, we are told, will save time, families, mental health…

Virtual, after all, is the new physical.

Yet it will come as no surprise to those who telecommute that “companies still reward presenteeism.” (I so love that word.)

In research published in MIT Sloan Management Review [Daniel Cable of the London Business School] shows that telecommuters are less likely to be promoted. In one experiment subjects were asked to judge scenarios in which the only difference was whether the employee was at his office desk or at home. Managers rated those at the office to be more dependable and industrious, regardless of the quality of their work. (Source: The Economist.)

My personal experience with telecommuting is limited to the regular Friday work-from-home I did during my last full-time corporate stint.

I had already embarked on my free-lance career when a former manager wooed me back into a “real job.”

I knew from the outset that this job was going to be a short-timer.  My estimate – based on how well I knew my former manager, which was pretty darned well – was that he (and I) would last there about 18 months. I was off by two months – we made it to 16. Even short term, I didn’t really want the job, so I took it on the condition that I would not be in on Fridays. Our agreement was that I would attend meetings, if necessary, via phone, and that I would answer e-mails, but other than that…

So this really wasn’t telecommuting telecommuting. It was about working with and for someone who trusted me to get my job done. If I could get the job done Monday through Thursday, which I pretty much could be coming in earlier and leaving later than most folks, I was free to be me on Friday.  For the most part, I worked Friday mornings and, unless I had a must-attend meeting or something I just had to get done, I ran errands on Friday afternoons.  This was a wonderful arrangement, and saved me one day’s worth of a long and aggravating commute.

There was one sniping and snarky fellow on the executive team – interestingly, someone who himself telecommuted a couple of days a week – who took occasional potshots at me. (“Whatever she’s doing on Friday when she’s not here.”) But this was mostly to get at my manager, who was one of D’s enemies. (How much of a sniping/snarky a-hole was D? He once laid someone off while the man was in the NICU with his newborn son who was in and out of the woods. Afterwards, he told a colleague, “I really enjoyed that.”)

Amusingly, when our string ran out there, I was working at home on the day that I was let go.

The handwriting had long been on the wall, and we were all aware that our team was about to be blown up. We weren’t exactly certain of the time and day, but it was certainly looking like “soon.” The evening before I got ‘the call’, I was finishing up a presentation – late at work, by the way – asking myself, ‘What are you doing, you jerk? You won’t be around to deliver this preso. Pack it in.’

Anyway, I was laid off via phone, and ended up coming in to work to pick up my stuff on my normal non-commuting Friday.

Telecommuting had nothing to do with this particular lay-off. It was all about a major political battle (which, oddly enough, pitted the short guys in management vs. the tall guys; tall guys lost).

Yet I know from friends who telecommute that out of sight – even if it’s only a day or two a week – is often out of mind when it comes to getting promoted.

Face time matters, and somehow those who aren’t giving full face time are considered less devoted, less committed, less career-minded – even if none of this is true.

Visibility creates the illusion of value. Being the last to leave the office impresses bosses, even if you are actually larking around on Facebook. Oddly, this holds true at firms that explicitly encourage staff to work from home. Mr Cable studied attitudes at Californian tech firms. Many asked employees not to come to the office too often; yet bosses unconsciously penalised those who obeyed.

The point about presenteeism existing in places “that explicitly encourage staff to work from home” is interesting. It’s also interesting that even companies with technology that, in fact, promotes the ability to telecommute, may frown on those who take them up on the promise of that technology.

I know this from a former colleague who worked at a tech company that had products that helped those who worked remotely. A big part of their messaging was around the future of telecommuting, how important it was, how wonderful it was that they offered technology that helped folks telecommute…. Yet when my friend asked to telecommute once a week, which would have been an enormous benefit to her - she had a lousy commute and a toddler - she was told that her company really didn’t, well, you know, actually want anyone to really,well, you know, actually work from home.

Personally, I think that everyday telecommuting may not be the best idea, unless you’re working for a largely virtual company, or a company with an established practice of having remote workers. Face time, small talk, walking around time do matter. But I also think that, given the stresses of the modern workplace and general way of life, companies really should allow everyone who’s job can be done remotely to do that job remotely at least one day a week. 

Down with presenteeism.

Telecommuting’s good for the environment. Good for mental health. Good for families. Good for folks who, once in a while, just want to hang in those PJ’s for a few hours longer.

Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!

Since the Irish pretty much invented the holiday, it’s somewhat fitting that this year’s Halloween post begin in the ould sod, keying off an article on haunted houses I saw last week in The Irish Times.

Without going all Shirley Maclaine here, I’m open to the notion that there may be something to visitors from the great beyond. My 99.99% bet is that every inexplicable stray whisper in the night, every inexplicable creepy hair-raising feeling on the back or your neck on the back staircase, every inexplicably rattling tea cup or turned on burner, has a scientific explanation. But I  will get my Shirley Maclaine on and say that I’m open to the 00.01% being poltergeisty-ESPish-ghostbusting whatever. And I’m a believer that, someday, that 99.99% scientific explanation may cover the weird stuff.

Hey, if matter can neither be created nor destroyed, what’s to say that some of the matter that was in, say, Bridey Murphy’s brain, might not have stayed connected, with Bridey Murphy’s memories and experiences imprinted therein. And what’s to say that this clump o’ matter might not have found its way into the host brain of a Colorado housewife a hundred years later.  Wooooooooooo….

As for the cumulus-and-harp filled afterlife, I remain a skeptic. If it’s up and out there, I will be pleasantly (I hope) surprised. If it’s not, well, I’ll never know, will I?

Anyway, I found the Irish Time article interesting.

A middle aged banker quoted in it grew up in a Dublin house haunted by a benevolent/neutral ghost, who may or may not have been killed in a duel in their parlor.

But not all ghosts are Casper-friendly.

…one exorcist, who doesn’t want to be named – a practising Catholic priest – has noted “a huge increase in people needing deliverance. Their lives are absolutely miserable. They don’t want these spirits.”

Demand far exceeds his ability to supply spooked homeowners with counsel, he says, adding that the service is free, but church donations can be accepted.

Not to be outdone by the Catholics, the Church of Ireland offers exorcisms, too. Only they call it “deliverance ministry”.  Deliverance, huh? Now there’s a name that wouldn’t fly in the US. Shades of a bunch of toothless yet armed and dangerous mountain coots.

The C of I Archdeacon of Ireland, David Pierpoint, suggests that, when you find yourself in need of a ghostbuster, you look to the church, rather than a non-religious outfit.

“We can help. There are a number of people trained to deal with these issues. With haunted homes you’re often dealing with the spirits of the dead although it is also possible to be possessed by an evil spirit.”

As an alternative, you can bring in Paranormal Study and Investigation (PSI), which:

…was established in 2005 to investigate and research paranormal phenomena. As a research team we take a completely balanced, unbiased and scientific view-point to this controversial field. Research areas we have focused on include; the alleged existence of spirits, the afterlife, mediumship, ESP (Extra sensory perception), PK (Psycho kinesis), EVP (Electric voice phenomena), possession and past life regression.

I’ve spent all of my adult life living in older buildings but, except for a couple quasi-waking up fugue state experiences of “something/someone” – immediately shaken off once you lift your head off the drool-soaked pillow -  I’ve never felt the presence of an evil or kindly spirit (that wasn’t in the body of someone I know). I’ve never witnessed a vase being teleported from the mantel to the end table without someone’s embodied hand attached to it. And I just can’t bring myself to blame poltergeists for disappearing socks or the ability for any electronic appliance cord to tie itself in knots when left unattended.

But if I did experiencing something strange in my personal neighborhood, I wouldn’t call in the clergy. I’d call in the Boston-version of PSI. That would be the Paranormal Research Association of Boston,  

…a team of scientific paranormal researchers coming from all walks of life. We are dedicated to the research of all claimed paranormal experiences with a three fold mission.

1. Above all, to help people who are suffering from paranormal experiences in their residences / places of work

Places of work? Would that I had known of the possibility of the haunted workplace when I was working full time. Paranormality would have explained an awful lot of what was going on that I, perhaps naively, chalked up to plain old vanilla dysfunction.

2. To further our, and as a consequence the public at large, understanding of paranormal activity through logical, verifiable scientific means.

3. Through presentations, classes and our published research papers, to give the public an understanding of both paranormal activity and the methods we use to locate and test paranormal activity.

And why am I not surprised that the founder of PRAB – which, by the way (in case you’re in need) – “will never charge any business or person for [its’ services” – is one Ian Murphy, who had earlier founded the Paranormal Research Association of Ireland. Not to be confused with the aforementioned PSI.

As noted, it’s no surprise to me that Ireland is a hotbed of paranormality. And, given our fine city’s Irish connections and relative antiquity, it’s apparently no accident that Boston holds it paranormal own, with at least one other group devoted to the study. That would be the Boston Paranormal Investigators. Theirs is a somewhat low information website, but they do claim a mascot which is sufficiently creepy to merit inclusion here, given that it’s Halloween.

Ecce – and dedicated to my sister Trish, who will be well aware of why she’d on the receiving end of this dedication – Benny:

Benny is a marionette believed to be from the 1920s carrying a paranormal energy. Normally, he is hanging around near the bathroom door. While no activity has surfaced since his arrival to BPI in late 2008, Benny has become a mainstay as well as the group mascot.

And with that, I will wish everyone a Happy Halloween, no smashed pumpkins, and fully loaded trick or treat bags. (Lots of Butterfingers.)

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A Halloween shout-out to my shut-in friend V, who today is having her second hip replacement surgery since August. Wishing you a successful operation and speedy recovery.

Fare-thee-well, Locke-Ober’s

I seldom get to use the word ‘bastion’ in conversation or in blogging, but the shuttering of Locke-Ober’s restaurant really leaves me with not much of a choice: Locke’s was, for many years, an absolute bastion of Boston’s WASP business community.

It was so bastion-y that women could only dine in the main dining room on the day of the Harvard-Yale game (when the game was played here), or in one of the warren of private dining rooms on the second floor.

Presidents visited, along with sports stars, Hollywood actors, and power brokers from coast to coast. Some diners were so regular that the Globe once published a map of the dining room showing who sat where. When customers died, their chairs were leaned against the tables to signify the loss. (Source: Boston.com)

Wonder how long those chairs were cocked? Maybe it made a difference whether you were Quentin Tetley Brewster III and Quentin Tetley Brewster IV…

Anyway, after Durgin-Park and the Union Oyster House, Locke’s was the oldest restaurant in Boston. And the only one of  the big, old three that I never worked in. Maybe something to do with there being no waitresses there during my waiting days.

It is, however, the only one of the big,old three where I ever ate more than once or twice over the years (other than the free grub Union and Durgin fed us workers, which doesn’t count).

Yes, although I’m not now, never have been, and never will be part of haute WASP Boston (which really doesn’t even exist any more, as far as I can tell), at one point in my life I ate with some regularity at Locke’s, in both the first floor dining room (after it went co-ed) and in the intimate little upstairs rooms. I also drank at the bar on occasion. (Champagne cocktails.)

Maybe I haven’t been there in, twenty years. Maybe thirty.

The food, in my dining days there, was pretty much haute Boston WASP: oyster stew, lobster stew, liver and onions, iceberg lettuce wedge with Russian dressing…

It probably hadn’t changed much from 1875.

Well, even though I haven’t eaten at Locke’s at any point during the last 25 years, I am at this very moment missing the oyster stew.

Most of my visits to Locke’s were Saturday lunches with my husband, so I’m not just missing the oyster stew, but having a bit of nostalgia for my personal good old days (30 years/20 pounds, or is it 20 years/30 pounds?)

I also had a couple of business dinners there.

Most memorably, I was the junior member of a team that was trying to get a couple of investors to partner with my then-company on a product aimed at money managers. The crew at this dinner was the company president, a VP, my boss, me, and our potential investors, Neil and Larry.

During the period when we were trying to woo Neil and Larry, the company was going through a major wrangle with a very prominent company in the financial services industry. We had just settled with the company, and those of us who knew about the situation and the settlement had been told that mentioning it outside of the company was a firing offense.

Fair enough.

At the dinner, the company president – as haute-WASP an individual as I ever worked with – slammed down a couple of Negronis, and proceeded to blab all about our touchy situation and settlement to Neil and Larry.

At least we were in one of those private dining rooms!

Anyway, we ended up developing a prototype with a lot of input from Neil and Larry, but without the infusion of any Neil and Larry cash. Maybe they were afraid that we’d piss it away on another settlement.

And now Locke’s is no more…

“Here’s what I was faced with,” [David] Ray continued. “I had a choice. Make Locke-Ober more casual, lower our standards to conform with the way society is today, or I could close it. I could close it with its history and its dignity intact. Because, frankly, it looked as good as it’s ever looked. The service was good, and the food was good.”

There are plenty of online quibblers about whether the service and/or the food was good. And that “lower our standards to conform to the way society is today” sounds a bit peck-sniffy. Maybe it’s just that tastes change and life goes on.

Practically speaking, I won’t miss Locke-Ober’s.

But I have to confess that I will miss the idea of it.

Backfield in motion (gonna have to penalize you if you don’t know what that means)

Outplacement, in my experience, means cleaning up your résumé, thinking through what you want to do with the rest of your life (other than the obvious of ‘find a job’), talking with generally sympathetic and maybe even helpful counselors, and commiserating with a bunch of strangers who are pretty much in the same boat you are. Plus, it gives you a way to ‘go to work’ when you don’t actually have a place to ‘go to work.’

Essex Partners focuses on career advisory for senior executive/C-level folks who, these days, apparently have to really hone their networking edge. Part of that honing involves knowing something about America’s favorite sport which – alas – is not baseball, but football.

Having logged many years in American business, I certainly recognize that it’s helpful to know at least a bit about football, if only so you’re up on who won your team’s last game (plus Sunday, Monday, and Thursday night football, plus all the playoff games). And so that you get the sportive metaphors. (Most of which should be blocked.)

At minimum, I would think that everyone who expects to carry on a full coffee break conversation (as opposed to a hastily mumbled one-line comment), or who wants to follow what the boss is talking about without going duh! blank,  might want to make sure that that they can throw a few terms into the conversation, even if those tosses are pretty much intentional grounding. Ones that might prove especially useful – in my play book – would include quarterback, interception, touchdown!, fourth down (and fourth and long), go for two, block and tackle, blocked kick, blitz, sacked, punt, x’s and o’s, sudden death, Hail Mary pass.

Anyway, Essex Partners recently had a session aimed at helping football-challenged business folks get the lingo down so that they can become, if not knowledgeable enough to intelligently play the pool or coach their own fantasy football team, fluent enough to make morning after water cooler talk.

They brought in Gene DeFilippo, Boston College’s former athletic director to lay out the basics.

“This is a football field,” the instructor said. The class studied the slide as if their futures depended on it. And they might. The students enrolled in “Water Cooler Football: Learning the Game for Fun and Networking Success” were mainly unemployed senior executives, and in a rocky economy, job seekers need every advantage. (Source: Boston.com)

Hard to believe that there are folks who made it to the senior echelons of American business without recognizing the old gridiron, but there you have it.

Understandably, some of the non-cognoscenti are from elsewhere:

“I grew up with soccer,” said Gunther Winkler, an Austrian native who has a PhD in biochemistry but only an elementary understanding of football lingo. “I have an inkling what it means, but I don’t feel comfortable enough to use it myself.”

“When industry leaders use football terms people’s faces light up and the whole atmosphere becomes more relaxed,” he said.

But some are local:

Julie Coyle, 57, had her own reasons for attending. “If you don’t know about football guys look at you like you have two heads,” she said, “and nowadays women do, too.”

I am nowhere near enough of a football junkie to field a fantasy football team, but I can hold my own.

I have been watching football for (yikes) over 50 years. I don’t go back to the leather helmet, Bronco Nagurski days, but I did watch Y.A. Tiddle wearing N.Y. Giants “Honolulu Blue” plenty of times.  I don’t understand – or care to – every nuance of the game, but I can follow the game intelligently. (Intelligently enough to recognize after the first couple of minutes that the Patriots were going to lose last season’s Super Bowl to the very team – the N.Y. Giants – that I used to root for.)

After an early start, I did have plenty of decades where I didn’t watch any football whatsoever. During one of those decades, I nonetheless participated in a few football pools, where I picked my team based on which city I liked better than the other (e.g., San Francisco over Dallas). I made no bones about that’s how I was making my selections, which ticked off “the boys” the time or two when I won.

Anyway, I really don’t think that a two-hour course in the fundamentals of football (combined with the fundamentals of networking) is going to give anyone much of a comfort level on being able to actually do more than vaguely follow the action when football terms are being thrown around. It will certainly not give them enough know-how to be able to fully participate in a water-cooler conversation. Especially if the course goes from such basics as ‘this is a football uniform’ up to the ‘nickel defense.’ I am quite certain that, other than being able to recognize your teams colors, there’s not much to know about the duds. And you really don’t have to know what a nickel defense is to follow the game. (And how could someone new to football possibly take this in during a mere two-hour course. As with most sports, even though 99.99% of team sports follow the same plot, you have to watch it with some regularity and attentiveness to really pick up any real knowledge.)

In truth, if you’re just looking for a brief water-cooler conversation, you pretty much just have to know:

Who won.

What the score was.

What the score difference was between us and them.

An exciting play (and who was part of it).

A bad play or controversial referee call  (and who was part of it).

Most of this you can glean from the five-minute sports segment on the news, or from a quick look at the online sports pages.

If your team won, all you need to say is ‘always good to get a ‘W’’ or ‘I’ll take it.’

If your team won, and the score was tight, all you need to say is ‘too close for comfort.’

If your team won, and the score was grossly imbalanced, all you need to say is ‘in my book, there’s no such thing as a blowout.’

If there was an exciting play, all you need to say is ‘how about that [insert name here: e.g.,Gronk, Woodhead, Welker].’

If there was a bad play, or a bad call, all you need to say is ‘that’s where I turned the game off.’

And if your team lost, all you need to say is ‘that sucked.’

Maybe I can get a gig at Essex Partners cutting to the chase. Forget the ‘nickel defense.’ It all really comes down to knowing whether or not to say ‘that sucked.’

‘Reservoirs of pathogens’. (That would be your smartphone.)

I haven’t gone so f as to put on a surgical mask and pull on a pair of latex gloves.

But I did just swab my laptop and Blackberry with isopropyl alcohol.

That’s thanks to reading an article in the WSJ that asked the ultra important question: Is Your Smartphone Making You Sick? 

Well, there are actually ways in which my smartphone is making me sick.

For one thing, I spend altogether too much time checking my e-mail on it. Too much of which is spam that has nastily hijacked the names of my sisters and is coming my way with way too many infomercials on fat burning drugs. Not that I wouldn’t like to burn me some fat, and not that my sisters don’t know this. But I really resent spammers hijacking my sisters’ names. Maybe it’s time for me to start looking at these jamokes – the spammers, not my sisters – and outing the ones that are in the States and/or at least marginally reputable. You guys leave me and my sistahs alone!

For another, I spend altogether too much time checking on absolutely critical-in-the-moment information like where was the Anne Hathaway movie Passengers filmed (Vancouver); how many home-runs has Jim Thome hit (612 – a lot more than Ted Williams; how about that?); and when was Boston tourist-trappy restaurant Durgin Park founded (1827; sometimes on your quest, you find out TMI, like the info that the guy that owned Durgin when I worked there is known for “enhancing the restaurant's national reputation.” What was not mentioned was his unleashing a reign of terror on those of us who worked there.)

Finally, I’m sick that I even have a Blackberry, which I have to admit is nowhere near as good as an iPhone when it comes to surfing the web. So information that takes me a minute to fumble around for when I’m looking for it, takes a nano second for everyone I know who’s got an iPhone, which includes those afore-unmentioned sisters of mine. But since I got this variant of a Blackberry last November – too lazy at that point to switch from the devil of a smartphone I knew - I can’t justify jettisoning it for an iPhone (or a Droid device) quite yet. Especially since I need to break down and get an iPad before much longer.

But this sort of heartsickness is not what the WSJ was talking about. They’re talkin’ sick sick.

"Some things we think are personal are actually more public than we imagine." Bacteria from a phone can cause flu, pinkeye or diarrhea, says Dr. [Jeffrey] Cain [the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians].

I did have an exceptionally bad cold-flu thing during the summer of 2011. Could my Blackberry have been the Typhoid Mary?

And pinkeye and diarrhea? No problem with either of those lately, but it sounds like you could end up with a trifecta of mobile device maladies.

The bad news – other than the potential for an inanimate object to give you pinkeye – is that:

…there is a disconnect between what doctors and medical researchers advise and what device makers suggest for phone sanitizing.

In other words, if you’re removing 100% of the germs, you’re probably damaging the screen coating. (Hmmmm.  I regularly use Staples Monitor Wipes, which I now see promise to do a streak free, alcohol free removal of dust, dirt and fingerprints, but says nothing about germs. Alcohol does the trick with germs, but it’s not good for the screens. Oh, what’s a smartphone user to do?)

One reason why smartphones are such little germ vectors is that we’re keeping them with us wherever we go – bed, gym, restaurant, and – as we have all no doubt witnessed in public places – incredibly vile restrooms. Which means that:

"We're feeding the little creatures," says Michael Schmidt, a professor and vice chairman of microbiology and immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina. "We've all seen that greasy smear [on the touch screen]. Where there is grease, there are bugs."

Lab tests conducted on a bunch of Chicago office phones (randomly selected), showed:

…abnormally high numbers of coliforms, a bacteria indicating fecal contamination. Of the eight phones tested by HML Labs of Muncie, Ind., there were between about 2,700 and 4,200 units of coliform bacteria. In drinking water, the limit is less than 1 unit per 100 ml of water.

"The results are pretty bad," said Dr. Donald Hendrickson, president of HML Labs and professor emeritus of medical microbiology at Ball State University. He says the results suggest a lack of hand-washing and proper hygiene.

Another study – this one done on 100 cellphones owned by college students – found:

… them to be "veritable reservoirs of pathogens" that can make you sick.

The good news is that there are cleaning solutions coming to market that will handle the germs without harming the screen, including UV disinfectant wants and skins that are more bacteria resistant.  Thus our smartphones and iPads are begetting a whole new set of products that we didn’t need – and could  not have imagined - a few years back.

On the other hand, aren’t we learning the being exposed to some level of bacteria is a good thing? Isn’t that what probiotics are all about?

Maybe having a germy smartphone will help us build up our resistance. (What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger, etc.)

I used to think that the biggest threats that smartphones posed were those that stemmed from the obviously dangerous practice of texting and surfing while driving. Now there’s pinkeye to worry about.

Into the Boston ‘Shark Tank’

Even though I have at best an exceedingly limited capacity to discern a kick-ass business idea from a dud, I remain nonetheless interested in the new business ideas that are out there (be they kick-ass or dud). Never more so than when they’re ideas sprouting right here in my own backyard.

Today, six of them are getting a chance to pitch investors in a Boston version of the reality show, Shark Tank, being held as part of the FutureM conference (which I really should be attending but, alas, will not be; as with the Red Sox, maybe next year).

I read about the Shark Tank event in an article by Scott Kirsner on Boston.com.

Investors winnowed a list of 70 startups down to six, and here’s who made the cut:

Arcbazar is based in Cambridge, Mass., and although I initially thought the name was something out of Harry Potter – I was confusing it with Azkaban – once I swung by and saw their site, I was struck by what a great idea this is. Folks with small architectural design projects (a vintage 1980 kitchen, or two vintage 1980 bathrooms come to immediate mind as examples)  upload info about what they’re looking for, including how much they’re willing to spend, and designers respond with their ideas.  The project owner picks the top three, and the award is split among them.

Depending on the type of competition you will get dimensioned plans, sections, elevations, and perspective views. Some designers may also submit additional views, animations and other 3D work.

I hope this isn’t the kiss of death, but I think that this is a great idea, putting (presumably) good design affordably within reach of folks who wouldn’t normally work with a designer. And providing opportunities for those just starting out to add to their portfolios.

Jebbit :

• …looks at your interests and finds websites, clothes, products and services that you may find interesting.
• …guides you around cool websites by asking you questions that highlight the most interesting features about the product or service.
• [Lets you earn money, as] each question you answer correctly will earn you cash (usually about $0.30 per question).
• [Lets you] choose to either keep the cash you've earned or multiply it for more money at the places you love most.

Or, in the description that Jebbit provided to Scott Kirsner,

Jebbit pays college students to check out new products and answer questions.

Whatever they do, I will take credit for having looked at the name and said “founders must be from BC”. As, it turns out they are. One of the co-founders is named Jeb, but I’m guessing that, Boston College being a Jesuit (a.k.a., Jebbie) school, that had something to do with it, too.  (The company’s original name was AddItUp, but the URL was apparently taken.)

Anyway, although I give them props for having a snappy one liner about what they do, I found their site a bit lacking in the type of clarity I’m always looking for – when you hit “About” you get mug shots and Truth/Lie snippets about the members of the team.  But I am so not their audience. You have to be a college/university student to be of interest to the companies that hire them to find out whether they’re getting through to “the kids” (which I guess is what is meant by your getting paid for a “correct” answer).

They do have some good clients already, including Bose and Zipcar. But isn’t this idea already covered? (Maybe not. Maybe it just sounds like something that’s already being done.)

CoachUp pairs athletes in the making with private sports coaches (which the company vets). I do so not want to like anything that puts kids in even more of a pressure cooker than they’re already in, but if your kid really and truly does have athletic talent, and he/she – and not just dear old dad – really and truly does want to take that talent to the next level (Division 1, The Pros), why not? Still…

Plus this seems – however great the vetting is – like a liability engine to me.

They do have Gabe Kapler – a former Red Sox player – vouching for them.  Gabe – along with a raft of angels – is an investor.

But I’d take a pass, just based on personal qualms.

Sidewalk:

Sidewalk profiles [small & medium businesses] by analyzing their digital footprint. We use this data to help local sales reps sell smarter. In the future, we'll help SMBs digitize. We have 100+ paying customers & 50+ marquee brands (Yelp, ATT, AMZN, etc) queued up for our beta. Scoble called us the biggest idea at 500 Startups.

Whatever Scoble thinks – and how do you like that little flick that we’ll all know who Scoble is (which, admittedly, I do) – I have to say they go on my screw-you list in that you have to “request an invitation” to get anything more out of their web site than:

Sidewalk’s APIs enhance local business data with
rich, social profiles. Discover prospects, research
leads, and enrich listings.

Oh, how very precious, indeed. (Go forth and digitize.)

Timbre (from Intrepid Pursuits) is a mobile app. It:

…highlights live music shows nearby, plays samples, and enables users to buy tickets. From the company's application: "We would like to spin this product out and raise a seed round so a dedicated team can focus on it."

Again, I’m not the audience. But for a website that gives out precious little when it comes to the written word (see me on Sidewalk), I think that what they’ve set up on the Intrepid site, which lets you thumb through all their apps, is pretty darned good. If it managed to convey information to someone like me, who has a complete and utter preference for the written word vs. the visual image, they’re doing something right. (Which is not to say that I care to live after  the last written word gets written.)

And then there’s the ‘now for something completely different’ entry, which looks a lot more like the sorts of companies I saw when I’d go to startup forums in days of yore. Last on the list:

NBD Nanotechnologies, which:

…makes use of a nano-scale surface to enhance water condensation. Mimicking the Namib Desert Beetle, our nanotechnology can be used to collect water in the most arid regions of the world.

Nothing about “apps”. Nothing about being “cool”. Nothing about being “hip.”

Just a bunch of ultra-bright science guys who want to benefit humanity. (Go, nerds!)

My bets are on Arcbazar – because it’s a service I might actually use – and NBD Nanotechnologies – because it’s something that just might change the world for the better.

Hope my bets don’t doom them…

How I Acquired My Vast Set of Business Skills Without Using Video Games

A week or so ago, The Washington Post had an interesting article on how video game players are acquiring valuable business skills in the course of, well, playing video games.

Since my personally held belief has long been that they – unlike the mind-enhancing, senility warding-off, intelligence-affirming computer games like TaiPei, WordZap, and FreeCell that I play – will be shown to be the ruination of our youth, the principal culprit behind ADHD, and a major contributor to the end of the written word, I was somewhat taken aback to find that so many core business skills are enhanced by playing video games.  And these findings are backed by research.

I stand (or, rather, sit) corrected.

Memory. Planning. Problem Solving/Creativity. Teamwork. Concentration. Situational Awareness. Multi-tasking. Reading the Market. Management.

All have been shown to be developed through video gaming.

…those playing first-person shooter games did a better job of judging what information should be stored in their working memory and what was no longer relevant to the task at hand.

…Multiplayer titles such as Team Fortress 2 may encourage players to contribute individual skills toward a common goal.

…Massively multi-player online role-playing games that draw millions of players from around the world into a fantasy universe of their own often have in-game marketplaces that benefit those who can read the supply and demand of finite resources.

So how was it that, BVGE (before the video game era), some of us actually managed to acquire these skills without benefit of XBox, PlayStation, Wii, and massively multi-player online role-playing games.

Memory I actually don’t know where my quite excellent memory came from – it may run in the family; my sister Trish has a pretty darned good memory, too - but I’ve always had a very good one. Admittedly, I can’t remember what I walked downstairs for or whether I unplugged the iron, but I do remember:

• My newborn brother Tom’s coming home from the hospital (I was two and a half; Tom wore yellow: after three girls in a row, my parents were hoping for a boy but not taking any chances by betting on blue),
• Exactly how I felt walking out of Gates Lane School after my first day in kindergarten (terrified: the patrol line went out a different entrance than the one I came in through. I was panicked that my mother and the famous Tom would not be there waiting for me, on the one and only day that anyone was going to come down to school and fetch a not-yet-five year old kid home; after that day, I was on my own).
• How guilty I felt – and still feel – about having left my friend Susan a note that said “You stink” and signing it Ginny. (I was seven at the time.) Sorry, Susan. Sorry, Ginny.
• Etc.

I don’t know whether my memory actually held me in good stead during my business career, other than being able to recall every inconsistent or stupid thing anyone ever said at a management meeting I was in on. (On reflection, my business memory probably did not serve me particularly well.)

Planning In truth, if I’d been any good at planning, I never would have gone into business to begin with. But, absent an alternative, there I found myself.  Yet I did get to be a pretty good business planner. I guess it helped that, an innate worry wart, I could conjure up and think through just about every possible contingency and outcome. Which is probably why, if the business plan writing got divvied up, I always got the risk analysis section.

Problem Solving/Creativity I must say I don’t see that these two attributes are necessarily coupled. You can actually be a pretty good problem solver without having a shred of creativity in you. Or does the very notion of “problem solving” imply that there are no easy answers?

In any case, for problems with answers(if not completely easy ones), I honed my solving skill at Our Lady of the Angels grammar school, where we did daily mental arithmetic drills. You had to be fast and there was no way in front of 49 other kids I wasn’t going to be right.

As for creativity, I wasn’t always the paragon of creativity I am today. In fact, I once challenged my cousin Ellen because she had colored Santa’s cap in with blue crayon.

Santa cap incident aside, I do believe I can claim some creative capacities, and they were likely developed by having to develop an alternative reality to the general boredom (combined with sheer terror) that I lived through during grammar school, in the 99% of the school day that wasn’t given over to the pep and challenge of mental arithmetic drills.

What else was there to do when Sister Agnes Aloysius insists that it would take everyone an hour to complete a multiple-choice history test? And she wouldn’t let you pull out a book and start reading at minute three when you were actually finished? What else was there to do, other than to make up stories in your own little head. (Well, there was one other thing you could do. You could use your pencil eraser to clean the grunge off your desk. But a little of that went a long way.)

Teamwork. Concentration. Situational Awareness. Multi-tasking. Reading the Market. Management.

I could go on, and I will, for just a bit by noting that growing up in a large family honed my Situational Awareness capability (watch your back, alrighty), and that Multi-tasking was an absolutely essential skill to have if you wanted to be able to simultaneously eat vanilla ice milk with Hershey’s syrup (out of a yellow melmac bowl), set your stick straight hair with Spoolies, watch Flint McCullough be handsome and manly on Wagon Train, and read a Nancy Drew mystery. All the while honing your Situational Awareness skills, in case someone darted over to the TV to try to change the channl.

So much to do, so little time.

You’ll just have to trust me that, when it comes to all these business capabilities, I did manage to develop my skill set without ever touching a video game. Still, it’s heartening to know that some good comes out of them. There are plenty of reasons to fear for the future, but I guess the prevalence of video gaming isn’t one of them.

“Rebecca” meets “The Producers”

I don’t pay all that much attention to Broadway goings-on, but the hoopla over Rebecca: The Musical has absolutely piqued my interest. Enough so that:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…

For those unfamiliar with the novels of Daphne Du Maurier or 1940’s B&W Alfred Hitchcock movies, Rebecca – which opens with the line about about dreaming of Manderley - tells the story of an unnamed woman who marries widower Max DeWinter and gets swept up in the mystery of the death of his first wife, Rebecca.

With one classic film about it, one might think that there’s no going back to Manderley, the mansion having burned to the ground. But a few years ago, Rebecca: The Musical was produced in Germany, and had a quite successful run.

So Ben Sprecher and Louise Forlenza decided to bring Rebecca: The Musical to Broadway, and began looking for backers.

It’s never cheap to mount a Broadway production, and Rebecca is no exception. It was costing something to the tune of $12M. (I’m sure the special effects when Manderley burns down weren’t going to come cheap.)

Unfortunately, in their hunt for investors, Sprecher and Forlenza ran into Mark Hotton, who agreed to play middleman.

From there on out, the story – absent a good, old-fashioned murder - is worthy of Daphne Du Maurier and Alfred Hitchcock themselves.

Hotton – in exchange for expense money, a measly $60,000 in fees, and a share of the profits – agreed to find the investors Sprecher and Forlenza needed. Which he supposedly did. Instead,

“Hotton falsely represented that he had secured commitments of approximately $4.5 million to 'Rebecca’ from several overseas investors,” prosecutors wrote.

“In truth and fact, the … investors appear to be Hotton’s own inventions. The businesses of some of these investors have Web sites whose domain names are registered to Hotton and were created shortly before and during the fraud.”  (Source: NY Post.)

When the time got around to actually getting the committed money transferred – and, with Rebecca scheduled to open in November, much of that promised money has been spent -  Hotton killed off “Paul Abrams”, the lead backer, claiming that he’d died of malaria.

Abrams’ made-up assistant broke the bad news in an Aug. 5 e-mail, that Hotton allegedly shared with producers.

“Mr. Hotton, I’m so sorry to relay such Terrible news, Mr. Abrams passed away this evening and the family has asked for your attendance at the services as well the opportunity to discuss their financial well-being as you were so close to him,” the email read, according to prosecutors.

Please contact us tomorrow with your travel plans so we can arrange the family driver to pick you up.”(Source: NY Post.)

There is, of course, no trace that “Paul Abram”s ever existed, let alone that he died of malaria, let alone that the family driver was going to pick Hotton up so he could attend the services.

Sheesh. That’s an awful lot to go through for $60K, but if you factor in expense money, it might have been worthwhile.

But Hotton, a former Oppenheimer broker, was used to bigger and better dealios.

Hotton had filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2011. Creditors include a neighboring family, the Pitches, who claim they were swindled out of their life savings of more than $5 million, according to court papers.

Hmmmm. Didn’t Sprecher and Forlenza do any due diligence on this guy before partnering up with him? If I were looking for a middleman to scare up big bucks to invest in me, I think I’d take a pass on someone who’d filed for bankruptcy and had his neighbors claiming he’d “swindled [them] out of their life savings.”

In addition to the Rebecca fraud, Hotton has also been indicted for a second scam.

It seems that he and his wife had an electrical company, and bilked investors out of nearly $4M by “inventing phony work…to draw in backers”:

By creating fake invoices, the Hottons sold these accounts payable to investors who’d pay a percentage of the amount due, in exchange for full payment of that debt later, according to the unsealed indictment.

The invented $9.8 million in imaginary invoices and made $3.7 million from ripped-off investors. (Source: NY Post.)

There has to have been more in the Rebecca’s scam than the paltry $60K and some walking around money. I mean, this guy’s no petty ante thief. What do you need with $60K when you’ve pulled in $5K from your neighbors and $3.7 from “ripped-off investors” in your electrical business.

Anyway, the show must go on, mustn’t it?

Somehow, Sprecher and Forlenza found an anonymous angel investor who’d promised to bail out the production. Only to have him sprout cold wings and back out, once some phantom e-mailer tipped him off that there were problems with the production.

So for now the show is canceled. The actors, musicians, and stage crew are out of work.

And Sprecher’s left scrounging around to find the money to get the show back on its feet – or I guess he’ll be on the hook for the millions that got spent based on the promises Hotton made.

Anyway, Hotton’s been arrested, and is being held without bail. Looks like he won’t be getting back to his Long Island manse any time soon.(Which, come to think of it, looks a tad bit like Manderley.)

He’s certainly a flight of fancy risk, if nothing else.

All this is certainly given The Producers a run for its money, is it not?

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original source: Bloomberg. (The Post turned out to be so much juicier…)

 

.

What ho, Jeeves! The butler’s still doing it.

While the global economy continues to suffer, making stutter-steps, at best, towards recovery, there are certainly pockets of prosperity. They may not all be capable of scaling to the level of job growth the world needs, but they are nonetheless important.

One of the niche markets that has proven itself recession-resistant is, apparently, that of butling, where – The Economist tells us  “demand is soaring.”

Bespoke Bureau, a London agency, has placed 345 butlers this year—twice as many as in all of 2011. The five-week training courses Mr. [Anthony] Seddon-Holland runs at his Guild of British Butlers, which he set up in 2007, are booked until 2013. Demand increases by around a fifth every year.

These butlers are not staffing Downton Abbeys for British aristos.

No, those days are gone. Today’s butlers are going where the money is: wealthy Russians, Chinese, Middle Easterners and Latin Americans.

These days, of course, the job has become somewhat more complex than it was in the days of fox hunts and steamer trunk travel.

A birthday in Venezuela organised by [Mr.] Seddon-Holland, a British soldier-turned-butler, involved three planeloads of guests and security, and booking an entire hotel, plus rock band and film stars.

And the pay has gotten better.

A world-class butler can earn up to £150,000 ($240,000) plus bonus, separate living accommodation and all expenses.

What ho, Jeeves, indeed!

To educate the rising generation of butlers, schools have cropped up that offer training on both the niceties of British upper crustiness and modern-day household management for those with a lot household to manage.

One such school, Oxfordshire’s Butler-Valet School is run by Rick Fink.

When I first saw that name I thought ‘Rick Fink’. Now that doesn’t sound like a butler-ish name.

Richard Finch, perhaps. But Rick Fink?

And then I remembered Bertie Wooster’s friend Gussie Fink-Nottle and I thought, if a butler-employing grandee can have the name Fink (however hyphenated) then surely a butler can, as well.

Still, to me, Dickie Fink would work better than Rick Fink. (Rick seems more a name for your head of security, not your butler.)

However lacking I find his name, Mr. Fink makes up for it when it comes to his roster of other trainers, which includes Colin Gaunt and Hugo-Morley Fletcher.

Each of Mr. Fink’s trainers has his/her own area of expertise, and Mr. Fink himself oversees the full course – which costs £8,000 – and provides tutelage on:

…the correct procedure to be followed at weddings and other functions, how to announce meals and introduce guests. He will also talk about titles and equivalent ranks and how to address them. (Source: Butler-Valet School website.)

Everyone could use a bit of coaching on “how to announce meals” I suppose. It really is more of a matter than your mother sticking her head out of the kitchen and hollering ‘supper’s on the table.’ But just how much call is there in the average Russian or Chinese plutocrat’s home for addressing the titled? I guess they’ve progressed from Tovarich and Comrade, but still one has to wonder if butler training time might be better spent on how to find actors and rock stars to jet into your clients’ parties.

Which is not to say that the school ignores the practical, day to day skills. At Mr. Fink’s school, prospective butlers will learn about:

…the carving of meats, poultry, game and smoked salmon. Care of fine silver, jewellery, antique furniture and glassware.

How to:- organise large dinner parties, shooting and hunting weekends.

Shooting and hunting weekends?

Again, I’m back to wondering how this applies to the life of today’s kabillionaire. Sounds a bit Queen’s corgis and Balmoral to me, but what do I know about the lifestyles of the rich and famous? I mean, I do get invited to weekends in second homes, but these weekends don’t usually involve shooting and hunting, other than the shooting off of mouths and the hunting down of missing jig-saw puzzle pieces.

Training also covers table laying, food and bev serving, cigar care, and “cellar control.” (Hmmm. I thought it was the imbibers that needed controlling, not the cellars.)

And who knew you had to go to school for table laying?

Admittedly, I never remember if my bread plate is to the left or the right, but I do know that the fork goes to the left and the knife to the right of the dinner plate. And – thanks to my mother – that a plastic gallon milk jug does not belong in the middle of the table.

“Dressing room duties” are also covered:

(Bedrooms provided to practice your skills) how to lay out clothes, including evening wear, uniforms and day wear. How to pack a suitcase correctly. Care of Hunting ,Shooting clothes. The art of caring for all types of apparel and footwear professionally. Emphasis will always be on the formal way of carrying out these duties.

I have to say I wouldn’t mind seeing the formal way of cleaning stag blood off of shooting jackets and hound scat off hunting boots.

Does one remove the boot from the well-heeled foot first, or kneel down and clean things off in situ?

The one trainer I would like to hear speak is Hugo Morley-Fletcher.

As one might infer from his hyphenated-name, Mr. Morley Fletcher grew up not a butler, but a butleed, who:

…was born and brought up in A Stately Home. In the days when such places were still fully staffed. As a child and a young man he spent time on both sides of the Green Baize Door and acquired a cosy insight into how it all worked.

“How it all worked” was tapping the family butler as:

…a useful and friendly source for cigarettes, alcoholic refreshments and other creature comforts… Hugo Morley - Fletcher will recall his experiences in such a household and the lessons he has drawn from it, which may be even useful to you.

I couldn’t find it mentioned on his web site, but I suspect that one of the skills that Mr. Fink trains butlers in the making on is keeping a straight face., and placing tongue firmly in cheek without letting it show.

___________________________________________________

When it comes to butlering, Pink Slip is no Jeeves come lately. Here’s a post on the topic from 2008.

Zimny Sweep

I suspect that when Mark Zimny hung out his shingle at Ivy Admit Consulting Associates  -  “the worldwide leader in Business School and competitive University admissions consulting for international applicants”  - he did not envision that he’d end up in court, sued by a couple of parents who felt they’d been hoodwinked, who came to the ‘buyers’ remorse’ realization that ponying up $2.2 million for tutoring and advice for their high school age sons was just a tad excessive. That sometimes you don’t get what you pay for. And that greasing the skids may not be quite as simple and straightforward over here as it may be in a more under-the-table economy.

Whatever their expectations, whatever their intentions, it sounds like what happened to Gerald and Lily Chow, a well-to-do Hong Kong couple trying to navigate the American educational system and guarantee the future for their boys by getting them into an Ivy League college, should not have happened to anyone.

But what happened was that the Chows ran into Mark Zimny, who was there to help them out. And help them out of a fairly good sized cash pot.

Zimny no doubt struck them as well-credentialed. He’d been a lecturer in sociology at Harvard and a visiting assistant professor at its School of Education for a few years in the early-aughts,which may have translated to and/or for the Chows into “Harvard Professor.” His business appeared to have some references. And, however minimalist it was – even by the way-back standards of 2004, when it was apparently last updated - Ivy Admit had a web site.

The Chows were Tiger Mom savvy enough to know that, in the brave new global economy, the path to success doesn’t run through Joe Blow Community College. So why not get Zimny’s company to:

… provide tutoring and supervision while the boys attended American prep schools.

…At first, according to invoices, receipts, and financial statements, the Chows wired him at least $8,000 a month for their two boys. Then, in late 2008 and early 2009, they gave him a $2 million retainer.

In exchange, several of Zimny’s employees provided intense tutoring and miscellaneous help not only to the Chow sons, but also to their father, Gerald, a jewelry magnate. The invoices suggest that some of the employees went so far as to write papers for their clients. (Source: Boston.com)

I’ll get back to that Two Large in a moment, but the bit about getting Ivy Admit employees to write term papers is particularly amusing in light of 2002 article in The Harvard Crimson in which Zimny spoke about how he personally dealt with plagiarism.

Lecturer on Sociology Mark J. Zimny says he has uncovered several instances of plagiarism in his class the old-fashioned way—by getting suspicious when a paper doesn’t seem quite right.

“It’s almost like trying on a piece of clothing that isn’t made for you,” Zimny says. “It doesn’t fit the way it should.” (Source: Harvard Crimson)

Zimny went on to opine that he didn’t believe in using anti-plagiarism software.

“This is our job,” he says. Using an anti-plagiarism service “would be like sub-contracting your grading to a grading company. I think it’s our onus as faculty to...determine whether or not it’s actually genuine work.”

Which is not to imply that the term papers written by Ivy Admit were plagiarized. There’s plagiarism – which is stealing someone else’s ideas – and then there’s plagiarism – which is paying good money for someone else’s ideas. And if you can’t tell the difference…

As for $8K a month for tutoring and term paper writing for two kids?

Yowza. (Of course, when you break it down, that’s “only” $4K per kid per month which, at $100/hour – which is I’m quite sure what an Ivy Admit tutor was worth – that’s only 10 hours of tutoring, mentoring, handholding, “supervision”, and ghostwriting a week.)

The $2 million was not for term paper writing, however:

…according to a complaint and other documents the Chows filed as part of a lawsuit in US District Court in Boston, Zimny said he would grease the admissions wheels, funneling donations to elite colleges while also investing on the Chows’ behalf.

According to the suit, Zimny warned the Chows against giving to schools directly. “Embedded racism” made development offices wary of Asian donors, he allegedly advised them; better to use his company as a middleman. (Source: Boston.com)

Not that there’s any “embedded racism” in trying to snow job a couple of Hong Kong parents with a lot of money and not much understanding of how things rolls in the US.

Not clear if any of that $2 million made its way into any Ivy League coffers, by the way. And just how would someone position their donation as coming through a middleman? Say it was coming from an anonymous source? That wouldn’t help buy any consideration. Say that it came from Zimny himself? Ditto to that.

I guess that the Chows didn’t quite think things through.

The legal wiggle room for Zimny, no doubt, is that he was “also investing on the Chows’ behalf.”

Educational counselor and investment advisor.

Not bad for a sociology major, I must say.

Zimny’s lawyers tried to get the suit dismissed, claiming that:

…“common law counts do not serve as an insurance policy for poor judgment, avarice, or any other of many human failings.”

The Chows may have been guilty of ‘poor judgment, avarice, or any other of many human failings’, but it sure seems like they have a right to know where their $2 million went.

Although neither of their sons got into Harvard, they are at “top universities.”

Whether Harvard or another “top university”, $2 million sounds like an awful lot for helping a couple of kids finish high school and apply to college.

My cousin is a retired high school guidance counselor.

If that’s the going rate, maybe she should consider hopping back in the biz…

Red all about Dit. (Michael Brutsch finds out the hard way.)

Reddit is one of those Internet things that I was vaguely aware of and kinda/sorta knew what it was, but had not to my knowledge ever visited. Which is not to say I haven’t stumbled across it at some point, as it has forums on topics – politics and atheism are two -  I’m interested in. It also has a significant underbelly, a demimonde of porn-y, largely anonymous/pseudonymous forums (subreddits) dedicated to things like provocative pictures of underage girls.

Gawker is one of those Internet things that I was vaguely aware of and kinda/sorta knew what it was, but had not to my knowledge ever visited. Which is not to say I haven’t stumbled across it at some points, as I am certainly not averse to reading those who dish celebrity dirt, and clicking through to find out the skinny on the TomKat divorce or pictures of Anne Hathaway’s wedding.

Bottom line: neither site is in my usual consciousness, or on my Favorites list.

Nonetheless, I’ve been reading with interest about the outing of one Redditor “Violentacrez", who moderated a number of the sketchier forums on Reddit.

Michael “Violentacez” Brutsch’s explanation of what he was up to:

"I do my job, go home watch TV, and go on the internet. I just like riling people up in my spare time." (Source: Huffington Post.)

I apparently have a different idea of “riling people up” than Brutsch does.

To me, “riling people up” might involve, say, throwing it out there that the Red Sox should go after A-Rod, now that the Yankees don’t seem to have much use for him, and agree to pick up all of the considerable swag-bag of a contract he has left.  “Riling people up” might be claiming that Jim Lehrer did such a bang-up job with the first presidential debate that he and his descendants should moderate all such debates in perpetuity. “Riling people up” might be suggesting that Alzheimer’s patients be shipped to the Philippines where their care will be cheaper and, what the hell, they don’t know where they are, anyway. (This last idea, by the way, was actually put forth by a relatively well-known business consultant at a dinner I attended a couple of years ago. He also suggested that it would be no big deal if all the polar bears disappeared. Too bad they can’t be shipped off to the Philippines, too.)

But “riling people up” has a different meaning for Brutsch:

In a phone conversation, Brutsch admitted to being the Reddit user named Violentacrez, who created or moderated sections dedicated to pornographic and violent images, including subreddits called r/rapebait, r/incest, r/picsofdeadkids, r/jailbait, and r/chokeabitch. (Source: Huff Po, again.)

He’s also the man behind r/creepshots, “a space dedicated to pictures of women unaware that their photographs had been taken.”

Anyway, Gawker journalist Adrian Chen sleuthed out just who “Violentacrez” is in real life. And let the world know, ignoring Brutsch’s pleas that being doxxed would lead to him losing his job.

Which is, indeed, what happened, and Brutsch has been fired from his job as a techie for a “financial services firm” that does payday and pawn loans. Even payday loan outfits have standards. Who’da thunk it? (I’m wondering what grounds they fired him on? Was Brutsch redditing on the job? Is it possible that a payday loan company has a code of conduct that got violated?)

So much for “on the Internet, know one knows you’re a dog.”

If someone wants to find out, they can figure out what breed you are and when you got your distemper shot.

Now Brutsch finds himself in one big, ugly soup:

"Nothing like living in the US with a disabled wife and no health insurance," Brutsch wrote on Reddit after he lost his job. “I'm eligible [for insurance], but COBRA is very expensive. Who can afford to pay 5 times as much for insurance at the very moment they lose their income? Only rich folks can afford COBRA. I have maybe 3 weeks pay in the bank. I just hope I can hold out a month. My wife hasn't been able to work for over a year, and our savings will last about 3 weeks, not considering the current lack of health insurance.”

Brutsch is looking for his fans – who are moaning about “free speech” violations -  to provide financial support through a Pay Pal account he’s set up. I’m sure that he’ll bring in some money, but once this dies down, I don’t imagine it will be anywhere the equivalent of a regular pay check.

Although Brutsch sounds like a complete and utter turd – somewhere I read that he’d even bragged about having oral sex with his 19 year-old stepdaughter (“nothing like living in the US with a disabled wife” who now knows you went way, way, way over the line with her child) – I do have a tiny bit of sympathy for him. He’s 49 and, unless some porn site snaps him up, he’s pretty much got to be unemployable from here on out. Maybe if Chen had just confronted Brutsch and told him he wouldn’t out him if he quit as a redditor and got some much needed counseling…

But, of course, under those circumstances, there would no doubt be someone else willing to take his place.

Now, at least, when someone wants to step in and take up the slack on r/picsodeadkids and r/chokeabitch they might pause and consider that they could end up, if not on the cover of Rolling Stone, then at least on the front page of the Huffington Post. And find themselves losing their livelihood and jeopardizing whatever relationships they had with their fellow human beings.

Personally, I’m not completely wild about all the anonymity on the ‘net.

I read way too many online comments that are uncivil in so many ways: misogynist, racist, homophobic, generally demonizing of anyone who doesn’t agree with them, fact-free, and all-round cretinous.

Truly, I wish that all online forums would have two comment streams, one for those who wanted to maintain civility (used by those using their real names, or with a pseudonym if they feel the need for self-protection/privacy), and another for those who just want to sling any bit of craziness that pops into their head.

I do understand why anonymity is important.

If I worked for the Koch brothers, or developer David Siegel, or any of the other CEO’s – who sent out pro-Romney materials to their employees - I might have a genuine fear that a letter to the editor of the local paper extolling the virtues of Joe Biden might get me fired. Maybe someone who worked in an environment that was mostly liberals who went around tearing their hair out every time a Republican gets elected, might not want the local news showing them canvassing door to door for the local Tea Party favorite.

I can imagine plenty of circumstances in which people would want to keep their private (and political) lives private.

But when the private lives go so far over the line (r/chokeabitch?) of common decency, maybe they forfeit their claim on some of that privacy.

All I know is that, today, Michael Brutsch is one sorry-ass, unemployed dude who has no one to blame but himself.