American Beauty

The Wall Street Journal had a recent article, “The High Price of Beauty,” in which they surveyed four New Yorkers on how much they shelled out each year on making and keeping themselves bee-yoo-ti-ful. Three of the four women reported an annual outlay of roughly $20K; the other approached $10K. Each woman gave a detailed list of where her beauty dollars went. In many respects, I found the contents of the lists a bit peculiar, and included things like visits to the chiropractor and some workout related expenses. But are Bikram yoga, Pilates and a gym membership beauty- or health-related? Also peculiar was the absence of any makeup on their lists. Maybe if you get regular custom peels and drink green juices, you don’t need to wear makeup.

The women were all in the entertainment/beauty biz to some degree, so it might have been more interesting if they’d asked a few civilians. I suspect that the figures would have been just a tad bit lower, if still somewhat substantial.

Take me, a beauty civilian if ever.

It’s not as if I don’t spend anything on my pursuit of beauty. Cut-and-color every couple of months does add up, as do the occasional mani-pedis. And I do buy makeup on occasion. In fact, I was thinking of tossing out all the dried up, years-old cosmetics that I still have hanging around (despite my pre- and post-reno purges) and replacing it all. Or not replacing the stuff, like mascara, that I never use to begin with. If you throw in my low-budget gym cost, then even a relative beauty Puritan like myself probably shells out $2K every year.

Hey, it makes me feel good to have someone else paint my toe nails once in a while. And I’m in no hurry to find out exactly what the exact color of my hair is. I like the fact that what’s on display is pretty much the same color it was during my decades-long pre-silver-threads-among-the-gold (okay,that would be silver-threads-among-the-dirty-blonde-or-light-brown-with-natural-blonde-highlights, but I prefer the sound of gold). Maybe when I’m seventy. Or eighty. I’ll let it go. But only if there’s a guarantee that my hair will look as good as my Aunt Mary’s.

Although nothing I go in for, there were a number of pretty pedestrian items on the lists.

Anyone can get a facial, and apparently it you’re into beauty, you’ll want an occasional peel. (Sounds ghastly, but there are multiple variations on the peel theme: Vi chemical, IPL. So I guess you can find one that suits you and isn’t completely ghastly.) 25 sessions a year ($250 per) for the ministrations of personal make-up artist/hair stylists seems like a lot, but, then again, if you’re in a beauty-ish biz, it’s probably an essential.  And probably includes the cost of the makeup. But if you wash your face ever day, how long’s that makeup going to last you?

As for Botox, well Boxtox Schmotox. And a Brazilian is pretty run of the mill. (Admittedly, someone requiring 8 Brazilians each and every year probably has a far more exciting night life than I do.)

But between the lists and other parts of the article, there were a number of items I’d never even heard of.

LED light treatment? Energy healing? Intravenous vitamin therapy? At $500 a pop, it must be pretty darned good.

The Infinity daily meditation call at $25 a month sounds like a steal, if one is inclined towards a daily meditation call. Whereas Joshua Scott Onysko Custom Serum, which will set you back $150 every other month sounds like a lot. Of course, I don’t know (and will never know) what’s in that custom serum, but it’s no doubt really worth it. After all, Onysko has a blog called The Crucible, while mine is called Pink Slip, so he’s obviously on to something big and important.

Ultherapy – I looked it up – is a non-invasive, ultrasound face lift.

I could go on, but I’m feeling the urge to go look in the mirror. What to do? What to do? Custom serum? Month’s worth of inspiration from Infinity? (Or is it infinity from Inspiration?) Vi peel? IPL peel?  Ultherapy?

So much to do. So little time. Beauty is demanding, but what’s a girl to do?

"Cool, werid, or useless." What Hiawatha Bray saw at CES2016

Each January, tech aficionados head to CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, a mega-overload of new gadgets and devices that no one actually needs and that, surprisingly enough, some folks actually want.

The very thought of CES is so exhausting, I have to take to my fainting couch for a brief rest-up after typing the letters CES. After spending two minutes on their web site, I’m ready to crawl into my cave, hibernate and live off my body fat for the next few months. The exhaustion factor that comes from CES is, of course, compounded by the fact that the event is held in Las Vegas. All I’d want to do in Las Vegas is hide in my room, with occasional forays out to catch the performance of the Bellagio fountains.

Forget floor walking at CES. Drones. Virtual reality. Smart cars. Smart watches. Smart Kegel exercisers. Smart everything. Skinnier TVs. Skinnier smartphones. Skinnier laptops. Skinnier everything (except humans, alas).

My head explodes just thinking about it. Hey, if I were at CES, I probably would have found a device that prevents – or deliberately causes – exploding heads. Delivered via a drone. Or via virtual reality, so your head didn’t really have to explode. It would just seem like it.

Looking for wrap-ups on the event doesn’t help. In our soon-to-be-post-literate world, many of the “articles” I saw on CES were video clips. Oh, how I hunger for the world in which the written word mattered. My brain is just so wired for old school. Guess I’m just a one-word-is-worth-a-thousand pictures kind of gal.

But Boston Globe tech columnist Hiawatha Bray managed to take a break from delivering The Globe – which the paper’s writers and editors actually did last weekend after their new (smart, of course) distribution system screwed up, leaving thousands of really old-schoolers (paper paper subscribers) without their paper papers – to head out to CES. And he actually had the decency and good sense to file a column about it that’s actually written using actual spelled out words.

Bray had me at his headline: Cool, weird, or useless? I’m guessing that, for most of what was on display at CES16, the answer is (d) a, and b, and c.

And if Bray had me at his headline, it was all reinforced when, in his first paragraph, he wrote “It’s a grand, gaudy scene, but not all that interesting.” Now here is a tech man after my own heart!

Anyway, here’s what Bray saw at the startup pavilion, starting with AromaCare:

This $100 Internet-connected air freshener uses color-coded cartridges, each with a relaxing or enticing aroma. A user can have his house smelling like a rose before he walks through the door, by using his smartphone to activate the AromaCare in advance. (Source: Boston Globe)

I will admit that I’m not above swirling a bit of Febreze around when conditions warrant it, but do we really need smartphone-activated chemicals pumped into the air we breathe? Why would someone need the ability to remotely change the odor in their house? You’re in the car on the way home from work and you want to make sure you don’t walk into a room giving off old dog? Really, if you want your home to come up smelling like roses, how about going au naturel and buying a bunch of roses?

Moving beyond AromaCare, Bray saw a new Chinese speaker system, the “deliciously-named Crazybaby.” I first read that as “Crybaby,” which made no sense whatsoever. At least the name “Crazybaby” makes sense. Sort of. Crybaby Crazybaby comes with a hovering tweeter “held aloft with…magnetic levitation…with a finger, you can set it whirling above its base like a 1950s flying saucer.” The company’s claim is that the sound from this floating-on-air tweeter is better, but I can only imagine that having a tweeter droning around, right there in the corner of my eye, while I’m listening to “Thunder Road” would be like having a permanent eye-floater. I wouldn’t be thinking, “Bruce sounds better.” I’d be thinking, “I’ve got a detached retina.”

Then there’s Smartypans,

…an intelligent cooking device that precisely weighs the amount of food you put in it. Its built-in Bluetooth chip relays the information to a smartphone or tablet.

The Smartypans app also lets the chef identify each ingredient as it goes into the pan. Type in “olive oil,” then “broccoli” next, “tomatoes,” and so forth. Each time you add an ingredient, Smartypans weighs it, and calculates how many calories it contains. When the food’s done, Smartypans will know how many calories are contained in each serving.

Bad enough to worry about my induction cook top failing. Now I’d have to worry about whether the sensors in my pans are on the fritz? I’d rather take my chances on underestimating how much olive oil I actually put in the pan but, then again, I’m not the most compulsive person on the face of the earth.

Massachusetts – that hub of innovation – is home to a Skreens, which “has created a [$450] box that can cram multiple images onto a single TV screen.” You’ll be able to simultaneously ogle five video sources, while also browsing the web. You can even make them “semitransparent so you can overlay them on one another.” This sounds to me like a recipe for a nervous breakdown. Not to mention that, in the entire history of television, there has barely been a time when I wanted to watch two things at the same time, let alone five (while surfing the web). I’m fine with having the TV on and “watching” something while also sitting there working my laptop. Or reading. Or doing a puzzle. Or crocheting. Or flossing. But five video feeds at once? Bray doesn’t mention audio, but wouldn’t it be a bit distracting to have all the audio streams that accompany the video braying and babbling at you at the same time? I’ll stick to channel cruising, thank you. When the pundits on MSNBC become overwhelming, the Property Brothers on HGTV are but a click away.

The Commonwealth of Innovation is also the home to Virzoom.

The company has synchronized a Chinese-made stationary bike with custom-made virtual reality software, to create a system that turns physical fitness into an immersive videogame.

Inside the virtual reality goggles, you’re a Western sheriff on horseback, riding after a band of outlaws. Or you’re a Formula One driver speeding around a racetrack. Or you’re riding the mythical winged horse Pegasus.

It’s total visual saturation as you speed through a three-dimensional world; the faster you pedal, the faster you go or the higher you fly. Lean left or right, and watch the 3-D landscape rotate around you.

Bray found it exhilarating. I’d find it even more exhausting than the show floor at CES.

Perhaps my favorite part of the article was in the comment section, where NHBiker wrote, “How many smartphone users does it take to change a lightbulb? They can't; there's no app.” 

Meanwhile, Bray (or the headline writer) had a change of hert on the headline I found so captivating. It's now "Startups' useful and useless new gadgets on display." Perhaps but a clearer indication of what's in the article, but I'm glad the change occurred afer "Colle, weird, or useless" drew me in. 

Who's the most innovative state? That would be little old Massachusetts.

I know, I know.  I can be such a complete and utter homer when it comes to those (often completely silly) state and city rankings. Healthiest. Wealthiest. Wisest.

Bring it on! Most of the time “we’re” number one or two.

Weather and housing costs aside, this is a pretty good place to live.

And this winter even the weather is being benevolent. Way too early to celebrate (and, of course, when you think the abnormal warmth through, it’s probably not a good thing), but we’ve only had two days in the twenties and about two inches of snow. So far. Of course, last year at this time we hadn’t had any snow to speak of either, before being thumped with 2-foot storms five weeks in a row.

As for housing costs, on behalf of the younger generations, I do bemoan them. It can’t be fun looking for digs around here when you’re just starting out. On the other hand, I’ll be clicking my heels and dragging my Scrooge McDuck loot bags to the bank when I eventually sell my condo. (As long as the oceans don’t disastrously rise between now and then, and this place turns into a houseboat. Or, worse, submarine. Glug, glug, glug…)

The latest kudos to Massachusetts come from Bloomberg’s ranking of the Most Innovative States.

In the rankings, which were released just yesterday, Massachusetts eked out a narrow victory over California, 93.3 to 93.0.

Of course the faux precision of these numbers should be a good indication of the somewhat ludicrous nature of these sorts of rankings. On the other hand, would anyone be surprised that the top three spots were taken by Massachusetts, California, and Washington, while the cellar-dwellers were South Dakota, West Virginia, and Mississippi?

Okay. Maybe South Dakota wouldn’t have sprung first to mind. I’d have said Louisiana. And I wouldn’t have been that far off. Louisiana was 5^th from the bottom. But poor Mississippi. They tend to come in rock bottom in pretty much every ranking I’ve seen. Poor states tend to fare poorly in most measures.

Overall, New England acquits itself quite well. Connecticut came in 5^th, New Hampshire 12^th, and Rhode Island 14^th.  Even Vermont, at 25^th, narrowly made it into the top half of the rankings. Let’s give it up for Burton Snowboards and Ben & Jerry’s new flavors. Only Maine, which I guess hasn’t had much by way of innovation since Leon Leonwood Bean invented the duck boot in ought-two - as in 1902 – languishes (43^rd) near the bottom of the pack. Apparently, not that much innovation going on with pine trees and lobster traps.

Here’s what went into Bloomberg’s rankings:

The Bloomberg U.S. Innovation Index scored each of the 50 states on a 0-100 scale across six equally weighted metrics: R&D intensity; productivity; high-tech density; concentration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) employment; science and engineering degree holders; and patent activity. 

Interesting that the article mentions only one innovative Massachusetts company, Bose, which has been innovating-away for over 50 years. What else is out there? A little less back in the way back machine than Bose were all those mini-computer outfits. (Remember them? You do if you’re in your sixties and had a career in Mass high tech. In which case, you likely worked for one of them.) Lotus didn’t invent the spreadsheet, but they sure did popularize its use in business and push along the adoption of PC’s in the workplace. When was that? Thirty years back? I worked for an offshoot of BB&N, which invented the Internet (really) and the @. And Mark Zuckerberg – or was it the Winkelvoss Twins? – came up with Facebook while in Cambridge, before decamping to California.

Anyway, I do know that there are a lot of plenty innovative tech companies out there, not to mention plenty of innovative bio-techs, the Whitehead Institute and Draper Labs. We have excellent STEM schools - not just MIT. There’s Worcester Tech, UMass Lowell, and Olin Engineering. And business schools (HBS, MIT/Sloan, Babson) spitting out all sorts of would-be entrepreneurs.

The fact that I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what’s being innovated at or out of any of these places is more a testament to my not being especially interested in the shiny and new than it is to there being no innovation going on.

The bottom line is that it always makes my day when The Commonwealth of Massachusetts gets crowned for something or another.

Not that I can take personal credit for any of it. It’s just that, if you actually like the place where you live – and I do – it’s fun when neutral third-parties confirm that there really is something grand and glorious about it. And I guess it just releases the inner-Masshole in me.

Yay us! Yet again, We’re Number One!

Don't let the door hit your wallet on the way out, it might dislodge $10K

Back when I was someone's employee other than mysyelf, I worked for a number of years in a company that informally offered some departing employees what they called a "re-entry visa." It went like this: We understand that a valuable employee might want to try something different and new. But if it doesn't work out, and we have room for them, they can come back, no questions asked. All is forgiven.

It looks like there's at least one company out there that's taking another approach to rewarding employees they like, even when they're on the way out the door.

Adore Me is an online lingerie retailer. Julie Tracy had been working there for three years, and wanted to travel. At her going away party, the company gave her something more tangible than a re-entry visa, and more valuable than a wallet (which was a going-away gift I was once given). They gave her a check for $10K. Adore Me follwed this up with another $10K for another departing worker, one who was movig cross-country. 

Adore Me has no rules for who-gets-it-who-doesn't, but I will note that neither of these employees is leaving for a better job, let alone moving to a competitor. Tracy is traveling, the other person's heading West. 

Like many popular benefits these days, the generous parting gift is an attempt to signal the existence of a positie company culture, both to employees who stay behind and those yet to come. The type of organization that gives loyal, hard-working employees a pile of money is, in theory, a desirable place to work. (Source: Bloomberg)

Adore Me's CEO, Morgan Hermand-Waiche, is one who's betting that the farewell check perk will be good for morale. At a time when recruitment and retention are important corporate concerns, he believes that this move signals that Adore Me is a great place to work, one that "treats its workers well." He thinks that the rewarded ex-employees will spread the word, and refer friends back to the company. Futher, Adore Me may feel that it's a motivator: work hard and be a good doo-bee while you're here, and we'll put a little extra something in your wallet when you decide to go.

As befits a startup, Adore Me already offers plenty of perks: "Monday morning breakfast, in-0ffice yoga, and free cab rides home for employees who stay late." So they already have "treats its workers well" bennies on the books. Why go the extra $10K mile?

To me, it just seems a bit odd to reward someone who's heading out the door. I suspect that a company might be able to get better mileage out of rewarding those who are staying put. 

A counter approach is companies like Zappos and Amazon that have "offered "Pay to Quit" deals - but those are aimed at unhappy employees, whom companie want to buy out because they tend to be bad workers." 

Hmmmm. If they're bad workers, wouldn't you just, like, fire them or lay them off? That's how we used to handle it back in my day. That and pray that they'd quit. In any case, it never occurred to someone to pay someone when they were leaving. Sheet cake, flowers, and a modest gift (say, a wallet), well that was about it.

Oh, these modern business folks!

Brainier than thou? Maybe not, if you're relying on Lumosity

Us geezers-in-the-making make a lot of little "jokes" about senior moments. There's so much stuff built up in our brains, and our neuro-engines may not be firing on quite as many cylinders as they once were, so whenever something isn't quite working, we're concerned. 

When we forget the reason we're now standing in the bedroom. (For a sweater, of course: we're cold.) Or fumble for the name of the actor who played Beaver Cleaver's father. (Hugh Beaumont.) Or grasp for a word that should be on our tongue's little pink tip. (Syncopate? Sycophant?) 

We start to think ugly thoughts. Is this it? Is this the beginning of the end? Are we just days away from staring off into space, drooling in our bibs? 

So we make a lame whistling-past-the-graveyard kind of joke. 

Thus it's understandable that, when we hear an ad for something like Lumosity that suggests that using their services will sharpen up our wits and ward off Alzheimer's, our not so keen ears pick up on it.

Although I did sign my dog nephew up for the pooch equivalent - Dognition - I never did jump for Lumosity. 

Mostly I figured that I do enough brain-goosing things - crossword puzzles, sudoku, rattling off the 50 state capitals - that I'll  be able to keep the bad things at bay. And I do know that some very, very bad things can happen. I've never been up close and personal, but I've seen friends and family members coping with stricken friends and family members, and it's beyond awful.

There is, fortunately, no history of Alzheimer's on either side of my family. We're, luckily, the 'still have all their marbles' types. When she died, my Grandmother Rogers was a few weeks short of her 97th brithday, and the only marble I remember her losing was on the day she moved out of her home of 60+ years and in with my Aunt Margaret. When I went into see Nanny an hour or so before the big move, I found her sitting there, looking through the Worcesrter phone book. I asked her what she was doing. She told me that she wanted to see her name in the phone book for one last time, but couldn't find it. Turns out, she was looking for the name Mary Jane Trainor. At that point, she'd been Mary Jane Rogers for 66 years. 

On my mother's side, our shining example is my Aunt Mary, pushing 91 and still sharp as a tack. When I get off the phone with her, I'm always amazed by how with it she is, how she hasn't lost a beat. She sounds like someone 20 years younger than she is.

So, knock on wood, I should be okay.

But even without Alzheimer's, there are plenty of things that, as you age, slip slide away from most of us.

Thus the appeal of Lumosity.

And, now: 

The creators and marketers of the Lumosity "brain training" programs have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges alleging that they deceived consumers with unfounrded claims that Lumosity games can help users perform better at work and in school, and reduce or delay cognitive impairment associated with age and other serious health conditions. (Source: Bloomberg)

The original fine was $50M, but Lumosity doesn't have that kind of scratch, so the FTC decreased the levy to $2M. 

"Lumosity preyed on consumers' fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggestingt their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimer's disease," said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "But Lumosity simply did not have the science to back up its ads."

In addition to the complaint about false advertising claims, Lumosity has been implicated in a bit of a payola thing, as well. Some of those glowing consumer testimonials on their website "had been solicited through contests that promised signficant prizes, including a free iPad, a lifetime Lumosity subscription, and a round-trip to San Francisco."

Actually, this latter charge doesn't seem all that egregious to me. Companies often offer customers an incentive to do something nice for them. It does NOT necessarily mean that what those customers said was scripted, exaggerated, or not a true expression of what those customers truly believed. (Even if what they believed was bullshit.)

But those exaggerated bullshit claims that appear in their promotions... Not good. And yet I have a tiny bit of sympathy for marketers. It's easy enough to accept claims about their products and services that are handed to marketing at face value and put them out there for the public. They may not be making things up; but they may not be checking things out, either.  Someone hands you a list of "facts", the inclination will pretty much always be to run with it, not question it. 

Anyway, Lumosity is out $2M, which may end up putting them out of commission. And us old-geezers-in-the-making our out the belief that there may be a fun and simple way to gamify our way out of the inevitable.

I'll just have to stick to sudoku and genetics, and hope they'll do the trick.

The Globe's here, The Globe's here.

Back in the day when most folks actually read a physical newspaper, The Boston Globe - the paper of record in these here parts - had a TV ad with a catchy refrain: The Globe's here, The Globe's here. 

Well, for an awful lot of subscribers, that refrain, in the last week, has been revised: The Globe's NOT here, The Globe's NOT here. 

What the paper's management (or, rather, mismanagement) decided to do was save some money by switching to a new "distribution partner" - i.e., the folks who deliver the paper to the doorsteps of those who still get a paper on their doorsteps. 

I'm not one of them.

For years - make that decades - I've been a daily newspaper reader, and for years - make that decades - that meant The Boston Globe.  I never subscribed but, rather, bought the paper each day from a corner store or from one of the many newsvendors that I passed along the way to wherever I was going. 

A few years back, I switched to reading online. Although I do miss the physicality of the paper paper - among other things, I prefer my crossword puzzles offline - reading the paper online is much easier. And I don't have to worry about whether the "distribution partner" is going to make it to my doorstep. Comcast has solved the last mile problem for me.

The decision to switch delivery methods has been a complete and utter debacle. 

Behind disruptions affecting up to 10 percent of daily subscribers are two basic problems, both sides sauid. ACI Media Group, which took over home delivery in Greater Boston last Monday, has yet to hire enough drivers to cover every route. And many of ACI's new delivery routes lack any logical sequence, leaving drivers criss-crossing communities and making repeated trips to the same neighborhood. (Source: The Boston Globe.)

ACI's COO, Jack Klunder says that he "thinks it's going to improve each week," but that it will take four to six months - yes, that's FOUR TO SIX MONTHS - before things are on par with the system that was replaced. He further maintained that he had warned The Globe that there would be service disruptions during the switch-over period. He also pointed out that the fact that there were no performance penalties built into the first three months of the contract indicates that Globe execs knew that there would be problems. And that those Globers should have done a better job communicating to their subscribers that there would be some hiccups along the way.

A big part of the problem is ACI's failure to hire enough route drivers, and their refusal to hire the old drivers, who knew the routes, their customers, etc. It almost goes without saying that some of the promised cost savings were going to come off the backs of drivers. The great race-to-the-bottom continues!

But not to worry:

In an unprecedented grass-roots effort Sunday, scores of Globe employees from departments throughout the company oluntary fanned out to distribution centers after midnight, taking over many of the 150 routes that had no drivers, delivering papers until late Sunday afternoon.

These employees include managment, editors, and writers - one of them (columnist Kevin Cullen) had a quite amusing account of his latter-day stint as a paper boy. I'd link to it, but you have to subscribe to access Cullen's work.

There's a lot of finger-pointing and he say/he say going on between ACI and The Globe.  ACI's claiming that they don't think that this will do any harm to their reputation. Hard to believe that will be the case in this day and age. If nothing else, I don't imagine they'll be enjoying any contracts as loosey-goosey and pro-ACI as the one they have with The Globe.  For The Globe's part, they're having to deal with an awful lot of pissed off customers, their phones ringing off the hook, and plenty of cancellations. There are some rumors that this debacle poses an existential threat to the paper. 

I certainly hope not. Who wants to lose the paper of record???

I've read The Globe for over fifty years.  Let's say "no" to talk of existential threats, okay?

Meanwhile, 

Boston Globe officials are discussing a plan to divide distribution duties in Greater Boston, bringing in a second company to take pressure off ACI Media Group. (Source: The Boston Globe.)

Back to the future!

Thought I'd see how ACI's delivery network - recently renamed ACI Last Mile Network - positions itself.

Two Channels (Print and eCommerce)/Millions of Doorsteps/One Powerhouse Last Mile Delivery Network. 

What's not to like? Especially when they boast that their "systems get the job done efficiently."

They're "recognized industry leaders" with "unmatched experience." They have "unique operating efficiencies" and "supreior technology for routing, reporting, analysis and workflow adminstation." And, of course, that vaunted race-to-the-bottom "innovative operating model based on leveraging our independent distributor network."

It's "low risk"! "Best in class"! "Cutting-edge"!

All this because they "live and breathe our core values of Integrity, Innovation and Customer Service."

Tell that to the displaced drivers, the undelivered subscribers, The Globe employees who spent their weekend delivery papers.

Someone at The Globe didn't do a very good job negotiating their contract with ACI. Someone at The Globe didn't do a very good job overseeing this deployment. Someone at The Globe didn't do a very good job communicating with their customers.

So there's plenty enough shame-face to go around.

But I think that ACI is coming off looking worse than they care to adnmit.

As for me, when I read ACI's web copy - and realize how many of those magic words I've used over the years: recognized industry leader, unmatched - okay, I'd say unparalleled - experience, unique operating efficiencies, superior technology, best in class, cutting-edge - okday, I'd say leading-edge - I'm a tiny bit embarassed for the marketing profession.

Meanwhile, as long as it's online, The Globe's here. Unless this situation turns out to indeed be an existential threat.

Harbingers of Failure? Good to know there's a name for it.

My Christmas Eve Yankee Swap contribution this year was, IMHO, an excellent one.

Thanks to eBay, I was able to find an intact 1950's Keyword, and an intact 1950's Easy Money? 

Not familiar with either of these board games?

Well, Keyword was an alternative to Scrabble. Easy Money was similar to Monopoly. That is to say, similar in some ways. In others...

Monopoly was all about top-hatted plutocrats amassing fortunes by achieving and exploiting monopolies. Easy Money was about making money but, as the name, implies, amassing fortunes was a bit shadier. Among the properties was the Black Cat Nightclub. I think there were dog and horse tracks, too. And other get-rich-quick mechanisms: lotteries, bingo games. Easy money!

Anyway, I was quite familiar with these games as the Rogers' family had them instead of the ones everybody else had.

Our parents were, of course, always quick to tell us we "weren't everybody else." That was putting it mildly.

We knew from the get-go that, even in a neighborhood that was well removed from any Leave It to Beaver normalcy, we were oddballs. 

As for our toys, even as kids we would scratch our little heads, wondering what there was about our folks that drew them to the odd-ball versions of games. 

We guessed that the motivation might have been financial, and that Easy Money and Keyword cost less. Or that, forgetting everything they knew about child psychology (as the parents of five, surely they had picked up a clue or two) - i.e., that most kids want exactly the same stuff that other kids have - they figured it would be more interesting not to have to play the same boring games that everybody else had. At least at Chez Rogers there'd be a variation on a theme. Or, we surmised, it was just my father giving into his keen sense of the absurd: having these games, quite simply, amused him. 

Perhaps there was some other force at play here. Perhaps my father, in making picks like this, was a "harbinger of failure."

"The people who are buying failures keep buying failures," said Duncan Simester, one of the researchers and a marketing professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. While Simester and his colleagues studies shoppers' decisions about packaged goods, the same tendencies could apply to chioces in financial markets, with stock-picking, and among culturatl offerings, such as books, music and movies....

"I think the most surprising aspect of it is the cross-category" pattners, Professor Simester said. "So people who buy the nail polish that fails are also the people buying the ice cream that fails." 

Shoppers with what the authors call "Flop Affinity" have preferences that regularly clsah with the norm. "It they're an outlier in one category, they're an outlier in another," Simester said. (Source: WSJ)

That would be my folks. C.f., preference for ZaRex over Kool-Aid.

The article did say that they haven't identified precisely what makes one a harbinger of failure, "but say it's possible they simple enjoy variety and are willing to take risks."

Hmmmm. I wouldn't exactly say that Liz and Al were variety-seeking risk-takers. Yet after having a Kathleen and a Maureen, they did pass on the opportunity to name my younger sister Eileen. She's a Patricia Eileen. So, at minimum, they were variety-seeking.

Too bad they didn't do focus groups back in the day. My parents would have been in focus group demand.

Forget the positive feedback loopers who predict success. What you really want to do is tap into the insight of those failure harbingers. "If it's a unanimous thumbs-up, the house may well have a loser on its hands."

This all got me wondering whether this is a heritable trait?

As a consumer, am I a harbinger of failure with flop affinity?

I did recently retire my Blackberry, which I stubbornly clung to even when the handwriting, errrrr, texting, was on the wall. 

On the other hand, I was an early adopter of the New Beetle. Just before I bought mine, I was in a car with my friend George - we were on a road trip to check out the new digs for our company, a move that was necessitating my car purchase. We saw a New Beetle - then a rarity - on Route 128, and George remarked, "There's someone who's going to regret that purchase within the next year." 

This didn't dissuade me from going out and getting one of my own.

And I don't believe that the NewBies were a flop for VW. It was, as far as I know, a pretty good model, back in the day when the words "pretty" and "good" and "model" could be associated with the name Volkswagen. So I most decidedly did not flop with my New Beetle purchase.

I'm writing this on a Microsoft Sufrace Pro. Will this prove to be a flop? Am I in the clear here, flop-affinty wise? What about the fact that I liked Spotlight? Will this doom it to non-Oscar future, or just indicate that I actually do speak vox populi. But I didn't like the novel Nightengale. And I don't like Jonathan Franzen. (How he beats out Stewart O'Nan for the great white middle-aged male novelist hope, I just cannot fathom. I hope my mentioning O'Nan here doesn't guarantee that his next work will be on the remainder desk the day after it comes out.)

As frets go, whether I'm a harbinger of failure with flop affinity isn't a bad one. But it's probably just as well that I wasn't aware of it when I was in my brilliant full-time career. Talk about flop affinity! Or, as I prefer to think of it, just like my parents, I was a variety-seeking risk taker.

Believe in Santa, or not. (Or, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.)

It's not everyone who has a picture of themselves taken a nano-second before they stopped believing in Santa. But here you have it:

That's me, the little blonde, looking at Santa, still a believer.

I'm wearing a very fetching red wool jumper, which actually might have been fetching if it wasn't a hand-me-down from my cousin Barbara (by way of my sistert Kath). Since Babs is nine years older than I am, I'm pretty much fashion-backward in this ensemble. I have attempted to make it more fashion-forward by augmenting my outfit with a pop-bead necklace, which I made myself.

Pop beads were the Legos of the child jewelry world. You could pop them together and pull them apart, creating all sorts of pieces. These beads are reddish, white, and aqua, and I'm quite certain I have on a bracelet to match the necklace. Bring on the bling!

My stick-straight, baby-fine hair has been styled with Spoolies, a rubber curler you wound your hair around in order to - hoping against hope - produce Shirley Temple-like curls. Clearly a fail! Kath, standing behind me, has apparently had better Spoolie luck than I had. But she is, of course, two years older and much more adept at hair care than I. Or perhaps her poodle-poof hairdo is the result of a permanent, administered by my mother in the kitchen. Tonette, probably. Possibly a Lilt.

If she had a permanent, I had one, too. No way I let her get the spa treatment while I missed out. My permanent must have proved non-permanent. My hair too straight, too fine. Or perhaps I couldn't take the brain-stabbing tight plastic curlers used to give a permanent, or the smell of the chemicals, for long enough to get a good "set." Come spring, in any case, when the Rogers kids had professional portraits snapped, I had a poodle poof do every poodle-poofy as Kath's.

Kath, at nine, is not, you will note, looking at "Santa."

She is looking at the camera, her hands protectively on Tom's shoulders. At four-and-a-half, he is agog at the idea of Santa. Kath is holding him down, so he won't float off in a swoon of ecstasy.

The kid peeking out in the background is my wise-guy cousin Rob. At twelve, he's long past Santa. He is, I'm quite certain, laughing up his sleeve at his babyish, naive younger cousins. Believing in Santa. And that Santa, to boot. So clearly an imposter.

The man looking fondly, yet clearly with amusement, at his children is my father. It is characteristic of my father that, in almost every picture we have of him, he is looking not at the camera, but, rather, at the people he's with. Gotta love a guy like that. (We sure did.)

It's Christmas Eve, our first Christmas in our new house.

Until the summer before, we lived in my grandmother's decker, but have now moved to a modest standalone home on the next block, on top of a hill my father called "Old Smokey." That green living room wallpaper held up for another seven years. The weekend after JFK was assassinated, my parents repapered the living room and hall with a stylin' white with a gold design in it. We watched Lee Harvey Oswald kill Kennedy while, around us, my parents papered. But that's all in the future. This is the now. And it's Christmas.

I'm seven, and have been for a few weeks.

At seven, I'm still a believer.

Santa reaches into his bag and hands me a doll. The doll is called Vickie, and she's a toddler, but is wearing a royal blue and white outfit, with hat, that can only be described as adult.

There's also something for Kath, for Tom, and for my brother Rick. At one, he's off camera somewhere. I think Santa gave Rick a stuffed Mickey Mouse doll. Rick carried that stuffed Mickey around by holding the nose in his mouth. That pretty much took are of the black paint on Mickey's nose, which became a somewhat obscene fleshy pink. (While Rick was sucking the paint off Mickey's nose, I was chewing on the ends of the pop beads, destroying their stick-together-capability.)

At this time, we did not have a camera that took colored pictures. All we had was a b&w Brownie. (Our happenin' b&w Polaroid was a couple of years out.) My mother had borrowed a colored camera from our friends the McGinns.

As Santa was about to leave, my mother asked him whether he was heading to the McGinns.

Santa said 'yes,' so my mother asked him to return the camera to then.

Hmmmm.

I was already suspicious.

That outfit wasn't quite right. Santa was too tall. He was too thin. And why would he be bee-lining directly to the McGinns when there were plenty of houses with kids in them between us and them. Plus that Santa sounded exactly like.....MR. MC GINN!

Hmmmmmm.

'That's not the real Santa Claus," I cried, "That's Mr. McGinn!" J'accuse!

And, having drawn that conclusion, I realized then and there that there was no such thing as a "real" Santa Claus, and that the entire Santa thing was a fake and a fraud.

As Mr. McGinn headed out the door, my Uncle Ralph grabbed the leg of the Vickie doll, saying, "If that's not the real Santa, then you have to give the doll back."

I hesitated. No way I wanted to surrender that doll, hideous though she may have been. "Okay," I conceded. "That's the real Santa."

But that was the last of Santa for me. And I never did like that Vickie doll.

Anyway, that's my Christmas story.

Meanwhile, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy and Healthy New Year.

In keeping with Pink Slip practice, I'll be taking the week off from posting, and will return the first Monday in January.

Takin' care of business, Tom Brady edition

He's rich. He's handsome. He's talented. He's got a wife who, by all accounts, is even richer, more handsome, and more talented than he is. (Plus a lot brainier.) He's a tremendous athlete. He's a winner. He's a leader. He seems to be a doting father and loving son. He's involved in the community. As a quarterback, he may well be the GOAT. (That's Greatest Of All Time to you non-sports fans.)

Forget the Deflategate kertuffle that cast aspersions on our Tom's character. In  these parts, Tom Brady can do no wrong. In fact, we even light a candle to this guy. (St. Thomas of Brady, play for us AND pray for us.)

So it was tough to pick up a copy (virtually pick it up, that is) of Sunday's Boston Globe to find an article on Tom, his somewhat sketchy business partner, and their cosy relationship with the Patriots.

Tom's partner has, in the past:

...faced federal sanctions after falsely presenting himself as a medical doctor and deceptively promoting nutritional supplements. 

One notable product that Brady’s partner, Alejandro “Alex” Guerrero, promoted — and the quarterback enthusiastically endorsed — was marketed as helping to prevent and heal concussions, a grave health issue for NFL players and a challenge to the sport’s image. The Federal Trade Commission effectively shut down sales of Guerrero’s “neuroprotective’’ drink, Neurosafe, in 2014, repudiating his “extraordinary claims.’’ (Source: Boston Globe)

Earlier, Guerrero "who doubles as a fitness specialist", had been santctioned by the FTC for claiming that his beverage "could help prevent or cure cancer, heart disease, arthritis, and diabetes." Some of his earlier partners have accused him of fraud. Guerrero's also on record as having lied abou conducting a clinical trial that showed that almost all the terminally ill patients who followed his advice lived beyond five years, as well as aggrandized himself by claiming that Richard Branson bought out one of his companies for $500M. (When you lie, go big or go home, I guess.)

I'm a big believer in redemption, that people can turn their lives around, that someone can mess up big time and put it behind them. (Some Catholicsm really did manage to rub off.)

Yet it does seem peculiar that someone as image-conscious as Brady would throw in with someone with such a shady past, and that the Patriots (an organization that's supremely image-conscious) would also be in cahoots with the guy.

The company that Brady owns in partnership with Guerrero, TG12 Sports Therapy Center, is located in the shopping/entertainment complex next to Gillette Stadium, where the Pats play. The Pats hire the center to treat and advise (on nutrition) a number of the Pats players.

I'm sure the team figures why not. If it works to keep Brady in such superb condition - he's 38, an age at which few football players are still on the field, let alone on top of their game, as Brady is - why not share the treatment and advice with everyone else? 

And yet...

Some of Guerrero’s former associates also wondered why Brady and the Patriots would want to forge financial relationships with an entrepreneur whose history of legal trouble includes business partners accusing him of fraud.

And the Pats go above and beyond - probably because Tom Brady is so valuable to the franchise - giving Guerrero sideline access and travel privileges on the team's charter flights. Guerrero also got one of this year's Super Bowl rings. 

For Brady's part, Guerrero turned him from a junk-food junkie to the picture of nutritional health, and also got TB12 on a training regimen that maximizes Brady's "endurance and flexilibty rather than brute strength."

All for the good.

The guy (TB12) really is an amazing specimen.

But there's taking someone's advice, and there's going into business with him. 

And Brady's all in. 

When he does end up hanging up his spikes, Brady is thinking of going into the health business. Which is a disappointment to those who hoped he would run for public office in Massachusetts. (And a relief to those of us who feared that he would.)

It may turn out that Brady should have contented himself by working with the "good" Alex Guerrero - the body coach - and avoided doing business with "bad" Alex Guerrero - the false-claiming, supplement-shilling charlatan. (Brady, in the past, endorsed Neurosafe, the drink that supposedly guards against brain damage. The FTC went after Guerrero on Neurosafe, and the product was withdrawn from the market.)

Maybe Guerrero has turned the corner on his false-claiming ways, and his business is now on the up and up. 

Certainly, that's what Tom Brady believes.

But for all his football brilliance - and I do believe that Brady is magnificent in this respect - Brady may not be all that good a judge of character, or have particularly sharp business instincts.

Remember, this is a guy who kinda-sorta-maybe endorsed Donald Trump because he's a good guy who Brady had golfed with.

Meanwhile, the relationship with Guerrero certainly puts Tom Brady at risk of being tainted if Guerrero turns out to be a recividist who reverts to his huckster ways. If not, I guess we can look forward to TB12's post-Pats career as a health guru. 

Personally, I'd rather see him pushing supplements and balanced nutrition than running for political office. (Any friend of Donald Trump's...) But going into business with someone with Guerrero's past history doesn't seem like a particularly Hall of Fame, GOAT play...

We'll see whether Brady gets sacked on this one or finds a receiver for a TD.

It couldn't happen to a nicer pharma exec

Given his back story, he's really someone you should want to root for, if not like:

The madein-America son of immigrant working stiffs (an Albanian and a Croatian who were janitors); a graduate of one of the City University of New York schools (Baruch); born on April Fools Day (no kidding); and with name that, if he were the kinder, gentler type, might have ended him up with a loveable little nickname (Shrek).

And yet, instead of rooting for him, most of us are booing at him. Or, if you look at the most recent bit of negativity he's gotten himself involved in, actively rooting against him.

Martin Shkreli got on the collective radar screen a few months back.

He became famous within a certain world [an internhsip with Wall Street loudmouth Jim Cramer, and early success running a hedge fund] but entered public consciousness after he raised the price more than 55-fold for Daraprim in September from $13.50 per pill to $750. It is the preferred treatment for a parasitic condition known as toxoplasmosis, which can be deadly for unborn babies and patients with compromised immune systems including those with HIV or cancer. His company, Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, bought the drug, moved it to a closed distribution system and instantly drove the price into the stratosphere. (Source: Bloomberg)

Raising the cost of this drug so quickly and steeply? We're talking kicking the dog and knocking the walker out from under an old geezer territory here. 

Shkreli's decision did manage to unite pols across the spectrum. Both The Donald and Hillary went after him, and Bernie refused his campaign donation. Shkreli's response: he tweeted out an LOL directed at Hillary, and said that, if he had to do it all over again, he would have lifted the price even higher. After all, as he said, "My investors expect me to maximize profits."

Or at least produce some return on investment. And Shkreli's secret sauce was, apparently, the same one that Bernie Madoff used.

As we learned just last week, when he was arrested, accused of running a Ponzi scheme, "repeatedly losing money for investors and lying to them about it, illegally taking assets from one of his companies to pay off debtors in another." He was pinched by the FBI, and had to o a perp walk at FBI headquarters. 

Shkreli has, apparently, been Ponzi-scheming for quite a while:

...authorities say Shkreli began losing money and lying to investors from the time he began managing money. In his mid-20s, he got nine investors to place $3 million with him and at one point he had only $331.

That's some fancy-pants investing, I'd say. No wonder he felt the need to raise that pill price form $13.50 to $750. 

Moving from bad to ridiculous, the Shkreli story gets even more cra.

The rap group Wu-Tang Clan decided they were going to release only one copy of their new album, selling it to the highest bidder. That bidder couldn't sell it on the secondary market, but could give it away for free or sit at home and listen to it all by his lonesome. It almost, but not quite, goes without saying that, for $2M that may or may not have been his, Shkreli bought the album. 

Anyway, it may not be a pretty story, and it may not be the ones we love to tear-up over, but Martin Shkreli's story is sure All-American. Who gets to play him in the movie? And will the soundtrack by from Wu-Tang Clan? All America wants to know. 

Not too late to shop the NM Christmas Book

How fancy is this year's Neiman Marcus Christmas Book?

Well, it doesn't even say 2015 on the cover. It writes it out for us: TWO THOUSAND FIFTEEN.

So if you haven't finished your Christma shopping for 2015 Two Thousand Fifteen, you might want to start turning those nearly 200 two hundred pdf pages fast. After all, you have the list, but they have the magic.

And when we're talking magic, we're not talking the pedestrian, hey-I-can-afford-that items like the $80 Stella McCarthy iPhone case shaped like a shark. Or the $58 Christian LaCroix advent calendar. (Actually, you're a bit late in the game for that one. Maybe it's on sale. Buy one cheap and save it for next Xmas.)

They also have hoverboards, only they call them Personal Transporters, which, come to think about it, is what I call my feet. Only they don't have the cheapskate(board) ones that turn into personal powering infernos. Theirs cost $1,800.

But I know you. You want to buzz right down to page 37, for this year's Fantasy Gifts. My fantasy gift would run more along the lines of a two-hour walk in Central Park with Pierce Brosnan, but I'm sure there are plenty of folks who'd like to be heading down the highway, looking for adventure with a couple of studly young men. Those two studly young men are Keanu Reeves and his pal Gard Hollinger, and you and your pal would be riding an Arch Motorcyle side by side with them, up and down the California coast for two days. $150K.

If you don't have quite that much to spend, fantasy-wise, you can sign up for a couple of cases of each of eight "orphan bourbons", "long forgotten" rare whiskeys, including Lost Prophet, Rhetoric, and Old Blowhard. $125K. Go for it.

It would be worth $90K to me (more, really) to get my husband back so I could send him on a trip 20 miles into nearly outer space in a high altitude balloon. Not exactly the space shot he'd always wanted to go on, but pretty darned close.

Limited edition Mustang ($95K). Artisanal tour of Venice and Florence with Ippolita and Artemest craftsmen ($150K). Lots of good fantasy stuff, on down to the low-low price of $10K for a couture diary in which an artist will paint 20 of your favorite outfits, which are then notated with the scoop on the designer, the occasion, etc. (Green jumper and white blouse. Eisenberg and O'Hara. Worn for four years of high school, day in day out.)

The ultimate trip to India - pack your dancing shoes for a lesson on a Bollywood set - goes for $400k, but that's for two folks.

If you want to treat the kiddies, how about $5K for a costume trunk, replete with costumes: super heroes (boys), prinessses (girls). How deliciously retro...And speaking of retro, there are some non-fantasy tunics in there that wouldn't have looked out of place on a college girl in 1970. Only we wouldn't have paid $300 for one.

Again on the non-fantasy end, if you're going to have to give a toast, and you don't know what to say and you don't know how to google the word "toast", there's a $95 book, Rising to the Occasion, that will help you out. And if you're looking for a gift to accompany that toast, and you don't want to buy off the registry, there's a peacock figurine covered in Swarovski crystals for $28K.

I was intrigued by the 25 different colored thongs (served up in a cookie jar) that are one size fits all, size 0 to 10. I know there's not much to a thong, but I really don't see how something that fits a size 0 is going to be an equally good fit for someone who's a 10. But what do I know about thongs?  And that cookie jar's acryclic. Who wants that?

I can't say I was disappointed to get to the end of the TWO THOUSDAND FIFTEEN NM Christmas Book. Lots of stuff I don't want. Lots of stuff I don't need. Lots of stuff I don't like. Lots of stuff I can't afford. The one item I coveted at all was the cashmere robe. Having thrown out my old Polarfleece one with the bleach stain, I am the in market for one. But I just can't justify $500 for a bathrobe. Even if it is monogrammed.

But that's just me.

If you want to do some last minute glam shoping, here's your link to fantasyland.

Hoverboard inferno

I'll look beyond the misnomer that is the "hoverboard." I.e., they don't actually hover. But whatever they should be called - and I vote for orthogonal motorized skateboard - there are going to be a lot of disappointed teenagers this Christmas. Or a lot of homes burning down when those battery bombs start bursting in air.

Is the hoverboard a nasty product or what?

Banned in the UK. Banned in New York City. Banned by Amazon. Banned by Walmart. (Imagine that.) Banned from flying - carry-on or checked baggage - on most US carriers. Banned by the US Postal Service. (Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can tay these couriers fro the swift completion of their appointed rounds, but don't ask them to reach into their bag for an exploding hoverboard. And I sure don't want one left on the mail table in our building's vestibule. I'm not worried about the 98 year old guy downstairs, or the 8 year old upstairs, but there are three twenty-something guys sharing digs on the 3rd floor. I know from the mail that I do see coming to them that they all seem to be applying to top tier business schools, but you never know.) And in January, the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas isn't going to let its gadget-geek attendees buzz around the show floor on them.

Forget about unsafe at any speed. These puppies are unsafe at total cessation of all forward movement.

Some folks are arguing that hoverboards should be banned or regulated because kids are falling off of them and breaking their wrists. And some unfortunate kid in London lost his life when he ran into a bus while hoverboarding.

But in this respect, how's a hoverboard that different than a skateboard or bike. Sure, it's not self-propelled or pedal-powered, but tell me there's anyone on the face of the earth (who's not a male between the ages of 12 and 19) who doesn't look at a hoverboard and make an immediate association with the word "risk."

This is, after all, something that you could fall off of. And when you're on something that you could fall off of (whether it's on wheels or standing stock still), there's a danger that you could, indeed, fall off of it.

Toys will be toys and accidents will happen.

Caveat hoverboarder.

So, no, I'm not with those who think that hoverboards should be banned because they're accidents waiting to happen.

I'm one of those in favor of banning the cheapo-deepo ones that were quicky-made in China with zip attention paid to safety. The batteries and cords are faulty, and if you've seen any pictures of a melted down hoverboard on the news, you don't want to be any where near one when it breathes its last. It may be safer than napalm or an IED, but just barely.

The high-end ones are, apparently, safe (i.e., won't burn your house down, not 'safe' as in you won't fall off and end up with a concussion), but some retailers and consumers aren't taking any chances. And some consumers, of course, can't afford the good ones, and are, thus, tempted to buy the junk.

Here's where I have to come down on the side of regulation.

If someone's flooding the market with something that presents a clear and present danger from their very existence - not from the way in which you use them - then they ought to be banned.

In truth, part of me just doesn't want to be bothered by a-holes cruising around the sidewalks of Boston on them. A few years back, we the people managed to get Segways thrown into the streets rather than have conga lines of Segway tourists racing around ogling tourists sites while trying desperately to maintain their balance and/or their dignity. And I wouldn't mind if the sity set a speed limit for motorized scooter users. Some of those folks drive too damned fast, and, in my experience at least, a lot of those too-fasters and obese. If one of them runs into you while they're humming along, they could do some real damage.

But mostly I don't want to see kids and their homes burnt to a crisp because some shoddy manufactured goods made their way to our virtual shelves.

Wait until next year. The prices on the good stuff will come down, and the safety features on the bad stuff will come up.

Meanwhile, don't b tempted by what's on offer on eBay.

Better your kid bursts into tears than bursts into flamesw.

Party on, Yahoo! Party on...

Later today, I'm going to a low-key holiday gathering with the marketing group of one of my clients. I've worked with these folks for years, and really enjoy them. Last year's party was at a bowling alley; this year, it's at a venue where we all get to spend an hour or two painting. Piss-poor artist that I am, I'm not especially looking forward to the painting part, just as last year - piss-poor bowler that I am - I didn't exactly look forward to the bowling. Thankfully, I wasn't the worst bowler out there, so I didn't completely disgrace myself. And thankfully I didn't get invited to the overall company holiday bash of the dress-up and spouse sort.

Truly, one of the best things about being out of the corporate whirl is not having to put in an appearance at the holiday extravaganza. I've always liked the small group gatherings - lunch, Yankee Swap or whatever - and despised the dress up, slap on a smile, drag your spouse and make sure that the boss-men and boss-women see you there. (And do grab a bacon-wrapped scallop on the way out the door.) I've generally maintained that, given the choice of a couple hours off (or a $50 gift certificate) OR the company party, most would opt for the gift of time or money.

Although most of the corporate holiday parties I went to weren't all that blow-out, a number of them did cost quite a bit to put on.

But nothing that could apparently compare with the Yahoo! par-tay for 2015.

According to one irate hedge fund manager, who wants CEO Marissa Mayer gone-baby-gone, the company went out and spent $7M on a Roaring Twenties-themed employee party. (The $7M figure is, not surprisingly, disputed. One person claiming to be in the inside know claims that the cost was less than one-third this. Whether $7M or $2.3M, that's a lot of bathtub gin and flapper-ing. Assuming half of Yahoo's 12,500 employees are in the Bay Area, the upper figure would be over $1K per employee. Even the lower figure would be nearly $400 a pop. Then you have to figure that employees out in the hustings expected some serious partying for all their efforts during the year. It all adds up.)

I know that Silicon tech companies are known for their major (and, to me, majorly awful) bashes. And, admittedly, I'd rather sit around in a pile of ashes wearing a hairshirt, or hang with the poor little match girl freezing to death, than attend a Roaring Twenties themed corporate party with thousands of my colleagues. Still, this one sounds pretty awful and over-the-top.

Among the lavishments were the obligatory Rolls Royce; a gambling parlor where employees could play with fake money, with real winnings going to charity (okay, a decent touch); and aerialists pouring bubbly from champagne towers. (Who dreams this stuff up?)

In the articles I saw, these aerialists were described as wearing flapper garb. This looks more like Gay Nineties attire to me, not the sort of thing one would do the Charleston while wearing. Then again, I'm the sackcloth and ashes type myself.

There may well be a parallel universe out there where employees actually enjoy events like this. I've never worked in one, but I do acknowledge the possibility that they exist.

To me, one of the worst aspects of this party would have been the picture "opportunity" with Marissa Mayer. This sure has joy fest - and making a real connection with your employees - written all over it, doesn't it?

But you learn something new every day. I was not aware that pinto fur was associated with the Roaring Twenties. But I suppose when you're slugging down enough champagne poured by aerialists, you don't bother to criticize the details.

Anyway, with all the flak that Mayer's has taken lately about mismanagement and poor decisions, you'd think she'd have gotten the word out to her event planning staff that they might want to do something a bit more dignified this year. But maybe this is what her employees clamor for. Who knows?

And I guess the wretched excess of the Roaring Twenties is a more fun party concept than, say, a Depression-themed event, with all attendees issued shoes with holes in their soles, and fascistic strong men exhorting employees to make Yahoo great again.

In any case, I'm happy I wasn't expect to be there.

But I may have gotten some inspiration for this afternoon's art project...

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Sources: Business Insider, Daily Mail, and my always-the-eye-out sister Trish.