Just when Brad Pitt vows to bring back the moustache as an acceptable style in North America, I removed mine.
That too upon my manager’s advice. He said, “In North America moustache gives an impression that the man wearing it is not frank and seems to hide something from others.”
Being in customer service, in these times of economic uncertainty, I figured I could not take a chance with my moustache. To bring in some additional sales, if all that I need to lose is some facial hair, that’s OK.
Recently I came across a cartoon in which the flight attendant demonstrates the use of oxygen masks in case of an emergency. It is the part of the usual pre-flight safety drills but with one change. It needs you to swipe your credit card prior to the dropping of the oxygen mask. i.e.Even in an emergency, you can’t breath free, if you have exceeded your credit limit.
At the time I was reading it, I thought it to be too extreme and wondered which airlines would go to such lengths to squeeze out its already depleting list of passengers. So I didn’t bother to save the link for you. However to compensate I have saved this one which is just as good and as a bonus it comes with a good article that bears upon the current turmoil the airline industry is mired in.
A few months ago I sold a computer memory module to an octogenarian and promised him that the product carries a lifetime warranty. I assured him that should it fail, he can always come to our store and exchange it for another. To this the man in his eighties replied with a smile, “Whose life are you talking about here?” Is it his life, the product’s life, or the store’s life?
While at that time we enjoyed it as a joke, I couldn’t help think of it when AIG was on the brink of failure this week. When an insurance company offers life insurance the prospective client rarely think of the company’s life. We take it for granted and go about paying premiums religiously month after month. And remember AIG was targeting aged customers with no medical, guaranteed acceptance.
What is the easiest and fun way to become smarter? Watching dumb (Jim Carrey in the movie Dumb and Dumber) or retarded (Ben Stiller in the more recent Tropic of Thunder) guys may help us feel a little smarter inside.
But I would recommend getting on the Internet.
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Lately I have been having fun reading through the mails of Internet marketers.
“Do you really read them?” you ask. I hear you.
Normally I reach for the delete button. But now that the economy is bad and I have some time on hand, I thought I might as well read and do them a favor.
Few years ago, it would be enough just to insert someone’s first name at the beginning of a message using the mail merge feature of a word processing program and follow it up with a stock letter. The letter is deemed to have been personalized.
But not anymore.
“Growing old is not for sissies” – Bette Davis
Sir Ben Kingsley does it admirably (I mean unlike a super hero denying his age) in the recent movie Elegy, he goes about accepting it with pangs of desire, possessiveness, jealousy etc. for a lady 30 years younger than his age and with a feeling of inadequacy like any normal male would do at his age. His ability to move the audience comes from a genuine center as he acknowledges in a BBC interview. In another interview, in answering a question whether he considers himself a sexy beast, he says, “I have to tell you, (two nights ago) a woman approached, and told me that I was the sexiest man alive, and that she had to tell me that.”
Greatest motivators for decisions are greed, fear and laziness. – Edward De Bono
No one needs case studies with decisions taken to satisfy one’s greed. History is replete with such decisions. Casinos would go out of business if there is no such thing as greed.
Fear coming in the way of rational thinking is also understandable. Either we take some actions out of fear or freeze and do nothing out of fear.
Staying in a relationship (that deteriorates by the day) for fear of the alternative – comes to my mind as a good example.
What’s missing in this picture? A cup of coffee? And some cookies to complement? Or you may say this is totally out of place (and anachronistic). This guy should have a laptop; instead he is holding a newspaper that he is pretending to read. Besides where is his Smartphone to show how important or how busy he is? If you belong to the ‘modern age’, living a digital life; you are apt to say so.
Once in a while I used to travel back in time. This time I went back to the time when I was six years old and wondered back then what I liked most. Not my toys, not my friends, definitely not my elementary school but my time with my mom. I remembered the bedtime stories she narrated while putting me to sleep.
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This week I read an interesting article titled “Jailhouse Cop” in Newsweek. It was about a sheriff who locked himself voluntarily in a cell for a week, just to know what it feels like to be in jail. As it appears Mark Curran, the sheriff of Lake County, Illinois is a devout catholic, a soft-hearted man who talks about love, religion and the importance of family in building a crime free society.
Some may see his voluntary incarceration as just another publicity stunt from a politician and I too am leaning towards that view, though I would love to be wrong. He himself admits he could not have drawn the attention of a major publication like Newsweek about the appalling conditions prevailing in the prison had it not been for his strange act. That, conditions in the prison are dreadful and good parenting goes a long way in rearing law abiding citizens, is known for long. So what’s new here? While he has initiated commendable projects like ‘Malachi’ for the benefit of prison inmates, my focus is on this particular act.
I don’t know if he had laid himself some specific objectives to achieve before confining himself in a cell. If so, has he achieved them? But whatever it be, he has put himself in harm’s way by being in the midst of prison inmates, some of whom may be violent. Or some who are mentally disturbed may overwhelm him to relieve their pent up feelings. Remember, he is there as a ‘prisoner’ and he cannot carry any means to protect him should someone ‘take a swing at him’ as he puts it. Even if he takes the swing, will his love or sympathy for the prisoners be the same after an attack?
Bottom line is, he is a good man but with a troubled conscience (and God only knows what it is that troubles him) which he tried to clear some way. This leads us to the inevitable question, “What can a single individual do to cure a disease or remove a curse that afflicts our society at large?”
For this, in my opinion, Wallace D Whittle has the definitive answer. To quote him verbatim,
” Things are not brought into being by thinking about their opposites. Health is never to be attained by studying disease and thinking about disease; righteousness is not to be promoted by studying sin and thinking about sin; ……
Medicine as a science of disease has increased disease; religion as a science of sin has promoted sin, and economics as a study of poverty will fill the world with wretchedness and want.
…..
True, there may be a good many things in existing conditions which are disagreeable, but what is the use of studying them when they are certainly passing away and when the study of them only tends to slow their passing and keep them with us? Why give time and attention to things which are being removed by evolutionary growth, when you can hasten their removal only by promoting the evolutionary growth as far as your part of it goes?
No matter how horrible in seeming may be the conditions in certain countries, sections, or places, you waste your time and destroy your own chances by dwelling on them.”
If this sounds too religious to you, you may want to take the view of US Marshal Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones in the movie ‘The Fugitive’) who wouldn’t let go the ‘prisoner on the run’ (Harrison Ford) while confronting him face to face. Though he may choose to believe Harrison Ford is wrongfully accused, he prefers to arrest him and take him back to prison. When he says, “I don’t care” he works in the capacity of a police officer.