Hmmm…
Monday, February 9th, 2009Heidi Fleiss Starts A New Business
How will this business model work in this economy?
A VC IN NYC
Thursday, February 5th, 2009Business 101
Business success = Good idea+ Low overhead + High income + Market Dominance
Fast Company
Thursday, February 5th, 2009The Problem With Incentives
They sound good, but are they good?
The Key To Success: Failure
Sunday, January 25th, 2009A Sunday night inspiration. By now, I should be a bigger success, if failure is the key.
As an aside, it makes me sad that American engineers aren’t the ones coming up with the most innovative car engines anymore.
Business Week:
Friday, January 23rd, 2009Why You’ll Work Through Your Retirement
Ya think? Better like your job.
Airline Service: This Time It’s Continental
Friday, December 19th, 2008Airline service is a non-sequitor. I sit here listening to my daughter sing in the shower, in the Hilton LAX where I’ve been residing since 1:30 a.m. I should be nearly to Sydney, Australia by now. But no.
Airplane travel sucks. As if you don’t know this. Continental, the current baddie, is usually better than this. Although, I’ve battled a bad attitude ever since they started charged $15 a bag. That was for high gas prices and extra weight. Yeah, gas prices have dropped. No, the fees didn’t go away. But still, at least they would give you a drink and throw you some pretzels. On U.S. Air recently, they wanted to charge me $2 for a cup of water–not even a bottle of water. I opted for dehydration.
Yesterday though, was irritating. We had a 7 p.m. flight to LA. At 11:45 p.m. California time, we were to board a plane to Sydney. Three hours should be plenty of time to layover, right? Um, no. When I boarded the plane to CA, after waiting with no sold information for 2 1/2 hours in Houston, I told the main Stewardess, “It’s going to be close, can you call Qantas and tell them?” I could tell by her reaction that she didn’t care. And she didn’t. When we ran to the Qantas counter at 11:45 p.m., the flight to Sydney was delayed, but they had closed up shop. There was no getting through. It was also the first they’d heard of our late flight.
We were at the airport until 1 a.m. sorting out luggage. The line for Continental was at least 250 people deep. The misery index high. Three planes had missed connections by less than 10 minutes. How is it economical for the airlines to fly half-full? I’d really like to know how that’s a good business model.
Continental failed at communication, empathy, efficiency and humanity. They knew we’d miss our connections and didn’t inform us so we could plan ahead. They made it seem like we still could get where we needed to go, so we tried to find a solution when they knew there was none, but it deflected immediate pressure. They alternately told us that the problem was one of the engines and the weather. So, we weren’t sure if we should be worried about the plane’s safety.
Here’s how bad the service was on the plane: Another Continental pilot was connecting to a flight he was going to be captaining to Hong Kong. His new plane was 2 minutes from lift-off. (Of course it couldn’t go anywhere without him.) The stewardess didn’t arrange for him to get off the plane first. The workers on the plane were absolutely rude to him and the rest of the frantic passengers. They didn’t care.
You know it’s bad when the flight crew disrespects one of its own. What is wrong with these people? The pilot said, “I don’t know how much longer I can work for this company.”
And I don’t know how long these lame ass companies can stay in business. A year from now, they’ll be barking about wanting another bailout and wondering why no one flies. And if all goes the way it usually does, they’ll be bailed out by the very tax payers they defecate on every day.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
Yes, America Is O-V-E-R Unions
Monday, December 15th, 2008When they helped the poor, abused, underpaid, overworked masses, unions made sense. Child laborers, sweat shops, and indentured servitude was just plain wrong.
We are soooo far from those days it’s not even funny.
Mexico, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, all have to worry about worker exploitation. Other countries like Zimbabwe should just make it a priority to not kill people.
In America, we have problems but bad work conditions and maltreatment are not some of them. The Economist says:
The waning popularity of unions is not just a recent phenomena. The UAW unsuccessfully attempted to unionise my fellow students and me when I was in graduate school. They launched an impressive lobbying effort, playing on the left-wing tendencies of the students in the humanities and social sciences (not the economists of course, they didn’t even bother with us). At the time I figured things must be pretty bad for autoworkers if the UAW had to turn to graduate students for union dues.
But it’s not just the UAW that has fallen out of favour. Teachers unions are a popular target, too. They’re held responsible for perpetuating failure in public school systems by opposing accountability standards and performance pay. When New York City transit workers went on strike even the most left-leaning, upper-west-side-dwelling New Yorker wanted Roger Toussaint’s head. Now if the actors strike (just when we need entertainment the most for pete’s sake), I don’t anticipate them getting much sympathy either.
Unions remain too powerful in America to disappear anytime soon. But I wonder if this recession will have the opposite effect of the Depression, and may make unions less relevant.
Have some freaking perspective Union bosses and workers. When the average worker makes more per hour than an accountant or nurse or teacher, people feel a wee less sympathetic. When union benefits rob companies of maneuverability and productivity, the small businesses that support the big giants get frustrated. There are new products and innovations out there and the Unions strangle the life out of them because of their rules and regulations. When small business people pay huge taxes and expect to work until they’re 65 because 1) they love their work and 2) they have to, it rings hollow to hear some young 50 year old guy bitching because he might lose his pension benefits. Um, hello? Get a freaking job!
Anyway, union sympathy has come and gone. It will be a huge mistake if the Screen Actors Guild decides to strike, but I kinda hope they do. Hollywood sucks on a good day. There is no better time than now to break a union.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
