I dreamed of owning a dog from the moment I watched my first episode of Lassie. For those born after the series ended in 1973, it was a TV show about the heroic adventures of a Collie named Lassie who was always rescuing people and saving them from misfortune. Lassie…
In his book “The Other Side of the Story” about his dealings with the media, Jody Powell, President Carter’s press secretary, presciently observed that if Americans knew the people responsible for covering the news, they wouldn’t believe anything they read. In Powell’s day, cable news was in its infancy and…
I don’t get Nike, New Balance, and other athletic footwear manufacturers. They spend billions on research and development creating and refining their increasingly sophisticated sneakers yet they are forever flatfooted educating customers about the competitive advantages of their respective products. The industry’s front-line product specialists are mostly kids working part-time…
My fantasy job would be to oversee the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau serving under a president who supported the agency’s mandate. While I’m a free markets guy, the markets aren’t free if they aren’t fair. Technology and deregulation have allowed companies to screw consumers in unprecedented ways. The playing field…
I’ve had a soft spot for Bed Bath & Beyond since an ex-girlfriend took me there to buy sheets there some two decades ago. It was before the ubiquitous age of Amazon, and I was delighted to find a wide assortment of household products at great prices in a free-standing…
I once had a client who earlier worked as the CFO for a Wall Street firm buying up veterinary practices and hospitals. He liked the number crunching part of his job but disliked another function he was expected to perform: Chastising vets for not meeting the company’s targets for X-rays,…
“I vant you should bring me HOT tea and I vant you should make it snappy!” The barked command to a geriatric nurse is the last memory I have of my grandfather, Abraham, while visiting him in what was then known as Toronto’s “Old Folks Home” shortly before he died…
As a young adult in my native Toronto, I worked out at a dilapidated gym known as the “Old Jewish Y.” The moniker was due to Toronto’s Jewish community moving miles north and building a suburban state-of-the-art community center. The original facility was left open as a sop to the…
If it were not for an understanding supervisor, this post would be a rant about Delta Air Lines and its deceptive reservation policies. Thanks to the supervisor, I understand Delta’s duplicity, and I appreciate its willingness to make things right. Unlike United and some other competitors, Delta isn’t devoid of…
Dentistry and medieval torture chambers were once one and the same. When I was a kid, my dentist didn’t freeze before drilling – he’d just say “open wide for me” and started doing his thing. Patience wasn’t his strong suit – he’d get quite annoyed if you raised your…