Hunter Thompson once retyped The Great Gatsby just to feel what it was like to write a great novel. What a stupid waste of time.

Author Hunter Thompson once retyped The Great Gatsby just to feel what it was like to write a great novel. This fact is often lauded as a demonstration of his commitment to the craft and his desire for excellence.

I can’t imagine a stupider way to spend your time.

Want to write a great novel?

Try writing one. Then try again and again and again.

Thompson did this, of course (and with great success, in my opinion), but perhaps if he hadn’t spent so much time doing what amounted to a popular form of punishments from my childhood (copying definitions from the dictionary), he would’ve had time to write one more story.

Or spent a little more time polishing one of his manuscripts.

I have far too many stories to tell to spend a moment retyping someone else’s story.

Frankly, I doubt that Thompson even did this ridiculous exercise. It’s the kind of story that a great writer like Thompson would make up, knowing its inherent appeal to the general public.

I hope he made it up.

My kids love each other so much, and you can shut your mouth about it.

It’s crazy how much my kids love each other.

Even crazier is the number of miserable people who look at a photo like this and say things like, “Enjoy it while it lasts!” and “Sorry to tell you, my friend, but they’ll be at each other’s throats before you know it.”

My inclination, whenever I hear someone say something like this to me, is to stomp on their foot, and while they are crumpled in a ball on the ground, tell them how small and sad they are.

It’s difficult to imagine how much a person must truly suck at life in order to be able to tell a proud father that his children are going to be repellant, dissociative antagonists someday.

It’s even more difficult to imagine how stupid a person has to be in order to presume that his or her family dynamic is universal.

Why do people do this?

I was recently told by someone that in just a few short years,  my daughter is going to close her bedroom door and stop sharing her thoughts and feelings with me.

Thankfully, I’m immune to this nonsense. I simply assume that the person who is telling me this is an idiot.

But not everyone is as arrogant and condescending as me. These inconsiderate, hateful, and oftentimes inaccurate jerk faces are quite capable of ruining the day of an otherwise happy parent.

If you are one of these people, you suck at life. Stop it. Allow proud parents like me to enjoy the moment, expect the best, and remain hopeful about the future. Your apparently unfortunate reality is not the destiny of all, as much as you might wish otherwise.    

“Guess what?” You sound like an idiot when you say “Guess what?”

Request:

No. Check that. Demand:

Remove the rhetorical “Guess what? from your lexicon immediately.

Not every “Guess what?” is bad. “Guess what?” is perfectly acceptable much of the time.

But the rhetorical “Guess what?” is never acceptable. 

“My boss wants us to do so-and-so? Well, guess what? It will be a cold day in hell before that ever happens.”

No. Stop it. Almost all rhetorical questions are annoying, but the “Guess what?” rhetorical question is especially so, since the people who use it seem to use it all the time.

Remove the “Guess what?” from the previous example and the only thing that changes is the perceived intelligence of the speaker.

“My boss wants us to do so-and-so? Well, it will be a cold day in hell before that ever happens.”

See what I mean? It’s a cleaner sentence. It’s more economic. But most important, it eliminates the cloying, under confident, needy sentiment that “Guess what?” brings to an argument. “Guess what?” implies that the listener needs to be more actively engaged than he or she already is. “Guess what?” suggests a false sense of audience participation. “Guess what?” hints at a speaker who is concerned with his or her ability to garner your attention.

“Guess what?” screams of desperation.

No more. Rid yourself of this verbal tick. This rhetorical blunder. This wasteful, purposeless, annoying turn of phrase.

No one wants to see your photos of the sunrise or the sunset.

On Saturday morning, I posted the following to Facebook:

At 6:38 this morning the sky turned an orange that I have never seen before. It was as if it was on fire. The whole world was bathed in an eerily beautiful orange glow. It lasted for less than ten minutes. I took my son outside to watch. Only people who rise before the sun know the full range of the sky's colors.

I posted a shorter but similar comment to Twitter.

The post received a large response on social media, including a question, asked about a dozen times.

Why didn’t I capture the moment with a photograph?

Two reasons:

1. Photographs of sunsets and sunrises never adequately capture the majesty of the moment. Frankly, they’re boring. While I am certain that many sunsets and sunrises are stunning and perhaps even breathtaking, if I’m not there, it looks like all the other sunsets and sunrises that I’ve ever seen captured on film

Photography never does them justice.

 

And there are a million of the photographs taken everyday and posted to social media, making them seem even less majestic. They are akin to elementary school poems about the snow or dogs. I’ve read a million of them over the course of my teaching career, and even the excellent ones are marginalized by sheer volume.

So I don’t take photographs of sunsets and sunrises and post them to social media. Nor should you.

2. Had I taken the time to photograph the sky on Saturday morning, I would’ve missed some of the majesty of the moment. In less than ten minutes, the sky has transformed from singular and spectacular to ordinary and expected. I spent every moment soaking it in. Enjoying it with my son. Committing the moment to memory.

Not sticking an iPhone in between me and it in order to take a photograph that would never do it justice.

Let’s put an end to the Miss America pageant by making anyone who watches it feel small and stupid and uninformed.

John Oliver’s takedown of the Miss America pageant on HBO’s Last Week Tonight was brilliant. The Miss America pageant is admittedly an easy target, but Oliver’s segment is both surgical and hilarious.

I could not stop laughing.

The Miss America pageant and all its bastard step children are like moldering, vestigial organs that should have been excised from the cultural landscape long ago.

Here’s the first step: STOP WATCHING THE GODDAMN THING.

Though the audience for the Miss America pageant was down 22% from last year, it still drew almost 10 million viewer and garnered its best rating in ten years in the category of adults ages 18 to 49 years old.

Who are these people?

Except I know who these people are. At least some of them. I watched friends tweet about the show while watching it. I heard colleagues talking about the show the next day. At least two people asked me if I watched.

I did not watch. Nor should you.

It will be a long time before pageant contestants are no longer willing to be objectified on national television for a chance at fame and profit. 

But if rationale Americans can come together and agree that this organization and its television show should no longer be supported by the general public, the Miss America pageant could be brought to an end sooner than later.

Let’s do this.

Don’t watch next year. If you hear of friends or relatives who watched, shame them. Make them feel small and stupid and uninformed.

Or show them John Oliver’s segment. Not only will they thank you for the laughs, but perhaps they will come away never wanting to watch the damn thing again. 

How could they not?

Office space turned dance hall, yoga studio, lunch room hell. I bet they’re all organic, gluten-free, transcendentalist vegans, too.

We’ve come a long way since Mike Judge’s Office Space highlighted the drudgery and monotony of cubicle life.

Some offices may have gone a little too far.

This German office may seem brilliant in terms of its use of space, but it strikes me as a little unrealistic and smug. A little cultish, even. No? 

The Grecian Bend was stupid, but no. Heels are still stupider.

Slate’s Rebecca Onion recently proposed that the Grecian Bend was the most preposterous ladies’ fashion trend of all time.

In the 1860s, it was fashionable for American women to wear their skirts gathered at the back into panniers, with a bustle serving as the base upon which all of that fabric could be pinned. The style required the woman to lean forward in an exaggerated way, in order to compensate for all of that weight at her back. This lean, exacerbated by corsets and high-heeled shoes, came to be called the “Grecian Bend,” named after the way that women in some Greek sculptures hunched their shoulders in implied modesty at their nudity.

I disagree. As stupid as the Grecian Bend may have been, heels are by far stupider.

Heels, which were originally worn by men before they sensibly abandoned them, cause lower back pain, sciatica, shortened Achilles tendons, spider veins, bone and nerve damage, osteoarthritis, knee problems, foot problems (including ball-in-foot pain, metatarsalgia, bunions, hammer toe, and the “pump bump”). Heels can also permanently alter a woman’s posture and create serious problems with hip ligaments and tendons. They are also the leading cause of falls and sprained ankles in women.

Not to mention the vast numbers of women who die in disaster movies because of their inability to run quickly or climb in heels.

Of all the fashion trends over the centuries (including those horrifying earlobe expanders), the heel is by far the stupidest and most dangerous of all.

If heels of all kinds disappeared from the planet tomorrow, women would still be just as beautiful as they are today.

Even more beautiful, since some of the heels that are worn today look downright ridiculous. 

More importantly, they would also be safer, more comfortable, and much healthier over the course of their lives.

I have a five year-old daughter. My hope is that she will never indulge in both heels and the Grecian Bend.

But if I had to choose one, I would opt for the social debilitation of the Grecian Bend over the physical debilitation that will inevitably result from the wearing of heels.

When you choose the name Moxie Marlinspike, you have to expect people to ask about the name. Just answer the question.

I was listening to Moxie Marlinspike, an Internet security researcher, on the most recent episode of Planet Money.

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Here is the exchange between Mr. Marlinspike and reporter Steve Henn:

Henn: Is that your real name?

Moxie Marlinspike: It is.

Henn: Was it on your birth certificate?

Moxie Marlinspike: No, it was not on my birth certificate, but it’s what almost everyone I have known has called me for most of my life.

Henn: What’s on your credit cards?

Moxie Marlinspike: Ah… which credit card?

Henn: You have a credit card with Moxie Marlinspike?

Moxie Marlinspike: Well, okay, I’m curious why you want to know?

Henn moves on (or edits out the rest of the exchange), but I’d like to answer Moxie’s question, because I want to know.

You see, Moxie, since you are an Internet security and privacy expert, I’m wondering if your apparent pseudonym is used to thwart the hackers who you spend so much of your life attempting to thwart.

It seems like pseudonyms might be relevant given your line of work.

If so, that’s interesting. I’m wondering if it’s effective.

If that’s not the reason (and I suspect that it’s not since your Wikipedia page lists two other names), I’d like to know why you changed your name to Moxie Marlinspike, because it's a fascinating choice of a name and may indicate something interesting about you.

It says even more when the man who chooses Moxie Marlinspike avoids answering questions about the origins of the name.

Add to this the fact that you possess a master Mariner’s license and a love for the sea (facts I found on your own website), and the last name Marlinspike seems to take on even greater meaning.

In short, your obvious dodging of the name questions (not to mention your initial attempt to obfuscate the truth by indicating that it was your real name) leads me to believe that the story behind your name amounts to little more than a man who wanted a name that was cooler than the one his parents assigned but is uncomfortable admitting to this fact.

I could be wrong. This is an enormous and perhaps erroneous assumption, but you sounded so defensive. So annoyed. There may be a damn good reason for the name. Maybe there’s an amusing (or less-than-amusing) story behind the name. If so, may I suggest you simply answer the question of whether or not your name is real with something like:

“It’s not my legal name, but it’s the name that I use, therefore it’s real. It’s a long and uninteresting story about how the name came to be.”

But the fact that you wouldn’t answer the reporter’s questions (and sounded fairly defensive while refusing), and the fact that the questions seemed fairly relevant considering the unusual nature of your made-up name and the fact that he was reporting on your company, which specializing in protecting your clients’ anonymity, leaves me assuming the worst. Unjustifiably, so perhaps.

And perhaps part of this assumption has to do with my own life history. 

When I was nineteen, I told girls who I met while on vacation that my name was Gunner Nightwind, mostly because I was an immature douchebag. 

I’m not saying that this is the case with you, but you haven’t given me much else to go on.

Stupid nostalgia

Call my mom? It’s 1993. Do you want me to use your landline, since there are no mobile phones?

Besides, your pretentiously nostalgic coffee shop is also littered with dirty ashtrays and blurred in a haze of cigarette smoke, since smoking in public establishments is still legal in 1993.

And you’re probably playing The Spin Doctors and the soundtrack from The Bodyguard.

I’m not going in there.

Her possible rejection of the manicure might be her best decision yet.

Clara enjoyed her very first manicure last weekend as a part of her friend’s birthday party.

Only I’m not sure if she actually enjoyed it. When she arrived home, she told me that she didn’t want anyone to see her nails until the paint came off. She was even reticent to show them to me.

If this reticence for manicures persists, it will actually work in her favor in the long run. Just think of the thousands of dollars and hours that she will save over the course of her lifetime by avoiding the process of paying someone to apply oddly-named paint to her nails, only to be disappointed by the person’s  craftsmanship or by the chipping of paint that will inevitably happen about nine seconds later.

She will be free at all times to carry cardboard boxes, toss a football, punch a speed bag, push a car into the breakdown lane, climb a tree, or push a couch across the room, absent of the concern over chipping or breaking her ornamented fingertips.

The time and money saved alone will give her a leg up on her female competitors.

The advantages are endless.

I think Clara is onto something.     

There is nothing wrong with a married couple sleeping in separate beds. There’s something very wrong with allowing society to stop you from doing so.

A friend of mine and his wife have separate bedrooms. After a six week business trip, he arrived home to a wife who had never slept better in her life. Since the guest room wasn’t being used, she proposed that he make it his bedroom and allow them to sleep apart each night.

He agreed. He reports that the arrangement has worked wonders, and more than six years later, their marriage has never been stronger.

Holly Allen writes in Slate about her desire for separate beds. After fleeing to the guest room to escape her husband’s illness, she, too, had the best night of sleep in her life.

Allen has no desire for a separate bedroom. Just separate beds, so she can spread out and sleep comfortably without the nightly pokes, prods, battles for covers, and other intrusions to her slumber.

Despite her desire, Allen has not yet forged ahead and traded in her king sized bed for two twin beds. Why?

Society! Mention separate beds today and most people assume marital troubles.

I suspect that Allen’s problem is not the need for a good night’s sleep but something far deeper.

The concern over what other people will think of her sleeping arrangements is fairly juvenile. While there are times when people are reasonably concerned about the opinions of others, the composition of your bedroom furniture should not be one of them, 

The thought that people will even concern themselves with your sleeping arrangements is also fairly juvenile. I was surprised when my friend told me about his separate bedrooms, but that surprise lasted about two minutes. Then I didn’t give his sleeping arrangements another thought.

I wasn’t worried about the strength of his marriage.

I didn’t question the intimacy that he shared with his wife.

I didn’t wonder if their marital bond was deteriorating because of their newfound arrangement. 

Even if I did, why would he care? Even if I assumed that he and his wife were experiencing marital troubles, why would my concern over his marriage force him to continue living life uncomfortably?

Think about it: Holly Allen is living her life uncomfortably in order to ensure that society thinks that she and her husband are happily married.

That is insane.

Allen goes on to explain that chronic bad sleep, has been shown to increase the likelihood of stroke, heart attacks, diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure. It also contributes to or exacerbates psychiatric problems like anxiety, depression, and attention deficient hyperactivity disorder.

Why must we risk these things just to prove to ourselves that we are happy couples?

We don’t, Holly Allen. All we have to do is stop worrying about what other people think about our bedroom furniture and make a change.

When Allen finally proposes the changes to her husband, she admits to feeling a little hurt when he agrees.

There are clearly issues here far beyond the need for a decent night’s sleep.

Amber has every right to hate Sophia. I should know.

My daughter loves Sophia the First.

For those of you without small children, this is one of the latest Disney princesses with a television show and a seemingly endless line of merchandise. Other than the fact that her head is three times the size of her waist and her eyes are scary big, she seems harmless.

Clara loves Sophia. When we play with her Sophia the First toys or she dons her Sophia the First dress, she forces me to play with Amber, Sophia’s similarly dimorphic, stereotypically bitchy stepsister.

It’s fine. As an author, I recognize the need for conflict in storytelling. I don’t mind playing the bad guy.

I’m actually great at playing the bad guy, as many of my students would attest. 

Then I gave Clara a Sophia the First book and read it aloud to her. I had never watched the show, so for the first time, I learned the story of this new anorexic Disney princess.

Sophia and her mother live alone. There is no father in the picture, and his absence is never explained. Sophia’s mother marries King Roland, and Sophia instantly becomes a princess. Roland has two children, Amber and James. Their mother is also inexplicably missing.

Maybe she ran off with Sophia’s father.

Take note Disney. That would be an awesome storyline.

As a result of the marriage, Amber and James become Sophia’s stepsiblings.

As a way of welcoming Sophia into the family, Roland gives Sophia the Amulet of Avalor. This amulet allows Sophia to call on any prior Disney princess in time of need. It also allows her to speak to animals and grow a mermaid tale and swim like a fish.

Because that makes sense.

Amber was Roland’s motherless princess daughter long before Sophia appeared, and yet Roland chose to keep the most powerful magical amulet in the world stuffed in some drawer until his new stepdaughter came along.

If I were Amber, I’d be angry, too.

If I were Amber, I’d want to rip Sophia’s oversized head right off her undersized body.

I know I seem a little overly invested in this show. I shouldn’t be so emotionally attached to a Disney princess, but please understand this:

I have been playing the role of Amber, both with plastic Amber figures and in real life, for years now. I’m no great actor, but even an amateur like me, with a smidgen of local theater under his belt, can get attached to a role and begin to empathize for a character.

I feel Amber’s pain. I know Amber at her core.

More importantly, I know Sophia. She is a a spoiled, self-righteous, falsely modest, ditzy jerkface who is trying to steal the love of King Roland and become his favored child.

She must be stopped.

John Lennon’s “Imagine” is not a good song. I think you’ll agree.

I don’t like the song “Imagine.”

I know. For many of you, this is blasphemy. For years, I loved the song. Sang it whenever it came on.

Then I was driving in the car last week when “Imagine” came on Pandora. As I sang along, I thought about the lyrics in a way I never have before.

I thought critically.

When it was finished, I kind of hated the song, and justifiably so.

I think you’ll agree, unless you’re one of those annoying, “Yeah, I know the song ‘Gold Digger’ is demeaning to women, but I like the beat, so I want it played at my wedding anyway” people.  

The lyrics, with my commentary:
________________________

Imagine there is no heaven
It's easy if you try (a fairly presumptuous statement at best)
No hell below us
Above us only sky (again, he’s assuming a lot)

Imagine all the people
Living for today (a nice thought until it’s tomorrow and everyone is hungry and cold)

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do (borderline rude for those who find this hard)
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one (the fact that others suffer from similar delusions is not a valid argument)
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will be as one (does this whole stanza strike anyone else as drifting into Jim Jones territory?)

Imagine no possessions (communist)
I wonder if you can (now you wonder? after telling me how easy it is to imagine no heaven, no hell, no countries, and no religion, you wonder about my ability to imagine this?) 
No need for greed or hunger (there has never been a need for hunger)
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You, you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will live as one

The amazing, astounding Abercrombie adults

There are people standing inside Abercrombie & Fitch stores throughout America at this very moment.

They have found their way into its chilled, cologne infused, overly sonorous interior because they want to be there.

They choose to be there.

I’m not talking about teenage girl fingering a pile of stretchy jeans or the teenage boy standing beside a rack of long sleeve tee-shirts, imagining what the teenage girl would look like without her stretchy jeans.

I’m talking adults. Hard boiled men and women who pay their own phone bills and know how to cook a steak. 

These men and woman are wandering the interior of Abercrombie & Fitch stores at this very moment because they appreciate and desire the wares that the purveyor of the store has to offer.

They have come seeking tee shirts with corporate labels emblazoned across  chests that will simultaneously endorse a corporation that produces the clothing in sweatshops around the world while also pronouncing something of import about the wearer: 

“I purchase clothing at Abercrombie & Fitch because I like it. Know this.”

Perhaps they didn’t hear the CEO of this company declare his sole allegiance to attractive customers by stating that “a lot of people don’t belong in our clothes, and they can’t belong. In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids.”

Maybe they missed the lawsuit won by a woman with the prosthetic limb who was required to work in the stockroom because she “did not fit the brand’s All-American image.”

It’s possible that they didn’t notice that the teenage models featured in their clothing ads aren’t actually wearing any clothing. 

With blinders firmly affixed, they exchange money earned from hours spent in crammed in cubicles and broiling over short-order grills for the opportunity to broadcast to the world that they willingly spent a portion of their precious Sunday afternoon and a portion of their even more precious paycheck in an Abercrombie & Fitch store.

The world never ceases to amaze me.

The ad has good intentions, but it doesn’t depict reality, and that could be more damaging to girls than no ad at all.

This new Verizon-sponsored ad, which was made in conjunction with Makers to show how parents unintentionally steer their daughters away from science and math, is receiving a lot of praise for the way it doesn’t focus solely on female body and beauty issues, as well as its willingness to shine the light on the role that parents play in the problem. 

Amanda Marcotte of Slate calls it a “blast of refreshing cool air.”

I understand why critics like the ad so much, but here’s my problem with it:

Are there really parents in the world as sexist and stupid as the ones depicted in the commercial?

I’m not sure. If there are parents like this, they are hardly in the majority. 

There are four incidents depicted in the commercial during which the girl is supposedly steered away from science.

First, while hiking up a mountain and through a stream while wearing rubber boots, her mother says, “Sammy, don’t get your dress dirty.”

On a hike? Up a mountain? In a stream? Is there some fine dining establishment at the summit with a strict dress code? Is this rocky, mountain trail also the path to Sammy’s kindergarten graduation?

Next, a slightly older Sammy is standing in a tidal pool, holding a starfish. Dad says, “You don’t want to mess with that. Why don’t you put it down.”

A starfish? Not an angry crab. Not a potentially poisonous sea urchin. Perhaps the most defenseless creature on the entire planet: A starfish.

Next, Sammy is hanging spheres decorated as planets over her bed. Her mother pokes her head into her bedroom and says, “This project has gotten out of control.”

Perhaps it’s the use of glitter, which should be banned from the Earth, that has gotten her mother’s knickers in a bunch. I could understand this concern. I’d even be willing to support the mother’s discontent. But other than the possible overuse of glitter, what exactly has “gotten out of control?” Was Sammy’s mother thinking that her solar system would consist of just eight planets, but Sammy foolishly made thirteen?

The last example is the worst. Teenage Sammy is drilling a screw into a model rocket while her older brother looks on. Dad shouts, “Whoa. Be careful with that (drill). Why don’t you hand it to your brother.”

Not a table saw. Not a weaponized laser beam. Not a nail gun. A drill.

I’m not saying that girls can’t use table saws, weaponized laser beams, or nail guns, but as a parent, I can understand the concern for any teenager (or me) using these tools. But a drill is one step removed from an egg beater. It’s one of the most benign of all the power tools. What damage could Sammy possibly do with a drill?

I believe that parents play a role in a girl’s decisions to turn away from science and math. I just don’t believe that it’s typically (or ever) done in such ham-handed, overtly sexist ways as depicted in this commercial. 

Most important, unrealistic and exaggerated ads like this make it too easy for parents to watch them and think, “I’d never do anything like that,” while ignoring the more subtle signals that we send to our girls everyday.

When we show parents the worst examples of parenting, we offer them the opportunity to feel good about themselves and their own parenting, when in truth, they may be just as guilty of the same kinds of behavior that this ad depicts, only in more subtle and realistic forms.  

I am a legitimate fashion icon. A trendsetter. The New York Times says so.

When it comes to clothing, my life is fairly simple.

I don’t wear ties.

I own two suits that I almost never wear.

I own one belt.

Though I own winter coats of various degrees of warmth for prolonged stays outdoors, I wear a hooded sweatshirt throughout most of the winter.

Most days I can be found in a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt. At work, you’ll find me in pants and a polo shirt.

In the summer, I wear shorts. 

With the exception of golf shoes, which I wear on the golf course, and basketball sneakers, which I wear on the court, and boots, which I wear in the winter while shoveling snow, I have two pairs of everyday shoes.

One of them is a pair of black sneakers that I wear 95 percent of the time.

These sneakers are the only item of clothing that contains an outward label. I’ve attempted to wear sneakers without any discernible branding, but they fall apart within a month or two.

So I wear Nike sneakers. Black in order to minimize the branding. Because purchasing clothing or accessories that highlight the brand name will someday be recognized for what it really is:

Elitist, snobbish, and dumb.   

My students would tell you (because they notice everything and told me) that I wore this same pair of sneakers to school every single day this year.

This isn’t entirely true. I replace my sneakers every 4-6 months, but I buy the identical pair, so unless you’re paying attention to wear and tear, you’d never notice the difference.

But it’s true. I wear the same pair of sneakers almost every day of my life, simply because they are the most comfortable and versatile pair of shoes that I own.

Admittedly, this does not make me the most fashion forward man. It may also be hurting my sex life, at least according to TIME, which reported that one in six of their wives prefer footwear to sex. But for me, comfort and functionality have always been my primary concern when it comes to fashion. 

But wait. Maybe I’m actually too fashion forward.

A piece in the New York Times recently declared that sneakers have come of age and are now acceptable in almost all situations, formal or otherwise.

The once ungentlemanly sneaker, it seems, has undergone a fashion baptism. The distinction between dress and athletic shoes is on the verge of collapse for fashion-forward men, as the humble gym shoe has outgrown its youth-culture/streetwear origins to become a fashion accessory, as well as a staple on runways, red carpets and in the workplace, where it is no longer considered the height of quirk to wear them with a suit.

“The fact that such a large percentage of men have made a determined effort to make sneakers their primary footwear, or even their only footwear choice is really comparable to men giving up hats in the ’60s,” Ms. Steele said.

Did you read that second paragraph carefully?

“….a large percentage of men have made a determined effort to make sneakers their primary footwear, or even their only footwear choice”

I am one of those men! I’ve been making that determined effort for almost my entire life. Ever since I was able to make fashion decisions for myself, I have been choosing to wear sneakers.

The world just finally caught up to me.

Since March, I have been attempting to live my life free of criticism, both mental and verbal, of any person for what they choose to wear, mostly because criticizing someone for what they wear is an infantile and awful thing to do, but here’s one more reason to do so:

The woman or man wearing that awful thing may simply be dictating a future fashion landscape. He or she may be ahead of the curve, a trendsetter, a visionary.

Like me and my sneakers.

It’s about time the world caught up to me. 

What is Peter Segal thinking? You don’t replace an 80 year-old man with a 74 year-old man.

Fans of NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me! will know that official judge and scorekeeper Carl Kasell has retired from the show after sixteen years.

Kasell is 80 years-old.

While I understand Kasell’s desire to relax in his golden years, it’s hard to replace a seemingly permanent fixture in my weekly entertainment schedule. As a result, I was slightly annoyed by his decision.

The man has been speaking inside my head for more than a decade. He has no right to leave now.

I was even more annoyed by the decision to replace him with “legendary anchorman” Bill Kurtis. While I have no issues with Kurtis or his performance as scorekeeper and judge, the man is going to be 74 year-old this year.

I’m probably going to have to deal with another retirement in a few years.

The producers of the show couldn’t replace Kasell with someone in their forties or fifties? Someone who will be around for a long time?

These changes are hard on me. I don’t like it when routines are disrupted. I don’t like it when beats and cadences change. I don’t like it when the people who talk inside my head every week go away.

No offense, Mr. Kurtis, but you probably only have a few years before you announce your retirement, so I refuse to invest an ounce of emotional energy in our relationship.

You’re already dead to me, Bill Kurtis. You’re a robot who has been programmed to keep score and make amusing comments. Don’t even think of worming your way into my heart. 

There will be no love from me.

Losing Carl Kasell was hard enough.

Just eliminate gift registries entirely. Also, divorce registries are disgusting.

A recent New York Times piece tracks the rising popularity of gift registries for occasions other than weddings.

While it’s hard to count how many exist, registries for not just weddings and showers but birthdays and other events such as housewarmings, holidays and even divorces seem increasingly common, perhaps because of the expansion in digital registry services like wish lists, smartphone scanners and universal gift aggregators.

Registries might decrease stress and save time for both giver and recipient, but they are also etiquette minefields.

Part of my wants to love this idea. It’s economical. It’s logical. It’s sensible. Best of all, it’s almost certain to offend traditionalist, who seem to garner a sense of self-worth through their understanding and practicing of etiquette as well as the criticizing and judging of others.

Miss Manners, who continues to find readers despite her condescending, highly predictable, completely conformist column, expressed distaste for expanding gift registries last holiday season.

I love it.

I so enjoy offending these narrow-minded, sheep-like people who are incapable of cultural subversion or free thought.

But alas, I don’t think I can support the expansion of gift registries. As logical and sensible as they are, I fear that they perpetuate the fetishization of gift giving in our culture.

While I am not opposed to the giving or receiving of gifts, the amount of time and energy spent in the process of choosing and giving the gift, as well as the subsequent process of returning gifts that weren’t just right, and the inevitable and horrific gossiping about family and friends who failed to give a gift or failed to meet some predetermined, arbitrary monetary threshold often makes the act of gift giving distasteful and awful.

The expansion of gift registries, while uncouth to many, would only serve to support this system of misplaced priorities, greed, intolerance, and gossip-mongering.

Also, for the record, anyone who creates a gift registry in celebration of their divorce has to be one of the most vile people on the planet and worthy of being alone for the rest of their lives.

Right?

Incompetent customer service saves Amtrak and Boston Market a total of $33.03 and costs them customers and reputation as a result.

Last week we dealt with two incredible acts of customer service stupidity by two large companies. As a person who has worked in the customer service industry as an employee, a manager and an owner of a business, I understand how little it takes to impress a customer and win him or her for life. 

When the DJ client who I met with yesterday requested a change in meeting time twice in a 24 hour period, I immediately obliged, assuring them that it wasn’t a problem.

When they entered my home for the meeting, the first thing the bride did was thank me for my flexibility and tell me how much it meant to her.

It doesn’t take much to please a customer.  

I also understand how little it takes to disappoint, anger and ultimately lose a customer, and how quickly and easily this negative experience can be passed onto others.

This is why these two acts of customer service stupidity astound me so much. Both could have been so easily avoided.

First, Elysha took our children, ages 5 and 2, on an Amtrak ride from Windsor to Hartford so the kids could ride the train. It was an activity recommended to her by another mother, and the kids loved it. My son loves trains, and my daughter is always up for a new adventure. It should’ve been an inexpensive way to spend an afternoon.

 

When they arrived in Hartford, however, Elysha was told that the returning train was delayed by more than two hours. It wasn’t going to be possible for her to wait at the Hartford train station for more than two hours with two small children, so after exhausting all other alternatives, she took a $33 cab ride back to Windsor. It was a stressful trip since she had no car seat for our son or daughter and was forced to hold Charlie in her arms.

Amtrak refunded the cost of the return ticket, but when she called customer service last week to request a refund on the cab ride, she was refused.

When she asked for a $33 credit for a future train ride, she was refused.

At one point, the customer service representative told her that because she had already accepted the refund on the return tickets at the station, it was impossible for him to compensate her in any other way.

Company policy.

Once compensation has been made, no other compensation is allowed.

I know. Ridiculous.

During their train ride, Elysha sent me photos from the train, and I tweeted one of the photos with a comment about how much fun my family was having on their short trip. Amtrak immediately tweeted back, pleased to hear that my kids were enjoying themselves.

When I tweeted a little later that things had not worked out like Elysha had hoped and that my family was stranded in Hartford, I heard nothing from Amtrak.

When we were refused a $33 refund or credit, I tweeted at Amtrak again, questioning their decision. Amtrak tweeted back at me almost immediately, recommending that I call customer service and providing the phone number. When I tweeted back that we had just spoken to customer service and refused compensation, Amtrak did not respond.

For a $33 credit, this company could’ve wiped away a frustrating and stressful afternoon from my wife and won a customer for life. My wife knows hundreds, if not thousands of people (not an exaggeration), and frequently champions the businesses that treat her well. When her credit card would not work at Whole Foods last year because of possible suspicious activity on the account and she was already late picking up our daughter at preschool, Whole Foods gave her more than $100 of groceries free of charge.

Just handed her the bags and told her not to worry about it. 

Elysha told this story to everyone she knew for months and is a lifelong Whole Foods customer now, even if I sometimes wish she wasn’t.

Even I have given Whole Foods credit for their outstanding customer service.

Now she will be telling a different story. It will be a story about how a train company would not refund her $33 that she was forced to spend on a cab ride when their train was delayed by more than two hours.

Such a stupid way to do business.

On Thursday night, we were heading home from a speaking gig in Massachusetts when we stopped at a rest area on the Mass Pike for drinks. I ordered a soda at Boston Market and asked for cups for water for my kids. The employee gave me two small cups, but I discovered that there were no lids for the cups.

I went back to the counter and asked for cups with lids because we would be back on the road and I didn’t want my children to spill on themselves or the car.

I was informed that I could not be given cups with lids without paying for them.

I understand the company’s concern that I may use these cups for a beverage other than water, but this was a stupid decision. I clearly had two small children with me. They were standing beside me. Give me the damn cups and hope for the best.

Instead, I will not be doing business with that particular Boston Market, and perhaps all other Boston Markets, ever again. Moreover, I’ve already told this story to half a dozen people, and with this blog post and the subsequent Facebook posts and tweets, thousands more.

For the cost of two small, plastic cups, Boston Market has lost a customer.

What are these companies thinking?

Here are 11 of the best customer service stories ever.

Not surprising, Amtrak and Boston Market did not make the list.

Chipotle and education: Upside-down organizations where the best people are removed from the most important positions

This piece on how Chipotle develops their management team is fascinating. Essentially, the company builds from within, plucking cashier, cooks and other highly effective, downstream employees and rapidly elevating them through training and incentives to management positions.

Last year, nearly 86% of Chipotle's salaried managers and 96% of hourly managers were the result of internal promotions. 

Fundamental to this transformation is something Chipotle calls the restaurateur program, which allows hourly crew members to become managers earning well over $100,000 a year.

I became a McDonald’s manager through a similar, albeit less profitable, path. I started working for the company when I was 16 years old. By the time I was 17, I had been promoted to an hourly manager, and less than two years later, I was a salaried manager.

Promoting from within is an admirable and profitable means of identifying and training future managers, but despite this democratic, pluralistic approach, Chipotle, like McDonald’s, is an upside-down organization.

At Chipotle and McDonald’s, the greater your level of advancement, the farther away you step from the customer. In order to climb the corporate ladder at Chipotle, McDonald’s and many other businesses, you must distance yourself more and more from the point of sale. But it’s the point of sale that is the most critical position in the organization in terms of profitability for a consumer-facing company.

It’s where your best people should be.

Time and time again, I would watch highly effective restaurant managers leave their  stores for corporate positions, leaving behind a less effective, less profitable managers in their place. These corporate positions generated no profit for the company. Employees in these positions did not interact with customers or drive sales. In McDonald’s and Chipotle and many other businesses, these promotions often remove the most skilled and effective people in the organization from the most critical positions in the company.

I’ve never thought it made much sense.

Sadly, education also operates with an upside-down model. In many ways, the bottom rung of the ladder in education is the teacher. In order to improve your pay beyond a teacher’s salary and climb the career ladder, a person must leave the classroom and become a principal, curriculum specialist, administrator, coach or something similar that removes these people from the most critical position in all of teaching:

The classroom.

If a highly effective teacher wants to increase his or her salary significantly, he or she must step away from students and do work that has a considerably reduced impact on the actual instruction and future of children.

In business terms, these people are stepping away from the point of sale.

People in these positions may try to tell you otherwise. They may say that their work as a principal or administrator or coach helps teachers to be more effective by ensuring adequate training or support or by fostering a climate where both teachers and students can thrive. They often argue that they are indirectly helping more students through their work than a single classroom teacher.

This, of course, is bunk.

If you want to make the greatest difference in the lives of students, become a teacher. The best principal I have ever known would tell you the same.

Sadly, in today’s world, the classroom is viewed by many as a place that must be escaped by many teachers. The list of responsibilities of a classroom teacher is impossibly long and grows longer each year. The number of people, both students and adults, who the classroom teacher must interact with is immense. It is often acknowledged that the classroom teacher has the most difficult position in all of education.

The classroom is not for the faint of heart.

That’s why the position of classroom teacher should be viewed as the most prestigious in all of education. People should not be promoted from the classroom. If anything, people should be promoted into the classroom.

Classroom teachers should be paid the most.

In countries like Finland, which boast the most successful education systems in the world, they are.

In education, if you have an office, you probably need a pay cut. A portion of your salary should probably go to a teacher who works directly with students throughout the day.

If you are not standing in front of students on a minute-by-minute basis during your work day, you probably need a pay cut. A portion of your salary should probably go to a teacher who in the classroom all day long.

Send those dollars where they belong: Into the pockets of teachers.

The people who should be paid the most money in education are the classroom teachers. Rather than having teachers fight like dogs for a scant few administrative positions, our most effective people should be fighting for classroom positions, where they can significantly impact the lives of 20-25 children each year.     

Education, like Chipotle and McDonald’s and so many others, is upside down. The goal should be to remain as close to the customer as possible.

Not escape them. 

Pay and prestige should be trickling down in these organizations to the people who make the biggest difference in terms organizational success.

Not up.