Read an interesting story this morning in the (London) Times Online that BP is doing away with their 9-day fortnight (side note- I love the term fortnight). Under the program, every two weeks if you have your hours in you could take Friday off. A three day weekend every two weeks. Brilliant! Now, in the name of efficiency and what not, this program has been canceled. That’s because the HR folks at BP are idiots.
Not to sound too much like Chairman Mao but happy employees are productive employees. Employees who have benefits (that cost the employer nothing) taken away are not happy and ergo, less likely to go to the mat for you. Yet time and time again, I watch large (and sometimes small) companies nickle and dime their folks in the name of increased productivity. Jason Calacanis, the founder and CEO of the new search engine Mahalo, sees things differently (specifically numbers 3 and 12). He buys lunch at the office for his crew four days a week. Why? Think of the amount of time lost by going to lunch. Now put that time to work at the office, even if it’s just colleagues shooting the bull. At my firm, we come up with some of our best ideas in random conversation. Ditto with the free food at Google. They spend millions on free lunch and dinner but get it back in spades in productivity. It is, to overuse a phrase, a win-win situation.
Is it any wonder the smartest minds go to start-up companies?
I am in Pennsylvania for the next couple of days (as I was last week). One of the downsides of traveling this much is that sometimes you have to leave before your lovely wife gets all of your stuff washed from the last trip. Ergo, a trip to Wal-Mart was in order tonight. We are now fully packed.
I got into Erie about 6:30, checked in and then went to Wal-Mart. Afterward, I went to the local Barnes and Noble. I love bookstores (especially Barnes and Noble). I love the smell of the books and going through all of the racks of books. I rarely buy from Barnes and Noble (much cheaper to get books from Amazon with free 2-day shipping) but I love to spend time in the bookstore. True story- I was in Barnes and Noble in Columbus the other day and saw a book that interested me. I ordered it from Amazon (via my BlackBerry) while I was standing in Barnes and Noble and had it at my doorstep today via UPS (at 33% off the list price). Good times.
There are a ton of Business books out there. Most of them are junk. I remember going through Boarders in Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago and thumbing through a few of the titles. Long on platitudes, short on specifics. A number of these books are written by academics which makes me extra skeptical. A book on managing in the business workplace by an academic is about as credible as me writing a tome on church growth. In short, you can’t teach what you don’t know. I do a lot of writing on leadership because I have help management and leadership positions in both the corporate and church environments. I am much more inclined to read business profiles (like the books featured in the “what I’m reading” tab) than “how to” books. I like to see what happened and then draw my own conclusions. On that note, I’m going to close up my laptop and do a little reading.
I will be heading to Pittsburgh tomorrow afternoon and have a number of thoughts I’d like to blog on. Maybe I’ll get to them then.
Yesterday, I had my 500th post with the one on Montauk. It was a pretty inauspicious post but was typical of this blog. I know of so many people who lose interest in their blogs after a few weeks or months. I write because I love writing. It provides an outlet for my stream of thought. It also, occasionally provides me with a forum to get things off my chest.
Post number 500 was typical in this regard; it was about what was on my mind at the moment; was not terribly insightful, and had to do with either work, church, or family (the three things I write most about). It also allowed me to find that picture I took on my trip to Long Island last year. It was a great trip.
I have been thinking about Long Island the last couple of weeks. I haven’t been there in a couple of months and absolutely love it. I think I would rather live on Long Island (waaaay out on Long Island) than in NYC proper. This way, you’re two hours from the city but have the beach and trees and such (not to mention housing is exceedingly more affordable in a New York way). I’m hoping to head back next month. We’ll see what happens.
So, I’m working at home today (which is also my office as most of you know) and I’m evaluating the future medical cost of a case I’m working on. Not much shocks me about the price of healthcare anymore but this caused me to do a doubletake. The drug in question is Actiq, a lozenge (or lollipop) made with Fentynl which is a Schedule II (ie, very strong and addictive) narcotic. The primary purpose (or on-label use) for this drug is to address breakthrough pain in cancer patients. It is however, prescribed in a variety of cases (largely workers’ compensation) for all types of chronic pain. As a side note, the manufacturer of this specific drug, because a competing drug was scheduled to come out within twelve months, raised the retail cost of the drug 100% to milk profits prior to having competition. In New York, this is called a racket. In pharmaceuticals, it’s call patent protection.
So here’s the doubletake, a 30 day supply of Actiq is almost $5,000.00. That’s for 150 lozenges or literally, about $30 bucks a pop. Now, imagine you are taking this drug on-label for cancer pain. In addition, you’re taking the drugs for chemo, to boost red and/or white blood cells, for nausea, and pain. It gets very expensive, very quickly. It is also breaking the back of our system. I don’t know what the answer is but this isn’t it.
I spent this morning and early afternoon with Charity and Gabrielle at the Grandview Farmers’ Market. Grandview is a part of Columbus just north of downtown and is known for its arts scene. It also has a number of great restaurants. Every week, Charity goes to market for one of the local farmers and sells organic cheese. As Becky and Michael are away on separate vacations, Gabrielle and I decided to join Charity in selling cheese. I am certain that my calling in life does not include selling cheese at this point. It may well include leaning up against the van and playing with my BlackBerry though. Charity however, is great at selling. Gabrielle, as you can see from this picture, is a little too enthusiastic about selling.
After market, we went to Easton and had lunch at PF Chang’s. We had Gabrielle’s swimsuit with us so we let her play in the fountains for a while. Before leaving, we went to the Apple Store where I came dangerously close to lusting after the iPod touch and MacBook Air. After a quick intervention, I was fine. Also, after the brutal travel week I’ve had, it was great to unwind a bit.
Here’s a brief video of two rhinos standing off from the Erie Zoo trip. Note to self, don’t get in the mix of the rhinos. Also, note the kids in the background chanting “fight, fight, fight”. I would never do this (but I was sooo thinking it).
As I mentioned in my last post, one of the things that makes travel tolerable is that frequently my family gets to come along. Such was the case this week when I spent a couple of days in Erie, PA. We spent yesterday afternoon at the Erie Zoo (BTW-who knew Erie had a zoo) (also- lots of rhyming and alliteration in that last aside).
The Erie Zoo is small but very walkable and the animals are very close. Great for taking pictures. We were able to see pretty much everything in about two hours. The highlight was two rhinos facing each other down (will be the next post). Also, since I’ve had zero time this week to do any walking it was nice to just be out in the sun for a change. Check out the photo stream of the zoo here.
One other note, since last year, we have visited zoos in Tampa, Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Pittsburgh, and now Erie and not paid entrance into any of them with our zoo membership. For inexpensive fun, you can’t beat it.
I am writing tonight from Erie, Pennsylvania. If you read regularly, you know that this has been a very busy travel week for me. I am meeting with a client tomorrow as well as some providers up here. I am now spending 20-30 percent of my month on the road. Fortunately, there are times (like now) when my family gets to come along. That certainly makes travel more enjoyable.
I have thought long and hard about this post from Fred Wilson. I have, in some respects, a similar story to his. When we started NCA in February, we made a conscious decision to have a national practice, versus a local or regional one. We likely could have been busy, reconnected with a number of clients from our past, and candidly, made a pretty good living sticking with Ohio and the surrounding states. However, we explicitly decided to have a national practice and work with super-regional and national banks, trust companies, and investment banks. Additionally, we decided to expand our litigation consulting to more than just regional work and tap into some of our partners’ national networks. It has been wildly successful but not without a cost. As I mentioned, I spend a significant amount of time on the road and, of my partners, I am probably 3rd of 5 when it comes to travel time. It is a cost/benefit that has been carefully weighed and, in the end, this is the best way to build the practice we want to have and build the firm we want to have.
Having said that, I am appalled at how awful particularly air travel has become. I travel in and out of New York City a lot and I can’t remember the last time I had an on time arrival or departure. The planes are packed and more often than not they’re full. Also, the nickle and diming must stop. I get that high fuel costs have cause my $150 ticket to become a $500 ticket but to pay for the first bag, snacks, bottled water (!!), and pillows and blankets seems to add insult to injury. Don’t know what the solution is but I hope there’s one soon. Especially given the number of trips currently on my calendar. I have gotten into an exercise and better eating regimen which seems to have helped (down about 25 pounds as I write) but the travel makes that kind of sporatic. I will confess though that I still like the occasional hamburger.
This post is not to gripe about my life or work. I am as happy now as I have been in years while attempting to establish some sort of work/church/life balance. How do you maintain balance? What do you wish you could do better? Points to ponder.
I am sitting in the “C” concourse of New York’s LaGuardia airport because I have three hours to kill before my flight. This is equal to the Olympic Games pf people watching. I just watched one guy going nuts on his cell phone, run out the battery, and then continue the conversation on a pay phone. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I wanted to. Just brilliant.
