Stop Doing What You Love

pop culture / PotD

Stop Doing What You Love

August 10, 2016

I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate. —George Burns

Everyone keeps telling us to do what we love, but maybe that’s not the right tact to take

Imagine me not being a photographer. It could have happened. My degree is in music, after all. I loved it then and still do. Yet, the reality of the world was such that I was not afforded the opportunity to pursue that career. I love what I do, but only because I’ve developed that emotion over time. When I first started, I assumed it was just a temporary gig and couldn’t wait to move on. Had there been someone standing near my ear back then telling me to do what I loved, I would have set that camera down and never looked back.

I’m fortunate in that my skill set and interests are broad enough to offer several different career paths, any of which might have been successful. Not everyone is as fortunate, though. Generations before me weren’t even given the option of falling in love with their work. “Grow up and find a good job,” was the mantra parents repeated to their children. If you were lucky, that job might be at least mildly interesting, but no one really expected you to like it. Work was just something you had to do. If you wanted to enjoy something, get a hobby.

Today, however, we see articles encouraging people to either do what they love or follow the money. Both are bad advice. The first sets one up for idealistic disappointment if not outright disaster. The second is based on greed which eventually leads to hate and that rarely ends well. Contentment is more likely to be found somewhere between the dream and the disaster. The key is not what you love but knowing what you do well.

What Does It Mean To Love?

You love your mom. You love your spouse or whatever you call that person who sleeps on the other side of the bed. You love your pets. But, what does it really mean to love your work? Do you take your work home with you? That’s not healthy. Do you live for your work? That’s a quick path to personal destruction. The reality is that we don’t actually love our occupations as much as we love the concept or idea of spending our days engaged in a specific activity.

I recently came across an article headlined, “You’re not meant to do what you love. You’re meant to do what you’re good at.” by Brianna Wiest, the founder of a magazine called Soul Anatomy. The magazine is a blend of Western psychology and Eastern philosophy that often starts out sounding like good advice but ends with an over-the-top dose of feel-goodism that negates what might otherwise be a practical statement. While I am not comfortable wholly endorsing Ms. West’s thesis, she makes some observations that are sounder (yes, that’s a word) than we care to admit. Such as:

People usually can’t differentiate what they really love and what they love the idea of.

One doesn’t just wake up one morning and say, “I love the idea of dentistry, I think I’ll go drill some teeth.” There are requirements and licensing that stands in the way of that happening. But even then, how many people have gone to med school not because they love medicine but because they love their parents and don’t want to disappoint them? Do we always know what we love?

Work Is Just Work

Ms. West gives the dreamers a bit of a slap in the face when she writes:

You can choose what you love to do, simply by how you think of it and what you focus on. Everything is work. Everything is work. Everything is work. There are few jobs that are fundamentally “easier” than others, whether by virtue of manual labor or brain-power. There is only finding a job that suits you enough that the work doesn’t feel excruciating. There is only finding what you are skilled at, and then learning to be thankful.

One might challenge that this is an example of the backward thinking that prevents people from enjoying their life and progressing socially. Strictly adhering to such a statement leaves one stuck in a socio-economic stratus with little room for advancement or happiness. All that clap-trap about changing how we think about a job is brainwashing people into being mindless automatons that do as they’re told. This isn’t the way to have a better life.

At the same time, though, she’s correct in that everything is work. Even though I enjoy being a photographer, I’m not a fan of early call times, late nights editing and processing to meet a deadline, and clients who have their head stuck up their ass. No matter what one’s profession, there is always an aspect that just comes down to pure labor. One can love the career without having to enjoy every minute performing those tasks.

Some Things Need To Get Done

Imagine a world where everyone only does what they love. Right off the bat, we eliminate at least a third of the adult population who will happily spend the bulk of their day having sex, or recovering from it. Those people aren’t going to get anything productive done at all. Sporting enthusiasts are dropped from the productivity list as well, as are those who have an unhealthy relationship with food. When we tell people to do what they love, we’re ignoring the fact that what they love may not be healthy, or even intelligent.

In order for the things in our world to operate with the efficiency we expect, we need people who don’t have to be in love with their occupation. We need people who lay buried cable. We need people who build bridges and are good at it. We need people who can keep the electric grid up and running 24/7. We need those guys on the ground with the orange sticks telling the airplane pilots how to maneuver that jumbo jet. Those are not glamorous jobs and probably don’t stroke anyone’s ego much, but watch how fast things grind to a halt if those people are off, “doing what they love.”

There’s nothing wrong with working for the sake of having a job and getting it done. If anything, it’s insulting to define a person based only upon one aspect of their lives. The person who handles your baggage at the airport may have mad art skills but can’t figure out how to make it pay. Your waitress who just spilled your dinner in your lap may play guitar better than Carlos Santana. We look at people and only see what they’re doing in that particular moment. We are not defined merely by what gives us a paycheck.

Working Those Mad Skills

Let’s make one more trip back to Ms. West’s article:

Your gifts are not random, they are a blueprint for your destiny. There’s more to your life than just what you think will make you happy. Your real talents may not stroke your ego as much, but if you apply to them the kind of higher thinking that allows you to find the purpose within them, you will be able to get up every single day and work diligently. Not because you are stoking your senses and stroking your ego, but because you are using what you have.

I start wincing about half-way through that paragraph because I’m not inclined to buy that “higher thinking” horseshit. Where she’s accurate, though, is in how one’s natural skills and abilities play into what we probably should be doing. Take people who have a gift for communicating as an example. They’re not all well-paid entertainers, but people who teach, people who inform. Do they need to love what they do? No, but it sure does help for them to be good at doing it. Knowing what you do well, being able to identify those skills to which one is naturally gifted, is more important than whether one loves a specific occupation or activity.

As school is starting back this fall, my eighteen-year-old is being asked to assess his career choices, decide whether he’s going to college next year, and choose activities that might support what he wants to do the rest of his life. While the assignments are required, I know that to some degree they are a waste of time. He will hold many different jobs over his life span. Some he will hate. Some he will tolerate. What’s important, though, are the ones he does well.

And look out, he doesn’t have to love what he’s doing to totally blow everyone’s mind. The kid is scary good at the things he does well, even when he doesn’t realize he’s doing them. Loving what we do isn’t a requisite for happiness. Adjust accordingly.

PotD / Social Commentary

Freedom To Chill

July 4, 2016

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. —Soren Kierkegaard

Eschewing all the seriousness afforded this day, let’s celebrate the fact our lives are not horrid

Happy Independence Day, United States! My, but we do love our 4th of July celebrations. Fireworks, parades, bands, families, and cookouts are all part of the tradition. We also have a tendency to wax philosophical on this day. Look around the Internet and you’ll find dozens of essays on freedom. Some quote the Declaration of Independence: “When in the course of human events …” Others quote the preamble to the Constitution: “We the people, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union …” Plenty discuss responsibility and many honor the sacrifice of those who have fallen.

All of those topics are well and appropriate for the day. I have no problem with the topics themselves, but at this point in my life, I’ve heard those topics run into the ground. One would have to be masterfully eloquent to keep my attention very long.

I understand the responsibilities of being an American. I appreciate the sacrifice of those who served and are serving (we’ll be talking with our Marine later this morning). The part of being an American I have difficulty doing is what many of you seem to do so well: sit back and relax. I can sit and try to watch a movie, but it is difficult to not have my phone in my hand. There’s also the matter of keeping the kids and the animals from destroying the house. One does not just sit and chill in this house without some effort. Where is that freedom thing, again?

Freedom To Not Work All The Time

Please note the qualifier in that heading. I’m not saying there is a freedom to be a lazy bum that sponges off society. Few people in our society actually milk us for our generosity. A majority of people who receive some form of federal assistance are employed, but still earn less than the $1000 a month income cap on assistance. But everyone who works needs a break. We look forward to our weekends, our vacations, and our federal holidays. While we may work hard, the US still has a party mentality that celebrates those moments when we’re not working.

Except, I can’t do it. You’re reading the results. Despite the fact that it’s a holiday, I’m sitting here in the wee hours of the morning doing research and writing. Kat always suggests that I just rerun a previous article on days like today. Certainly, I have the freedom to do that and give myself the day off. I can’t bring myself to do it, though. I have to get up to walk the dog, anyway, and as tired as I am, I feel obligated to sit down and create at least one new article every day.

Keeping busy is a point of anxiety for me. I need to be doing something all the time. Even things that should be relaxing, such as grilling out or entertaining friends becomes work for me. Still, I think of the garment workers in Bangladesh who work 80+ hours a week, live in cramped dorms provided by their employers, and rarely see their families. They do not have the freedom to not work. They have no choice. No matter how busy I make my life, I am still better off because I have the freedom to stop if/when I wish.

Freedom To Improve

We are all far from perfect. There is a lot we don’t know, even though there are books written on almost every topic imaginable. Fortunately, we have the freedom to improve. We can read. We can take specialized classes. We can even go back to school and get a degree completely different from anything we’ve done before. While perfection may always elude us, we have the freedom to make ourselves a little less imperfect.

An important part of that improvement is the freedom to read anything we want. I read with interest this week how what we read matters in our brain development, even as adults. Those who involve themselves with “deep reading,” such as academic journals, non-fiction, poetry, and literary fiction, hold advantages over those who only read online or mass-market fiction. Deep reading synchronizes the communication areas of our brain. As a result, we speak better, write better, and are more articulate in our conversation with others.

I remember hearing in school how children in the former Soviet Union were given tests at an early age that determined their eventual occupation. They were trained to a level of proficiency in that occupation and that was it. Improvement was limited and opportunities were few. I am thankful we have the freedom to make ourselves better.

Freedom To Love

We’ve had to fight for this one and there are still many places across the US where loving whomever you choose to love is challenging. The freedom to love, though, has grown tremendously over the past two years and shows no sign of letting up. Part of that whole being able to chill and relax thing is dependent, at least in part, on being with people you love. This is why families get together on holidays such as this.

Loving is important and understanding why we love the ways we do deepens and enhances our ability to love. At least, I think it does. There is a book by Skye Cleary called Existentialism and Romantic Love that I highly recommend. In the book, Cleary considers all the various webs of relationships into which we’re born. She explores the complexities of loving and being with others and how that affects our place in the world. After reading the book, I’m fairly sure there are even more areas of love we have yet to explore.

Not everyone is so fortunate, though. There are still too many places where LGBT relationships carry a death sentence. There are too many places where young women are not allowed to choose their own mate. The freedom to love is a relatively new concept for the entire world. We should celebrate that we are here to appreciate and take advantage of the progress.

Freedom To Be Entertained

I don’t watch a lot of television, but it’s there when I choose it. We don’t go out to a lot of movies or shows, but they’re there when we want them. We have more entertainment options than we have time. There are even places you can download or stream movies legally. We are inundated with the freedom to escape reality for as long as we need.

Entertainment is a critical part of our lifestyle and our ability to chill on weekends such as this. Whether we’re taking in live music or binging on Netflix, our entertainment choices give us the opportunity to set aside all the worry and stress that threatens to kill us. Some of us are good with an hour or so a day. Others need a bit more. Plenty of people even sleep with their televisions blaring away at them. While a danger of slothfulness is worth watching, that we have such freedom is exceptional to this time and place in history.

I plan to try very, very hard to chill the rest of the day. I want to enjoy that freedom, maybe take a nap, sing songs with my 18-year-old, or enjoy a cup of coffee with Kat. Thousands of men and women died for this freedom, after all. Even the lesser freedoms are worth celebrating. So light up a cigar if you’re so inclined, fill a glass of scotch if you have it, and let’s enjoy the day.

Happy Birthday, America. Thank you for the gift of that freedom to chill.

Music / science

A Little Bit Of Work Music

May 6, 2016

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. —Plato

When a task is clearly defined and repetitive in nature, research from Applied Ergonomics suggests that music is consistently helpful.

When I first graduated college and entered the adult office environment, the work environment tended to be pretty damn quiet. Only when I went down to the press room, where the large Heidelberg machines cranked out newspapers with deafening volume, was there much noise. Upstairs, teletype machines had been moved to the corner and rarely emitted their machine-gun clatter as even then computers had already started taking over the job of distributing wire news. While I’m not aware of any explicit rule against music, it just wasn’t done.

Now, walk into almost any office and one is likely to find music playing. In some instances, it can even be overwhelming. Indianapolis-based Simon malls (there’s one near you) pipes music both inside and outside their facilities during shopping hours. Once quiet offices often have corporately approved playlists and there’s rarely a cubicle dweller that doesn’t pop in their ear buds before turning on the computer for the day’s work. Music is pervasive in our society, no matter where one is.

The question asked recently is whether all this music is actually helping our productivity, or is it noise providing a distraction?

Those of us who are most musically oriented, find the answer obvious: of course, music helps our productivity! I’m listening to a playlist now and I cannot imagine sitting here doing most anything without music playing in my face. Not too many people would disagree, but should someone happen to walk through the door about the same time Parliament Funkadelic (who’s in town tonight) brings down the funk, you might just find me up moving around, which those boss-like people might consider unproductive. Some folks are no fun at all.

A study from Applied Ergonomics says yes, music is a consistent aid to productivity, even in manufacturing situations where the sounds of machines might competing for sound attention. The research finds:

A series of experiments has investigated the relationship between the playing of background music during the performance of repetitive work and efficiency in performing such a task. The results give strong support to the contention that economic benefits can accrue from the use of music in industry.

That research has had some challenge, though. Canadian researcher Theresa Lesiuk published research showing that:

… positive affect and quality-of-work were lowest with no music, while time-on-task was longest when music was removed. Narrative responses revealed the value of music listening for positive mood change and enhanced perception on design while working. Evidence is provided of the presence of a learning curve in the use of music for positive mood alteration.

In other words, music itself may not necessarily help productivity. Rather, the right music puts one in a better mood so that we are more inclined to work better and focus longer than we might with no music or, worse yet, with music we expressly do not like. If we are forced to listen to Kanye West all day, for example, our productivity might plummet as we spend far too much time in the restroom throwing up. Whereas, with a reasonable mix of artists, our mood is likely to improve to the point we really don’t mind the fact that what we’ve been asked to do makes absolutely no sense at all.

So what, then, should we choose for work music that will keep us focused and on task? A couple of different studies come into play here. Research just last year published in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that the music needs to be at a moderate level for us to maintain creativity and pay attention to what we’re doing. Anything too loud, thumping base, screeching treble, or with too fast a rhythm is distracting and can actually interrupt the creative process. That’s not exactly what we want to hear, but if we look at the matter practically we have to admit that it’s true. If the music makes us want to stop what we’re doing, it’s not helping.

Second, the Acoustical Society of America found that pure ambient noise is actually the best at helping us focus and aiding in creativity. If we’re mouthing along with the lyrics, or even worse, standing in our office chairs singing along, we’re not as focused on our work. Ambient noise can be quite musical, but that steady, consistent, quiet sound is what’s going to help us to be more productive and actually get things done.

What, then, should be pumping through our ear buds as we try to make it through the rest of this Friday? According to one fairly specific study, Baroque music is your best bet. I would tend to challenge those findings, though, as some elements from the baroque period can be rather tumultuous and its minor-oriented tonalities could actually put a person in a bad mood. The ambient nature of Electronica is more likely to be a better option, as long as you’re not a pure acoustic snob. Electronica offers more subtle soundscapes that aren’t likely to surprise or overwhelm at any given point.

Interestingly enough, video game soundtracks and some movie soundtracks can be really helpful. I have a list of favorite soundtracks that do a very good job of keeping me focused on editing when I’m feeling rather tired and run down. I also keep a playlist of quiet standards nearby when I’m working on a large set of images that need simple, consistent processing. Even though the songs have lyrics, they’re not of a nature that I’m likely to get caught up singing along. I can focus on what I’m doing.

Everyone likes music and it makes sense that we would want to listen to something while we’re working, especially on Friday afternoons where the sun is just begging you to come out and play. What we listen to matters, though. Take a look at your playlists and maybe consider making some adjustments to help you make your work more productive.

Advertising / Fashion

A Great Place To Work

April 1, 2016

charles i. letbetter - friendly places to work

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths. —Eleanor Roosevelt

charles i. letbetter - a good place to work

Why are advertising and fashion companies not listed more frequently among the best companies to work for?

Apparently, my friends and colleagues in the advertising and fashion industries are not as happy with their jobs as they appear.

The latest iteration of Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies To Work For“ is out and looking down the list what I see is rather disappointing. There is only one Indiana-based company, Roche Diagnostics, which is #73 on the list. There is only one fashion-related company on the list: Nordstrom at #92. And despite the fact that #1 Google lists itself as an advertising and marketing company, there really are NO pure advertising agencies on the list at all. We have a problem.

Business of Fashion published an article yesterday addressing the culture of emotion and how that impacts employee retention and happiness. While there are a few companies that are trying different approaches, most were based on single-event programs and failed to really address the day-to-day issues that can make even creative offices stressful and difficult to work at. Creative people don’t work as well under stressful situations. We’re more likely to shut down. Having one day a year where a team gets together to “give back” to the community is nice, but it does absolutely nothing to alleviate the daily grind under which everyone is working.

Earlier this morning, fashion holding company Kering announced that creative director Hedi Slimane is leaving Yves Saint Laurent. While the news is anything but surprising, it underscores how unhappy everyone working in the fashion industry seems to be. Slimane joins Raf Simmons and Alber Elbaz on a list of very high-profile designers, people who should be at the top of their design game, who are just floating out there, unattached to any label and missing the financial capital to create eponymous lines for themselves. If the world’s top designers are not happy, we have to assume that everyone below them is absolutely miserable.

Similarly, advertising has never been a friendly work environment. The revolving door at most agencies is so severe that anyone who makes it past their one-year anniversary is considered a veteran. While some may blame the constant turnover on the aggressive recruitment poaching of top talent, what factors just as strongly is a lack of willingness on the part of the agencies themselves to create work environments that encourage loyalty and reward longevity. I’ve talked to many agency partners who never expect new hires to stay long and, as a result, create an environment that encourages their exit. Who wants to work in a place like that?

Hundreds of thousands of creatives are employed between the fashion and advertising industries. While both have managed to thrive for decades on a high-stress, high-turnover environment, the day when creatives are willing to tolerate those destructive work atmospheres may be coming to an end. Millennials, especially, are less tolerant of work environments that are incapable of contributing to their overall well-being, including emotional and physical aspects that we’ve previously considered inappropriate for the office. If employers don’t find ways to adjust, the exodus of creative talent could bring about an end to business-as-usual and spark a whole new revolution of agencies and design labels that disrupt both industries.

Brand and agency executives have every reason to be concerned. No business can survive off the work of the people at the top. Workplaces need to get a lot more friendly, and fast.

Advertising / Art

Art Models As Ad Gimmicks

January 12, 2016

charles i. letbetter - art models as ad fodder

There are so many beautiful girls who aren’t photogenic. In real life, half the models you see look really hideous.—Lisanne Falk

Two models posing for public art drawing class, Atlanta, GA (2005)

Please, take everything I say from this point forward with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.

Being an art model is a lot more difficult than it looks. Surrounded by people you don’t know, sometimes people you wouldn’t want to know, one is asked to remove their clothing and stand, or sit, or lie, in poses specifically designed to provide an example of how the human body looks in that position, often highlighting a specific muscle group. This is how artists learn. Missing these classes leaves a huge chunk missing in one’s art education. The job is thankless. The poses are rarely comfortable and have to be held for several minutes at a time. Many times, the model doesn’t get to see, and probably doesn’t want to see the end result because, again these are art students, just learning their craft. Not all of them have a clue what they’re doing.

Most of the art models I know are wonderful people with typical, average day jobs that wouldn’t begin to give away the nature of their extra-curricular activities. Most are intelligent people who genuinely care about the arts and arts education. However, as with any profession, there are some who are just on the dangerous side of dull, even on a good day. Art instructors continue using these “dull” people because they tend to be passionate about their employment (sometimes their only employment) and have few, if any, qualms about the poses. Again, decent enough people, you just probably don’t want to try and engage them in conversation. Ever. It’s painful.

Our friends at BBDO are responsible for the current Snickers® campaign; you know, the ones about being hungry causing you to not be yourself. Those have been particularly entertaining ads over the past year, and their non-traditional outdoor ads have been especially on point. So, when we came across the new ads, shown for the first time this past Sunday, for a new product called Snickers® Crispers, I was anxious to see what the creative minds at that table had devised. At this moment, my feelings are rather mixed.

What they’ve done is slightly morph the Snickers ads where the unfortunate subject’s hunger leads them to behave in rather foolish ways. There’s certainly plenty of potential behind the concept, but of the two ads shown this past Sunday, only one was at least mildly amusing, which was the one with an art model. The second, featuring a young man blowing a job interview, was groan worthy. Parent company Mars Candies has paid for Super Bowl spots for both Snickers and Snickers Crispers and I’m really hoping they pull some new material for those overly-expensive displays.

Still, knowing art models as I do, and having met some, especially male models, who are on the far side of clueless no matter what they’ve eaten, I did find this one ad amusing and the camera work entertaining. Take a look for yourself:

https://youtu.be/IWsOAieBz40

What’s interesting about the ad is the premise that the model would get this far into his posing before anyone in the class said anything. Don’t you think someone might have asked a question or two when the model removed his clothes? Oh, but that would spoil the joke, so we’re just supposed to overlook that detail. The ad has some problems.

Nonetheless, it’s not every day that we find ads featuring art models so I felt rather obligated to highlight this one. Who knows, maybe someone could build a whole campaign around art models showing up in uncomfortable situations—such as lunch with your grandmother. Naked people and grandmothers sounds like a sure win to me. Go for it, BBDO!

PotD / Social Commentary

Sympathy For The Masses

January 9, 2016

To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.—Ivan Turgenev

Life is not always as comfortable as it appears

I’m wondering this morning how many people consider themselves sympathetic. I’m not talking about how we feel when someone dies, though certainly we could use more sympathy there, but more along the lines of what the Oxford dictionary refers to as, “understanding between people; common feeling.” Sympathy for our fellow humans, for the people right around us, and especially for those we perceive to be different from ourselves, appears to be in a drought.

For example, being a Saturday, one’s expectations might be that people have the day off, their weekend free, two days of leisure available to them. Yet, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, at least 35% of us work on the weekend. Most of those working weekends are in retail, food service, or sales, which is of little surprise. Of those working weekends, though, more than half of those have more than one job, and that particular statistic has grown substantially over the past ten years. I wonder, as we snarl at how slow a waitress seems to be moving or complain about the number of registers open at the market, if we might do well to show a bit of sympathy for those who are overworked, lacking sleep, struggling to make ends meet, but are still expected to smile and meet the petty demands of customers.

I also think about those around us who deal with persistent pain that we never see. When I was a boy, I fear there were too many times when I thought less of my mother because her arthritis forced her to ask for help. While that attitude reversed itself by the time I was an adult, it is only as I find myself frequently in that same predicament that I truly understand how deflating it feels to have to so often ask for assistance. I know many others who deal daily with chronic pain brought on by a plethora of issues; they smile, they rarely complain, they would rather you not know how they’re really feeling. Yet, when they can steal a moment to themselves, they break down and cry in the silence. Do they not deserve sympathy?

As a general population, I fear we have become so incredibly selfish and self-centered that we’ve lost our sympathy for our fellow man. We deride those who struggle. We make fun of those less fortunate. We even delight in placing obstacles in the path of those trying to better themselves. We would rather strip people of their dignity than put an arm around their shoulder and help them out of the ditch into which they’ve fallen. Instead, we chide them for having dared to fall into that ditch in the first place.

Our lack of sympathy became painfully evident in the past week with a local news story that went viral. A woman complained to a local bar that her New Year’s Eve was ruined by what she mistakenly assumed was a dead drug addict being carried from the bar. Her words were scathing and mean as she not only derided the bar, but her over-worked server. When the bar’s manager came back with a scathing reply, explaining that the “dead addict” had in fact been a 72-year-old woman having a heart attack, the entire Internet cheered that the rude woman had received her comeuppance.

There is a shocking lack of sympathy in that story, first from the woman making the complaint, who was so caught up in how “horrible” her night was that she felt compelled to share her anger on social media. Her words were insensitive and uncaring and the manager’s response was sufficient in correcting that wrong. However, we, as a society, are not happy, apparently, until we’ve taken things too far. As the story became one of international interest, people around the world went out of their way to humiliate the woman making the complaint, even inundating the salon where she rented booth space. Notice that I’m using the past tense in that sentence. Because of the severity of the response, the salon canceled her booth rental. The woman now gets to start 2016 without any income.

“She got what she deserved,” is the common response, but did she? She deserved to be corrected in the same manner as she complained, and that happened rather swiftly. But to think that she, or anyone, deserves to be shamed internationally, to have financial harm inflicted not only on her but on others, who worked at the same salon, demonstrates a global lack of sensitivity, compassion, and sympathy even greater than that which she exhibited herself. Some have said, “I hope she’s learned her lesson,” and I would assume she has, but clearly the rest of the world has not. There is no good reason for the shaming to continue nor for her name to be dragged through the mud of international media.

Throughout my life, I’ve made plenty of mistakes, errors in judgment, outright acts of willful ignorance. Chances are pretty damn high that you’ve done the same. None of us are proud of those moments. We learn our lessons, hopefully, and move on. We all work hard. With the economic devastation of the middle class, the number of people struggling just to put food on the table has increased, despite yesterday’s news that the economy added 292,000 new jobs in December. Simply having a job, or two, is not necessarily sufficient for sustaining a reasonable quality of life.

For 98 percent of us, life is a continual race from one challenge to another. We all have our struggle. We all experience pain we don’t talk about. So doesn’t it just make sense that we should have sympathy for the masses that share our common condition?

A little sympathy and caring goes a long way. Try it.

PotD

Back To Work We Go

January 4, 2016

I put my heart and my soul into my work and have lost my mind in the process.—Vincent Van Gogh

Work. Ugh. Welcome to the first Monday of 2016, the day we bid a fond farewell to some of our readers who joined us over the break but must now leave us in favor of gainful employment that frowns upon them spending time with pleasures such as this. It’s a whopping 27 degrees in Indianapolis as I write this and scattered snow showers across the city are threatening to make a mess of everyone’s first commute of the year. We’re getting off to such a great start, aren’t we?

Coffee. Thankfully, we’ve acquired a fair amount of that deliciously roasted bean over the past month. I’m not sure exactly how that happened, but I’m not complaining and it’s coming in especially handy this morning. Kat and I both crashed early last night, but the down side of that is we were up earlier than usual. Work without coffee would be inhumane, in my opinion. I’m fortunate to have never been in a situation where I couldn’t have a cup nearby. I know not everyone can, though, and for those people I truly feel sorry.

I also feel sorry for school teachers who are returning to the classroom this morning. I remember the trepidation Mother always felt when returning after the holiday break. Teachers don’t really get time off. When they’re not at school, they’re doing other adult things such as entertaining family which requires cleaning house and catching up on the piles of laundry that have been ignored all semester. The holidays were never that much of a mental break and today teachers get to welcome back all those darling little demons who have been running around wild the past two weeks. Teachers should get hazardous duty pay the first three days of this week. Be sure they’ll earn it.

Getting back to work after such a long period is never easy. Even if one was technically at work through the whole month of December, the atmosphere following Thanksgiving is different than the other eleven months. Despite the stress of working to complete year-end goals, there is still a sense of frivolity and an absence of the serious tones that dominate the rest of the year. At least, for most people that is the case. For those whose companies completely shuttered on December 31, you have our sympathies.

Here, too, we’re getting back to our normal schedule with some new additions. In case you’ve not already noticed, we’re doing more than just a single post each day. We’re keeping a very close eye on events in fashion, advertising, and music. We’ve only done one extra article per day over the weekend, and for weekends and holidays that will be the new norm. During the week, though, we’ll add articles as we feel appropriate. Fashion is barreling toward February’s Ready-To-Wear runway season, advertising’s eyes are on the Super Bowl ads, and there’s a long list of artists ready to release new albums in the first quarter. We’re watching it all and will comment where we feel we have something valuable to add to the conversation.

So, back to work we go. Bundle up, buckle in, and enjoy the ride!

Music / PotD

They Call It Stormy Monday

October 12, 2015

charles i. letbetter - call it stormy monday

Solitude (2012).

I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8. to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30.—Groucho Marx

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I know, Monday. Erg. No one likes Monday because it means going back to work. And there’s the rub, how much of our lives do we spend hating one-seventh of our week? Any way you come at this, you end up with the blues. Monday means an end to the fun, an end to the play, an end to family time, an end to leisure. Who wants to give that up? Well, unless, of course, you’re an NFL player or something related where you work on Sunday. I suppose the Peyton Mannings of the world look forward to Monday as a chance to recuperate from Sunday. That would be another reason we’re jealous of the rich bastards, and another reason to have the blues.

Preachers typically like Monday, too. I know Poppa did. Mondays were his quiet day, or at least he tried to keep them as quiet as possible. He put everything he had into those two services on Sunday. Monday was for him. He’d get us kids and Mom off the school and then hit the coffee shop, or donut shop depending on where we were living. He’d sometimes hang out with other preachers, maybe go to lunch, and then take a nap before we all came busting through the door as noisily as possible, absolutely destroying his solitude. There are probably a lot of people who look at Monday as a relief, but doesn’t mean they don’t still sing the blues.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Actually, you realize we have unions, industrialization, and that whole 40-hour-work-week thing to blame for our attitude about Monday. Prior to that whole 40-hour thing, Monday was just another day. Sure, folks would take a pause on Sunday for church and such, but there wasn’t any difference between Monday and any other day of the week. There wasn’t such a thing as the weekend. There was no Friday night football. No Saturday afternoon football. No Sunday night football. Good god, how in the world did those poor people survive without football? No wonder they had short life spans.

Music gives Monday a bad rap, too. Rainy days and Mondays alls ways get me down, you know. Manic Monday. Blue Monday. Monday Monday. Blues great T-Bone Walker sings about Stormy Monday below the break. The thing about Monday music, though, is it actually seems to help one feel a little better about getting the day started, or surviving the whole thing. That’s what the blues does for you, gets out those negative emotions so you can feel better about yourself and get on with your week.

Although, Tuesday’s just as bad.[/one_half_last]

Stop Doing What You Love