Author Archives: scbrant

The Elevator

It didn’t take long to realize that corporate culture was a phrase that companies use to describe, or more often than not, cover up their weirdness. One company where Max interviewed described themselves as “fast, fun, and friendly” but that was their way of putting lipstick on a pig, kind of like a blind date that was described as having a “great personality.” This wasn’t a bad company or a bad job, it was just weird to Max, like that one uncle – who wasn’t actually his uncle – who worked for his family on the farm, lived alone, and called him skipper. Max hadn’t been in many elevators but soon learned that they were a good way to judge corporate culture, and at this job, when you were in the elevator, it wasn’t fast, fun and friendly, it was slow and you stood quietly with a bunch of people you don’t know and stared nervously at your feet or straight ahead. It wasn’t like there was a sign in the elevator or an elevator policy in the 90-page employee handbook. He knew because one of the requirements of his job was to study the employee handbook, which was presented to him like a gift but was actually just the most boring 3-ring binder in the history of the world. It was apparently just a cultural norm that there would be no talking and no looking at other people so that’s how it happened pretty much every day. But this Monday morning was different. Max followed the herd into the elevator and settled in by the buttons but then his boss, who was one of the few people that he knew and liked – stuck one of her many bags in the way of the closing doors and begged rather urgently “hold the door!” He’d never seen anyone do that before and was sure it broke a policy somewhere but the door wasn’t going anywhere with that big bag in the way, so Max stepped forward – the only person who did – to help her organize her other eleven bags and get into the elevator. Her name was Barbara but most people called her Babs. Everyone but Max that is. She said that she had that nickname since she was a child and that it was totally fine to call her that but she was his boss and he didn’t know her very well so he stuck with Barbara. She thanked him for helping her and they started chatting about the weekend, shattering the rules of elevator decorum, and even though it was Monday morning, it brightened both of their days. Just when the elevator was finally closing again, someone else managed to weasel his way in. The SVP of Human Resources was the definition of a suit, he had that “smart useless look” like how Julia Roberts described Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. It wasn’t enough that he was lacking human personality, he also had to be the leader of human resources – he was a living oxymoron – he didn’t seem human at all. Of course he knew Babs and she may have been the only person he knew that had a nickname so he proudly said “good morning Babs.” Then he made a big mistake. He took a look at all her bags and started with seemingly endless probing clueless questions. “What on earth do you have in all those bags?” was his opener. Babs just smiled and reluctantly started rattling off work stuff, a laptop, her lunch, etc. Being the nosy goofball that he was, he kept going. “Well that accounts for about half of the bags, I can’t imagine why anyone would need all of those bags.” Babs kept looking at the buttons and praying for an end to the elevator ride but it stopped on every floor so other white guys in suits could get out – and they were going to 21. “What’s that big one right there with the hoses sticking out of it?” There weren’t many other poor souls left on the elevator with the three of us and Babs was in the mood to teach our HR friend a lesson so she let him have the truth. “Oh that one is my breast pump. You see, I’m breastfeeding my baby still and every day, I sit in the ladies room down on six in the training department because no one ever uses that bathroom and I hook these suction cups (she took one of them out – the suction cup, not her boob) up to my breasts and this machine extracts milk and puts it into bottles. Two guys reached around me and hit the next button and got off – I recognized them, it wasn’t their floor but they looked even whiter than usual and just wanted to leave. Babs went on, “If I don’t pump during the day, my breasts get engorged and are quite painful and could even dry up. And this works well because after I pump, I store the bottles of milk in this little cooler, bag number six, and then I can feed my baby right after I pick her up at daycare. Time stopped in that elevator – the SVP of Human Resources was visibly sweating and turned from white to green and pushed a button, faced the doors and when they opened on 18, also not his floor, he ran through them. Max had been holding in a laugh and thought he was going to burst but he’d never seen anyone laugh on the corporate elevator before and didn’t know if it was appropriate but then Babs glanced over at him, winked and smiled. When they finally got to 21, Max laughed as he carried several of the bags for his boss – who he liked before and really respected now – and made a point to meet her at the elevators most days from then on. Not only was he part of the best elevator ride in the history of corporate America, he also learned a really valuable lesson about how hard it was to be a working mom in a man’s world.  And from that day forward, he laughed every time he saw the SVP of HR, and he called his boss Babs, they both earned it.  

In The Middle

Emily sat in the middle seat in row 26 of flight 945 from Seattle. It was the kind of flight that wasn’t too long or too turbulent. It was just one of those flights that kept you from sleeping and somehow got you completely untucked. It was Friday night and she was on her way home to Minneapolis after a long week of crisis management with her biggest client. The crisis was averted, she was good at that part of her life. 

She wondered why no one ever spoke to her on airplanes. She would see people chatting often but it never involved her. Not even when she sat in the middle seat – as she was so lucky to do today. There was a middle-aged man in the window seat, reading a book. The aisle seat was occupied by a young woman in her mid 20’s who was on her phone for the entire flight. They were sitting so close together that they shared armrests and recycled air but they were so consumed by what they were doing and so not interested in her that she could have died unnoticed somewhere over Montana. 

This thought was only slightly less depressing than what she had planned for the rest of her evening. She came off that jet-way a couple times a month with the hope of a friendly face yelling her name, smiling, waving. It had never happened before and today would be no different.  Not only was there no one at the gate to meet her but she had to dodge a couple engaged in enthusiastic PDA. She considered running her roller wheels over the slobbering couples’ exposed toes just for sport but she didn’t even think that would make her feel better. Maybe a little? She walked away from Gate D4 with a heavy heart and sore feet. “What the hell kind of shoes are these? I’ve been sitting for hours and then I take a few steps again and my feet are killing me.” She stopped suddenly, walking and thinking. Did she just say that out loud? No one was looking at her so maybe not.

She rounded the corner and went up the incline to head out through the main terminal. She happened to look down the escalator to the baggage claim and wondered why the hell anyone would check their bags. Just then she ran into some jerk on a cell phone who wasn’t paying attention – or maybe she wasn’t paying attention – neither one apologized. She walked on and decided to check her voicemail. She was hopeful that it would be full of offers for a fun weekend. She flipped open her phone, hit speed dial, entered her code and heard that monotone woman’s voice level an insult at her “you have no new messages.” “Bitch!” She definitely said that out loud and a few heads turned. It had gotten much quieter in the skyway to the parking ramp than it was in the main terminal. She walked out of the skyway to the spot where she had parked her car and it was filled by an enormous SUV. “God Dammit,” she said even louder than her outburst at the voicemail lady. This surprised a passerby who glared at her because she was a blasphemer. “I always park on this floor in Green.” She continued to think aloud. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a Gold reminder ticket and remembered that she couldn’t find a spot in Green so she ended up in Gold. 

She finally got to her car without any more talking – or swearing – out loud. Her car was one of the few things about her life that she truly loved. She deactivated the alarm and opened the doors, the beeps made by the car were converted to “hi, I missed you” in her lonely brain. It almost felt like a hug as she settled into the soft leather seats, adjusted climate control and hit play on one of her favorite CD’s. The roads were empty on Friday night and as her key hit the lock at home, for a split second, she dreamed that someone could be waiting for her on the other side with a meal and a glass of wine. Or, a mess in the living room and music playing too loud? She would have even settled for some lights on or a broken water pipe. That’s how lonely she was. But, of course when she walked in, everything was just as she’d left it. Sigh. She was tired so she got into bed, drifted off to sleep and settled into a dream about finding love.

To The Twin Cities Alone

Thank god for the Big Spunk rest stop on I-94, thought Max. He should have probably stopped in Melrose, Freeport, or Albany but he’d never heard of any of these stupid towns because they weren’t in Clay County where he grew up. All he knew was that he either had to pee in the empty Mountain Dew bottle from the gas station in Alexandria – he had heard of that town – or his bladder was going to explode and he was going to die.

He still couldn’t believe that he was driving himself to the “Twin Cities” as they were called by everyone from his home town who had never been to Melrose, Freeport or Albany either. He had loaded up his Ford Explorer to the point that he couldn’t see out the back window but it didn’t really matter because there wasn’t anyone behind him. Everyone seemed to be in a big god damned hurry – the speed limit sign said 65 but that was obviously just a suggestion as he was being passed by every vehicle on the road – even by minivans driven by someone’s grandparents. He wasn’t totally sure that his truck, loaded down like an Oakie on his way to California, could exceed the posted speed limit anyway. The engine was fighting him to get above 55, which was all the faster it ever went back home – the minimum speed on the sign actually said 45, which sounded pretty good. Max was so nervous about driving on the interstate and potentially missing a turn and being killed and robbed by angry gang members. His dad had told the story at least a hundred times about missing a turn on the interstate in St. Louis on the way to visit relatives in Arkansas. It got more colorful and dire every time. They drove through a rough part of the city filled with gangs for about an hour before they stopped at a gas station and got directions from a clerk with a gun behind bars and plexiglass. Max was pretty sure there weren’t any rough areas in Melrose, Freeport, or Albany but he also didn’t want to take any chances. He just wanted to make it to his apartment in St. Louis Park which he was sure was totally different than St. Louis, more green and less rough. There was a Menards across the highway and a Bennigan’s within walking distance. Menards, of course had everything, “save big money at Menards” is what the jingle said on the radio. So true. He’d never heard of Bennigan’s before but it sort of seemed like it wanted to be a cross between Cheers and an Irish pub and all the waitresses were pretty, they had beer, and a lot of the food was fried so how could you go wrong. The biggest challenge that Max faced now, after finding, pulling over, and not being murdered by gang members or local townies at the Big Spunk rest area, were the directions. He had flown down for his job interview and someone drove him around to find an apartment so he had no idea where he was going. He had the turns written down and memorized but he still wasn’t sure that it sounded right – 94 East to 494 South to 394 East? Why were they all versions of 94? Were all the other numbers taken when these roads were named? He thought that if he got lost and murdered or run off the road by all the cars passing him, everyone at his funeral back home would be murmuring that it’s just not safe down in the Twin Cities. Then he imagined the conversation with his parents in the afterlife, when they would say, “we told you not to move down there, those cities are just too big and dangerous.” Was there passive aggression and guilt in the afterlife? If his mom was there, absolutely. Then a sign flew by above his head, or maybe it passed slowly by, but either way, he missed it, because he was preoccupied by the thought of guilt in heaven. This was it, he thought, he was lost, and then five more signs appeared in the dark over his head. He saw them all but not one of them said “turn here for your new apartment in St. Louis Park you idiot” but all five of them pointed in different directions and had some version of 94 on them. One of them even had a six in there somewhere. He was dead and his mom was going to be so mad at him. 

Hope and the Hallmark Channel

The world and our country are dealing with crises – health, education, racism, economics, the environment. Sigh. But I have hope. America is the greatest democracy in the world and as long as we have serious, smart people, we can solve all of these things. Maybe not all today on my birthday and certainly not with simple solutions, but solve them we will. Until that day, here is a short list of things I’m doing on my birthday to bring happiness and keep hoping – note, I’m not getting paid for any of these endorsements, I’m sharing them for free.

  • Thank my friends and family for all the text messages, Facebook messages and LinkedIn posts. They are not as good as hanging out or hugging in person but it’s the best part of digital communications.
  • Open the cards from people who still send them – like my 85 year old mom and my wife and daughter.
  • Post happy birthday on my friend Rob’s page to celebrate the Marine Corps – who I share a birthday with – they are 245 years old today. Thanks to the Marines for their service and sacrifice.
  • Post on my friend Cathy’s page to wish her well in her battle against COVID. Post on our friend Ranell’s page because she lost her mother. Post on my birthday buddy Kaia’s page because she passed away earlier this year.
  • Order takeout – Braised Short Ribs and mashed potatoes – from our favorite restaurant, Birch’s On The Lake.
  • Listen to the Hallmark Channel Radio on Sirius XM when I go pick up my dinner. Hey, it’s snowing like crazy here so it looks like Christmas!
  • Turn on the Christmas lights for one day since I worked so hard to put them up when it was 65 degrees and sunny! Now it’s 26 and snowing.
  • Eat the birthday cake that my daughter made for me for her culinary class – Burnt sugar caramel cake with burnt sugar caramel American butter cream. No, that’s not on the Food Network, that’s in my house!
  • Not watch CNN or Fox News – at all – they are both on a time out for different reasons. Quick tip, just because it’s on TV or social media, that doesn’t make it true. If you want unbiased journalism, it’s tough but you can trust Reuters because they have been in more than 100 countries for more than 100 years and for my money, the Wall Street Journal as well.
  • Watch a Hallmark Christmas movie starring my good friend Candace Cameron Bure (I just call her Candy for short because she’s so sweet!) or whoever, they are all good. My favorite thing about Hallmark is I can count on seeing people work through a problem, fall in love and kiss at the end.

I know that none of this will solve the crises that we have in this country or around the world but because of these things, I have hope on my birthday and that’s all anyone really needs. Here are some great quotes about hope:

  • Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. – Helen Keller
  • We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. – Tom Bodett
  • Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. – Stephen King
  • Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. – Desmond Tutu

The Best Christmas Songs Ever

I have Sirius XM Satellite radio and I love it. I have a very long commute and spend a fair amount of time in my car so it’s worth it. No bad DJs, no ads, just all the content that I could ever want including music, comedy, news, you get it.

Well, one of the crazy things about satellite radio is that they change their programming based on subscriber interests and this year just like the Hallmark channel started running Christmas movies on Halloween, that’s also the day that SXM launched their holiday music channels. They have 6 of them. I have adjusted my presets on three because that seems enough – the pop one, the traditional one and the Hallmark one, hosted by Hallmark superstar Candace Cameron Bure. I recently decided that’s too much Christmas music – but I have had a chance to listen a lot and this year decided to compile some top Christmas songs – it’s too much work to go in order or stick to just 10 so I’m just going to give you the best from my perspective:

  • O Holy Night by Celine Dion…I mean seriously, CD is annoyingly French Canadian and looks increasingly more bizarre but wow can she sing this song. I cry, I really do, that’s how good it is. All others can just stop because this is the definitive version.
  • Santa Claus Is Coming To Town by Bruce Springsteen – I’m a Springsteen fan, it’s live, he asks the audience if they’ve been good and he asks Clarence Clemons if he’s been practicing real hard so Santa will bring him a new saxophone. Classic.
  • Christmas Time Is Here by the Vince Guaraldi Trio for the Peanuts Gang – I’m not even a jazz guy but the little kids voices and smooth jazz are so great.
  • The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole – I mean wow, I don’t know NKC’s music other than the weird duet on “Unforgettable” with his daughter where he was a poorly designed hologram at the Grammies. I don’t think chestnuts actually roast if he doesn’t sing this song.
  • All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey – by far the best “new” Christmas song in like 50 years. I mean seriously, it’s shocking that with her catalog of pointless pop hits, she actually gets writing credit on this song. It’s really awesome and was used in one of the best Christmas movies, “Love Actually.” Michael Buble actually does a great version as well.
  • Baby It’s Cold Outside by Dean Martin – now I know there was a dust up over this song but it’s just song about a date and has been done like a hundred times.
  • I’ll Be Home By Christmas by the Carpenters – originally recorded by Bing during WWII and banned because so many soldiers weren’t coming home for Christmas, the U.S. War Department later came to their senses and it is an absolute classic. Karen Carpenter’s haunting voice had to make the list and with her sad personal story, this song was perfect for her.
  • Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas by Frank Sinatra, yeah I know the original is from Judy Garland in the classic movie “Meet Me In St. Louis” but I just think Frank’s version is outstanding.
  • Two songs from Straight No Chaser. So, I’m a nerd. If I could do it all over, I wish for better vocal skills so I could be in a college a capella group. Straight No Chaser did it, they come out of the University of Indiana and they are the best. Their version of The 12 Days of Christmas is awesome and incorporates Toto’s “Africa” as are their reditions of other classic songs but their original song called “Indiana Christmas” is musically great and lyrically sentimental and I love it.
  • River by Joni Mitchell. “I wish I had a river that I could skate away on…” now that’s a sentiment that many of us feel on the holidays right?
  • White Christmas by Bing Crosby – there are few songs and performances that are actually so transcendent that they may stand for a season all on their own. It’s not only the best selling Christmas song of all time but it’s the best selling song of all time in excess of 50 million! I know Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, I’m a good Lutheran, but I mean come on. “I’m Dreaming Of A White Christmas…” originally written by Irving Berlin and performed by Crosby on “The Kraft Music Hall” radio show on Christmas Day in 1941, it also won an Oscar for best original song in the movie “Holiday Inn” in 1942 and and made the movie “White Christmas” the highest grossing movie of 1954 as well. My family just goes about their business while I cry and watch it, it doesn’t get any better than Bing, Danny F’ing Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and that other lady. Wow.

 Merry Christmas to you and your families and happy 2020.

What 44 Feels Like

In November, I celebrated my 44th birthday. What significance does 44 have? Barack Obama is the 44th president. 44 is the international direct dial code for the United Kingdom. The .44 magnum is a serious hand gun. Vicks Formula 44 is good when you have a cough. Ok, that was random.

Birthdays are interesting when you get old right? When you’re a kid, they are great and it’s all about presents and parties. When you are in college, they are great because it’s all about free drinks. Now, it’s mix isn’t it? I sort of feel like the #44 looks in the picture above. I feel grateful to get a card and phone call from my mom and well wishes from my Facebook friends and my boss took me out to lunch and a conference room of strangers at work sang to me. But the reality of life starts to set in as well. I’ve had friends die of cancer and friends lose a child. I also feel old when my teenager leans over to me at the latest James Bond movie and says “wow, that guy is so old, how does he do all those stunts and everything.” Well, Daniel Craig is our current James Bond and he was 44 when Skyfall came out and he’s 47 now which isn’t that much older than me. Side note, I’m not sure you follow James Bond, but you should really read this interview with Daniel Craig in Time Out London – it’s refreshingly honest and funny.

The symmetry of 44 is interesting to me. It’s the ying and the yang, the good and the bad, the hopeful and discouraging. I often find myself very appreciative but then I’m also more and more crabby. I’m 44, my kids are teenagers, I’m in middle management and am someone’s boss that is supposed to have the answers. The world is a complicated place – the problems seem more real and serious in today’s world. On a personal level if you eat too much red meat or birthday cake or have too many beers, you worry about your cholesterol and triglycerides and blood sugar. We also worry about terror attacks in faraway places like Paris and right here at home. Even in youth sports, it’s fun to watch kids play a sport at a high level right? So, you’re proud of them and you want them to do well but then you see kids get cut from a team for the first time or a coach tells a team that they “shit the bed” or “got their asses handed to them.” We’ve had coaches say that to our kids – really classy right? I can understand professional coaches saying that but not in youth soccer.

So, 44 is probably going to be more work than 24 and less fun than 14 but I’m hopeful and curious about 44 – I’ll let you know how it goes.

Vote Local On Tuesday – Build The Pipeline

So, this is an “off year” election right? Isn’t that what most people call it because our national offices are not on the ballot? Maybe we should call it a “local year” or a “talent pool” year instead because there are a lot of important things on our ballots. You can and should vote for your school board representatives, and at least in Minnesota, your school district referendums – is there anything more important in your local community than the schools? What about the city council? Sometimes people joke that that job is all about stop signs and speed bumps but not in the suburbs where I live – they make important decisions about my taxes that impact transit/traffic, development, and public safety. Any interest in those things?

Even if you say you don’t care about some of these local issues or if you’re too busy to get involved or learn about the issues and the candidates, there’s another reason to vote local. In the corporate world, leadership and human resources talk a lot about the talent pipeline. Who’s the next person that’s ready for a leadership role? If you look at the demographics, the baby boomers are retiring – god bless them – they worked hard, they have experience, but it’s time for them to open the next chapter of their lives. So, you ask yourself two questions – who’s going to take their place and are they ready? In my experience in the corporate world, this is where an impact is being made on diversity. You can count how many women and people of color are in the C-Suite, and we should be doing that. But, another very important measure is about the pipeline. Do we have a diverse candidate pool for key jobs? Are we bringing diverse candidates into the company now and spending time and energy developing them so they are ready to lead?

So, how do you define diversity? There are lots of ways to do it by things like gender and ethnicity but what about experience and thoughtfulness? There’s something to be said for the need for experience both in life and in solving important problems and in managing people – that sets you up to be better at it than people with no experience right? So, why don’t we think about our local elections as the way we build a talent pool for our elected officials? What if we look at our presidential candidates? Are we happy with that talent pool? I’m not. There are people who have served in an elected or appointed capacity but there is no way that they deserve to be president of this great country. There are also people who have never been elected to anything or served anyone and there is no way that they deserve to be president either but they actually start to look pretty good when compared to the other group.

So, let’s vote local this week and build the pipeline for the future. Maybe our kids will actually have national elections where they have to choose between great candidates who are thoughtful, diverse, and experienced? Maybe our kids and their friends will be those leaders? Wouldn’t that be something?

Change is good, right?

Change management is a very popular topic in the field of communications. There are process steps to follow for organizational change – you can even get certified to lead change.

In William Shakespeare’s play, “Twelfth Night,” there is a quote about greatness:

“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” – (Act II, Scene V).

Does this quote apply to change as well? Sometimes we choose change and other times it’s thrust upon us right? I’ve certainly lived and grown through both.

I’m an avid reader of Seth Godin’s blog and when I was contemplating my most recent career change, I saw this blog from him entitled, “Why Not” – here’s part of it and the link to the full post:

If someone offers you a project or a job with more leverage and the chance to both learn and teach, why not take it? If you can learn something new, more efficiently than ever before, if the opportunity to leap presents itself, why not? Now is a good time.

I admire Seth and Shakespeare and am excited for the next chapter in my career. It’s a great opportunity for me to work at the intersection of communications and technology, manage a team, and learn a new business. The best advice outside of the two writers I quoted today was from my daughter who said to remember to smile when I meet new people. I think I’ll close with that.

Don’t judge a book by its meat dress

I find it very hard to watch the Oscars or any awards show any more. I’m in my 40’s and I’m getting crabbier every year. It’s not like I’m not happy for people that win and achieve their dreams. I think the Oscars are one of the few awards that still matter. There are so many music awards any more that it’s hard to keep track of them. I also find it very odd that there is “an academy” that votes for these awards and there are always really good performances and great movies left off the list and strange one’s that win and that makes me mad. It’s one of the reasons why I prefer sports with scoreboards like basketball or soccer or clocks like swimming and track & field to those with a panel of judges like gymnastics and figure skating. Never trust a panel or an academy to get it right.

This year, there were also a lot of very strong messages delivered by winners about women’s pay equity, and self worth, and terrible diseases that need cures. If you win, you get to have the microphone for like 45 seconds so by all means, make an impression. Not everyone can make a memorable impression by what they wear on the red carpet, so they better make people remember their performance and what they say. One performance in particular was shocking to most of us – Lady Gaga singing a “Sound of Music” medley. It made me think of one of my favorite lines from the movie Pretty Woman after Richard Gere walks in on Julia Roberts in the bathroom and thinks he catches her taking drugs but in actuality she was just flossing her teeth. Here was the dialog that ensued:

Edward Lewis: It’s just that, uh, very few people surprise me.
Vivian: Yeah, well, you’re lucky. Most of ’em shock the hell outta me.

I don’t think that many people recognized Lady Gaga or thought she could sing like that (or dress like that) so that shocked us all. If you missed it, here’s a link to her performance. I myself have never been a huge Gaga fan with her weird costumes and behavior but she has an incredible voice. I think that was a great message for a spectacle like the Oscars and from now on, I will appreciate Lady Gaga a bit more and I will try not to judge her just for her hair, or tattoos or her dress made out of meat.

I love Girl Scout cookies, just not the propaganda

Now before anyone gets all wound up about this, let me just say that I love Girl Scout cookies and I probably like most girl scouts as well. But, after devouring a few of my favorite cookies this week, I decided to take a look at the box – pictured here. Now I’m sure that the Girl Scouts actually do teach girls some lessons that they retain throughout their lives but I think they are laying it on a little thick. Let’s approach this one skill at a time, shall we?

skills

            

1. Goal Setting – I set a few goals to eat fewer cookies and I think that each girl (and their family) probably has to decide how many boxes they can realistically sell. So, I’ll give them this one.

2. Decision Making – Should I walk around my neighborhood in the freezing cold selling cookies or should I have one of my parents just put the sheet out in the break room at work? Easy.

3. Money Management – I’ll give them another one, they do have to collect money and turn it in.

4. People Skills – I don’t know, I’ve asked the little salespeople where the money goes and gotten nothing but blank stares. One particular girl this year actually didn’t say anything at all. She just showed up with her girl scout vest on and a bag with cookies in it and my wife filled out the form, wrote the check, took the cookies and the salesperson was on her way. Not a lot of people skills. Not a lot of skill building for little girls who sell cookies because their parents leave a form in the break room either.

5. Business Ethics – This one is really the one that put me over the edge. I mean come on, are 8-year-old girls really learning business ethics from selling cookies? I’m not saying that the world doesn’t need all the help it can get as far as ethical behavior goes but I’m having a hard time associating what I’ve observed as the cookie sales process with any meaningful ethics lessons.

So, as far as I’m concerned, cookies and girl scouts are a good thing but I think that the propaganda could be toned down a little, don’t you?