Today I have eight meetings. There was one at 8, then 10, and pretty soon my 11 will pop up. That’s a long one. Goes up to lunch. Then there’s lunch, which I have to eat in public, and then back for meetings again about financial stuff. This is the time of year when finance goes around holding our guts in their hands, sort of hefting them back and forth in an affable fashion. Bleh.

I can’t think. Thinking and meeting are mutually exclusive. You can prioritize your plateful of agendas. You can run ideas down to the red zone and see if anybody can push them over the goal line. You can take a couple of swings at issues in your wheelhouse. You can take strategies, field strip them and see if they’re ready for combat. But think? Nah.

I gotta go. Write me if you feel like it and tell me a few things:

• How many meetings do you have today?
• Why do people call meetings?
• How many of your meetings are necessary and how many are held just to honk somebody’s horn?
• Do you hate meetings? Love them? Both?
• Do you have trouble staying awake in meetings? What do you do about the problem of meeting narcolepsy?
• Do you use your BlackBerry to entertain yourself during meetings?
• Do you love/hate Powerpoint?
• Do you think presiding over meetings is a way executives to goof off?
• How much of your writing pad do you cover with doodles during a meeting?
• What percentage of the meeting is occupied by your boss talking?
• Anything else you’d like to tell me about meetings.

I’ll see you guys later. I’m bummed. My idea of a great day is a blank calendar and a blue sky out my hermetically-sealed window. This is clearly not going to be one of those. And that first martini is at least eight hours away.

Deb from Seattle, Washington, must have been cruising some prior postings on this site, because yesterday she got exercised about some grousing I did — and you did — about MySpace a few weeks (months?) ago.

This is very flattering to me. I like it when people go back and see some of the fun we’ve had together. Remember how mad we all were about the airlines a little while back? How about the tremendous venting that took place about the loss of the Marshall Field department store, whose brand was eradicated by Macy’s? What a surprise that was! Who knew so many people would care about something like that? More recently, a bunch of you guys have gotten into it with each other about Stan O’Neal’s exit package at Merrill, displaying wildly divergent opinions about executive compensation. And then of course there were all of you who joined me in my squirrely feeling about joining a social network.

Deb was not one of them. I didn’t want what she had to say to get buried down there in the timeline, so I’m going to reprint it here.

“Hi Bing,” she writes. “I got turned on to your site from a link that was on Fortune and got interested in all of the reading. Most everyone who has blogged you has posed an opinion…just opinions. Here are some facts for all to think about. I am a regular Myspace fan. I originally had set up an account to check on my children. I got addicted to it. I did not want all of my personal info being shared through the world either. Fact be known that Myspace has settings for the privacy of their users. Only friends of the users may view the profile. All it takes is a little playing around with it to see your many options. Email is no different or insecure than the email addresses through yahoo, or hotmail, etc. one of my children that I gave up for adoption has kept in contact with me over Myspace quite regularly since we live so far apart. I can look at her pics, see her lifestyle, and watch her slide shows.I have my profile set to private and only my kids and close friends (whom I choose) can view my stuff. I have a setting that blocks solicitors and everyone under 18 from contacting me. As I present these facts to you, my opinion about Myspace doesn’t matter here. I am a professional business woman, and college student and have had enough experience with spammers, hackers, nosy people, that I just want to say that there are things people can do to save themselves the crudd that goes on on Myspace if they really wanted to and these bloggers should really check out the facts before posting to millions of people who will read your blogs about how unprivate Myspace is. It is only as unprivate as they make it. I respect everyone’s opinion but when others judge things without looking into the facts, that makes them, well…they don’t look very good on here. It was actually nice reading your blog and seeing the thoughts of others.”

Thanks, Deb, for your passionate and well-informed defense of your online toy.

And thanks to all you guys for your comments and your thoughts. You’re a cranky, disputatious bunch. But hey. I loves ya.

Now get outta here, you knuckleheads!

News comes today of the very likely departure of Stan O’Neal from the top slot at Merrill Lynch (MER). He’s out in record time 1) due to the whole subprime situation and 2) because it looks like he approached Wachovia (WB) about a merger without properly informing those who thought they should be informed.

This brings two thoughts to mind:

• Do any of you really understand the whole subprime thing? I mean, I kind of get it, because I’ve read a bunch about it, but perhaps one of you out there can explain it to the rest of us simply. Please do. And thanks.
• Do any of you think that that name “Wachovia” is a subliminal message? If you prounouch the “ch” as a soft sound, you could say that it’s a bank that will “watch over ya.” I like a bank like that. You think it’s a coincidence? If, on the other hand, you fail to bank there, it’s just possible (if the “ch” is hard, like a K) that the world will “walk over ya.” Who wants that? I want a bank that protects me from stuff like that!

Anyhow, back to business. The thought for today is Mr. O’Neal’s exit package. If a merger with Wachovia had taken place, he would have been paid as much as $274 million, according to the LA Times. That’s a lot of money, even by today’s standards. Even one percent of that sounds nice.

As it is, upon leaving, he’ll walk about with about $154 million in pension payments, stock options, and direct holdings in the company. That’s in addition to the nearly $50 million he made last year. Of course, I know how newspapers factor in all kinds of future goodies into these numbers, but by any measure we’ve got another case of somebody who has made his fortune being canned.

God! Please send me one of those jobs!

Okay, you know me, I’m a maniac. Tuesday night and Wednesday morning I was in Philadelphia. Wednesday night I had dinner in New York, after spending a couple of hours at the office. Today is… what… Friday morning? I’m in LA. By tomorrow at noon I’ll be home north of San Francisco. Monday I’ll be in New York again. If that doesn’t seem crazy to you, maybe you’re as demented as I am.

All this travel means that it becomes preternaturally important where I shack up for the night when I’m out of town. Others may say, “Aw, the heck with it, it’s only for a night,” when they are ushered into a stinky, small, depressing hotel room, but me? No way. My spirit sinks. My heart turns to suet. My brain pounds within its tiny case in a vain attempt to come squirting out of my ears. Worst, possibly, is the urge to blurt “Do you know who I am?!”, always evidence of a diseased executive ego.

The good news is the most of the time, I’m pretty happy about everything when I get to my destination. The knowledge of how wrong things can go shapes my appreciation for the simply tolerable. The extremes, however, do have their moments. Today I would like to briefly share with you two of those.

Philadelphia: I get to my hotel at about 7 PM. I’m tired. I’m anxious, because the next morning I have a big presentation. It’s scary to talk to 2000 people. Anyhow, I get to the desk of a hotel I will not mention, because I’m a nice guy. It’s a big hotel, part of a huge chain that brags about itself quite a bit. The kid behind the reception desk is about 14 years old. She’s very nice. Big, wide, frightened eyes. She taps up my information. Asks me how to spell my name. Three times. Disappears.

Over the next 40 minutes, I am repeatedly assured that they are “working on my reservation,” that it “wasn’t transferred over.” When I ask what that means, I am informed that it means, “Well, it wasn’t transferred over.” I am offered a free drink. I accept. After the drink, I come back. They are still working on my reservation. I start to get mad now. I see people checking in all over the place. Why can’t I have a room? I’m tired! I’m hungry! Dudes!

Finally, after 45 minutes, the manager mysteriously appears. He is very brisk, with a lot of very shiny black hair. His name is Joey. I learn what the problem has been, and it’s a real doozy. It seems that I have been shut out of my room because — now please pay attention — because I AM A VIP GUEST AND THEY WANT TO MAKE SURE I HAVE THE VERY BEST ROOM THEY CAN OFFER. In all my years of business travel, this is the first time I have ever been skunked because I am a VIP, as a gesture of respect.

Anyhow, now the situation seems to be in hand, Joey is taking me to the “finest room in the hotel,” a “suite” that was supposedly earmarked for another potentate but “hey, he’s not here and you are, right?” I am shown into a very weird space, a big room with a conference table in it, and a kitchenette with a dirty glass on the counter. “This is not a suite, Joey,” I say. “This is a room.”

“We call this a suite,” says Joey with sincerity and concern. Okay, I figure, there’s a bed and a plasma TV, and I figure what the hell, it’s only for a night. Joey goes. I stand in the middle of the room and look at the bed. And then I see it. What I am in is actually half of a real suite, the part reserved for visitors, when the occupant wants to have a meeting that isn’t in the bedroom. And the bed… the bed is a Murphy bed. A Murphy bed, for those who have never enjoyed one, is a matress on a spring mechanism that may be hidden in a closet.

I don’t want to stay in this nether-room. It feels like mucho bad karma. I supposed I could put up with it… but why? I call Joey and say, as politely as possible, “Joey, this is a conference room with a Murphy bed in it.” Joey says, “Oh. You don’t like that?” He calls me back in five minutes and presto! I’m in a real room with a perfectly fine bed and mysteriously, it’s on the Club Floor, which was there all along, you know? I have a free drink at the Club and go to bed. Whew.

Questions: Why did my status as a VIP mean I had to wait for my room? Why did it take so long to sort me out? Why was the first room such an amazing loser? Did Joey think that anybody wanted to inhabit that makeshift place? Did he believe that VIPs like Murphy beds? Why couldn’t I just go to a nice, King-bed room on the Club Floor right away? Why do restaurants always try to seat you at the worst table they have available, not the best? Okay, now we’re off point. And I promised to be brief.

That was a BAD HOTEL. And it took all my self control not to bust it here. Now we’ll take a deep breath and move on.

Pleasure takes less time to describe than pain. So let’s go back to the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills for a minute.

I got here about two hours ago and realized that, once again, I have forgotten my phone charger. This may not seem like a tragedy to you, but it’s not good. I have already purchased at least 10 phone chargers on the road this year. Finance is questioning me about it. I have to admit it looks bogus on my expense report. Anyhow. I’m a moron. I forgot it again. So I’m in line outside the hotel a few minutes ago to get a cab to the Verizon store down the street, and I mention my stupidity to the bellman, and he says, “You know, we have a huge box of those things at the concierge. Why don’t you ask them if they have a charger that fits?”

So I go to the concierge, who is a very nice woman I have met before, and she says, “Oh yeah. Let’s see.” She goes behind the desk into a little office for a few minutes and then re-emerges with just the right cable. And she seems just as pleased as I. I go upstairs, plug in my phone, and look at the sunset over Los Angeles, where today the sun is a bright red disk fighting its way through the smoke.

What a difference a day or two makes, huh?

1. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is:
a) Make love to my spouse.
b) Lie in bed and think about the day ahead for a few minutes.
c) Grab my blackberry and check my email.
d) I don’t wake up in the morning. I wake up at night.

2. For breakfast, I generally like…
a) A muffin.
b) Eggs and bacon.
c) Whatever the guy I’m taking to at my power breakfast is eating.
d) Six cups of coffee and a Prozac.

3. At a business meeting, I talk…
a) 35 percent of the time. I think listening is important.
b) 50 percent of the time. I think give-and-take is what it’s all about.
c) 65 percent of the time. I’m there to get something done and I need to push it.
d) You’re beginning to get on my nerves.

4. I am angry…
a) Almost never. What’s the point? All that does is hurt myself and impede business.
b) Now and then. The world is full of buttheads.
c) A couple of times a day. I can’t help it.
d) Now.

5. Everybody has enemies, people who help to define you by the fact that you hate them and everything they stand for. How many do YOU possess?
a) None. What’s the point? All that does is hurt myself an narrow my list of potential allies and customers.
b) A couple. One died last year and I really miss having him around to hate.
c) I have a list of about ten or so people. Sometimes people drop off and make room for new ones at the top.
d) I have a couple of friends I don’t mind having dinner with. The rest of the world can go %*&# itself.

6. There’s been a lot of news about China recently, focusing on its business practices in a negative light — poisoned toothpaste, lead paint in children’s toys, tainted dog food and the like. What’s your attitude to that?
a) I think it’s kind of shocking, actually. How can people do such things, even for a profit?
b) I think it’s deplorable. Naughty Chinese! They should have their butts kicked.
c) I think you have to understand their culture. They’re in the beginning stages of capitalism, and this laissez-faire behavior is not unlike that which characterized, say, the old West. It’s every person for himself. Anything goes. They’ll come along and institute standards later.
d) We’d better get in there and take over their economy fast, before they do it to us. The rest is just bulls**t.

7. I love…
a) My family and my little schnauzer, Peppy.
b) My collection of antique pens.
c) The smell of restaurant bacon in the morning. It smells like victory.
d) The feeling I get when I have just humiliated my best friend at golf.

8. I would consider a person “rich” if they are worth…
a) The question itself is deeply flawed. Money alone cannot define wealth.
b) Ten million dollars ought to do it.
c) One hundred million dollars and access to corporate perks.
d) Twenty billion dollars, six houses, twelve cars, a bodacious spouse or two, six thousand virgin acres in Mexico, a personal 747 and the body of his enemy bricked up in his wine cellar. In fact, have you seen my wine cellar?

9. When I think about growing my company, I like to consider:
a) Responsible growth from within.
b) A balanced plan of acquisition and divestiture.
c) Acquiring my nearest competitor and merging our two great companies into one giant and unbeatable behemoth.
d) Buying everybody in my entire industry. Those who will not be bought must be driven out of business. All trace of the companies I acquire will be expunged from the earth! And I will reign supreme!! Hahahahahahahaha!!!!

10. When I die I would like be remembered as…
a) A good person who was loved by his friends, family and colleagues.
b) A talented person who made the most of his or her gifts.
c) A dangerous and scary person who kicked butt during his life and left a bunch of grieving people behind who revered him.
d) If anybody dies around here, it’s going to be you, Bud.

Give yourself 1 point for a), 2 for any b), 5 points for any c) and, of course, 100 points for any d) answer you might have found appropriate. Yeah, the scoring is screwy. But the truth is, either you’re a killer or you’re not. If you are, my hat is off to you, and my resume is in the mail to you.

If you’re not, I’ll see you for drinks some time next week, okay?

Hi there. I’m in Philadelphia to speak to a group of supply managers. I believe the discipline used to be called “Purchasing” until, like stewardess, waiter and fireman, the job designation got upgraded. Anyhow, I’m sure they’re very nice people and I can’t wait until it’s over. FYI, I’m generally the guy who answers a) to all the questions I offered in yesterday’s quiz. The thing is, on stage I transform into d). So I get myself into gigs and then I’m very nervous for months before and then I do great at them and then I want to do them again.

It’s called neurosis.

At any rate, today we have a number of amusing and thoughtful Ask Bings for your consideration. So go there.

For tomorrow, I’m going to tip my chapeau to my reader, Sukardi, who writes in from somewhere called Terengganu, Malaysia. (See yesterday’s comments). I’m interested in investigating the idea of a Killer Quotient that functions as a workable predictor of business success, aren’t you?

I have a speech to give in the next couple of days and feel kind of nauseous thinking about it right now. I’m a good presenter, but have always been afflicted with what actors refer to as “flopsweat.” I wonder if you are too. Take this little quiz and find out.  

1. When I know I have to make a presentation, even a small one before a very limited number of people, I start feeling nervous…

a. Before I know about it, even. Just the question made me feeling like huarking.
b. About a week before, then I get ready. When I’m preparing or well-prepared, I’m okay.
c. The day before. Then I go nuts and drive everybody around me completely crazy.
d. Nervous? Me? Ha!

2. When a big meeting is coming up, one that will involve a number of presentations from a range of people…

a. I hide inside my BlackBerry, furiously typing with my thumbs, head down, until all the others have volunteered for every available slot. Afterwards, I change my undies.
b. I listen for a topic I could do well at and put up my hand for it. If no appropriate topic appears, I try to get a pass.
c. I wait until the end of the meeting, then sign up to do a presentation on something about which I have no knowledge or interest.
d. I make sure I’m doing ALL the presentations. They’re mine! Mine!

3. I would say my ability as a presenter is…

a. Abysmal. How can you talk if you’re about to barf?
b. Good. Depends on the material.
c. Why? Who wants to know? What did you hear? It’s not true!
d. I’m the best presenter who ever lived.

4. While I am up on stage, I…

a. Feel all trembly and bizzarre.
b. Feel a little nervous at first and then get into it. By the end, I’m having fun.
c. Spill water on my notes and then wing it.
d. Am God.

5.  Comments about my presentations are generally…

a. Comments? I have no idea. Nobody looks me in the eye after I speak. Is that bad?
b. Generally quite positive. I don’t listen to them very much. I kind of know how I did from the way I feel after it’s over. Other people are so full of it a lot of the time, you know?
c. Great! I mean, terrific! I mean… have you heard anything different?
d. Never good enough. No matter how good they are.

6. If I have to go “off the cuff”…

a. I will faint.
b. I like that much better than working off a paper text, actually.
c. I’ll do it. But I won’t like it.
d. I will talk until my audience is weeping with exhaustion. Then I’ll go on. And on!

7. If I could describe public speaking as a food, it would be…

a. A poisoned apple.
b. An English muffin.
c. A big messy bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.
d. A huge juicy roast beef I can eat all by myself.

8. My idea of a great public speaker is/was…

a. Alan Greenspan
b. Tom Peters
c. Chris Rock
d. Benito Mussolini

Score yourself 1 point for every a) answer; 2 points for every b); 5 points for every c) and 10 points for every d).

7-20: If called to speak, stick your head in a microwave. You’re doomed.
21-35: You’re a good, professional presenter; possibly not the most interesting in the world, but then if your mother had wanted you to be an actor, she would have given you a different nose.
36-55: You’re all over the place. You’re a paranoid maniac. And you’re probably pretty entertaining.
56-70: You’re probably fundraising for the ‘08 elections right now.

When I was a kid there was always a little goober around who bragged about his IQ. “I have a genius-level IQ,” the kid would say, having just returned from a Mensa test designed to stock the world with future members.

The thing is? The kid who had the big, triple-digit IQ was never the smartest one in the class. He was very often boring. And sure, he was usually smart enough, okay, but no smarter than half the kids I knew. As far as I was concerned, he looked the same as anybody else when he was picking his nose.

At that time, in fact, a lot of us were told we were “as smart as Einstein” because we had been tested in school and done fairly well on whatever it was they were doing to us. My mother wouldn’t tell me mine, because the information would supposedly rot my brain and make me an egotistical jerk. So I never learned my IQ. It didn’t work anyhow, as anyone who knows me will tell you only too quickly. 

But whatever my IQ may be, it didn’t stop me from having all kinds of trouble in math and particularly physics, with its men walking backward in trains and people running counter-clockwise on Merry-Go-Rounds. I also do lousy on those Mensa tests you can take in your in-flight magazines. Craps has been explained to me so many times I’m ashamed to ask about it again. And I stink at chess. But my IQ? Fabu.

All this is a roundabout way of saying that from a very early age I have believed that IQ was BS.  I believe it’s basically a test to find out how good you are at being tested. Possibly it may also test how much time your parents may have spent trying to make you a genius.

Now the nail, as far as I’m concerned, has been driven in the smarty-farty establishment by one of its very own experts, James R. Flynn. The article is in the current issue of Scientific American Mind, which I buy while I’m in airports and losing mine. Mr. Flynn is the discoverer of the “Flynn Effect,” which documents massive gains in IQ from one generation to another. This jump in tested intelligence has been demonstrated in research from some 30 nations — everywhere, actually, where IQ results over time have been studied. 

The editor of the magazine observes, “To express it another way, if we put the score of today’s average American at 100, then the Americans of 1900 had a mean IQ of 50 to 70, signaling an obviously implausible plague of mental retardation among our progenitors.” These, you may recall, are the folks to built our cities, split the Atom, invented the car and the airplane. Now Mr. Flynn tells us why. 

Conversely, the data reveal that young people of today are, like, 30 IQ points higher than their grandparents, and that the trend is continuing. People are getting smarter and smarter and smarter, at least according to the IQ industry.

Now, that would be really encouraging news, if it didn’t seem like the exact opposite is the case. I believe any empirical study of our society would reveal that people are actually getting stupider all the time. I know I am. This situation is ameliorated by the fact that everybody around me is dumber than they used to be as well. It’s not like all the old guys are losing it and the younger X’s, Y’s and Zeros are coming up the ramp, either. For every Chad Hurley or Sergei Brin there’s a couple of K-Fed’s and two or three Miss South Carolinas.

Beyond that, the general level of discourse, particularly among the young, while no stupider than, say, your average conversation on a street in rural France in 1680, is by no means any more elevated. Back then, they said “Zut!” when they bumped into each other. Now they say “Dude!”

There’s a massive amount of complex scientific bushwah attending Flynn’s rationale for the ongoing bump in measured brainpower. You can read it. The question is important to him, because the data seem to contradict a) common sense and b) the value of IQ testing, which would be a disaster for a whole group of lab-coated people who make their livings on it.

After reading as much as I could of the stuff, I think it basically boils down to one thing: kids trained to take tests do well on tests; people prepared for certain kinds of challenges do better than those who are not. For the most part, better babies notwithstanding, we’re all pretty average.

It’s the guys with the high Killer Quotient who do best where I work.

A couple of you who responded to my inquiry about your forbidden behavior at the office had some funny remarks about my gaming history. This being Friday, and a gray, sodden day here in New York, I thought I would spend a little time on the subject instead of, you know, working.

Rebecca from Philadelphia, ever her enthusiastic self, was excited by one of my early game choices. “YOU PLAYED RISE OF THE TRIAD TOO?! I’m so happy!” she writes. “I really thought my brother and I were the only ones. No one EVER knows what I’m talking about when I mention that game. I LOVED THAT GAME!!”

So did I. That was a bloody, violent enterprise with lots of levels and cool weapons and a weird bouncing mechanism you could use to ice bad guys from above. Or good guys from below. I’m not sure which. It came in a line that included Wolfenstein, Doom, Doom 2, Doom 3, the offensive Duke Nukems, the incomparable Quake series, and Unreal. The genre then entered into the massive, crazy iterations like Halo that can no longer be played in a work environment.

At this point, as far as I know — and please correct me if I am wrong – there aren’t really any fun, light, quick-moving first-person shooters that work at the office anymore. They’re all huge and gangling and take enormous hardware resources and huge disk space. A fair number of them require an internet hookup and run like macadam on a corporate network.  Hence my opting for lighter, less graphic and disk-intensive games.

The other consideration is that, for some reason, most people seem to like to play these great first-person shooters not against the Artificial Intelligence, but against other players. I never did and still don’t. If I wanted to deal with vicious, predatory strangers, I’d go to a business meeting.

MMORPGs, likewise, are not only highly unsuitable to any kind of business career — with the possible exception of a permanent seat in the back of the mail room — but also turn you into a mountainous slab of pimpled jelly. For proof of this fact, please see perhaps the greatest episode of South Park ever made, “Make Love, Not Warcraft.” I can say no more.

Allan from Orlando doesn’t seem to be aware of these considerations and, being his usual amusing self, takes a dimmer and slightly more sarcastic view of the situation. ”Well,” he writes, “your early taste in games was cool, but since then…. I mean, Soduku/Mahjongg? Have you just given up? Next you’ll be wearing a beret and black socks with tennis shoes.”

I know what he means. I’m a little ashamed of what I’ve got up on my screen these days. The thing is, for the office, games with repetitive matching are better, for the most part, than the great games I just mentioned. Honestly, how is one to go around fragging drooling monsters while you’re in a meeting, or having a conversation, or even on a squawkbox.

People say, “What’s that?” when an imp’s head explodes or your wand vaporizes a dwarf. And when you get to a Boss level and are battling a huge zombie vampire? Forget about talking numbers on your headset. Either the director of finance will end up getting greased or you will.

Anyhow, I think you see where we’re going with this. The Duke (pictured above) has been replaced by the much more sedate sixth-generation Tetris-type games like Cradle of Rome, or mutated board games like the ones Allan finds so ridiculous. There are times, sadly, when I even find myself playing those things where you have to find hidden objects like a shoe, a wrench or a parrot hidden in the Victorian library. I used to do that kind of thing when I was six year old, reading Highlights for Children. It looks like the great days of office gaming just might be over.

Unless… unless… do you guys have any ideas? Are there wonks out there who have found a solution to this conundrum and are even as we speak chasing vicious warthogs down an imaginary path? Please. Let me know. I’m beggin’ ya.

In today’s new Ask Bing section, a reader writes in to complain about his boss. Seems the guy spends a lot of time surfing porn sites at the office. He wants to know what he and his fellow employees can do about this deplorable situation.

Of course looking at objectionable, sexist, nasty porn at the office is a no-no. Worse than that, even, is the fact that the dangerous pervert is so indiscreet that his employees know about it. Good for them, the little weasels, for squealing on the miscreant, right?

Well… I don’t know. Really. A lot of people surf the web every day tracking the value of their portfolio, priapic (if they are men) or flushed with pleasure (if they are women) as their tiny greed muscles expand and contract. Is that any less pornographic? Isn’t money the new porn?

In my time in Planet Corporate, I have occasionally done a bunch of questionably recreational things at my desk, while, I may add, building one of the most successful business careers of anybody in my mysterious line of work. I’m not bragging. I’m just saying.

The computer is a weird window on the world, and an antidote to the perpetual state of boredom that is the bane of office life. Mostly, I’ve played computer games by the hundreds while writing, talking on the phone, signing things, waiting for the next s**tstorm.

I started with a dungeons game on what was called a Lexitron. I think it was called Gorp. Something like that. No… Zork! That was it. There were no graphics, but I followed a text-based troll down a myriad of caves and passageways, dying and being reborn as I went. After that came Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, The Rise of the Triad, Tetris, and so on and so forth. Right now, I’m addicted to Big Fish Games, which offers something called Zen that incorporates a visual kind of Sudoku and an evolved Mahjong game. I play when I’m on the phone. It IS kind of Zen, come to think of it. And which of us couldn’t use more of that?

I’ve joined virtual communities from way back, like the late 80s, believe it or not. Each of us had an early form of Avatar that you could build using facial parts as you would right now in Second Life. I went on those until it got weird. There were no webmasters in those days to kick off psychos. More recently, I joined Second Life, which I found so unbelievably tedious that I quit after only a couple of weeks. It compared unfavorably to a typical day of conversation at the office. Congratulations to people who have found a way to make that world interesting or, more important, profitable. My virtual hat is off to you guys.

I’ve also consistently kept up with gossip sites that report on the doings of idiots, the news destinations that report half-truths about my business, wrote my first novel, basically, while the rest of the corporation was being acquired and the only strategy was to be very, very quiet while the McKinsey types were hunting wabbits, stuff like that. I’m sure there’s more but I have to go in a minute because my phone is ringing.

I know a woman who has the #3 job in a very large corporation. She’s doing extremely well. Her desktop is a playground of game icons stretching back into the dawn of the computer era. I think I saw Pac-Man on there once. There is no time that she’s not in the middle of a game no matter what else she is doing. Is there something wrong with that?

As long as we’re functional, is there anything wrong with keeping ourselves amused, entertained, even aroused, as long as it doesn’t intrude on our effectiveness or (in the case of porn, I guess) our ability to manage others? Even galley slaves were able to use their oars to scratch their backs. Was that an unauthorized use of equipment?

How about you guys? Huh? What kind of unauthorized use of the hardware are YOU involved in? Do you play games on your phone? Do you text message your kids or your lover every couple of hours? Do you look at naughty pictures? Do you forward YouTube clips of dancing birds to your friends via company e-mail?

Come on. Enquiring minds want to know.

This may not look like a special day to you, but for me it has resonance, and a certain aura of hope. It was six months ago that I made my last impulsive and successful bid on eBay (EBAY).  I know six months is not a long time. I know I’ll be in jeopardy for the rest of my life, that I’m an addict and always will be, always will have to look over my shoulder for temptations and the possibility of backsliding. But six months is something. I think I can allow myself a little rustle of pride in my bosom.

My story is like so many others. As Dylan said, “I started out on Burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff.” For me, it was Pez dispensers.  Not too many. Just a few. After that, I kind of messed around with a number of other stimulants, experimenting to see what kind of collecting might give me the best buzz.

Watches… a few years ago my house was robbed. Among the things that the thief made away with was a pre-WWII era Titus Geneve chronograph made of pink gold, with a dark brown face and a lovely alligator Spidel twisty wristband. I put that into my favorites, so a permanent search was established. By the end of that year, I had sprung for six or seven really nice watches, none of them the exact same as the one I had lost, though. They say you can’t go home again. Maybe they’re right. But I was trying.

Then, perhaps a year ago, I saw it. It didn’t have the right band, but I figured that could be dealt with. I bid on it. I bought it. It now sits in a drawer of my desk at home. Every now and then I take it out and look at it. It needs repair. I do like it. But something is different. Perhaps the remembrance of lost time was better than the possession of it.

While I was looking for that watch, I found myself developing an interest in guitars again. This was about the same time I ceased collecting comic books. There was a gap in my life. I put the word “Supertone” into the search engine and woke up about eighteen months later with drool all over my chin and about fifty guitars made for Sears before 1940.

That’s when I shut things down. For a time, I had a couple of relapses. A guitar I couldn’t do without. A watch from Weimar Germany.  A camera, circa 1970, that reminded me of my first Pentax.

Today, when I find myself cruising the site, I step away from the screen, grab my coat, and head out into the fresh air. Walking helps. I’m doing okay. The weekends can be hard, though. There’s less to occupy my mind, and I find myself gravitating to that new mall that just opened up downtown.

Sometimes it’s hard to tear myself away from the place, once I’m there. Thanks to the strength of my friends — I never go there alone – and my new habit of buying with a debit instead of a credit card, I’m handling that problem too. So far.

One day at a time, you know.

Today is National Boss’s Day. I know this because I read it in the paper. I don’t know who decreed it to be National Boss’s Day, but as both a Boss and an Employee I salute the day and intend to observe it with proper respect.

Wikipedia says that “National Boss’s Day is usually celebrated by presenting one’s boss with a small gift or greeting card,” and goes on to note that: 

It is also customary to treat one’s boss with extreme kindness, very similar to a birthday. However, the highly commercial nature of this holiday has caused it to take much criticism and many refuse to observe it for that reason.  Others refuse to observe it because they believe their boss is undeserving of celebration.

To that we say, phooey. Fie! And no such thing. Today is a day that celebrates, venerates and notes with interest a relationship that often transcends in importance and financial implication the one we enjoy with spouses, parents or offspring.

Do we neglect our children because they, at times, can be ungrateful wretches? Do we fail to observe Mother’s Day or Father’s Day because the subjects of those events are occasional sources of grief or aggravation? Should we not then extol, laud, praise, embrace and celebrate he or she who represents the font from which all professional joy and misery springs?

Here’s to you, Boss, on this, National Boss’s Day! To you, we give thanks! Thanks!

• Thanks for hiring us in the first place. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here.
• Thanks for all the raises you’ve given to us over the years. And if you haven’t so far, thanks for all the raises yet to come.
• Thanks for being the one who’s up at 3 AM worrying about the future of the business, so we don’t have to, quite so much.
• Thanks for all the cups of coffee you’ve shared with us in the morning, just two regular folks chinnin’ and grinnin’.
• Thanks for putting your feet up on your desk at the end of the day and inviting us in to trade the stories of the day.
• Thanks for protecting our budget when the beancounters come to call.
• Thanks for the promotions you’ve put through for us, and if you haven’t put any through yet, well, thanks for the ones you’re thinking about.
• Thanks for taking the flak from the 47th Floor when it comes in, protecting us from all the angry guys up there.
• Thanks for not caring when we bug out at 3:30 on Friday afternoons in August, or not paying close attention what we’re doing in that big, empty, white week between Christmas and New Year’s.
• Thanks for the expense account.
• Thanks for signing our expense account.
• Thanks for not firing us when we screwed up our expense account a couple of years ago.
• Thanks for remembering the names of our kids, considering there are 376 of them in this department alone.
• Thank you for not smoking, even though you’d really like to light one up every afternoon around 5:00.
• Thanks for not making us work when we’re sick unless it’s absolutely necessary.
• Thanks for giving up your hair and your waistline in pursuit of excellence.
• Thanks for not allowing any McKinsey consultants around here.
• Thanks for the boondoggles.
• Thanks for being human… at least some of the time.
• Thanks for allowing us to love you when you’re good, hate you when you’re bad, and having the good sense not to care too much about either.

So here’s a flower for you, Boss. Yeah, it’s a little wilted because I snatched it from the urn out back. But it’s from the heart.

What are you guys going to do for your boss? You certainly bitch about him or her a lot of the time! Let’s hear some of the good stuff, huh, at least for one day!

As something of a bulls**t artist myself, I was particularly appalled and amused by the story in Friday’s USA Today about Lynn Brewer, a former Enron functionary who, according to the story, has passed herself off as a fallen executive star of the failed energy conglomerate and carved out a huge career in the ethics industry.

According to the story, Brewer, known to her associates at Enron as EddieLynn Morgan, basically whipped up a convincing alternate persona, feasting on the piety and credulity of those in the business of scolding business for fun and profit. She has even been invited to speak to the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo. Working in her favor in this effort seems to be the fact that she can easily be confused with genuine whistle-blower Sherron Watkins, a confusion she apparently did little to dispel.

As we head into this weekend of thought and reflection, I highly recommend a deep read into this little saga. We all of us pretend to be something we are not when we enter the world of business. Some take it to such highly entertaining heights, however, that they provide some kind of lesson for us all.

If you have any idea what that lesson might be, please don’t hesitate to let me know. In the meantime, I’m preparing for National Boss’s Day tomorrow. Ah, what a festive occasion that will be. Or else!

Readers of yesterday’s posting will note that some of the comments offered have a certain… edge. Some of you noticed that the mean boss who couldn’t have cared less about her employee’s prostate cancer was, in fact, a woman. A fair number of you linked her callousness to that fact. A number of others, whose comments I did not publish (a rare thing for me) took this as an opportunity to go off on female bosses in general.

I was kind of shocked by this. I mean, it’s light years down the road from when I started in business, when a female boss was a relatively rare thing and women had to “dress for success,” which meant in the same boring pinstriped garb that we guys are poured into every day. Women now run some of the biggest companies in the world. Many of the ancient, sexist ideas that stereotyped women are fading… or are they? It seems to me that when a man is a lousy boss, people just say he’s a jerk, a psycho, a big fat baby, whatever. When a woman is nasty, pushy, indolent or crazy in one way or another, that fact is immediately ascribed to her gender.

But what do I know? I just work here.

What do you think? Can this subject even be offered up without being offensive? I don’t mean to be. I personally view myself as an equal-opportunity decrier of bad management. But some of you, a fair percentage – all of it male – seem to disagree.

Drop me a line. I won’t publish reeking sexist junk. But I wouldn’t mind a little discussion of whether gender does matter when it comes to the dimension and color of the craziness of our bosses. Can you conduct such a discourse in a civilized manner?

Or is the question itself uncivilized?

E. from Paramus, New Jersey, chimes in with an interesting comment on social networking, in response to my observations on why I will not be joining MySpace any time soon. In so doing, she becomes another person reporting, first hand, on a growing phenomenon: the destruction of one’s virtual self or online profile. ”You bring up a good point,” she begins sagely, since it’s never a bad idea to flatter the blogmaster. Then she goes on:

Another point I’d like to make is that I (a young person) and a lot of other people I know have recently deleted our myspaces… mostly because it hasn’t really done much for our social networking… the people that we were good friends b4 myspace we’re still good friends with, the ones that “found” us on there from high school or wherever else said hi once and never really talked to us again… that was about it… nothing profound… along with the fact that they got to be vouyeurs into our lives. And on top of that myspace caused a lot of drama between a guy I was seeing and me… a lot of trust issues whenever comments were made with the sexes, actually… I deleted mine about a week ago and I don’t miss it… As for voyeurs, I noticed a lot of people would check out my page but not write me a message, so that leads me to believe that its good for people who like to spy on other people in their free time, lol… anyway.. thats my two cents.

Interesting cents they are, both of them! Uncommon good cents, if you don’t mind my saying so!

Elsewhere on this teeming site, you will find a nice bouquet of Q&As that I offer this week. One question of sorts did pop out that I thought would share with you here. I say “of sorts” because while the writer does pose several philosophical queries in the body of his missive, his is not really a question that can be answered, at least by me. It is, however, a helluva good story and more uplifting than you might think at first glance. It also verifies my general contention that inhuman, stinky management does eventually get punished. 

I was initially diagnosed with prostate cancer last year at age 44. My company went through a huge re-organization last year as well and I had a new boss. After 16 years as a top sales engineer I was forced to re-prove my abilities. But what’s more, I had to approach my boss about my medical condition.  She told me, “This is a place of business, if you need to take time off then take time off.”  Then she hung up on me.  (She is located in Denver and does not directly get involved with day-to-day business as she should). 

In fact, she immediately turned up the pressure with aggressive behavior like calling me every fifteen minutes, sending me emails that changed my daily priorities two or three times a day.  I tried to contact our HR team and no luck.  They basically were surprised by the new bosses callousness, but they offered no help and said she had her right to manage the way she felt. 

I decided to leave the company to fight for my health.  Some would say I should have gone on disability, but that’s not me.  I quit and after surgery joined the competition, selling the same product lines.  My new bosses are tremendously supportive and have helped me back to prominence. My sales are good and even though I have treatments every day they don’t want me to overdo it.  I know my old company won a large project I helped with even after my departure, but after that, their sales are flat.  In fact I keep beating them in deals and have taken accounts that just were P.O.’d at this new management team. 

How the heck can she still be there?  She is terrible for morale and does not have enough numbers to show for her behavior.  I could have sued the old employer I think.  But again that’s not me.  Instead I stay between them and their business by simply staying true to the customers and my adherence to integrity. 

Why did my new management think this was the way to do better business?  It’s not even close.  They are not fooling anyone and I love it because my old customers are new customers to my new company.  So the commissions are better too.

What a happy story. As for his questions, in my view there are no answers as to why organizations sometimes find themselves run by mean, unhelpful people. But when they do, the rot starts from the head and goes all the way down through the ranks, passing through the HR department before it exits the system and hits the customers.

The good news is that in general, I believe, what goes around comes around. It’s nice to see evidence of that working thesis now and then. So keep those uplifting cards and letters comin’ in!

As you may know, millions and millions and millions and millions of people visit monster.com every day in search of contacts, community and jobs. There are bulletin boards and forums and chats, and people exchanging digital frisbees and yelling all over the place, many of whom would like a new job, a better job, any job but the one they either do or don’t have. It’s a big clatch of extremely needy people, all clicking away, seething with ambition, optimism and hope.

This month, the masters of Monster have taken it into their heads to solicit the thoughts, horror stories and amusing anecdotes of their users on that prime subject of all working people: their crazy bosses. They’ve set up a whole web page for this input and its doors are open right now. Just click here  and see.

Guess who they’ve asked to read, comment on and otherwise process this crucial, monstrous information? Go ahead, guess! Right! Me! They like me! They really like me!

Sorry. I was channeling Sally Field there for a minute. Anyhow, the deal is that I’ll be doing some of what we do here over there for a while as well, taking questions, reading horrendous tales of woe, and commenting as I see fit, partially as, you know, a public service, of course, but also in the hopes that some of those nine million citizens of monster.com will meander over here to our little backwater, building traffic and making this site even more subject to monetization for me personally.

Next Monday, I’ll be responding to whatever crazy stuff pops up in the monster zone. So log something in over there if you feel like it. And then come back here, bringing some little monsters with you, huh?

Good morning, campers. It’s Monday at 5:45 AM on the West Coast and I feel about as much like working as you do. As a manager, however, I don’t mind making you sit up and do a little something for a couple of minutes.

It occurred to me late last week, as I sat at a desk in my lovely room at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, how many hotels I’ve stayed at in this business life over the many, many years. I thought I might tell you about a few, and then ask you for your tales of horror, pleasure and wonderment.

I remember the hotel in Morgantown, West Virginia, where the Corporation had its retreat for the assorted lifers, short-timers and tormented souls who occupied functions very much like mine in locations from Pittsburgh to what was then called Bombay. I believe the corporation owned the place, which was why they put us there. It was dank, but clean. There were two of us in a room. You’ve never truly experienced psychic discomfort until you’ve seen your business peer in his pajamas.

The “banquet” hall was a large room that smelled of industrial carpet. The scotch, however, was free. Everybody smoked back then, so everything also was redolent of dead cigarettes and cigars, and lots of them. In the room, the curtains were those little jobs you had at a summer cottage, on rings that moved back and forth over a tin pole. There was no minibar. The soap was tiny. We held our big meeting in a huge room that had nothing in it but a high stage and folding chairs. The chairman and his girlfriend, who was the head of communications, got up on the stage in matching velour jumpsuits and told us how much they valued our function. A good portion of the audience was having its first drink of the day, for breakfast.

I remember a hotel in Fresno. The bed would have provided years of study for a phrenologist. The room smelled like the one in Morgantown, only exponential. Outside, in the parking lot and down the street, huge trucks were parked, laden with sleeping truckers who didn’t want to pay the $29 for the room. They offered breakfast in the morning. Cold cereal and powdered milk.

Why was I in Fresno? I think I got tired of driving and didn’t want to risk a sleepy entry into the gigantic megamaze of San Francisco at a very late hour the night before. The TV had only three colors, red, pink and a green that will always stay with me as the color of despair. The soap was tiny.

The hotel at the airport in Sacramento, was a place that could, I believe, give you the DTs if you didn’t have them already. I slept over the covers. The towels were tiny. I don’t have to tell you about the soap.

The penthouse suite at the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas! Or was it the Mirage? No, I think it was the Hilton. I wonder why I can’t remember. The bed was on a platform and the drapes were huge, both vertical and horizontal, and worked with the switch of a button near the headboard. At night, you could open them and see the entire strip all lit up like Rome, burning under Nero.

The minibar could have fed all of Caesar’s legions. There was a full kitchen and a massive plasma screen. I got lost in the bathroom for a couple of hours, and then found my way out. I have never lived in an apartment that was quite that nice. Made me feel better about losing that $647 at the tables.

Another room in Vegas is now coming back to me. No minibar. Murphy bed. Sadness and the stench of loss. Could have been the same hotel, but you know, a different floor.

A big, sumptuous room in Amsterdam somewhere! Very nice bed. Lots of curtains. Bedposts. View of a reeking canal. No internet in the room. No room service. Great bar downstairs, though, filled with very big business types, European style. Crisp. Lots of briefcases. Smoking. Big dark drinks in crystal tumblers. Had to work on the bill with them for about an hour. Lots of weird overcharges. Very Amsterdam, if you don’t mind my saying so. Of course, my feelings could be colored by the fact that I was robbed in the train station there. My advice? Don’t talk to strangers, no matter how friendly or confused they seem. But that’s another story.

The St. Regis in New York. Big, puffy bed. Lots of in-room service. Gorgeous plasma screen. Shockingly opulent amenities. They give you a butler. I have never been buttled. Still haven’t. Was sort of ashamed to ring for the butler to buttle me. Still, the availability of my very own buttler who could be summoned with the push of a button did not fail to impress me.

And then there’s my home away from home when I’m doing business in LA, the Four Seasons on Doheny. The bar is a human pageant. One night I saw Al Sharpton, Charlie Sheen and a fistfight between two agents, all in the space of an hour. Great food. Huge martinis. When I arrive, they always recognize me, greet me, say, “Welcome back!” Sure, it’s hooey. But you know how it is when you’re on the road. Everything is magnified, the good and the bad.

What do you remember?

He wants you to present him with a solution for every problem.

As you may know if you’ve dropped in this week, I’m in Los Angeles doing “business,” which is pretty much what everybody does out here. It’s a funny place. Between driving and taking meetings in restaurants, people are at their desks, I would estimate, about 34% less of the time than in an other major city in the nation. Add to that the X-Factor involved in the time difference with the rest of Planet Capitalism and you just have a different thing going on out here. And if you think people are busting their humps after 3 PM in LA, the way the East Coast guys are doing at that hour in New York or Chicago, you’ve got another thing coming. At 4:00 PM in Los Angeles, the sense of being off the clock is almost palpable. I’m not saying they don’t do anything. I’m just saying I like the vibe.

Anyhow, that made the phone call I got from Larry even more annoying. It came at 3:45, when I was playing a new game from Big Fish on the computer and checking my email in a desultory fashion. Larry is in New York, so he was working late, good for him, blah blah blah. “Stan,” he says, and I can hear in his voice he’s in some kind of freakout about something, as usual. “I want to give you a heads-up about something.” Now, this also bugs me extremely. I hate heads-ups. A heads-up is something people use when they didn’t tell the boss early enough about a terrible thing for the boss to do something about it. I have told my people that yeah, I want to be informed if something is going to happen, but I would like to know about bad stuff early, not in a heads-up at the end of the day. So Larry, for one, keeps offering them to me, which shows he doesn’t listen, among everything else.

“So anyway,” says Larry, and presents me with a very big problem that could create a very bad precedent in our company. You don’t care what it is. I could make up some stuff about it, but the bottom line is that there’s a situation, and if we don’t dig ourselves out of it we’re going to come out looking bad, and probably lose some money. Close your eyes and imagine a situation like that for yourself, and that’s what I’m talking about.

“So Larry,” I say to him. “Don’t you think we should step in and do something about it?” And there’s this silence, and then he says, “That’s why I called you.”

See, that’s what I don’t like about Larry. I mean, I’m not going to fire him or anything because he’s a pretty good manager and what the hell. I don’t fire people unless they completely spit up on their shoes. But he’s definitely on my B-List. Because all Larry does is present me with problems. He never comes to me with a problem in one hand and a gleaming, shiny solution in the other. And that’s what I want. You know why? Because I generally don’t know any better than Larry what to do about things. Just because I’m the boss doesn’t make me a genius, obviously. As the guy closer to the scenario, HE’s the one who should have a few ideas. Why dump it all in my lap?

I’ve got a few people working for me around the country. The guys I like are the ones that say, “Hey, our building out here is about to blow up, but I think if I cut the red wire first and then the green wire I can defuse it,” and then all I have to do is say, “Sure, do that, and hurry.” And then there’s no explosion and I can go back to doing what executives do. I think you know what that means.

So I told Larry what to do, and he did it, and fortunately things worked out okay. That doesn’t change the fact that when Larry calls next time, I’m going to be presented with a problem that has no solution that I’m not going to provide for it. And when I see “Larry” on my Caller ID, I will not smile.

I complained about this to Peter, who works for me out here. He has quite a few reportees reporting to him, too, in the reporting structure. “I know what you mean,” he said, sipping on the Starbucks double espresso with some kind of foam that everybody has surgically attached to their hand out here. “Last month I sent out a memo to my whole staff telling them that I would kill the next person who sent me an e-mail that ended with the phrase, ‘How would you like to handle the situation?’ These people are paid to come up with creative solutions, not just pass along problems to me!”

I like the way Pete is developing as an executive. One day, if he keeps on this track, he may present me with the ultimate solution to any boss’s biggest problem: finding his own replacement.

Good morning from Los Angeles. It’s fabulous here.

I’m up kind of early because they seem to have this time-zone thing where it’s three hours earlier? Yeah, right. Not in my head it isn’t! Anyhow, I thought I’d kick off this morning with a bunch of Ask Bing’s, which you will find in their usual silo on the site. One question from a reader was so charming and alarming I thought I’d get you in the spirit. “Here’s one,” she writes:

I have a passive-aggressive paternalistic boss. I’ve read a couple of your questions-and-answers, but not all, so maybe you’ve covered this already. I have a boss of the classic “everyone knows he’s bad but hey, just put up with him because the management likes him” type. But instead of bullying or yelling directly, he’s passive aggressive. A typical interaction might be him asking “What is your goal for this work?” I give a thoughtful answer. He replies “That’s not a goal”, and then just sits there looking at me. Or he might be reviewing a plan I have submitted, and says “This is not what I asked for. Do you think this is what I asked for?”

Interacting with this guy, I keep feeling like he’s asking me if I am still beating my wife. He poses questions that are unanswerable without coming right out and saying “Yes, you’re right, I AM worthless.” He’s also a master of the awkward silence. He will simply stare at you. BTW all of this aggression is delivered with almost no emotional affect … perhaps a small Mona Lisa smile playing ever so subtley about his lips.

This man is evil, I tell you, evil! Any advice on how to counter it? Thanks!

Dear reader: I have a little advice, although your insight into the guy already has given you a leg up. My thought is this: two can play this game, especially since this operator isn’t even admitting there IS a game. Silence is a powerful tool. He gives you the eyebrow? You respond, “Well, what IS a goal, Murray? I need some help with that.” And then just sit there. After a while of you sitting and looking at each other, he will break and say, “I would hope you knew that.” And you can say, “I thought I knew. But clearly your understanding is different than mine.” And then just sit there. After a while, he will kick you out. Later, go back in and say, “I need a bit more guidance on what was wrong with my deal there.” And then just sit there. As for emotional affect, he’s got it right. Give none. Be pleasant. Out-zen the mother. Good luck.

And good luck to us, each and every one. And to all of you who keep on writing to Ask Bing this and that. I know it sounds kinda demented, but your problems brighten my day.

As for me, I think I’ll have a martini this evening. There’s nothing like a martini at the Four Seasons bar. Last time I was there, I saw Verne Troyer sitting on the lap of a supermodel.  That’s L.A. at its best, don’t you think?

Hi, everybody. You know, sometimes stuff happens. Today it seems like my bandwidth didn’t grok with my incoming digitalis or something like that and the webmasters who are responsible for scrobbling my schmear couldn’t get the gorp into the ecosystem.

In short, no blogs today. Come back tomorrow for a whole bunch of new Ask Bings and a blog or two.

Yeah, yeah, I miss you too. Let’s not get sloppy about the whole thing, okay?

1. It can be ignored. With adept scheduling, planning and a combination of procrastination and zen, it may be conceptually possible to skip entirely from Monday to Wednesday. Work is right now being done on this subject. At this very moment, actually.
2. It can be folded into a very tiny ball and thrown out the window. This may present problems for those who work in office towers with hermetically sealed windows. For those, an air conditioning duct may have to do.
3. It can be eaten. Adept consumers may, during a normal 10 hour workday, expend between five and eight hours on breakfast, lunch, coffee, and early drinks with clients, friends and associates who are equally committed to solving the Tuesday problem.
4. It can be beaten swiftly about the head and ears. But not every Tuesday. This will only create bad feelings that will drool over into Monday and Wednesday, perfectly serviceable days that should not be punished for living in the same neighborhood as Tuesday.
5. It can be fed very slowly into a food processor. This may be done either slowly or quickly, depending on the desired consistency of the detritus one wishes to feed down the drain afterwards.
6. It can be seduced with chocolates and vodka. This may be the most pleasurable solution, but you have to be in the mood, and the Tuesday in question must be at least slightly presentable or waking up with it on Wednesday can be a disheartening experience.
7. It can be put to sleep. This is often the most humane solution, but a lot of people don’t have the stomach for it. The question also remains of what to do with the remains.
8. It can be chewed thoughtfully and then spat out. A rugged solution for cowboy types who can get around the gummy, tough consistency and terrible taste of your average Tuesday.
9. It can be put to work in the salt mines. Only by financial types, though, many of whom don’t really care what day it is.
10. It can be allowed to just lie there without being noticed until it expires. I’m going to do that right now.

I saw a really good movie this past weekend, 3:10 to Yuma. Four tickets cost me more than $40. Popcorn and soda came to about $20. Parking was free, though. But I digress.

The movie is a super-macho shoot-em-up based on an old short story by Elmore Leonard about a classic confrontation between good and evil in the old West. There’s a lot to recommend it, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about today.

One line in it got me thinking. A Pinkerton, played by the gracefully aging, well-chiseled Peter Fonda, has been hired to guard a payroll shipment destined to be the target of the ultra-smooth and charming bandit, Russell Crowe. Someone is extolling the toughness and tenacity of the Pinkerton, who has been gut-shot but is still walking around. “That’s why they pay them $18 a day,” he says.

Eighteen dollars a day. Top wage in the late 19th Century, I guess. Elsewhere in the movie, you see signs that offer a meal for two bits, i.e. twenty-five cents. The meal probably consisted of a steak, potatoes, bread, some strong drink, stuff like that. Pretty good deal. Except most people were making a couple bucks a day, so maybe not. Maybe that was more than some could afford. In any event, it compares favorably to the $245 my son and I spent at Peter Luger the other night for basically the same fare. But then, I make more than $18 a day, I think… although in 2007 dollars? Who knows?

I’ve always been fascinated by what things cost, what they used to cost, whether what they cost now bears any relationship to how currency has changed, shifted over the years. When my dad parked cars for a living in the 1930s, he made $24 a week. Later, as a tenured professor at a major university, he made closer to $40,000 a year. For that wage, plus some income he picked up on consulting on the side, he was able to afford a big house in the suburbs. Of course, that house was purchased in the mid-60s for $34,500. Last year we sold it for a whole lot more than that.

Housing has gone crazy in my lifetime. When I was growing up, there was an entity in the very poshest spicy neighborhood in the county. It was called “the $100,000 house,” and, since it often sits on acres of land, it now goes for between five and ten million dollars.

Then there’s the automobile. My first car was a Ford Maverick, which came in a color called St. Louis Blue. It cost me $1999 fully loaded. At that time, the most expensive car you could get was a Cadillac, which retailed for about $6000. I don’t have to tell you what even the cheapest vehicle comes in at today, although it’s my perception that prices are now moderating a bit. Like, you can get a pretty good car for less than $40,000 now.

Don’t even start on the price of the gasoline that goes into them. When I was in college, which is not all that long ago, ladies and gentlemen, you could get a cheap gas called Merit for 25-cents per gallon. But you don’t have to go that far back to be shocked. Before the oil industry discovered that we’ll pay just about anything to keep driving — before Hurricane Katrina — people were discussing whether the $2.00 gallon was very far away. Many people said that was impossible. Now we know differently.

It’s not all about inflation, though. It’s just fascinating to ponder what money is worth, here and everywhere. I just read an article about life in Poland a few years ago, where some author was trying to purchase a house for several hundred million zlotys, I think it was. That’s a lot of zlotys for a very small house.

In the works of 19th Century English authors — where the value of money is a huge subject, by the way — individuals are often judged on the size of their income. A very, very wealthy aristocrat in the works of Anthony Trollope may be worth several thousand pounds a year. A perfectly respectable gentleman may, however, get by quite nicely on several hundred. And a cleric may subsist on sixty or seventy. How is that possible? Has the pound shrunk in value so dramatically? Certainly, it’s been devalued several times since 1860, but to that extent? And how much does a person need to make right now to be considered wealthy?

Are you wealthy? I’ll bet there are people who think you are. But could you, like a mogul I know, afford to have a fleet of 15 gorgeous cars simply because you like them? Could you, like Google’s (GOOG) Sergei Brin and Larry Page, go flying around on your own jumbo jet? Or are you rich because you can pick up anything under $500 without thinking about it? Or because you’re the only one with three cows in your village?

I do okay. But sometimes, well, I just don’t know. Last weekend, for instance, I went to a party out on the west coast. The hosts were a couple who made some money in hedge funds and real estate. Their ranch sits on about 100 acres in the middle of a Northern California mountain range. They have a barn and a bunch of stalls. They just finished building their home in the Italianate style, stucco, yellow brick, that kind of thing. There’s an infinity pool in the back. This is one of eight homes they own around the world. Our host said to me, “We’re doing okay, but we’re not as well-off as the folks we know in Jacksonville, Florida. Those people are really loaded!”

I’m sure the people in Jacksonville, by the way, feel the same about all those rich folks hunkering down in, say, Beverly Hills, Grosse Pointe or the Amalfi Coast. With an entry-level Maybach sedan clocking in at more than $335,000, it’s possible that nobody has enough money to make ends meet these days.