Hi. I’m in LA. There are a lot of things to like about LA, and I like all of them. Maybe that’s because I don’t live here. People who live here complain about it a lot. There are certainly a lot of things to complain about, mostly having to do with the traffic, which really is horrendous, no doubt about it. But for a business person on a legitimate trip here, there’s really very few cities that can compare. If this is a city. Which I doubt. 

The Center Does Not Hold: Gertrude Stein said about Oakland that “there’s no there there,” but I’ve been to Oakland recently and take it from me, there’s more There in Oakland than there is is LA. Here there is truly no there. And that’s one of it’s major appeals. Everywhere we go in business, we have to be there. The fact that there is no there here makes it very interesting. Because wherever you go is almost equally worthwhile. It’s not like Manhattan or Chicago or even San Francisco, where if you’re not in a specific part of town, depending on your business, you’re not Where It Is.

Here you could be in Westwood. You could be in Fairfax. You could be in Burbank. You could be in Studio City. You could be just about anyplace but downtown LA, where nobody goes except the booksellers this week, because it’s their big convention and nobody told them that nobody wants to be in downtown LA, ever. The really big business takes place where people have coffee and a little pastry. Which explains Santa Monica, where there’s all this cool stuff going on and everybody’s walking around in shorts and a baseball cap making deals that gross billions. 

Time Out of Mind: In addition to there being no hierarchy of place, the timing of the whole place is weird. Like, I was up at 6 today, talking to people in New York. Sounds bad, I know, but in a way it’s not. You get all the tough stuff behind you first thing in the morning. Then you have a little juice, take a run, maybe, throw a frisbee with the dog, that kind of thing. Pretty soon it’s time to go to the office.

You’ve just spent three hours while everybody back east is ripping their hearts out with can openers and you haven’t even broken a sweat. When you get to your desk here, if you have a desk here, if your desk isn’t in a Starbucks (SBUX) or Four Seasons, it’s lunchtime back where people are wearing tight clothes and yelling at each other about the price of something. Before you know it, it’s time for your lunch when they’re just getting back from theirs. Come 11:30 or so, you’ve got to get into your car and drive to your lunch place, which takes a while, and then it’s time to eat and them come back and New York is already thinking about going home! Honestly, I believe that people in LA think they’ve worked a hard day when they had a lunch and maybe two meetings! To me? That’s a good philosophy. 

Pressure Drop: Look, I know if I lived here I would eventually torque up the neurotic internal temperature. But I just don’t feel it here. Maybe that’s why all those crazy people came out here in the 20s and 30s… because Uncle Morty and Dad were back east and there was time to peel an orange and take a swim here with nobody to say, “Hey! What are you doing! Get back to work!”

Yesterday, I had lunch in a funky little place in Studio City. It was full of people who had some part of them extruding a post or silver stud of some kind. I had a burger. The guy at the next table, who was talking about putting a script into turnaround, had French Toast. My guess is that he was eating breakfast at 1 PM. What I wouldn’t give, ladies and gentlemen, to be eating a business breakfast at 4 PM New York time. 

Anyhow, I’m here until tomorrow, then I go up to Silicon Valley for a visit with some of the dudes who are monetizing the ether. Until then, I’ll see you when I see you. 

It is possible that the problem with the world right now, or at least one of the problems with the world, which seems to have its fair share at this point, is that people are required to give their opinions on matters that are relatively obscure, and then, due to the nature of Information Flow at this juncture, everybody is informed of their opinions immediately. And we shouldn’t be.

Take this economic situation, for instance. We all know it stinks. A trip to France in Coach now costs $2,000 U.S. dollars and, even worse, a martini in Paris is now running thirty bucks. It cost me $35 to fill up a Scion XB last weekend. We have recession and deflation and inflation and stagflation and everybody is planning their stay-cation this summer.

Naturally, even though we’re experiencing this depressing compression ourselves, we also need to read about it all the time, for some reason. Why, I don’t know. But this demand to suck our thumbs with bogus speculation must be satisfied, and for that we need to hear from people who are required, for a variety of reasons, to know things we don’t know, and express that status continually.

The thing is, they don’t know. They have opinions, sure. Their opinions are possibly more educated than ours, but education isn’t everything. In the end, what we’re reading about are opinions. And when the smart guys don’t agree, what’s the valuation of all this flatulation?

So again, back to this economic decrepitudination we’re undergoing. We begin the week with two smart people who further confuse us.

First we have Alan Greenspan whose further additions to his previously stated opinions about the situation is dutifully reported in the Financial Times and quoted in today’s Daily Briefing. Apparently we have a 50% chance of being in a recession, according to this very smart individual, who used to be infallible until he wasn’t anymore. It seems, he says, that there is data indicating things are stabilizing, but it’s too early to tell. If we do have a recession, it won’t be that bad though, probably. He says. Unless, you know, a bunch of other stuff happens, in which case things could get worse. 

At the same time, Warren Buffet, who is always right so far, is quoted by the AP as saying: ”I believe that we are already in a recession,” while doing something in Germany, apparently. “Perhaps not in the sense as defined by economists. … But people are already feeling the effects of a recession.” He added, ”It will be deeper and longer than what many think.” Referring to Greenspan? Probably not.

Do we believe him? Don’t we always believe him? Sure, we have a little tickle in the back of our minds that wonders whether Warren has bet in some way that there will be a recession and is now making money on it… but no, he’s probably right. We’re in one. Unless we’re not and it’s only a 50% shot that it will be, and when it does come, as Alan says, it may not be so bad, unless it is. 

I go back to my suggestion. I think we should all take as much money out of the bank as we can, every day, and spend it on something other than gasoline. Shop at places whose owners need our money to pay their rent. Press the politicians and the banks to work out some alternative to foreclosures. And stop reading other people’s opinions. 

Except mine, of course. Please don’t do that. 

Boulevardiers and professional business diners throughout the New York City area have been chattering this week about a recent piece in the New York Times that announced, once and for all, who had been elected the Mayor of Michael’s. That throne went to Joe Armstrong, formerly of ABC and now a consultant, man-about-town and rainmaker. The news conferred upon one fortunate individual a formal level of power and recognition in an establishment that determines much of the reputational action in town.

For those who don’t work in New York and who aren’t in the fields of publishing, media, finance and mogul-stroking, Michael’s is the fulcrum upon which the self-regard of midtown business turns. It’s a restaurant, but moreso, in the sense that food is only a small part of what the institution is about. It’s about where you sit and who you sit with. It’s about who has the biggest pecker in the pecking order. It is the Club for all who wish to belong to a place that WOULD like to have them as a member.

There are and have been many places like it over the years — Les Deux Magots in Paris during the mid-20th Century, the Russian Tea Room on West 57th in the 70s and 80s. Each filled a certain interstitial gap between segments of society. Michael’s has been doing this job for the haute working/ruling class since the late years of the millennium just past, its light, frisky sauces and fresh dayboat scallops providing the glue that has brought together bankers, film-makers, publishers, writers, actors, power players and a host of lesser, fatuous people, and made them feel good about themselves. I have had the honor of being in that last group for some years, having been an early luncher and among the first to have attended breakfast at the establishment, a daily event that now trumps even the Regency on 61st Street in its pretensions and awesome influence of some sort.

The news that Armstrong has been sanctified and installed as the Mayor of Michael’s was in no way news to any of us. Each day he attends, the restaurant puts a little ceramic boot with a cactus in it on his table, signifying his status as an official in the domain. I believe the boot is there because Joe comes from Texas. It’s very nice, and makes everybody just a little bit jealous. I have always felt that, under the circumstances, and given my loyalty to the place, I should have a wing tip filled with pastrami on my table when I am in attendance, but so far have avoided mentioning the matter. These things come with certain recognition, and I surmise that in spite of my stature (or perhaps because of it), I have yet to break through to this level.

Armstrong’s investiture, while in no way a surprise, did throw the entire community into a tizzy of anxiety. Jockeying immediately began for the remaining titles still vacant.

Rumors abound, for instance, that former Governor of New York State Eliot Spitzer is about to throw his hat into the ring for either Governor of Michael’s, or possibly, given the circumstances of his recent change-of-venue, the title of Emperor of Michael’s. Spitzer may have a tough time getting the nomination. He has yet to be seen at the establishment, even though my standing offer for a free lunch has been hanging out there for over a month. If he’s serious about this effort, he should definitely take me up on it. I can guarantee him a very nice table against the wall.

Other positions that are said to be available at this juncture include:

• King of Michael’s: possible names in the running include Ron Perelman and Harvey Weinstein, although a dark horse candidate like Hallmark nabob Henry Schleiff could not be counted out;
• President and CEO of Michael’s: Former Disney (DIS) topper Michael Eisner would seem to be a shoe-in here, but the sighting of former president Bill Clinton in the restaurant has cast some doubt on who would be victorious when the battle is done;
• Chancellor of the Exchequer of Michael’s is wide open right now, but a major player in turnaround at this moment like Stan O’Neal or Alan Greenspan would certainly be a shoe in.
• Executive Vice President of Public Relations of Michael’s: This is a tough one, but in an obvious position of strength is HarperCollins bigwig David Hirshey (pictured, left, with Michael himself, above) and CBS Corporation’s (CBS) Gil Schwartz, who declines interest but has indicated to friends, on background, that he would serve if drafted.
• And of course Barry Diller could have just about any position he wants.

I’ll keep you posted on this exciting race and how it develops.

Beth from Chevy Chase, MD, lobbed in an eloquent comment to a prior posting in this spaceconcerning the death of one of my favorite childhood establishments in Chicago. Every now and then I like to wrest some of your thoughts from the blogroll of time and give them a little air and sunshine, particularly on a rainy and recessed day here in New York.

Beth’s remarks are all the more germane as we consider the confluence of trends on which we’re now surfing. One the one hand, the price of fuel is soon going to limit our ability to travel, ship goods and hence create the kind of national branding that has always been a way of life for us. On the other hand, local businesses are dying faster than you can say Odd Lots.

Anyway, here’s Beth on the subject.

It was with deep sadness that I learned of the demise of Marshall Fields. I lost my dearly beloved Woodward & Lothrop in the middle of the 1990’s and spent years finding alternative places to make my purchases.

Competition is good for the soul and good for the economy. Our traditional places of commerce held a special and important place in the culture of our cities and suburbs. Too bad, newcomers did not feel loyal to the local establishments. Too bad that these folks did not understand the value of these local establishments.

No one needs to have all cities and suburbs alike with a common denominator that is always the lowest.

The lack of commerce for local establishments has vast repercussions.

Competition helps keep prices lower, helps keep the marketplace fresh. The traditional establishments provided many jobs and benefits to their employees. There was a loyalty contract, often unspoken, between employer and employee.

As the United States continues on its quest to be a mobile society, mobile persons should learn the culture of their new environment. It is mandatory for our economic future to maintain and sustain local businesses.

Establishing business outside the community supports an economy housed outside the community. The external business does not feel any urge to provide assistance to employees or to the local community at large. These big, out of state organizations, favor efforts that fit their national goals, rarely providing support for communities where they do business.

How sad it is that the modern economy fails to teach loyalty to local businesses. How dreadfully sad it is. I long for competition I long for consumer choices. I long to support local businesses. Alas, I long for something that is no longer an option.

Consumers need their Marshall Fields, their Woodward & Lothorp, and, their Julius Garfinckles & Co. There is no better shopping than these, now defunct, shopping havens. It is tragic that this fine institution has fallen away. Marshall Fields offered a brand name in shopping that cannot be recreated by the big box shops. Personal attention to customer needs and wants separated the department stores from the rest of the bunch.

Thanks.

Thank YOU, Beth. I note that you posted this melancholy screed at about 2:53 AM this morning. Sounds like you keep my kind of deplorable hours, online habits and prevailing mood at that hour.

Now I’m going to go downstairs to the corner store. I like the muffins and coffee there, both of which seem home made. There’s a Pret-A-Manger moving in across the street and I’d like to make a little statement when I buy my breakfast, as long as I have the opportunity to do so.

I don’t know why everybody is pussyfooting around about this. I think it’s safe to say that, with oil blasting up to $200-a-barrel sometime soon, another inexorable millstone suddenly sails into view. I want to be the first to say it. Remember where you read it first.

The hell with $200-a-barrel oil. That’s so 2008. By 2010, we’re going to see crude oil reach $1000-per-barrel.

I say this with absolutely as much information at hand as the pundits who are now making headlines for themselves by their soggy $200 predictions. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. So I’m going to not know what’s happening at an even more dramatic level.

$1000-a-barrel oil! What a concept! Let’s look at a few of the implications, not all of which are negative, if you’re a hippy:

• Air travel, except to five or six hub cities, will end.
• The Interstate Highway System will moulder, since most people will only be able to drive locally.
• There will be no cars that are not hybrids on the few remaining roads, but even those will be only for the very rich who can afford $27-per-gallon gasoline.
• Vehicles that run on alternative forms of energy will proliferate. Most will achieve speeds up to 8 mph.
• There will be no food available that is not grown locally. The nation will quickly become overrun with chickens.
• All businesses that have any element involving transportation of people or goods will fold.
• Unable to go anywhere, people will communicate primarily by cell phone and e-mail, eventually crashing the Internet and plunging society back into the mid-20th Century.
• The countryside will empty out; 95% of the population will need to live in urban areas since transport will be too expensive for most people.
• The average one-bedroom co-op in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York will go for $50 million.
• The Federal Government will still be cutting generous arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

Of course, there are many things that could slow this process down. But none of them seem to be in place. Why should we believe that something will be done before it’s too late?

Isn’t it sort of too late already?

There are many tough things about working for a living. You have to show up someplace every day, even when you don’t want to. You have to wear the uniform, even when it might not suit you, and there really is very little difference between a three-piece suit or a Burger King cap when you get right down to that. You have to work on your birthday. You have to wake and sleep, even, according to the job’s Circadean rhythms, not your own.

But all that pales in comparison to the toughest of situations for any working person: not knowing if your department, your company, your senior management will survive. We give a lot to become part of an organization, and it doesn’t matter if that means a gigantic corporation or a convenience store in a strip mall. It’s our place of work. Our demented and insufficient home away from home. And we like to know what’s what, what’s up and what’s down, who’s in and who’s out, who to kiss up to and who to kick when they’re down.

A merger/sale/acquisition changes all that. Suddenly, he or she who was strong appears vulnerable, weak. Hated competitors abruptly morph into welcome conquerors. It’s not easy. Yesterday’s jerk from Company B is now your esteemed department head. For a while, everything is in play before it settles in.

That’s bad enough. But how much worse is it to be in play with no end in sight.

This brings us to the great people of Yahoo (YHOO). What a ride it’s been for them recently! First here comes the bouncing Ballmer (MSFT) with his bid. Management strikes back. The big bald wolf fades from the door. Then who shows up but the grim reaper himself, the Icahn (CARL) of destruction, always in the name of shareholder value but really just in business for himself, a force of nature that arrives, bumps the stock price a little, or a lot, reaps the harvest of his machinations, and then fades, leaving nothing but twisted wreckage behind. He’s still in the weeds right now, lurking quite noisily, if one may lurk noisily.

Then, to add to the mix, here comes MSFT again with another foray, with the supposed white knights of GOOG waiting in the sky, hovering, looking for a chance to throw their thunderbolts… a case where the cure, in the end, may be worse than the disease for smaller and less durable life forms.

What does all this add up to? Confusion. The unraveling of all that once appeared solid and reliable. A feeling in every worker from the most high to the most fungible that each day on the this particular job could be the last.

So you can look at the macro trends, the market forces, the financial implications. But me, I just feel sorry for the people who have to work on the plains where this particular battle is being waged. Whoever wins, a lot of terrain is going to get trampled. Good luck to anything that has the misfortune to be living on it when the whole big deal goes down.

To those unsophisticated in the business arts, the behavior of Wall Street and its analysts may seem arbitrary, based on emotion, greed, self-aggrandizement and a narrow understanding of the true interests of organizations and the customers they serve. It takes deep study to perceive otherwise, in fact. Just this morning, for instance, a company we all know was downgraded. I’m not going to tell you which one, or who downgraded it from Outperform to Neutral, because 1) I don’t want to hurt the company any further, because it is a great one and 2) I don’t want the analyst who did it to get any publicity, even in this limited venue.

The reason why the company in question was downgraded? It’s doing too well. It’s had too good a run. And because it’s had such a good year in a down economy, it makes Analyst-Style Sense (you work out the acronym) to bet that they’re not going to do as well in the future. Hence the downgrade.

Now, you may think, just looking at the bald facts of the matter, that this line of thought is capricious, punitive and in the long-term best interest of nobody in particular. But you would be wrong. It is a consistent, totally rational outcome of the general expectations that Wall Street and its various dogsbodies have of your company.

I thought I would begin this week with a very small, very pungent overview of this issue, since those who understand it are better equipped to manage their enterprises and invest in those that toe the line.

Here is what Wall Street wants from your company:

1. Grow. If you made $6 billion in profit last year and you make $6 billion in profit this year, you stink. You need to grow revenue, earnings per share and profits every single quarter. If you want to invest in your businesses, or have changed your business mix year-to-year, that’s okay for you. As long as the raw numbers increase.
2. Grow double digits. And single-digit growth isn’t enough. You must produce bigtime expansion in all key measures or you will be punished.
3. Grow double digits without acquisitions. And oh yes. Wall Street doesn’t like you to spend your money on growth via acquisition. It wants you to grow, of course, but also not to buy anything to do so. If you do, they will hammer you.
4. Grow double digits while selling stuff. Also, Wall Street really glows with pleasure if you’re constantly monetizing your assets. This means continually selling off stuff, preferably stuff that’s performing very well. You can say that you captured its value at the top of its curve, and that passes for intelligence in this domain.
5. Fire people. Wall Street also loves you to can people. The more people you fire, the better they like it. Wall Street feels that the exercise of management control and firing people are one in the same thing, and will reward you for it.
6. Fire more people than you did last year. If you have growth in this area as well as all others, they’ll be happy about that too.
7. Grow double digits without acquisitions while firing a lot of people and selling stuff every year. Obviously, you have to do all of this simultaneously and work out the internal inconsistencies. But that’s why you went to business school, right? What do you mean, you didn’t?
8. Do stock buybacks. In addition, Wall Street would also like you to take all the cash generated by your businesses and give it back to investors as often as possible. It is very annoyed, as previously noted, if you use it to purchase growth, and even more annoyed if you utilize your cash to growth internally, offer employees better benefits, or bank it to improve your balance sheet.
9. When you run out of all other ideas, put yourself in play. Any company that can’t be bought and broken up into its constituent parts suffers a huge discount in its share price. The purchase and subsequent destruction of corporate organizations makes Wall Street hot and zingy.
10. Treat your company like an investment, not an operation. The rise of MBA thinking has created the conviction that organizations exist not to provide a service to customers, or a place of employment for workers, but as a machine whose purpose is to disgorge money to the people who own its stock. Once you understand this, the rest falls into place.

NOTES: People to make happy include sell-side analysts, buy-side analysts, psychoanalysts, little old ladies with one share of stock, hedge funds betting on your demise, the press that covers Wall Street. People to disregard: employees, long-time management of the company, customers to the extent that their demands impinge on all the factors above.

That’s it. Don’t thank me. Have a nice day.

You may notice I’ve been a bit hors de combat for the last day or so.  That means off the field… out of the fight… not present and accounted for… you know, outta here. No, I didn’t die. I didn’t, God knows, go on vacation. I’ve been sucking it up, because it’s show time.

Every now and then, in spite of everything you do, you get to a period of time where if you don’t work like a slave, you’re toast. Suddenly, everything is on the line. There are important presentations to investors, say… or an annual meeting… or a gathering of all the senior management in the company at which you must present… or a Board meeting at which the future will be mapped out… or all of these at once.

You don’t have to be told it’s crunch time. You know. You go home at night, your head swimming with all the things you have to do. You sleep a couple of hours, maybe, and then it’s suddenly 3 AM and you’re up to stay, exhausted, stressed out, heart pounding in your chest.

You look at your calendar — not the one on paper, or on Outlook, but one in your mind — and you realize that tomorrow will be no better. Nor the day after that. Nor next week. It’s Hell, pretty much from here on in, at least until next month rolls around, and if things don’t go just right it just might mean a long, slow circle down that big dark drain.

As dawn breaks each morning, you hear the birds singing, the trash man on his merry rounds, the dogs barking at each other on the first walk of the day… and you envy them all. Because they are not you.

You don’t feel like getting out of bed. But you do. You don’t feel like shaving or putting on the costume… but you do. Because when you get right down to it, this what they pay you for: your ability to suck it up and go into battle when the hour of decision arrives.

So that’s where I’ve been. And that’s where I’ll be.

I’ll see you when I see you.

I understand the purveyors of malware, sort of, the same way I get why people spraypaint walls or put chewing gum where people can step on it.  At their most virulent, I suppose the digital vandals aren’t that far from the anarchists who placed bombs in train stations, ostensibly as a philosophical or political statement, but really because they were nuts who wanted to hurt people.

In my imagination, I can certainly picture the guys who authored the “I Love You” virus sitting around and chortling about the people they stung with their idiotic handiwork a few years ago. I was one. I was doing what I always did at that time: downloading music while I worked. The champions of repression and copyright protection had recently swung into action and killed the peer-to-peer version of Napster that was my main joy back then. This seemed weird to me, I recall. How was anybody being hurt by me downloading 50-year-old tracks that were nowhere available on CD or vinyl? Anyhow, that ship sailed, and Napster was shuttered, and I found myself on Kazaa.

I had inputted the name “Van Morrison” into the search window and come up with a nice roster of tunes, selected them all and hit Enter. Then all hell broke loose.

I’ve never seen anything like it. My screen flipped to Outlook and a rolling torrent of messages began scrolling down my display like water over a sluice, e-mail being ejected from my outbox at a terrifying rate. The outgoing messages all bore protestations of my love for the recipient, which I saw to my horror included the CEO, the President, the CFO and every vice president, executive vice president and senior executive vice president in the organization, as well as hordes of people I did not know.

In six seconds I ascertained what had happened and turned off my computer. In that tenth of a minute, I later learned some 5,000 e-mails were delivered. The people who received them immediately knew two things: 1) I had been doing something I shouldn’t have been doing on my computer that had nothing to do with company business and 2) I was a stupidhead who couldn’t quietly manipulate his hardware without getting caught.

Fortunately people already knew this about me, pretty much. I got a lot of nice e-mail afterwards that I treasured. My favorite was from our CEO at the time, a notoriously tough, no-nonsense dude, who wrote me back, “Thanks, man. I love you, too.” The least amused were the IT guys, who as usual had to clean up the mess.

Flip forward to this morning, when I got an e-mail that said:

Please read: Big Virus coming
 
I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up for this virus.  I checked Snopes and it is for real!! Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP. 
 
You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled ‘POSTCARD,’ regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which ‘burns’ the whole hard disc C of your computer.  This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list. This is the reason why you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.
 
If you receive a mail called’ POSTCARD,’ even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately.
 
This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.

COPY THIS E-MAIL, AND SEND IT TO YOUR FRIENDS. REMEMBER: IF YOU SEND IT TO THEM, YOU WILL BENEFIT ALL OF US. 

At this point, it can be said that I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I went to Google, which sent me to the excellent Urban Legends site at about.com. That’s right. There is no such virus. Sure, there are a host of mean, destructive Trojans, mugwumps, weasels and other malware that people have devised to attack you via greeting card. And you should watch out for them. This, however, is not one of them.

So we’re back to my original question. What kind of numbnuts gets his jollies creating bogus information that simply scares other people to no good purpose?

Isn’t that the job of financial journalism?

CNNMoney today features a very pretty gallery of homes now being offered in the top ten real estate marketing in the United States. These markets are:

• Grand Rapids, MI
• Baton Rouge, LA
• El Paso, TX
• McAllen, TX
• Rochester, NY
• Birmingham, AL
• Syracuse, NY
• Buffalo, NY
• New Orleans, LA
• Scranton, PA

First of all, I think it’s nice to see that any real estate markets are growing in this climate. Beyond that, this list is slightly frustrating, because they are all united by one common factor: I can’t live there.

It’s not that I wouldn’t want to. I love the idea of buying a house for $109,000 in a town like Syracuse, NY, and watching it appreciate over time. It’s just that any business I’m involved in has nothing to do with Syracuse, and even if peripheral portions of it does, I have no reason to attend operations from that location. Same goes for Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s always been on my list of places to go, but in my entire career no phone call has ever transpired that ended with the words, “You’re going to have to go to Grand Rapids right away.”

I have been in Texas a couple of times, most memorably in Irving, Texas, when my company was pitching for the right to build a cable television system there. It was very flat and hot. I had a feeling that there was a lot more going on in that state than what I saw during my three days in Irving. So I look forward to going back some day. But I don’t believe there’s going to be any call for me to settle down either in McAllister or, for that matter, El Paso, which I hear is also a heck of a burg.

And Scranton? I had a boss once from Scranton. He was a terrific guy. In fact, I’ve known quite a few people who came from Scranton. I never knew anybody who actually stayed there, though. I’m sure that’s no fault of Scranton’s. It’s just that for the most part a lot of the action is taking place in cities that are not Scranton.

In the places my friends and I are forced to live and work, people pay $750,000 for a 600-square-foot broom closet and count themselves lucky, or $1.25 million for a two-bedroom cottage with one bathroom. And for some reason the fastest-growing real estate markets aren’t anywhere near any of those places, so much the worse for us.

So I guess we have a choice. We can quit and go live in a place that is growing. Or keep on paying through the nose for low-growth domiciles in cities whose real estate markets are in the doldrums, dreaming all the while of the investment home we may never possess in boom towns like Buffalo, Rochester or Baton Rouge.

A few years ago I began to notice a phenomenon pertaining to power and the exercise thereof. We all know, thanks to Lord Acton, that absolute power corrupts absolutely. We see that not only in daily life but in our ever churning news cycles on a global scale, writ large.

It is equally true, however, that minuscule power is likely to warp its possessor. I noticed this first at the beginning of my career, when the functionary in charge of painting my little office made me go through weeks of process, requisition and clarification; and anyone who has waited for a toll taker on the highway to count out his or her change while a line forms behind will also know what I mean.

I believe it may be possible to work out a mathematical expression of this idea. It would yield an inverse bell curve, I believe, with the amount of abuse highest at the two ends of the power spectrum – greatest and least. While I work out a trademark on this idea, I thought I might requisition your own tales illustrating this concept: small power, big abuse, due possibly to the mental collapse of those who are condemned to suffer with just a tiny bit of self-regard over years of service.

My first illustration of this notion comes from a source very close to home. In fact, she was IN my home up until a few years ago when she had the temerity to grow up. The correspondent is my daughter, who now works in the world of business, too, although hers is slightly more dignified than mine. She writes:

“Last weekend, my friend Jenny and I traveled from Manhattan to Westchester County to attend a close friend’s bridal shower. We had bought round trip tickets between Grand Central and New Rochelle stations, which is on the New Haven line, since that was what made the most sense at the time of purchase. The shower went well: food, games, and much merry. Afterwards, it turned out that it made more sense for us to depart from Crestwood, a nearby station on the Harlem line. Years of traveling to and from our parents’ homes in the vicinity had taught us that both destinations cost the exact same amount on the Metropolitan Transit Authority. To the penny. To the millipenny. And, after years of conflict-free MTA travel, we’d learned that the tickets were basically interchangeable. No conductor had ever contended this practice.

No conductor, that is, until this past Sunday, when we met the one brave—nay, militant—soldier of which the proud MTA organization may boast.

High on the residual effects of the bridal shower, with warm weather, chardonnay, and pasta buzzing about our brains, I thoughtlessly handed our New Haven line tickets to the devout Harlem line employee. She took them, and stopped in her stout tracks.

“Do you have a ticket for THIS line?” she demanded. Surprised, Jenny and I stared at her for a moment. “This is for the New Haven line ONLY. It states that right there on the ticket. DO YOU HAVE A TICKET FOR THE HARLEM LINE?” To which Jenny, somewhat without subtlety, replied, “Are you kidding me?”

“NO. I AM NOT KIDDING YOU!” the conductor yelled.

At this point, we took some care to explain to her, quite rationally, that we weren’t trying to get away with anything. In fact, the tickets were of equal value and we’d done this a million times. She, in turn, launched into a fiery tirade about thoughtless fellow conductors who “DON’T CARE ABOUT THEIR JOBS OR THE RULES OF THE MTA!!” I was immediately transported to a mental image of this functionary on her lunch break, cramming a tuna fish sandwich down her throat while perched above the titanium toilet in the train’s lavatory, muttering to herself while the other MTA employees leap through the aisles, throwing money at commuters and IGNORING THE RULES.

She removed a laminated pamphlet from her front shirt pocket.

“I want you to read these rules,” she seethed.

“Really,” I said. “We believe you. It’s just never been an issue.”

“Well APPARENTLY, you DON’T! READ IT!”

With no other option than either to comply or be thrown off the train, Jenny accepted the leaflet and gave it a mollifying glance. “Uh huh,” she said. “Okay. I see.”

“I don’t know if you UNDERSTAND that or not, but that’s what it says.”

We looked at her in amazement. “No, no, we understand it, thanks.”

“Now,” she continued with quiet menace. “What I DO, in these SITUATIONS…I will take your tickets as a courtesy…” We began to thank her, but she waved our gratitude away. “…As a COURTESY! AND IF I EVER SEE YOU AGAIN WITH NEW HAVEN LINE TICKETS…” Once again her voice deepened to a threatening growl. “You have been warned.” Pale and trembling, we thanked her and mentally willed her to leave. After a long glare, she finally did so, mumbling to herself as she went down the aisle, ““It’s just that people don’t care! The conductors, that is. The rules! The rules! The MTA!” Her grumbling got softer and softer as she made her way down the row and out of the car with a definitive CLANG!”

That’s the story. But it’s only one. I am put in mind of the American Airlines gate agent who recently made an entire planeful of people wait for the redeye while he had a pleasant conversation with a flight attendant.

So many other ripe examples rear up in my imagination. All aggravating. All illustrations of this principle of power.

Got one?

Just a little story this morning. I knew this guy, see. And he was a yutz. We banged skulls quite a few years ago, where he demonstrated a willingness to screw people when it was unnecessary to do so. I make this distinction because as you know in business it is sometimes necessary to screw people. This was not the case here. This guy kind of cut a swath through whatever work he was doing, did what he needed to do to make himself look good, which he wasn’t, lied when it suited him, pointed fingers when things didn’t work out, was a general hose bag.

Years passed, and I watched as this worm popped out of one corporate apple after another. And no, this isn’t a jab at Apple. It’s a metaphor. Worm pops out of an otherwise perfectly good piece of fruit. Sees another one, all shiny and new, on an adjacent branch of the global tree of corporate capitalism. Crawls out of his existing hole and cleverly burrows his way into the next. That’s what I’m talking about.

So anyhow, a few years ago, this guy pops up at a relatively well-known retail outfit in a large midwestern city that shall remain nameless. At the time, the firm is doing quite well and the guy I’m talking about takes a nice profile, giving speeches, head shot in the trades, that kind of thing.

Then, as you all know, the climate changes, the economy does whatever the hell you think it’s doing, and suddenly retailers aren’t percolating anymore, in fact they’re doing pretty lousy, including this company that now houses the wormish dude I’m telling you about. Sure enough, after about six months of this, the guy pokes his nose around and sees that another place, in another industry entirely, may be interested in whatever it is he’s selling. Time to go. We all get that. Bloom is off the rose. Too bad. So sad. See ya. Don’t wanna be ya.

That’s not the problem. You gotta go where the action is, particularly if you’re an action junkie and opportunist. The thing I loved, because it confirmed my faith in the reliability of Character, was the way he did it. About a week before he bolted, a little piece of slime appeared in an online aggregator/terminator dedicated to hurting anything it writes about. The jist of the post, which everybody in that particular industry read, was that this guy was leaving his current firm because he could no longer associate himself with his current employer. Why? Because he simply could not stand being in the same company with a Chairman whose moral lifestyle was not above reproach. There was more schmutz, but that was the long and the short of it. This fellow was simply TOO decent, TOO clean and upstanding, to deal with the moral insufficiencies of his superior.

Of course, the piece was unsourced. My guy’s fingerprints were nowhere on it. Thus he managed to get publicity for himself and to besmirch the place that had paid for his life for the last four or five years and the crazy, beseiged individual who runs it.

When you gotta go, you gotta go, I guess. But this way? I don’t think so.

But what do you think? I’m sure there are plenty of you out there who think I’m a total weenie here. Aren’t we all in business for ourselves? Aren’t we supposed to do whatever it takes to get ahead? Don’t we live in a world unguided by loyalty, sentiment and personal honor? Doesn’t it make sense to play to unsourced, unedited, unscrupulous internet to our benefit?

Aren’t those who may think otherwise, like, total losers?

1. I like reading all the articles in the normally sycophantic Apple (AAPL) magazines promising to fix the 10 Things You Hate About Leopard.

2. I like to think about the meetings they had at Apple, in which the Development people fought with the Marketing people over whether the product was ready to be brought to market. Obviously, the Marketing people won.

3. I like to imagine what life is like for the Apple PR Department, which does such a good job positioning the company as an innovator and a creative force, and now has to deal with hoards of infuriated people who don’t understand why stuff that used to work, doesn’t anymore.

4. I like to hunt around for my wireless connection when it disappears from my Airport toolbar. Where did it go? Who are all these other people whose wireless networks appear, where mine does not? Should I get to know them? Do they mind me poaching their hookups when mine disappears?

5. I like wondering why my file sharing protocol between computers on my home network seems just ever so slightly kerflooey.

6. I like bumping into comments online and in the magazines confirming that the file sharing protocol in Leopard is a little kerflooey.

7. I like the mental picture of technicians at Apple working day and night to fix the teeny-weeny crazy stuff that people seem to care about — like whether certain features display their contents in alphabetical order from the top down or the bottom up, or why there is no built-in growl notification in I-Chat. How much dough is spent to correct issues like that?

8. I like realizing there are many, many people out there who are angry that the Dock has become transparent. There must not be enough problems in this world.

9. I like the idea that a whole little industry has popped up of third-party developers who are making money providing fixes to Leopard. That’s what I call stimulating the economy!

10. I like going back to my old laptop, firing it up and going back to the operating system that served me well for so many years. Give ‘em hell, Tiger!

You can almost hear the Yahoos from YHOO as MSFT’s bid dropped away, along with about 20% of its market cap. Big credit, as is to be expected in any matter related to cyberspace, is given to GOOG, which reportedly acted in the background as a support against the Gates of Destruction.

It is a great feeling indeed when an unwanted acquisitional incursion is thwarted. If one is inside a company under this kind of assault, the tension, resentment, anger and determination not to see one’s nation fall is quite intense. And when the Huns retreat from the battlements and head back to the barbarian highlands, it’s high-fives all round, definitely.

And many thanks to those who helped repel the invader. And it’s only natural to let the friendly ally inside the castle — for conversation, celebration and maybe even a little synergistic planning.

About 20 years ago, a corporation of which I am more than superficially aware also sustained an ongoing assault from a hated competitor. For a while, this ancient enterprise looked wobbly, doomed to fall before the barbarian invader from the South.

Then a White Knight came along on a very tiny steed and, with great legerdemain and fiduciary savoir faire, sent the Dark Lord back to from whence he came. There was wassailing all around, and the friend was invited in to purchase a nice piece of the castle itself. Before long, he owned the whole thing, burned most of it to the ground and built a parking lot over its remains. It was left to subsequent owners of the place to put up an almost entirely new structure, which is probably for the best anyhow. Those old castles are hard to heat.

This has nothing to do with whether all the Yahooing and Googling about Microsoft’s retreat is warranted. For now, I’m sure it is. But sometimes it pays to be careful just who you give the keys to the castle, even if they are the most truly awesome dudes in the land when the dragons are flying.

In about a month, my new book will be published. It’s called Executricks: or How To Retire While You’re Still Working. Compact, entertaining and wise, the book will teach you how to live like an executive even if you aren’t one, cleanly, legitimately, creating while you are still in mid-career all the benefits of a retired existence. It will be essential reading for anybody with a heartbeat.

On this site will be a host of entertaining and stimulating features on this topic – quizzes, contests, galleries of famous people who have succeeded bigtime while essentially living the life of the affluent retiree by using a host of Executricks. You will also be offered an opportunity to tell you own stories, as always; how you’ve served the system and beaten it at the same time, maybe even tales about those who did it less elegantly than they might have.

And of course you will be incessantly exhorted to purchase the book via a handy link at the top of the page. I hope you will do so.

All that is in the future, however. Today I would like to finish what began about a year ago and has continued with some energy ever since: the work we have done together on two important topics — the Crazy Bosses we serve and the Bulls**t Jobs we occupy. I have a trove of letters you have sent me on both subjects, many of which are publishable. I will now go back into my archive and work them up, so that we may complete both blogs, bring them to some kind of closure.

This is a big task for me. Fortunately, I travel between California and New York a great deal and should have plenty of time, if I don’t put it off. Then, after a month or so, I will bring together all my new stuff and any new submissions to the blogs that YOU may care to make, and retire both from this page, making way for new things.

The Crazy Bosses and Bulls**t Jobs blogs will not die, no way. They are deep, trenchant, funny, sad, illuminating, chock-a-block with YOUR stories, ideas and tales of woe and triumph. I read somewhere that since we’re in a recession we should all be repurposing things a lot more. That sounds like a good idea. I’m nothing if not a creature of my times.

All of this is a typically long-winded way of inviting all who are reading this to poke around each topic on this site, think about your own experience and those of your friends and enemies, and lob in a few stories if the spirit moves.

Due to the somewhat complex architecture of this site, however, negotiating around these topics and registering your comments and thoughts is not always as easy as it might look. So I’m going to quickly walk you through it.

Crazy Bosses

Go to the main home page and read about the topic here.

Then look at a nice gallery of Crazy Bosses, starting with Stalin here.

You may then read about the Crazy Bosses that your fellow readers have enjoyed here.

and finally, submit your own stories here.

Bulls**t Jobs

Likewise, start your Bulls**t Jobs investigations here.

Then look at a horrifying panoply of them here.

Then read about your fellow bulls**tters here.

And then submit your own here.

While you’re doing your thing, I’ll do what I said — go back into the e-mines and dig out the rest of the material that’s lying around glittering in the digital caverns. I’ll report back when I’m as done as I want to be.

Oh and by the way: anybody wishing simply to send me their crazy boss stories or bulls**t jobs without the comfy mediation of this blog may do so by sending me an email to bingblog@gmail.com.

That’s bingblog@gmail.com. Please mark your e-mail either Crazy Bosses or Bulls**t Jobs. Or, you know, if you just want to write me to say hi that’s okay too.

Have a great weekend. In fact, start now, huh?

As some of you might have been able to tell, yesterday’s blog was not a random exercise. It was written in the near dark just after dawn, as I looked forward to a day that was to include a meeting that began with breakfast and ended well after lunch. The meeting did take place. I followed many of the tips I offered to you. Some of them worked to alleviate to pain of the day. Others did not. And there were some unforeseen consequences that materialized as a result of the ordeal. I’d like to look at those now.

During the meeting, I began to experience existential discomfort well before the first break. This manifests itself as an intense desire to leave the room and walk aimlessly about the executive floor. To do so before one hour has elapsed is considered highly bad form, since all conceivable excuses seem premature at that juncture. It’s too soon to hit the Men’s Room (unless one has a condition of some kind that he or she would like the group to know about) and likewise too early to have developed a crisis severe enough to merit such a quick exit. 

So I sat. The discussion went around the table. The feelings of impatience and anxiety grew. I eventually had to get up in a thoughtful manner, go to the sideboard, and assemble a plate of berries that was altogether way too large. Too many berries make me feel sort of crazy. There was a great book called The Phantom Toll booth I read when I was a boy. It posited the existence of a stew that made one hungrier the more it was consumed. That’s what berries do to me. You eat and eat and eat, and then the plate is empty and you’re starving. That’s a lot like life, I think.

After an hour and twenty-four minutes, we took a break. Nobody talked to each other very much during it. We were all too busy working our BlackBerrys. I remember a time when people talked to each other before and after meetings. Those days are over. The room is full and almost totally silent, except for the impossibly faint sound of thumbs clicking tiny keyboards.

And so it went on. It was a very productive meeting. A lot got done. But my attention span is not a towering edifice. It’s a rickety footbridge across a huge abyss of boredom and unease. And after two hours of anything relating to concentration/paying attention/not indulging in some sensory experience… it snaps.

And so I sat and sat and sat and sat, plummeting every lower into the pit of despond and non-existence. At this level of corporate life, the windows do not open. I believe I know why.

Lunch was served and everybody ate too much. Discussion continued over the food. I found that on the other side of my powerful urge for flight was an equally potent urge to fight. In short, after 4:37 of the gathering I became extremely ill-tempered. When I realized I was pointing a fork at one of my colleagues and spewing breadcrumbs out of my open mouth, I knew it was time for me to take an unscheduled break and leave the area entirely.

I went down to the lobby and stood in the street for a while. When I was not run over by a delivery truck I went back inside and re-entered the meeting. The rest was pretty uneventful.

Afterward, through some horrendous gap in scheduling acumen on somebody’s part, I had two other meetings back to back. Here’s where the consequences come in. When they think of new ways to torture people – still a growth industry in the world, I think – the experts should consider the toll that excessive sitting, forced attention and the denial of the natural tendency to sleep wreak on the human spirit.

They had PowerPoint. The room was warm. The meeting went on and on. My boss was in there too. I was aware that I was skating along on the edge of total unconsciousness AND YET I COULD NOT SLEEP. It was truly horrible. I am not exaggerating. A dozen, two dozen times I could feel my eyes sliding shut, my chin lowering to my chest. Did I snap to attention too dramatically? Did I say “Buh!” and pop my eyes open? Did I snore or drool during the brief moments when I lost consciousness? I don’t believe so. But I don’t know for sure…

By 6 PM it was time to go home. I had a bowl of cereal and went to bed. Today my calendar is pretty clear. Good thing, too. All my attention for the week was used up yesterday. My body will be here through Friday as usual. I can’t speak for the rest of me, however, which is now somewhere in the park, chasing pigeons.