Recent entertainment: great blog and car hunt

I read Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist blog often. It’s refreshingly honest and witty, a great respite from a lot of the boring stuff out there. This post really cracked me up: Five workplace practices that should be over. Now. I think it could apply to more than work. #1 cracks me up:

1. Voice mail
It will come as news to most people over thirty that most people under thirty do not leave voice mail messages. Think about it: Voice mail takes a long time to retrieve and it’s almost never earth-shattering, so it’s not worth the time it requires. Microsoft is such a big believer in this that all voice mails you leave at the company go straight to email. And you can do the same if you use eVoice.

Young people treat their list of missed calls as a page system. And they call the person back. No extra step for listening to the message.

A lot of my friends do that. And my mom. They leave long winding messages that I forget the minute after I delete them. I always admired (strong word) how Jamie and his friends NEVER do that. Their voice mails consist of, “Yo, call me back.” Click. Or they don’t even leave a message; they see the missed call and automatically dial. But they also talk, and see each other, with great frequency. My friends (and Mom) who leave the infinity and beyond voice mails do so because I see them maybe once a month if that. Ay, there’s the rub.

#2 also cracked me up. It’s so applicable to Jamie’s friends. Read the “yourself look foolish” link.

2. The reply-to-all button
This button should be hidden in all email software. You should have to click through five menus to find the option because that’s how many times you should reconsider before you reply to all. This was a great button to have in 1993 when even the busiest people only got fifty emails a day. Back then reply to all was a way to have an inclusive conversation.

Now reply to all is only a way to annoy people and make yourself look foolish.

And here’s a love note to all of you who think you are being really efficient by hitting reply to all: When there are more than four people in the send field, I don’t read the email because I know that if there’s any action item in that email, someone else will do it.

I highly recommend this blog.

And the quest continues. Jamie sold his car to Little Big Sis in August and now we try to get by with just one vehicle. It’s hard, especially getting to and from work and sharing it on the weekends. So he’s been searching for something more cost-effective than the Beamer he had before. My brother gave him a lead on an SUV, but that was a few days before his wedding, and by the time my brother got back to him about it the car was sold. Earlier this week Jamie took his friend’s car to the mechanic to see if it was a viable option to buy, but fixing the squishy and dangerously scary brakes would cost $700 so it’s no longer an option. All we want is a car to get us from point A to point B. Onward.