Summer Salutations:

Here are head-scratchers (a few repeats!) I’ve been reminded of or encountered in just the last month.  Many will bring a smile to your face, furrow your brow or maybe just cause you to think – heaven forbid!

• Why is it the Neil Diamond classic, Sweet Caroline, is a staple at every wedding?  (I bet there’s a loyal reader out there who will “Claude” this and get back to me!)
• So many restaurant servers welcome patrons in exactly the same way: “Good evening, my name is ______ and I’ll be your server tonight.”  Where are their personalities?  Shouldn't they ask OUR names?
• How (and, for Pete’s sake why) did “no problem” replace “you’re welcome”?
• Can anyone adequately explain why many larger companies are so enamored with automated customer service platforms?  Or offshore English-is-my-second-language solutions?  It’s hard for me to think the “math” is so compelling since almost inevitably the customer is more pissed off after calling!
• This is likely SCS (Senior Citizen Syndrome), but bear with me: Our home is on the market.  Agents now often use an app called SHOWTIME to coordinate (and confirm) showings, solicit basic feedback and keep track of activity.   There’s certainly value in digitizing some of this process, BUT, with more human involvement there would be more meaningful communication, and I would submit a greater likelihood of selling a home at closer to asking price.  Over-reliance on digital misses nuance and emotion, clearly an important component in selling homes.
• One of the doctor offices I visit has Classic Rock ‘N Roll as their background music!  Very cool.
• I’d never seen (or likely, don’t recall) this quote and love it – “Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.  Certainty is an absurd one!”

--- Voltaire

• Why restaurants, doctors and car service appointments (and others) send us so many texts and emails “reminding” us of reservations and asking to confirm? 
• In a recent column about New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Thomas Friedman wonders:

“I would simply ask of Mamdani what I ask of every leader:  Do you want to make a point or make a difference?”

Really, REALLY important question.

• Herbert Simon, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and one of the founders of organizational behavior, suggests that decision-making is essentially “satisficing”: People gather information only up to the point where they can make an intuitive leap to what they believe is a satisfactory conclusion.  So, interesting!
• The MOST interesting podcast I’ve listened to in ages is a TED Talk by Sally Kohn.  There’s a link to it in the P.S., which I hope you’ll find time to listen to.  I also have a 2-page summary I’ll share if you just ask.  In a nutshell (and this is extraordinarily old news if you read history books) – income inequality leads to societal challenges and turmoil every reader will find unacceptable and is the single greatest threat to democracy!
• I just heard about “pop-up rules” – do you know these?  Temporary “rules” (games really) that challenge what might be bad habits.  The two examples cited?  If anyone looks at their phone during a meal, they have to buy!  Or, when a group of new Moms are together, no one can talk about their newborn!  This notion is worth exploring!

That’s a wrap.  Please be safe for the balance of your summer.  Thanks for reading.

P.S.  Link to Sally Kohn TED Talk