The Best Sermon

We are quickly heading into the season where we pause to be thankful and where for those of us who are Christians, we pause to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  So in this season, it seems appropriate for me to post about a sermon I received months ago.  And the first thing you should note are the terms, “months ago.”

There aren’t many sermons that I remember much beyond the drive home from church.  While I find the vast majority of sermons inspiring and educational as I sit in the congregation, my retention of the primary message or the main point fades pretty quickly.  It isn’t that the message isn’t important or delivered well, it is largely that as I exit the church, the noise of raising children, managing the household, and getting ready for the week of work and school ahead takes my full attention – except for a sermon I heard this summer.

I should say that I am a practicing Methodist, and my church is not one of fire and brimstone and it is not one where God is presented as punitive.  Rather, my church presents God as loving and providing example by which we attempt to follow.  And, He is presented as forgiving when we stray – and let’s face it; we all stray at some level or another.

My pastor is a good orator, interpreter, and a good deliverer of the message.  She provides very clear messages absent of lofty language designed to show her mastery of scripture while losing those of us who are beginners or novices.  She brings in real life examples using her own experiences and the experiences of other real and imperfect people.  She doesn’t embellish to make the sermon longer or present way too many examples such that we get exhausted and miss the point.  She is also a good leader by example.  I see no judgment in her eyes, just compassion and a willingness to teach, patiently.  And she talks about her calling to the ministry coming in college; however I sometimes wonder if it was bestowed at birth because her name is, “Joy.”

The message that morning was very simple.  It was about being kind to others.  It was in reference to the one of the most familiar lessons that Jesus provided us:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (NIV, Mark 12:28-31).

So the message was simple, and the sermon was even more so.  Pastor Joy walked into the congregation and asked (rhetorically), what if Jesus was here?  What if he was seated right here in this sanctuary?  How would you act? 

And then she proceeded.  What if Jesus spent the week with you?  How would you act, and importantly, how would you act toward others?  Would it be any different?

• How would you act toward your family the rest of today (Sunday) and on Monday morning as you get prepared for school and work?
• How would you act if He were your passenger as you drove to work?  Would you tailgate?  Would you honk?  Would you gesture?
• How would you act as you interacted with your colleagues or friends if He were beside you in your meetings or gatherings or as you spoke on the telephone?
• And what would you do as you and He walked to lunch and you came upon a homeless man or someone else in need?  Would you look away?
• And if He were shopping with you, would you rush to get to the front of the line, elbowing your way ahead of fellow shoppers?  (I have to be honest – I added this since the Christmas shopping season is upon us!)

I believe that many of us in the congregation were cringing that day.  I know I was.  My first thought was, yikes, I don’t think I want Jesus with me on all those ventures since my behavior and my patience aren’t all that great.  I’d be embarrassed if He were right beside me.  Indeed, I would act and speak differently.

And then Pastor Joy  from the center of the aisle seemed to speak directly to me and to each individual sitting in the pews that morning as she asked, “How do you know that Jesus isn’t right beside you right now, and how do you know that He won’t be beside you this week?”

The benediction followed and moments later we were walking out of the sanctuary.  It was a pretty quiet exit that day.  I think we were in thought, in reflection, and in shock.  For as Christians, we have some sense that God and Jesus keep tabs on us, but for most of us, they are a bit distant.  They feel a lot like our parents who have birthed us and reared us and for the most part, we obey our parents, but rarely do we let our parents see our most inappropriate behavior.  If mom is along, I’m a bit more patient with my driving, my shopping, and my speech, because I want my mom to feel confident that she raised a pretty good kid, and I don’t want to see her look of disapproval.  And indeed, she doesn’t get to see me much when I interact with colleagues and friends when my behavioral filters are off.

It struck me that day however, that while my mom doesn’t get to see me with filters off, that yup, Jesus does.  And that is daunting and does inspire some behavioral modification.  And the thought keeps coming back.  And that is why one of Pastor Joy’s most basic sermons is what I label as the “Best Sermon.”  It keeps coming back.  It keeps having effect.

Now admittedly, I’m not well-behaved all the time, still not even the vast majority of the time.  And at my age, I have doubt that I ever will be.  But I have made improvements, and I believe God and Jesus know I am trying (and I’m thankful they are forgiving).  I believe that they also know I’ll fall off the wagon often.  But I believe they have given me Pastor Joy and many kind people around me and my own reflection to help me get back on and try again.  It will be a continuing battle and a battle that I will fight now better-armed with my “Best Sermon.”

Market Research Survey Silliness

I’ve spent more than a decade working in market research, both quantitative & qualitative research, and still more years working with market research data in one form or another.  So, I’ve seen maybe not it all, but a whole lot.  I have managed and analyzed hundreds of surveys conducted by mail, on the phone, and online.  I’ve attended and moderated hundreds of focus groups.  I’ve managed segmentation surveys, discrete choice surveys, and I’ve randomized this and that and versioned that and this.  I’ve applied the unknowledgeable-management consultant’s favorite – conjoint analysis – and regressed and forecasted.  I’ve observed natural consumer behaviors, stimulated behaviors, and followed people while they operate cars, computers, and cell phones, and while they dined.  I’ve talked to people about death and dying and about surviving.  I’ve talked to people about how they shop, why they shop, and why they don’t like to bend over to pick up items on the bottom shelf when they shop.

My career gave me a fascination for consumer behavior, from the little decisions they make to the big, life changing decisions.  People are fascinating, and what makes it even more interesting, they very often don’t do what they say they do – imagine that!  Yes, consumers are captivating and indeed, understanding them and catering to them is the product’s best route to success.

I’m in a bit of a different professional position these days.  I use market research data, but it is of the most basic kind.  I currently conduct and use some customer satisfaction and general feedback data with a few qualitative interactions thrown in for good measure.  Yet as a supporter of market research and a consumer myself, I continue to complete surveys whether it’s a phone call at night, an online survey, or one in the mail, provided it is a legitimate survey and not someone trying to disguise themselves as a survey and then sell me a product or a politician.  I continue to respond as a fiduciary duty to my former profession and just to be helpful to the organizations out there attempting so dutifully to figure out their customers.  I continue to support data collection, even when it is excruciatingly painful.  And that brings me to this post.

Earlier this fall, I received a survey invitation via email for the purposes of providing feedback on school supplies.  What timing!  I had just completed purchasing school supplies for my son, and I will be in the market for the next 16 years by the time my youngest gets through high school.  This survey, I thought, would be interesting.

I go through the normal procedure of following the link.  I answer several demographic questions about my age, gender, household make-up, age of my kids, and income levels.  I answer these questions without hesitation because I know that I am one of probably 1,000+ answering these questions and that the 25-year-old analyst reading this data is not going to care about who I actually am (nope, not even my income level) for I am just one of a thousand.  (Just so you know, analysts care about percentages of the total sample; they don’t care about individuals in these instances.  Yes, you are special, but so are the other 999 people completing the survey.  It’s okay to let people know your household income and that you are a boy or girl, and etc. – trust me!  Now if they ask for a social security or credit card number – that’s different:  shut the survey down and/or hang up the phone – that’s not market research, that’s a scam.)

So I’ve now answered the demographic questions, and indeed, I am one of the target customers from which feedback is desired.  I am asked to continue with the survey.  I then answer several questions about which products and brands of school supplies I bought, which ones I considered, and from what stores I purchased the school supplies.  I was asked about how much I spent and how much I had intended to spend.  It was a nicely designed survey and I felt like I was really cruising through it and helping out.  And then it began – I fell into survey hell.

First, there was a battery of questions for every single product I bought and every single brand I considered.  Then there were batteries of questions for impressions of brands I had not considered.  The batteries were endless and included statements where I was to rate my agreement with things like:  “I feel like a leader for having brought this brand.”  “Others will admire me for buying this brand.”  “This brand is like me.”  “This brand is the only brand for my child.”  “This brand will make my child more successful.”  “I talked to friends and colleagues about this brand.”  “I encouraged others to buy this brand” – and many more questions along those lines.   Multiply these brand behavioral questions times the brands I considered and/or was aware of, times the number of back-to-school supplies I ticked off the list that I bought.  This was in fact, a survey that I may be completing for the next 16 years!

Yes, I was in survey hell, and not just at the surface.  I was in the hottest most uncomfortable level with no hope of getting to the surface anytime soon.  It is now several weeks later and having taken some time to recover from this experience, I have some advice to offer those of you developing surveys for your product or service or working with organizations that are doing so.

First of all, good market researchers/questionnaire designers realize that you never, I mean never, put people through endless list of questions on everything they did.  You randomly select a number of products for someone to evaluate.  Why?  Because I felt committed to answering the full survey, but by the end, I was clicking answers just to get through it (sorry about that – I still feel the guilt of providing bad data, but I just couldn’t take it anymore); others will just simply exit the survey.  There are several questionnaire programs that will randomly select a handful of items for a consumer to evaluate if it is the case that a typical consumer has purchased or considered more than 5 or 6 items and these programs will ensure that you have enough sample to analyze each item.  Ask consumers to evaluate more than 5-6 items with associated statements, etc., and your data will be flawed.  Good researchers protect the validity of their data and the sanity of their respondents.

Secondly, let’s think about the behavioral and brand leader issues related to buying a PENCIL!  Buying pencils and erasers are much different than buying, for example, a car, or apparel, or kitchen appliances or major electronics.  The latter are big ticket or emotional purchases that consumers may use to define themselves and that they may talk about with friends and colleagues.  If I’m going to be a brand leader or influencer, it’s going to be with these types of ego-type purchases – a pack of standard #2 pencils?  Not so much.  You might do some brand loyalty and behavioral segmentation on back-packs or on PDAs or other higher-profile supplies, but on pencils?  I’ve no clue what brand I even purchased for goodness sake!  But, I still was presented the battery of questions because I was familiar with some pencil brands.  Whoever designed this survey somehow believed that it was legitimate to apply brand and behavioral attributes/measurements used to describe the purchase process of a muscle car ($40,000) against the purchase of a pencil (40 cents).  Does that seem logical?  Remember that analogy:  the clock-builder will know how the clock is built, how it keeps nearly precise time, how the gears (now chips) work together, and about when it will need repair.  The consumer will know – what time it is.  I’m guessing that same analogy can be applied to the #2 pencil.  Good researchers question their logic and the logic of their clients who often get so caught up in their product they don’t understand its role and importance in the lives of everyday consumers. 

Third, and this one is important, good market researchers need to understand how the purchase is made prior to measuring and interpreting actual purchase.  The survey should have asked me how I made decisions about the purchase of school supplies.  You see, my school district, and all the ones around me (I talked to other parents, yup, I’m an “influencer”), gave me a list of supplies for my elementary-aged son.  They asked for specific brands and sizes and colors (emphasizing “washable” products, of course) because what happens is that we give the entire bag of supplies to the teacher who puts them in community bins.  The kids, when they need it, just get their pencil or marker from the bin.  Then they return it when they are done using it.  It’s a great idea – things don’t get lost, no need to label, there are not equity issues (all the same brand and size and color) and for the kids who cannot afford supplies, they are not left without.  So all this “brand leader/influencer” stuff the surveyor forced upon me?  Unfortunately, it’s all bad data.  If this bin trend for elementary students is a wide one, the individuals that should be surveyed are the teachers who are making the brand decisions, not me.  Good researchers do some research before they do the research.

So if you are a product manager or a market research consultant, I beg you, please consider your product, the product purchase process, and your consumers.  Make it easy for us to provide you good quality data.  Fewer and fewer people are responding to surveys, so please don’t push away those of us who still do respond.  And I should also say, lest I receive emails from pencil managers, I’ve nothing against the #2 pencil.  Why I am one of the few adults who still uses a pencil – not a mechanical pencil that breaks every time I use it – a real, sturdy, old-fashioned pencil that requires a sharpener.  Hmm, I wonder what type of consumer-segment that puts me in. . .

Customers Don’t Care about your Processes

A few years ago, I opened my credit card statement to find a huge late fee and interest charges.  Being neurotic about avoiding such fees, I tend to take care of my payment expeditiously after it is received.  Immediately, I called to check whether the check had been cashed, and indeed, the automated banking system indicated it had cleared some time ago.

I then called customer service at the credit card company.  After making me listen to content I had no interest in hearing (my balance, my next payment due, my cash forward balance, and a few other things I never use), I was put in the queue to speak with a representative.  After a short hold, a live voice came on and asked for the card number, holder name, and a few security questions.

Having made it through the security process, the representative politely asked me how she could help.  I described the problem and reported that my check had cleared, etc., etc.  I heard some typing and she reported back that her records showed the check had cleared their system the day after it was due and therefore, that these charges were legitimate.

I informed her of the date the payment was placed in the mail which from my recall was one to two days after I received the bill.  I heard more typing, and indeed, she was able to find another date indicating when the envelope arrived to their processing center.  I of course informed her that the arrival date was well before the posting date and the due date.  She then went into the description of the process of receipt, posting, and clearing in their process.  It takes two days for this, and two-three days for that, and you should allow seven to ten days for the mail, and another two-three days for this.  I politely informed her that the number of days she just articulated would indicate that I need to mail in the payment before I receive the bill.  She then informed me that in addition, there was a hiccup in the processing system during this cycle as there was a note in her records.

After hearing this, I suspected that she would immediately take the charges off my bill.  But the offer did not come.

I informed her that the only part of the process I can control is my ability to receive the bill and promptly put it into the mail.  As for the rest of the process and any internal delays, I have no control and cannot be expected to be held responsible for it.  In short, “I don’t care about your process.”  And, I need you to take the late charges and the interest charges off this bill and any interest charges you might be thinking about charging me in the next cycle.

She warned me that I get only one “grace” removal of charges per year and if I used it now, I could not request another for a year.  My urge was to inform her that if this happened again, I’d be removing my business entirely.  It wouldn’t be hard as I just need to open one of the three credit card offers I receive in the mail each day.  However, I refrained, knowing that she was simply following the script in front of her, and the script did not allow for the insertion of common sense or problems with the processing system.

Now this isn’t an uncommon problem in business, with either external or internal customers.  Having been in a few organizations, there isn’t one where I have not experienced a failed process that has impacted my ability to get my job done.  And in each organization, I receive the narrative about the functioning of the process, how it is supposed to work, the forms I need to fill out (often with some indication that I’ve filled out an outdated form and I need to fill out the new form to really make the process hum), and of course, I’m informed of the value of the process to me.

And though I deliver the message, most times, with some tact, the message is still the same: “I don’t care about your process.”  What I care about it is that my expectation was not met.  The promise you made to me as an internal/external customer was broken.  The deliverable has not reached my desk, is not working or it is causing me extra, unplanned work.  It is compromising a deadline for the clients I serve or is further stretching my resources.  I don’t care about the forms or the fact that a box wasn’t checked because the software didn’t recognize my click on the box and the individual decided not to contact me to ask about the box, but rather to let the project sit until I checked in to see why I saw no progress or wasn’t receiving my deliverable (again, no insertion of common sense).  I don’t care that now there is a new form or about the hours of committee meetings it took to develop the new form or about the position of the form in the newly revised process flow chart that took still more hours of committee meetings to rearrange.  I don’t care.  I don’t care.  I don’t care.

Customers care about the product or service they are receiving.  How it goes through your system and the quality of your system, not so much.  They care about quality of the end-product or service and the deadlines explicitly or implicitly implied.  They want their expectations managed, and if you fail to do so, customers will defect.  External customers will find different suppliers; internal customers will outsource.  And they should.

So the next time you are putting together or refining processes, I recommend two “reminders” during your development phase.  First, articulate what the customer expectation is and write that as your “purpose.”  Is the purpose of the process to efficiently process a payment, develop a technology, receive an order and ship a product, receive a repair request and get a technician onsite?  Secondly, articulate what the cost of failure of the process is to the customer.  Is it unfounded exorbitant charges, late delivery of a gift, no power or phone service, loss of a sale, or loss of a customer?

And as you develop or refine that process, refer back to the purpose and the customer cost repeatedly.  Further, constantly remind yourself that the customer, external or internal, doesn’t care about your process or your forms, the customer cares about the purpose and the cost.  Don’t let the process be your purpose; make the process serve the purpose.

I can almost guarantee that when your focus is the purpose for the customer and the cost to the customer when failure occurs, the process you design will be efficiency-focused (fewer layers and fewer forms), and in addition, it will also include the opportunity to insert common sense.  Now that’s what I’m carin’ about.

I Used to be Sensitive and Then I Went to Business School

Growing up, I was an extremely sensitive child.  My feelings were hurt very easily, but I wasn’t a crier or a tattler (though my brother would tend to disagree).  Self-confidence wasn’t something I had either.  So in an effort to make people like me, I worked hard, particularly in those early years, in school.  Now while the teachers appreciated this hard work and rewarded me for it, it wasn’t exactly popular with a particular group of my classmates.  And this group of classmates would make life pretty miserable when the teachers, the adults, were not around. 

During my grade-school years, back in the 1970’s, bullies were defined largely as those who physically hit other kids or who stole lunch money.  And it was clearly known who these individuals were and their actions often got them sent home from school.  What wasn’t recognized was the harassment bullies – these were the individuals who harassed others in a passive-aggressive non-physical manner and always out of sight of adults.  These were the individuals who while we were waiting for the teacher to get back to the classroom, would mess with my work and threaten me with physical harm if I said anything, or who would chant awful things at me as we walked from building to building without adult supervision.  These were the individuals that would call my home, sometimes several times in an evening, and either hang up or say something nasty and then hang up – anonymous as these were the days before caller ID.  And these were the individuals who had a sense of who was sensitive and quiet and went after the sensitive personalities like dogs on a hunt.  I wasn’t the only sensitive one they attacked, but it sure felt like it.

Now as I got into high school, the bullying wasn’t so in my face.  The early years of keeping my head low and studying hard and practicing music and sports in the same manner began to pay off.  The bullies were still there, but I didn’t pay much attention as I kept busy.  And for a bully, harassing someone who doesn’t pay attention isn’t much fun.  So they move on.  But, I was still sensitive and strived for perfection in all areas I could.  I wanted people to like me for doing things well as I strived to gain some confidence.  This would be something I’d carry on into college and into the workforce – I was the ultimate carrier of the banner:  “Work hard.  Play hard.”  And as I moved into my twenties, I gained some confidence and the bullies, and they are in college and the work environment too, took a back seat.

And then I went to business school.

Now business school is a different world.  Imagine putting together 300+ largely Type-A people who have in the past, been pretty darn successful in their undergraduate studies and in their early careers.  These individuals have always achieved high marks, some of them quite easily, and most of these individuals are pushy and opinionated and book- and some even street-smart (as in Wall Street).  You put these individuals into a class and they now must compete against each other for grades and jobs.  It’s really quite an interesting experiment and is repeated year after year in business, and law, and medical, and many other professional schools.

So I went to the Fuqua School of Business, at Duke University.  I entered business school thinking it was going to be a two-year conference where we would exchange ideas and think big thoughts.  In reality, it was two years of grinding work, no sleep, no money, and for me, stress about getting a job to pay off the enormous debt I was accumulating to pay for tuition and living expenses.  Business school is not something I would really want to repeat in my lifetime, but it was critical in overcoming my sensitivity and achieving a bit of self-confidence.  (I should also say that I met some of my most cherished friends and acquaintances there!)

In business school, 30%-50% of one’s grade is based on “class participation.”  In short, that means that you speak up or you fail.  Now I’d done my fair share of “speaking up,” but it was generally after all others had spoken and/or I was invited to add my perspective.  Being the first or second person to get my opinion or analysis on the floor was not my thing, but failing wasn’t either.  The first term was hard, but I survived.  The second term wasn’t as hard, and I survived too.  And then I realized that I was surviving and even thriving in some cases in the midst of a pool of some really aggressive personalities.  And while I could never out-shout them and still don’t, I could quietly keep up by offering opinions based on facts and data and experience.  And what is amazing, facts and data are a lot like having an adult in the room – it quiets the bullies quickly.  Moreover, bullies don’t like bullying individuals who bring facts and data.  It’s just not as much fun for them.

On occasion, in the workplace, I challenge my colleagues.  I hope that I do it respectfully, but my fear of being wrong or being bullied back for challenging is largely gone.  If I have data or information or experience that conflict with their opinions or plans, I feel a fiduciary, if not personal, duty to press them for how they arrived at their decision.  Oftentimes, I can’t disagree with their approach, and even if I don’t agree with the approach, I feel the need to support it anyway – more fiduciary duty there.  And I don’t take disagreements personally.  I don’t believe that a difference of opinion makes one of us wrong or right or one of us less intelligent than the other. 

And that is what business school did for me.  It gave me confidence to push my opinions, but even more confidence to support opinions different than mine as our team grades or company survival depends on it.  Business school stripped me of my over-sensitivity – it made me numb to it, thank goodness. 

And while I still cry easily at movies, or when I see my young children accomplish something, or when I hear the Star-Spangled Banner or Amazing Grace, I don’t cry or fret about bullies in the work place, in politics, on the road, or in our own community.  I respectfully face up to the bullies with data, facts, and questions, whether they are testing my bully-tolerance or that of others.

I still haven’t fully figured out how to help my children with bullies, since elementary bullies aren’t impressed with data or facts.  And Nicholas has received the sensitivity gene handed down from his grandmothers, so he is ripe for harassment and has already received some as the bullies test each Kindergartner for their bully-tolerance level.  We talk about it periodically and in addition to advising him to make teachers aware when it happens or if he feels unsafe, we talk much about how to react, which is really quite simply, not to react.  We even practice – I tease him, and we talk about how he should respond and how he should not.

It’s working for now and we’ll see how it goes.  And I suppose that in the worst case scenario, if I simply cannot help him overcome his sensitivity in these early years, there is always business school.

Admiring Public School Teachers – and Still Learning From Them!

My eldest son is into his second week of Kindergarten.  It has been a transition that I was not expecting.  No struggles in the morning to get up and out of bed.  No questions about how many days until the weekend.  No begging for me to stay home so he too can stay home and play with the kitties.  He’s been tired at night, and yes, a bit grumpy, but he is enjoying Kindergarten to the fullest.  The transition has been smooth and pleasant!

Now Kindergarten is different that when I went to school in the early 1970s (yes, I am an aged mother!).  Back then, we went for only a few hours and those hours included a snack with a carton of milk that we ever so carefully opened into a triangular spout, an often very dry cookie with a square of hardened jelly-something on the top, and an ever-so small white, paper napkin.  Our final exam was probably something like putting a blue circle around the dog and a triangle around the cat – a paper that my son came home with on the first day, though that paper also including counting and matching and other feats.  Kindergarten today is more what I remember 1^st Grade was – or at least the second half of first grade.

And my son has weekly exposure to the computer lab, the music room, the media center (which we called the library), the art room, and the gym (in addition to recess twice a day).  Yes, school has changed.

And demands on public school teachers have changed also.  My son’s classroom has 22 active 5ish-year-olds.  When they arrive each morning about 8:00 a.m., the kids arrive to a project already set up on their tables.  They bring in their snacks for the day and their homework folder – that’s their entry pass into the room.  The teacher is looking for written communications from home or completed homework or other school notifications.  And all that must be organized for the day, and then reorganized to go home.

My son has come home with a bevy of completed assignments and art projects in his folder, many of which had to have taken hours to prepare 22 of.  The teacher informed us that generally, she is there at 7:00 a.m. for class preparation and leaves about 5:00 p.m. And I know she’s truthful having received a phone call around 5:00 p.m. and an email the next morning just after 7:00 a.m. – all reporting on my son’s progress (thankfully all great news!).  And she likely did this 21 more times with 21 more families.

It made me stop and think about my profession and the profession of my husband.  Indeed, we work some long hours and many with intensity.  But the difference is, that for many of those hours, we get to retreat behind a computer or in our offices where we can take some breaks from being on stage and from the constant demand and questions of colleagues.

School teachers don’t get that luxury on the job.  I get exhausted answering the questions and demands of my children in the evenings and on weekends.  It’s tough work being a parent, and I don’t have work projects set up for them at the table when they arrive.  Can you imagine almost seven hours a day teaching and comforting and leading 22 children?  And then spending several hours more preparing for the next day?  And then there’s the working with the parents of 22 children.

In addition, the organizational skills for teachers required these days are incredible.  In my day, kids either were bussed home or walked home.  Today, they might bus one day, walk the next, they might go to aftercare on Tuesdays and Thursdays, to scouts on Wednesdays, and be picked up by Grandma or Grandpa or Aunt Sally on the other days.  Multiply this times 20+ children.

And then are food allergies to manage, and varying share-days, and homework, and extra projects, and progress reports, and records, and extra-curricular activities.  And don’t forget, most teachers have families of their own to manage.

For years I have heard people say that they’d wished they’d become a teacher because they get summers off.  I’ve also heard many say that school teachers are overpaid for the amount of work they do.  And I’ve also seen parents berate and demean the teacher’s of their children.  It seems that so many of we parent’s think this job is easy and so many think they know more about teaching than teachers.  I’m not one of them.  In fact, I think these “teaching is easy” parents should be put into the classroom for a week – and not just to “babysit”  or “assist,” but actually, to be put on stage and then assessed on how much the entire classroom has learned in the week.  I’m guessing that most would be running for the door by the second day, and that they would be more appreciative of teachers.

My mother was an elementary school teacher.  In her later years as a teacher, she focused on remedial reading.  When children had reading challenges, her goal was to immerse them and get them back with their reading group.  Sometimes they were in her room for a few days working on a letter or too, sometimes the kids were there much longer as they required much more intense and personal attention to get them going.

As she came closer to retirement, she would lament out of concern that a good portion of her job was now dedicated to being more of a mother than a teacher.  So many of her students would arrive hungry having had no real dinner or breakfast (so the schools now have started serving breakfast), tired because they had no real bedroom to sleep in or parents were fighting or partying all night, and often cold since they were not dressed for the cold Michigan weathers.  These children wanted hugs and attention because for whatever reason, they were not getting it at home.  And my mother would give all that she could in a motherly way, but I recall one day her frustration and concern where she stated something like, “Johnny arrives cold, hungry, tired, and lonely.  All he really wants to do is sit on my lap and be held and feel warm and secure, but I am to teach him to read.”  And though I can recall only a few poor parental incidents involving my mother, these same parents who demonstrated little concern for the basic needs of their children were often the ones presenting themselves at school to loudly and publicly berate the school board, the principal, the bus driver, the teacher, and even the custodian.  After all, they would say, it was their right to do so.

My mother retired about as early as she could.  And though I’m not sure she articulated it as such, I believe part of that was that teaching had become very emotionally exhausting.  In the business world, as we get tenure, as a survival technique, we learn to “compartmentalize,” particularly if we have families.  For the most part, we learn to leave the latest declining sales forecast, profitability decline, or personnel issue, at the office.  It’s not always easy or achieved, but we try to separate our young families from our office.  Children demanding our focused attention when we arrive home are quite helpful in that manner!  But imagine, as a teacher, attempting to leave the thought of Johnny and his less than adequate family and home-life issues at school, particularly on Friday when it would be two days before he might have a good meal again.  It’s difficult, if not impossible, particularly as a teacher and a mother, to leave that at work.

So I as a parent of a child in public school (and let me say that yes, I am a proponent of public schools since they are a slice of the real world), want to express my admiration and gratitude for public school teachers.

I believe that in fact, school teachers are gasp, “underpaid.”  While I admire Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods, and Johnny Depp, and Will Smith (our highest paid athletes and actors), for their talents, they do nothing for the education and rearing of my sons or the future of our youth.  Indeed some of them have philanthropic foundations that serve youth, but overall, the impact of these efforts compared to teachers, is minuscule.  And these entertainers make millions, and think about their work schedules!

I have to believe it is the case that most teachers, the good ones (and there are many good ones), aren’t there for the paycheck or the work lifestyle.  They are there because they are inspired by the kids they teach.  They are inspired by seeing the light bulbs go off when after struggling, a child finally “gets it.”  They are inspired by smiles, enjoyment of learning, increasing vocabulary and mastery of numbers.  They are inspired by students who grow into leaders in their classrooms and their community.  They are inspired by the successes of students who come with natural talents, but perhaps even more so by the successes of those who come with challenges. 

And the energy and inspiration these teachers show inspires me as a parent.  I am reading more to my boys.  I’m asking them more questions.  I’m pointing out more facts.  I’m taking more time to listen and to explain.  I’m encouraging more self-discovery and more experiences.  Only a few days into my son’s public school education, and already his teacher has taught me, the parent, many things!

Longing for a Return to Civility

What is wrong with us – we citizens of the United States?  Who do we think we are?  When did we become so self-important, so sure that we are 100% right about everything from health care, to global warming, to foreign policy, to referee calls, to best videos of all time, to our rights as fans or drivers or employees that all we do is shout our opinions loudly and profanely to the world?  We don’t listen.  We don’t have empathy for others’ opinions.  We no longer analyze but rather just jump to conclusions.  We show disdain for those that disagree with us or for anyone that even stops to think a moment – “you’re either for us or against us, 100%.”  No longer is “I’m not sure about that,” or a middle-of-the-road position acceptable.

In the past several months, I can hardly stand to turn on the news, and now this “self-important, I’m allowed to act inhumane because I’m stressed out or over-worked or in the moment” attitude is proliferating into sports and entertainment.  It seems that civility can only be experienced in the safe confines of home, at church (since my particular church leaves judgment to a higher power), and my son’s Kindergarten classroom where manners, respect, and sharing continue to be emphasized.  And that is a sad commentary on society today.

Respecting the Presidency

As I was driving from work to pick up my sons, I turned on my radio and heard a woman patting herself on the back because she had sent a note to her school to keep her son out of the broadcast of President Barack Obama’s speech to school children.  She proudly noted that she was the only parent in the entire school to isolate her son from his remarks.  She stated how she didn’t know what the President was going to say and wanted to filter her son from things she didn’t agree with.  Now I’ve been self-isolated from a lot of news these days because it has been so hateful (thank goodness), but if this woman was so informed that she’d call into a radio show, didn’t she know that his speech was published the day before?  She could have read it and realized it was focused on getting an education (not on health care or being a Democrat).  I’m sure her son felt just wonderful being the only one who had to go sit in a room by himself – you know, because that isn’t something that his peers might pick on him about.  So she made her statement to the school (and to those of us who couldn’t reach the radio dial to fast enough to tune her out) – but frankly, it was at her son’s expense – and for what was really a politically benign speech.  I’m not sure that’s going to get her nominated for mother of the year.

And then another man indicated that he would keep his son home from school that day because he didn’t want his son inundated with Democratic rhetoric and he “wanted his son to be able to think freely and make decisions for himself.”  Hmm, isn’t keeping your son home, isolated from this discussion a form of thwarting his son’s free-thinking?  I (freely) think so!

And then we have the South Carolina Representative who shouts “You lie” during the President’s speech to a joint session of Congress.  Respectfully, he apologizes.  And that should have been it, but the political parties want blood and continue to squeeze.  And the election funds of both parties have seen a huge influx of money.  We the American Public are rewarding politicians who act like barking dogs with what they want most – more money and more power.  Shame on us!

First of all fellow citizens, this is the Office of the President of the United States of America.  This is the elected leader of our nation.  Now whether it is a Republican or a Democrat, we owe it to the longevity of our nation, to our children, to show proper respect.  You don’t have to agree with the policies, but you do need to show respect.

And I don’t get the idea out there that, “Obama is trying to indoctrinate our children by visiting them in school.”  Are you kidding me?  Where was George Bush on 9/11?  Don’t you remember how his face turned ashen-gray as he learned from the aid to his right as he was sitting in the front of a classroom that the US was under attack?  I remember that scene as if it was yesterday.  Was he indoctrinating?

The fact is that most presidents of late have visited schools and school children.  And they should.  Kids need to see leaders.  They need to dream.  They need to look beyond the street they live on.  And if the President of the United States is coming to their classroom, they need to be there.  Don’t go stealing that type of experience from them and claim it is good parenting.  If my child ever has the opportunity to meet the President, I don’t care if he or she is a Democrat, a Republican, or a Martian, my child will be there and will have been lectured for hours on how to be respectful during the visit.

Sports and Entertainment – the Players AND the Fans

So then we have Serena Williams berating a line judge and Kanye West giving his opinion on who has the best video by stealing the moment from Taylor Swift (someone described this as akin to stepping on a kitten since Miss Swift is known to be so sweet).  Both these bullies claim they were “in the moment” and/or under stress – blah, blah, blah.  Kudos by the way to Beyonce who has shown the greatest act of civility in the US in several months!

And then to bring it home, as I was attending my first Big 10 football game of the season this past weekend, I was bullied by the ticket-holder next to me.  I have been a season ticket-holder for 6-7 years and attended regularly for about 10 years.  If you’ve ever been to a University of Michigan football game when they play teams like Notre Dame or Ohio State, you know that it is a packed house.  The bench space you are allotted is about 16 inches – the average American takes up much more than that, especially when donned in winter clothing.  But, we accommodate.  As each person arrives, we squeeze a bit tighter.

It is bench seating and my seats are two from the end.  My new neighbor arrives several minutes into the first quarter, shouts at me to, “Move over.  You’re in my seat.  Move or I’ll call security.  I’m a season ticket-holder.”  Well howdy and have a nice day to you too!  I advised him that we needed to get the bench of people moving over so we could make more room, to which he replied, “You have to move now.  You’re in my seat.”  He then pushed me over and back and stood with his hands on his hips and left elbow in front of my chest such that he was effectively standing in front of me and making it physically uncomfortable for me.  Yup, it kind stole the excitement of my first game of the season.  In fact, it squashed it like a bug.  So I ask again, “Who do we think we are?”  We drive aggressively like this too.  It’s everywhere and it’s awful.

What Do I Tell My Children?

I frankly am at a loss on how to raise children in this current environment of bullying and shouting and pushing and shoving.  Every day my husband and I remind my boys to say “thank you” and “please” and “excuse me.”  We talk about sharing and speaking politely and waiting for others to stop talking before we start.  But every day, they see US citizens of all kinds pushing and shouting and taking whatever they can take leaving nothing for those next in line.  I’m all for competition and I’m certainly not a Marxist or a Socialist, but come on, at some point you need to think beyond yourself.  If you don’t, aren’t we really the equivalent of a pack of wolves following the alpha male who has dominated all others for the moment?  Isn’t that called a dictatorship?  It certainly is not a democracy.

I Want 9/11 Back

I was stuck in France on 9-11-2001.  In fact, my friends and I didn’t even learn of 9/11 until 9/12.  And then it took almost seven more days before we could get a flight back home.  And when I returned to the US, it was a different country.

When I left about 10 days earlier, I was the only house on my block that regularly put out my US flag.  When I returned, nearly every house on my block and the surrounding blocks had one flying.  When I returned, people came out of their houses to check on their neighbors.  When I returned and went to my first Big 10 football game the season, the fans openly wept as the Star -Spangled Banner was played.  When I returned, politicians were working together respectfully to understand what we were up against.  When I returned, we listened to and followed our president.  When I returned, we treated each other and our first-responders with more respect.  When I returned, people let people merge onto the highway.  When I returned, I returned to a nation of citizens, to a nation of people with different opinions, but with a common bond that included civility, and respect, and empathy, and acceptance.

I want that nation back.  I want that nation for my children.  I don’t want another 9/11 tragedy to spur us into a civilized nation again.  I want everyday citizens like you and me to stand up and speak softly with intelligence and respect.  And I want us to demand intelligence and respect from our leaders, our athletes, our entertainers, our children, and our fellow citizens.  Will you help?

Releasing My Child to the Public Domain

My eldest son is starting Kindergarten in just a few days.  I’m not having the emotional reaction that I see many mom’s having over this monumental event, perhaps because, for better or worse, Nicholas has been attending daycare since he was 12 weeks old.

Our daycare refers to itself as a “Learning Center” so as to distinguish itself from a babysitting entity.  And I am happy with their approach since they are largely responsible for Nicholas’ readiness for Kindergarten.  The school system provided us with a list of things he should know and be able to do by the day he enters, and every item on the list was accomplished several months ago. 

Well, the list did suggest that he know his street address and phone number, and we took responsibility for helping him memorize those two things.  As for knowing letters and numbers and writing his name, our center had that done a long time ago.  Our center is also very focused on social development and has given Nicholas the knowledge and tools he needs to be good to his friends, manage his anger, and when necessary, make an apology.

So I have not had an emotional tug when I think of him entering the public school.  He’s been to Safety Town there and a couple of drop-ins to visit his classroom.  He’s ready and excited.  He likes the learning center, but in Kindergarten he tells me, “You don’t have to take a long, long nap every day.”  (In 30 years, he’ll wish he could have the luxury of such a long nap.)  And after the latest visit to his classroom, I get the sense that he already feels quite comfortable there – so many new things to explore!

Indeed, during our Safety Town week and at the latest and last drop-in orientation, I noticed several moms with puffy pink or watery eyes.  In fact during Safety Town, one mom sat with her girl at the table crying.  The mother didn’t want to leave her there for the 2.5 hours of safety fun and shortly thereafter, her 5-year-old daughter started to cry.  I almost felt guilty.  I took Nicholas to his room, got him started on his construction-paper fireman’s hat, and he hardly noticed when I said goodbye and walked out the door.  He was hard at work cutting and pasting.  There was no drama – just focus on cutting on the lines to make that hat.

And in fact, I’ve been really looking forward to Nicholas starting public school.   The learning center tuition check will be reduced to one child and hot lunch will be provided at school.  For me, that is some money and time back – both desperately needed.

So this summer I have been gleefully dancing along, excited about him starting to learn to read and even some of the projects I may get to help him with, and the no lunches for me to pack, and the cash back, and the feeling that he is just really ready for this, and I’m just moving along counting down the days without looking back – until last Sunday afternoon.

Having been at our learning center for over four years, we have come to know several of the parents of Nicholas’ classmates.  We’ve been put together by various activities and birthday parties and have watched our children grow up together.  Since our kids will be dispersed across a number of classrooms, we decided to get together last Sunday afternoon for a potluck and afternoon at the park.

It was a beautiful day – cool but sunny.  The park is one of those with a very large wooden climbing structure and it was just recently refurbished.  There are castles and boats and climbing walls and slides, and well, you get the picture.  The kids were having a ball running and climbing and squealing in this wonderful and safe playground.  There were of course a few bumps and tumbles, but nothing serious.

My husband and I took turns rotating between watching our 2-year-old, who wanted to climb and jump like the 5-year-olds, and visiting with the parents.  I was on child-watching duty when suddenly, Alexander bounded over to the swings.  Doug was over there with some parents and other kids and Nicholas was somewhere crawling through logs and ropes.  As I turned to follow Alexander, a young boy said, “Can you help me?”  I turned to see that Doug was putting Alexander on the swing so all was safe there, and said, “Sure, what do you need?”

The boy, about 5-6 years, said that he had lost his shoe and wondered if I could help him find it.  The boy didn’t belong to our learning center group, but I was happy to help out.  I asked him where he thought he might have lost it.  He pointed to an area in the play area that was a maze that looked like a castle.  After a few failed attempts at trying to help him narrow down exactly where it was lost, I told him I’d take a look for it.

Now I am about 5’11” tall and yes, over 40 years of age.  Navigating through a maze of logs, steps, and tunnels designed for those under 10 years is not the easiest thing.  But I did my duty.  After several minutes of searching the section, I found my way out.  As I was about to step out in the clear, I neglected to duck far enough down and bumped my head with veracity on a support beam (because it’s a good idea to set the logs just inches above the beam effectively placing your spacial judgment off as you lunge to escape the tunnels and clunk your forehead).  It hurt and took my breath away for a moment.

Dazed, as I rounded the corner to let the young, one-shoe boy know that I did not find his other shoe (he was standing up on a platform that you needed to climb a rope ladder to get to), I found him fist-fighting with another boy his same age.  They were just out of reach so the only interference I could immediately apply was some stern, “Stop that.  Stop fighting.  Hey” –type pleas.

It turns out they were fighting because the second boy had taken his shoe and hidden it (information I would have liked to have had before wandering through the wooden tunnels and using my head for a hammer).  The one-shoe boy demanded to get it back, the second boy said in an obvious lie (he wasn’t good at it) that he didn’t hide it, and then boy number three announces he knows where it is and he’s not going to tell.

My head has grown to twice its normal size and is pounding, but I hear behind me the voice of a man telling the boys to stop fighting.  The one-shoe boy says once again that boy number two has hidden his shoe, to which boy number two says he did not and goes running into the maze of logs.  It turns out the male voice is the father of boy number two and after hearing the accusation, the father says, “Oh, he wouldn’t do that . . . I don’t think anyway.”  Boy number three once again announces he knows where it is.  I ask him to tell me where, and he says, “I’m not telling,” and runs off into the wooden castle.

So what do I do?  My head is pounding.  There is no way I can chase these disobedient children through this town of timber.  I don’t fit in many places.  These are not my kids, and the father is obviously not going to help solve the problem because he doesn’t “think” his child would have done such a thing.

I was shocked.  Had my son and any of the kids from the learning center been involved in this, there would have been a gathering of the participants, a rapid inquest, a finding of the shoe, apologies, hugs, and moving on.  Instead there were children running away and continuing to torment.  So what to do?  I turned to the father and said, “Listen, I didn’t see the whole event, but that young man is missing his shoe and is insistent that the other two boys are involved.”  I don’t know any of you and I’ve just racked my head looking for the shoe because he asked for help.  You are the father of one of these kids – I’m going to let you resolve it.”   And I walked away.

As I walked across the lot to the swings, my head still reeling, it hit me.  This is what I am releasing my Kindergartner to – to the public domain.  I am moving him from the safety of a caring, safe environment where squirmishes, when they occur, are used as teaching moments and parents are supportive of corrective action to achieve proper behavior –  to an environment where it is okay to takes someone’s things and hide them, and hit other people, and run away from adults, even parents, and not be held accountable for that action.

So on Tuesday, when I take my son to his first day of class.  It may be the case that I do find some tears welling up in my eyes.  The tears won’t be forming because I am losing my son to the teaching of others, they will be unfortunately, tears of concern that my son and his learning center classmates are soon to face some physical and emotional hurt from those that have not been reared in a supportive but corrective environment.  Indeed, they will survive, but they are heading towards experiences that we mothers (and the learning center) can no longer control.  We can only pick up the pieces and help them get stronger and move on.  Nicholas will learn how to do this at age five, and I will learn how to do this again at age 42.  Welcome to the public domain.

Silos, Ladders, and Customer Feedback

On the drive into work recently, I was listening to an automotive dealer lauding his company because it had the intestinal fortitude to kill a product that customers clearly told that company they did not want and would not buy.  Ironically, later that morning, I received an email from a former colleague who is still in the business of consumer research.  He sent me a link to the Detroit Free Press article on the subject, accompanied with a comment stating his amazement that an organization would actually kill a product that customers were already heckling before it was ready for sale.  While many would think this a common sense approach for all companies who depend on customers to buy their products, it is not uncommon for corporations to well, “dismiss” the customer.

My colleague and I have spent years “listening to customers” and reporting their opinions to countless organizations.  Our successful clients were those that took customer messages, incorporated them into their product design, retail environments, customer service centers, and even their parking lot design and made changes quickly.  Our less successful clients were those who told us that we obviously recruited the wrong customers to our focus groups, or we sampled the wrong 1,000 respondents when we were conducting quantitative research, because of course, these organizations knew their customers and they knew the customer would like what they built.  Why they were just completing the consumer research because they had to check the box on the product development flow chart that said they had to do research with the target audience.  Consumer research was just really a formality to moving forward.

In fact, we had one organization that scheduled what seemed like endless focus groups in two cities for the purposes of the evaluation of a new product idea.  We recruited carefully to insure that we had the right customer – the customer that this product was to target.  Group after group declared the product ugly, pointed out several problems, and advised the organization that they would not buy it.  They threatened to leave the brand and explore competitor products.

The message was clear.  Don’t produce this!  However, our client informed us that we must have recruited the wrong people.  The 100 or so people that evaluated this product couldn’t have been the right people.  “We know our customer and these people are not our customers.”  The solution was to conduct several more focus groups with several hundred more people in three more cities.  And in the last city, the reaction to the product was “take-it-or-leave-it.”  The customers weren’t as vehemently negative.  And while we cautioned that the region of this last city is known for more “polite” communication, the absence of absolute negativity from the customers in this city was all that was needed to give the client the permission to proceed.  They did and the product, unfortunately but predictably, failed.

Now lest you think that this occurs only in large organizations:

• From a 24-year-old technology developer during a focus group on search engines with baby boomer women who couldn’t see benefit in the proposed technology:  “I know search engines and I know baby-boomer women (perhaps his mother?), and what they want.  These women in this group just don’t understand the technology enough to understand how much they need it.”  Ah, if the customer can’t understand your product grasshopper, it’s dead in the water.  And yes, the technology, whatever it was, lost its venture capitalist funding.
• From a youngish consultant in social media marketing:  “I tell all my clients to throw away their traditional marketing methods.  There is no reason to conduct direct mailings or run broadcast advertisements.” Hmmm, I just hope his clients are all targeting moderate to high-end urban audiences that can be and want to be connected all the time by voice or Internet technologies – and who will opt-in to receive marketing messages.  That’s everybody, right?  I’m not betting on a lot of repeat-clients for this gentleman consultant.

Leaders in organizations, big and small, just like celebrities and politicians, tend to surround themselves with people who work well together and thus, tend to agree with each other.  And the group begins to drink its own Kool-Aid.  Product development groups are often put together because they are high functioning as a group – to start.  It would seem, however, that they quickly become isolated.  They become silos on their own farm isolating themselves from those whom they are serving.

It also goes, that those who have had success in the past tend to climb that corporate ladder accompanied with some legendary success stories.  These climbers gain more power in the organization and colleagues with less power tend not to want to report things that are not in agreement with the dude on the top of the ladder.  I recall a conversation with a brand consultant on a flight home from NYC.  He told me he had gone to the city to deliver some bad news to a corporation regarding some customer feedback.  The process was to present to the product team and the product team would then either have the consultant re-present with CEO in the room or the team would deliver the message themselves.  The team’s response to his findings:  “We can’t tell Mrs. Johnson that.  She would be furious.”  So, the product team decided to pretend that the findings were never collected and the consultant was heading home a day early and a bit dazed.  We laughed as we predicted that he would not be hired again by that organization because it is easier to shoot the messenger rather than deliver the message (or pretend the message never happened).

It’s hard to listen to customers.  They are needy and always looking for something better, and for the most part, in most cities, they tell it like it is.  They aren’t very loyal anymore either.  It takes guts to listen to the customer.  And it takes still more guts to deliver the customer’s message to those who need to hear it, to those who have the power to pull the plug on a project and either make modifications or start all over.  And those with power don’t make it easy to deliver negative feedback, particularly when it’s a “pet project” that Mr. Power has wanted to develop for the past 20 years.  And it’s hard for me to advise people climbing the ladder to keep delivering the real truths to those at the top of the ladder.  The more successful customer-driven organizations of course embrace delivery from all rungs; but still too many just kick the messengers off the ladder and send them home early.

So for those of you at the top of the ladder (and those of you climbing the ladder, when you get there), be sure to embrace dissonance.  Invite employees and your over-worked consultants, particularly those focused on consumer research, to disagree and to deliver the good, the bad, and the downright jeered.  If you rarely hear disagreement or every idea you present is met with, “That’s a great idea, the customer will love it,” you’re probably living in a silo and you’re likely thwarting honest feedback.  When presented with unexpected customer feedback, take action to make sure the findings aren’t an anomaly, but if you continue to hear customers jeer and threaten to leave your farm, it’s a good bet it’s time to plow up the crop and replant.  And congratulations to General Motors for plowing up the field on the Buick crossover that customers said they would not buy!  I think I just heard a silo crumble!

Question: Financial Struggles? Answer: $125 Swim-shorts.

My mother has installed the ritual of “spring cleaning” within me.  As an elementary teacher, each spring, after she closed up her classroom for the summer, we would spend about a week spring cleaning the house from top to bottom.  The windows, walls, and ceilings of every room and every nook in the furniture would be cleaned.  Closets and drawers of stuff would be emptied, washed, and re-organized.  Once finished, each room would noticeably glisten.  Our hypothesis was that once thoroughly cleaned, the weekly cleanings thereafter would be faster.  Perhaps, but it was also a sense of accomplishment.

As an adult, each spring, I continue that ritual in my own home.  I even spring cleaned while living in apartments – I supposed I yearned for that glistening freshness and sense of accomplishment even in rented walls and windows.  With two young children, this annual ritual must be done by taking a couple vacation days to clean – my cleaning vacation as I call it.  So that is where I found myself in early June of this year – my husband at work, the kids at daycare, and me with my bucket, rags, and vacuum.

During these cleaning vacations, I tend to listen to television in the morning and my iTunes library in the afternoon.  This cleaning day was no different.  It was still fairly early and the morning news show was on. 

As is typical, the morning news shows start the broadcast in the early morning with typically harder news and then as the broadcast moves further into the morning, they offer some special segments – what I often call, the fluffy stuff.  With the economy in the rough shape that it is, the fluffy stuff has revolved largely around “saving you money” themes.  Segments were plenty on how to save money on vacations (which strikes me as odd because when I had no money, I saved on vacations by not going on vacations), how to invest wisely in these tough times (again odd, since if I have no money, an 5%-8% (really good in this market) return on zero principal is still zero), and how to select the most inexpensive organic foods (okay, need I even touch this one?).

The most memorable money saving segment during my June 2009 cleaning vacation, however, had to be the segment on saving money on kid’s summer clothes.  They of course, in an effort to expand the time, had a mini-runway with darling, well-behaved children dressed in colorful clothes.  It started sensibly enough.  They talked of mixing & matching shorts and t-shirts and some tips for dressing up the casual-wear.  The prices they alluded to for the outfits seemed a bit high, certainly higher than the $2.99 shirt and $3.99 pair of pants that I sent my preschooler out the door in – but I thought to myself, perhaps they are quoting NYC prices since the broadcast is based there.

And then came the beach portion of the money-saving fashion show.  Out came a handsome pre-teen boy in some colorful, wildly patterned beachy swim-shorts followed by a couple of youngerish kids in other colors of the same short.  The shorts were eye-catching and each child was of course, properly accessorized with flip-flops and cool sunglasses, and carrying over-sized beach balls.  The fashion narrator went on to talk about the fabric of the beach shorts, how durable it was, how the color won’t fade, and how these shorts were the “hot” swim shorts of the season – everyone wants them.  And then she states, “ . . . and at only $125, these swim shorts are a steal!”  I about dropped my bucket of cleaning fluid.  “A steal?”  I wanted to say to the woman, “I’m sure they are a steal my dear, because if you are economically challenged this summer ‘stealing’ them is the only way you can (or should) get them!” 

And to make matters worse, the news anchor went on to agree with the fashionista.  They concluded that due to the durability of the fabric, that for young boys who are rough on their swimsuits, the shorts were worth $125 because you’d only need to buy one pair for the summer season.  And then they went on to say that the shorts are so durable that it’s likely your boys can wear them next summer (because of course the one thing we know is that young boys don’t grow once summer ends).

So this makes me wonder.  Do these folks really get it?  $125 swim shorts for kids as a money-saving strategy?  Is this really a good lesson to broadcast to the masses?  Even if these times weren’t economically challenging, unless you are a celebrity or Wall Street executive with a retention incentive bonus, does it really make good financial sense in ANY economic environment to buy $125 swim-shorts?  And just for the record, I bought my five-year-old son a pair of Batman-themed swim-shorts for $14.99 with a 15% discount off that price.  He was delighted – he thinks his swim-shorts are pretty “hot.”  And these crime-fighter shorts have lasted the season, and it’s a high probability that Alexander will be seeing these swim-shorts in his future as he grows into them.

So this is how my “reality” saving money segment and lesson regarding boys beachware would go.  Nicholas would come out in his Batman shorts, bare feet, hair askew, holding an oversized beach ball.  Alexander, in a toddler-size pair of swim-shorts (handed down from Nicholas from his toddler days) would come running out shortly thereafter screaming at the top of his lungs because he wants the beach ball that Nicholas is holding just out of his reach.  Nicholas would begin to run away from Alexander.  Alexander would continue pursuit around the stage for awhile and then out of view of the camera but with shouts, whines, and screams still heard in the background of “My ball.  My baaalll!”  I would hold up my 15% discount card I received as a loyal customer and let the public know that for $12.74 plus tax, all this can be yours.  And you can put the remaining $112.26 you saved by not buying the $125 swim-shorts in the bank (versus using the savings to buy gold or some type of financial derivatives recommended in the previous money-saving segment).

But since I will only appear as a reality fashionista in my own mind, perhaps the better advice is that the next time a “money-saving” segment from the morning news show comes on, go turn on your iTunes library.

Finding My Inner Voice

“Build it and they will come.”  “Speak softly and you will be heard.”  “Don’t buy ice cream at the grocery store in 80+ degree heat with two more stops to make.”  “Take life with a pinch of salt . . . and wedge of lime and a shot of tequila.”  Listen, can you hear the soft-spoken advice of your inner voice?

For many, it is the golden years when the inner voice is finally heard.  Perhaps it is in these years that we finally have time to hear the inner voice that guides and directs us and offers us wisdom, or perhaps as we’ve gained experience, we are more easily able to interpret or believe our pleasant, peaceful, and wisdom-filled inner voice.

Call me an overachiever, but in the last two months, I have had the opportunity to hear my inner voice – and more than a few times.  And while I expected my inner voice to be heavenly and pleasant, it turns out, it is a loud, guttural yell that generates itself from the bottom of my gut and explodes through my head.  Far from angelic, it is really much more like the frightening voice that emerged from Linda Blair in The Exorcist (less the split-pea soup, thank goodness).

And what wisdom has that inner voice offered?  After a morning filled with two boys finding every means to stall and torment their mother before getting out the door for school, the inner voice offered this:  “GET YOUR SHOES ON NOW” – phonetically, “now” is pronounced “naawwwwwwhhhhhh!!!”  The decibel, tone, and gravel of the voice shooting past my tongue was such that my 5-year-old stood to attention like that of a well-trained soldier, and the loud whining from the 2-year-old stopped immediately.  After the inner growl, there was a long moment of silence – and then rapid movement to the shoes and out the door.

The inner voice has also offered, “PUT THE BOOK DOWN NOW” when the toddler attempted to throw a hard-covered book across the bed as we were reading and “settling down” for bedtime.  “STOP RUNNING NOW” emerged while with dad still at work, I was attempting to get dinner cooked and served while the boys tested the limits of sibling rivalry by wanting whatever the other one had, taking it, and then running around the house playing keep away – screaming and whining for the duration.  “GIVE ME THE SCREWDRIVER NOW” the inner voice ordered as the toddler began to tap on the picture window with his daddy’s tool that he must have obtained by quickly (I was tending to preschooler potty issues) scaling drawers to climb to the counter to get into the bag in the cupboard that holds the tools.  (And yes, we are quickly running out of places high enough to hide things and are considering renting a storage locker until we are through the toddler years.)

Now, the inner voice takes some time to build.  It is usually preceded by at least three attempts of firm but polite requests from the normal voice for the less than acceptable behavior to stop.  It is also preceded by physically intervening in the behavior – removing the book or toy or tool and encouraging proper behavior by getting down to the level of the offender.  And when these civilized gestures to quash the unacceptable behavior or noise fail miserably and just before my head explodes, the inner voice expels itself.

It’s never a proud moment.  But the inner voice achieves the objective.  Children seem to realize that when the inner voice of mom becomes outer, she means business.  There will be no more warnings – the guttural punch of the inner voice is not a warning shot, it is the “prepared to have really bad things happen if I don’t stop right now” shot.

I’ve admitted hearing my inner voice to several mothers – some with children of similar ages as mine and some who have been through these ages.  They too are overachievers having heard their inner voices early in life and in much the same circumstance, tone, and emphasis.  They too agree that their inner voice is not the saintly whisper they had imagined it would be.  And, we all long for the day that our normal voices are heard by our children, the first time we speak, making our inner voice truly inner and generally unheard, until of course, it emerges again in our golden years in the in the saintly, wisdom-filled undertone we have come to expect.  So yes, I have found my inner voice, and God-willing, I will lose it soon.