The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s music director, JoAnn Falletta, is featured on Naxos this month. I didn’t realize she had that many recordings; among the seven listed there, four feature the BPO. I own two of them; time to track down the other two (the Copland and Respighi, specifically).
How to serve your customers (if you hate them)
BuffaloGeek recently made a vehicle purchase at Joe Cecconi Chrysler, and the resulting transaction with Joe Cecconi Chrysler did not go well. It seems that the people at Joe Cecconi Chrysler consider customer service to have ended as soon as the vehicle is off the lot, and that any attempt by a customer to procure more service from Joe Cecconi Chrysler constitutes attempted theft of services or something similar. It appears that lying and refusing to talk to customers is the way things are done at Joe Cecconi Chrysler, which is a shame. It’s not like there are lots of other Chrysler dealerships in the region; why, Joe Cecconi Chrysler is just about the only place to by a Chrysler for a fifty-mile radius, so it’s not like the guys at Joe Cecconi Chrysler will miss out on commissions if word of the abysmal, combative, and downright rude customer service at Joe Cecconi Chrysler should get out.
So shop at Joe Cecconi Chrysler if you must, folks, but hold on to your wallets, and make sure you get all the service you think you’ll ever need before you sign the dotted line with the salespeople at Joe Cecconi Chrysler.
Remember that name: Joe Cecconi Chrysler. That’s a name you can trust.
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Your attempt has ended in failure.
It’s been interesting this year watching the Buffalo News enter the wide world of Blogistan. They’ve moved in fits and starts, it must be noted; they shut down the blog devoted to their monthly “Book Club” after just two or three months because it didn’t have enough readership, which shows that they don’t realize how long it can take to build audience in the blog-world. They also seem completely unaware of the existence of blogs outside of their own operation, to judge by the number of outgoing links they use.
And then there is the occasional hilarity of watching these reporters interact with “commenters”. A great case in point: the other day, News sports columnist Jerry Sullivan, who is also now one of the News‘s new bloggers this year, decided that he’d had enough with his commenters trying to be funny in his comment threads, so he threw down in a post which he entitled “You’re Not Funny”:
Judging by many of the posts on this blog, a number of you feel as if you’re auditioning for the Comedy Channel. Here’s a tip: You’re not funny. Don’t get me wrong. I do get a charge out of some of the back and forth banter that shows up here. I’m all for a good dustup between two people with strong opinions, even if it goes over the edge at times. But the guys who spend their time straining to be clever, posting lists that are really weak and signing other people’s names — Larry Felser, Jerry Sullivan, etc.? Really, when I read those I lament the very existence of these kinds of forums. It gives dim-witted types the idea that anyone can sit down for five minutes and write something that the average person wants to read. It’s not that easy. That’s why the blog can be a pain in the ass for me at times.
And as any experienced citizen of Blogistan might well expect, everyone in the comments of that post is completely respectful and no one makes any attempt to be funny. Well, except for, well, everyone. Oops.
Worse, Sully even makes special mention in his post of a specific item for which he seems to take lots of ribbing on the blog: the tweed jacket he’s wearing in his headshot. So along comes this line from a commenter:
I give two nicotine stained thumbs up to Jerry’s drool stained circa 1972 imitation tweed size 46 portly jacket.
That’s signed “Jeff Simon”, who happens to be the News‘s monument to pretentiousness film critic, and a guy who has never failed to complain about Roger Ebert’s “Thumbs Up” schtick when he’s had the opportunity. So that comment is funny on multiple levels. Not bad for an anonymous person in a blog comments thread!
Later on, Sully eats a bit of crow, to his credit. Welcome to Blogistan, Sully.
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Party like it’s 2007?
UPDATED Below.
Jen14221 asked me over on Facebook about the Buffalo Bloggercon that’s still tentatively a go, I guess, for this coming Saturday evening. I say “tentatively” because I haven’t heard much by way of interest in this in my past postings about the event (aside from Paul, and I may have even annoyed him by floating the notion of a date change last time I posted on this topic). Many, if not most, of the folks who have contacted me regarding this particular Bloggercon have given regrets for various family or work related reasons, and believe me, I totally understand! While I thought that picking a date in December several months in advance might help that cause, it hasn’t turned out that way, and in the realm of Real Life in and around Casa Jaquandor, this weekend has turned out to be completely packed as well (although not so packed as to render impossible my attendance on Saturday night): between tonight and Sunday, we’ll have three events at our church (four if you include the regular Sunday service), one work-related Christmas party, two events at The Daughter’s school, The Wife’s out-of-town work meeting, and the weekend grocery shopping. Where did all that come from? Is there something about this weekend that stands out, sore-thumb-like, on the calendar for people looking to schedule stuff? Ye Gods!
So anyway, is there sufficient interest to bother, or are we better served waiting until sometime in January or February when we’re not all inundated with Christmas-related events and family stuff and expenses? I’m honestly asking here — while I think that our Bloggercons have become way too infrequent, I also know that we’re all pretty busy people to begin with, and anyway, there’s a reason why organizing bloggers has occasionally been likened to herding cats. I also freely admit my less-than-impressive skills when it comes to event planning. (My involvement in the planning of our wedding, way back when, mainly consisted of, “I wanna wear a black tux with a white tie”, “Hmmm…I like the chicken better than the steak and it’s cheaper too”, “Mmmmmm, carrot cake!”, and “Nice invites, except that’s not my actual middle initial.”)
The first Bloggercon I ever attended was in January 2006, and it was a great time for all, in downtown Buffalo. Now, I know that it’s become an “unofficial Bloggercon” to gather at a particular bar and watch the State of the Union address, but I don’t think I’d do that one — nothing against the company involved, but frankly, even if Kate Winslet showed up on my doorstep to watch the SOTU with me, and even if when she did she was wearing a pair of overalls and bearing with her several tubs of Cool-Whip, I’d probably turn her away, so low is my desire to listen to George W. Bush orate about anything at all.
But anyhow, was anyone still planning to go to this Saturday evening’s proto-event? Or should we live to fight again another day?
UPDATE 12-7-07: Well, the consensus seems to be that this date is bad, and something early next year would be much better. Fair enough; this one didn’t work out, then. Maybe next time.
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Beers! Blogs!
UPDATED below and UPDATED again:
Yup, it’s coming up, folks: the official Holiday season social gathering of navel-gazing keyboard pounders known as a Christmas Bloggercon! The date is December 8, the place (since no one’s strenuously argued for another) is Buffalo Sports Garden, and the time? I’m guessing around 7:00, unless anyone thinks it should be later, around the 8:00 range. Bloggers, commenters, lurkers, and families thereof are welcome to attend. Given that this is a basic sports bar joint, I’m guessing that it’s simply a “show up and see what’s going on” type of thing. The Sabres do play that night, at San Jose, so it’s a late game; we won’t be battling a crowd on that basis.
For those who have never come to any kind of blogging get-together, well, I’ve only been to two of ’em myself, but my experience is that we don’t actually blog while we’re there. Because that would be, you know, lame. And we’re not lame in Buffalo, are we?
UPDATE: Well, it seems that Jennifer can’t make the 8th, so if everyone involved wants to move the meetup to the 9th, I’m fine with that. (I’m also perfectly fine with a change in venue; it’s not like I had my heart set on that sports bar or anything, having just tossed that out there and not heard any suggestions otherwise!)
UPDATE II: OK, all this damned waffling on my part isn’t helping the cause at all, is it? So I’ll be at the afore-mentioned location at the time also afore-mentioned, on the 8th, as originally planned. Sorry for all the cock-ups on this thing, and if anyone wants to show up just to tell me how bad I am at event planning, well, I’ll plead guilty as charged! And I hope to catch everyone else at another blogger event in the future.
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Free the Sigma Six!
Here in Erie County, we just elected a new County Executive, who takes over a county that’s been pretty much of a mess for years. The incoming Exec, Christopher Collins, is a local businessman, new to politics, who pulled off one of those “Political newcomer who will run government like a business” campaigns. This, coupled with a fairly uninspiring candidate on the other side, led to his election. All this is pretty run of the mill stuff. People are always coming along, running for office on the basis that they’ll run government like a business. I’m always a tad skeptical of such talk, since it always strikes me as talk that sounds good, but it’s generally hard to tell what it really means. Governments aren’t businesses, their focus isn’t profit generation, and so on. To me, “run government like a business” is little more than feel-good rhetoric, right up there with Rudy Giuliani’s “stay on offense in the War on Terror” and Al Gore’s “Social Security lockbox” and all the rest.
However, we do have some idea of how County Exec Collins is going to run things like a business: he’s planning to implement something called “Six Sigma”, which is, according to WikiPedia, “a set of practices originally developed by Motorola to systematically improve processes by eliminating defects.” That’s all well and good, but of course, Six Sigma or no, that’s what any good manager tries to do: improve the way things are done by figuring what’s not working so well and ditching it. So Chris Collins is going to use Six Sigma to get his “Run Erie County like a business plan” going. Fine, I suppose; but if you’re like me, and you’ve spent as much time as I have in the company of various management types, you’ve heard this sort of thing before. If there’s one eternal skill that business types have, it’s dressing fairly simple ideas up in “golly whiz” terminology. Spend any time in corporate America at all and you’ll hear stuff like this constantly. Some people will be diehard adherents of the system in play, while for others, Six Sigma will be “that thing we tried back in 2007”.
All this is fairly harmless stuff. Looking through some stuff on the web about Six Sigma, it all seems fairly innocuous, and in competent hands, it may even work well, although I’m always less inclined to credit the new “Gee whiz!” business tool with the success than the competent people who implement it. I’ve been around the block a little bit, folks, and believe me, the competent person who flies by the seat of her pants will usually beat out the inept person with a system in the end.
So what’s my problem? Why am I posting this, and what’s with that picture heading this post? There’s an aspect to Six Sigma that strikes me as colossally silly. Apparently there are levels of proficiency depending on training and focus, and those levels are titled as the levels in the martial arts. So when Chris Collins talks about hiring a Six Sigma person to come in and help him out, he isn’t hiring a consultant or an expert or something like that. No, he’s hiring a “Black Belt”.
Well, sorry, Six Sigma devotees, but that’s where I get off the bus. This kind of terminology makes it nearly impossible for people like me, who just want to see the damned local government stop sucking quite so much, take things seriously. Now, instead of seeing serious people take a serious approach, I’m wondering if becoming a Six Sigma Black Belt requires making a big circle with the left hand to get the wax on, and a reverse circle with the right to get the wax off. Over in this BuffaloPundit thread about Six Sigma coming to Buffalo, someone asks how one becomes a Six Sigma Black Belt. With a title like that, it disappoints me to learn that it has nothing to do with single combat between office workers using staplers as nunchucks.
One of the things that makes The Office such a brilliant show is its skewering of management-speak, the jargon-heavy way that managers talk and the whole cottage industry of management consulting that has sprung up in the business world. And when we start drawing parallels between expert consultants and black belt karate masters, the only reaction I can muster up is a healthy snigger.
None of this, by the way, should be construed as skepticism that a Six Sigma approach can help with Erie County’s governmental problems. However, here’s an interesting article suggesting that the bloom is off the Six Sigma rose. A cursory glance through some links relating to Six Sigma conveys the strong impression that there’s not really anything new with it; rather, it’s a new way of codifying an old idea. And take it from me, there will always be a new way of codifying old ideas. In twenty years, Six Sigma will be in the management history books, and some other nifty new program utilizing the same notions of quality improvement will be all the rage. And maybe then the consultants will carry titles like “Padawan”.
UPDATE: Pundit follows up, here and here.
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Shop the Southtowns!
Some local retail stuff:
:: Well, I finally made it into B is for Books the other night, after several consecutive weekends of meaning to get there but not managing to do so (running low on funds one week, The Daughter being under the weather the next, and so on). Let me tell you, folks, this is just a terrific place. Please don’t let its location, in outlying Orchard Park, be a deterrent to coming here! It can easily be made part of a Southtowns shopping excursion, especially if you’re going to the stores at Quaker Crossing; central Orchard Park is about a ten minute drive away from Quaker Crossing, and by extension, about fifteen minutes from the McKinley Mall area. And it’s one of those local, independent businesses we’re all supposed to be keen on. Small business, locally owned. Entrepreneurship, in nigh-Socialist Erie County.
The store itself? It’s a bright and airy place, for one thing; lots of room to browse. Plenty of places to sit and look through the books, or to sit and read to your kids, or whatever. The selection is pretty impressive as well; overall the store is about twice the size of the childrens section at your local Borders or B&N. The analogy I’d make is that this is the bookstore equivalent of Clayton’s in Williamsville.
So yeah, we’re big fans already, and I really hope this place succeeds. Indie bookstores aren’t exactly a growth industry these days.
:: We haven’t been there yet, but The Good Toy Shop is a mile from Casa Jaquandor. It’s as though the Gods are actively scheming ways to part me from my money, but for some reason, they’re not alternately scheming ways to give me more money to part with. What’s up with that? Anyhow, once we’ve scoped out The Good Toy Shop, I will report on its offerings. (Can it be coincidence that it’s three doors down from my favorite liquor store?)
:: I can’t vouch for them at all, but there’s a custom computer joint called Technophobia that’s been open for a while now. I drive by it every day on my way to The Store (it’s on Orchard Park Road in West Seneca). What I can vouch for is that they took an old eyesore of a house and renovated it to house their business, complete with new paint job and everything. I’m always happy to see old structures used for new businesses, as opposed to the constant construction of new McPlazas that end up sitting empty with the “Leasing Now!” sign out front.
:: Does anybody besides me think that the Buffalo area really needs a blog like the Syracuse Post Standard‘s Store Front? Hmmmmm….
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Huzzah!
Still active after all these years
In the hallway at The Store that leads to the public restrooms, the walls are adorned with prints of old photographs from the community (West Seneca, NY), which I assume were procured from the local historical society. I’ve looked at each of these photographs in the time I’ve worked there, since part of my job involves cleaning those restrooms; one of those photos, though, has been particularly interesting to me in that time. Mainly this is because it is on the wall directly opposite the Ladies’ Room, and I often have to stand outside this room for several minutes while those persons inside finish their duties, thus giving me time to study this photograph.
I’ve looked at the faces in that photograph many times, and I’ve come to see personalities within them, just from the way the people look: their postures, their expressions. The photograph is of a schoolroom, and the people are the schoolkids — probably in the ten to eleven year old range — and their teacher. I see things about these kids, and I’m always wanting to discuss these observations of mine with someone else, but restroom cleaning’s a pretty solitary job, and none of the women exiting the restroom (or entering, come to that) are ever much inclined to listen to the musings of the maintenance guy on the old photo.
This, in short, is a job that blogging was meant for. But how?
Well, today I’m standing there as usual, waiting for my opportunity to tidy up that restroom, and it suddenly occurred to me that my cell phone has a camera. I took a shot of the old photograph, e-mailed it to myself, and now I can at last present it here:
First, all of the kids are in the back of the room with a bunch of empty desks at the front, which makes it clear that they all moved to different desks to accommodate the photographer. Also, no one is smiling, which is the way things usually are in old photographs like this — when did smiling become the standard behavior for photographs, anyway? But maybe there’s a tendency to assume that a lack of a smile means a lack of display of personality, and it turns out, that’s just not the case.
The teacher, standing in the rear, looks like a fairly stern fellow, but this might not be the case. In any event, he’s totally focused on the photo being taken: his suit is in perfect order, his posture is straight, and with his hands folded behind his back, he looks like he’s in confident command of this classroom.
A lot of the kids are in similarly straight, controlled postures. But not all of them. Look at that girl just to the teacher’s right: she’s turned slightly toward the back, she has her elbow rested on the back of her chair, and she’s leaning her head against her hand. Also at the back of the room (rear seat, second column from the right) is a girl who is leaning forward with her arms folded on the top of her desk. That interests me, since most everyone else has their arms carefully down, out of view. It’s interesting to contrast those two girls with, say, the one in the second seat back on the rightmost column: that girl is the very model of the posture one expects from a photograph in this era. Her back is utterly straight, her head is held precisely forward, her arms and hands out of view.
Turning to the boys in the photograph, other interesting things appear as I look at this. All of the boys have open schoolbooks on their desks. (In fairness, the angle makes it hard to determine conclusively if the girls are sitting without books on their desks, but I don’t think they are.) I don’t think this says anything about boys and girls, necessarily. Or maybe it does. I’m no historian of education, after all; does it mean anything that the boys have the books?
Again I turn to posture and clothing. All of the boys wear ties, either long ties or bowties. Of the seven, four wear jackets. That boy at the far left is wearing a sweater, it appears, and his left arm is cocked back onto the desk of the girl behind him, and he’s holding his book in what appears to be an exaggerated pose. Nobody’s going to do much reading of a book that size from that posture, so it seems to me that this guy’s showing off a bit. Maybe he’s the cocky one, the class clown.
Moving rightward, we have two boys in jackets and bowties. Nothing about the boy in front really stands out, but there’s something about the boy behind him that’s stronger, more assured. This kid always looks confident as hell to me, and there’s something about him that says “rich kid” to me — maybe it’s his jacket and upright, strong posture. Frankly, he looks like George Will a bit, doesn’t he? Yup, this is the banker’s son, I’ll bet. Here’s the class Republican. (I kid, there — but he does have that upper-crust air about him, even however-many-years later.)
Of the other four boys in this photograph, the two that interest me are the ones sitting in the front of the right two columns. Taking the boy in the dark shirt and light tie, it interests me that he sits kind-of slumped down fashion, with his arms flopped down at his side. He isn’t even feigning an interest in the book on his desk, the way all of the other boys are holding their books as if to suggest that their actual studies are being photographed. This kid is having none of that. This kid looks to me like a blunt, working-class type: not dumb, but rather of the mindset that this particular exercise is just another example of the kind of BS in life that’s best got done with right fast.
The boy at the far right is terribly interesting to me. First, he’s not sitting in the center of that desk; he’s edged all the way to the right of the seat. This is probably because it’s not his normal seat at all, for the reason stated above, but it makes him look terribly uncomfortable anyway, especially in light of the way he is holding his book at an angle and looking up at the camera in a terribly sheepish way. Whereas the last boy wanted to get the photograph done with because it’s all just a dumb waste of time, this kid doesn’t want to be photographed at all. This kid looks scared to me, timid, as if he’s the kid who spends every moment of his school day praying, over and over again, like a mantra: “Please don’t call on me. Please don’t call on me. Please don’t call on me.” He’s in the front of his column, and he looks totally ill-at-ease with this.
What else about this photograph interests me? Well, there’s the total lack of decoration in this classroom. I know it was an earlier time, but no hanging skeleton, if it’s a science class? No wall maps? No chart of the proper forms of the letters of the alphabet? What’s with the apparent netting on the walls? Are there decorations that were removed for some reason at the time of photography?
I also love the desks. I remember desks where chair and desktop were one unit, but these somehow reverse it: the chair is attached to the desktop for the student behind, not the student sitting in the chair. And, of course, this was the era when iron furniture had all kinds of ornate stuff going on in and around the framework. There’s a real sense of craft here.
Unfortunately, the tag that was once attached to the photograph, thus identifying its time and place (in the lower right corner you can see where the tag once was), is long-gone, so I can’t speculate on how old any of these kids might be if they were alive today (or if that might be feasible in the first place). It’s still a fascinating window into an earlier time, when even the apparent formality of a schoolroom photograph couldn’t totally suppress the individual personalities of the children.
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BuffStuff
The other night, the Buffalo News gathered a few of the Usual Suspects from the Buffalo Prefecture of Blogistan to talk about blogging. You can hear the entire presentation, via a series of podcasts, starting here. It’s all interesting stuff, and as always, it’s entertaining to hear what bloggers actually sound like when they’re not typing. Check it out.
Also, it’s clear to me that the Buffalo section of my blogroll is fairly out-of-date, so if anyone has suggestions as to what needs to be added here, feel free to drop a link in comments. I’m gearing up to do an overhaul of the entire blogroll soon anyway.
Finally, remember that we’re trying to get a Blogging Christmas Party together for Saturday, December 8, in the evening. Time and location aren’t totally settled yet — I’ve tossed out the Buffalo Sports Garden in Orchard Park at 7:00 pm, but that’s open to debate as always (someone pointed out that their menu isn’t very vegetarian-friendly, for instance). I’ll try cobbling together an invitation-type thing sometime soon, but if anyone seriously disagrees with that tentative location, now’s the time to speak up!