“What, this is it?” she said with a look of confusion on her face as she stared at the five small “Thai shrimp” dumplings on her plate. “That is all you get for eleven dollars?” She was laughing with dismay as she went on to explain, “At home it would have been a big bowl with bigger dumplings and this is so little, that is a lot of money per dumpling and if I had known then I never […]
In 2008, a colleague announced that he was taking the voluntary severance and leaving. I was surprised, the volunteer severance was no better than the lay off severance and he was too young to retire. I asked him, “Was it a difficult decision?” I can still see the big smile that lit up his face, “No, not at all, in fact I’ve been planning this since the layoffs last year and I was afraid they weren’t going to offer […]
In 1987, I was at my desk at Motorola, trying to stay focused on the procedure I was reading when I overheard a more experienced colleague say, “He really read him the riot act….” Immediately, I thought, what act is that? I haven’t seen it in the pile of reading that I was assigned? I jumped up and asked, “Where do I get a copy of the riot act?” There was a pause and then a lot of laughter […]
