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Red Right Hand ..

I’ve been loving Nick Cave’s responses to his fans on his website, the Red Hand Files.

And it gives me a wonderful excuse to link to this live performance.

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Being punched in the face ..

You may have seen this interview with Elon Musk floating around the YouTubes. The interviewers did an ok job getting some good stuff out of him, though the ‘do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour’ part at the end was a bit weird.

I enjoy these interviews because Musk comes across as a very thoughtful, super intelligent, super rational player that just gets on with things - which is a total contrast to his other ‘funding secured at 420’ Met Gala public persona. I liked hearing about his humble beginnings in South Africa, and how his growing up among violence lead to a particular shape of character development.

It’s worth a listen if you can put it on in the background and do chores or something.

And the violence discussion made me think of this helpful self-defence gif.

BennettGreen @BennettGreen

For linking to newsletter later ..

imgur.comimgur.com48937 views on Imgur: The magic of the Internet

3:28 AM ∙ Jan 6, 2022

(via /r/funny)

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2022 predictions ..

Scott Galloway did a review of his 2021 predictions and a little teaser of his 2022 predictions.

More reasons Facebook’s VR headset is uniquely positioned to fail: It causes motion sickness and skin rashes and prevents other people from having sex with you. It also doesn’t pass the Crocs Test. Whenever a product seems to be garnering a degree of hype incommensurate with its value, ask yourself: Do people like it more than a rubber clog with holes in it? Answer: Not even close.

Scott Galloway’s 2022 Predictions

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In matters of taste ..

You have likely heard the expression ‘the customer is always right’.

Only recently had I learnt though there is some conjecture on whether that expression has been truncated down from the slightly longer expression, ‘the customer is always right in matters of taste’.

This longer saying makes much more sense to me. On subjective items such as style, taste, fashion etc - the only opinion that counts is that held by the person giving up their money. If the diner says the meal is too salty then yes, what they’re saying is that the meal is too salty for them. It’s not necessarily a criticism of the chef, who may be preparing the meal for the average palette. But the diner is the person paying the bill - not the phantom average person. And so the meal is too salty.

Is it fair to chef? Absolutely not. But life’s not fair - and adopting this approach will result in a happier customer, which is better for the chef anyways.

Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

Reading this post by Ed Zitron got me to do some self reflecting. The post is about how, in today’s Coronavirus times, this ‘customer is always right’ approach - whether limited to matters of taste or not - opens the door to some very unhappy workers. It’s worth a flick through.

Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At

The Customer Isn't Right

When I get mad at something, I do my best to try and focus on who the right person to be mad at is. For example, suppose something goes wrong at a hotel. In that case, you are likely not going to be able to speak to anyone directly responsible, because the reason that the thing went wrong is a multitude of different things that didn’t quite click. As a …

Read more

a year ago · 20 likes · 7 comments · Ed Z

And here comes the self reflection part. Skip this bit if you’re just here for the funny links.

Reading the post got me thinking about some problematic-customer-behaviour of my own this last fortnight. Over the Christmas period, my local chemist informed me they didn’t have stock of some insulin pump supplies I needed, and that due to the public holidays, instead of them arriving the next day like usual they would take about a week to come in. And I got a bit cranky.

It’s not like they couldn’t see my needs coming - the supplies are consumed at a regular rate and I’m a regular customer - and so I couldn’t understand why the chemist didn’t keep one or two months of stock on hand to avoid supply chain problems.

And then a few days after my hissy-fit, when the supplies were due to arrive, they called again to say that their supplier was also out of stock and I would need to wait further. They couldn’t have known this, but when they called to let me know of the second delay I was at a funeral and hadn’t eaten for about 18 hours (by not eating I could make my dwindling insulin supplies last longer). I wasn’t in a good mood - and so I got a little more cranky. I behaved poorly. And I shouldn’t have.

I was speaking to a mid-20 something girl who was just trying her best. And chemists and nurses and carers and all sorts of health professionals have had a pretty shit run of it of late. And I’m not sure what outcome I was even chasing — she wasn’t going to be able to magic up another vendor at short notice. My hissy fit made me feel slightly better in the short-term but did nothing to solve the problem.

So, hopefully next time I find myself in that situation - a frustrating problem not of my making - I will be able to stay level headed and focus on solving the problem rather than giving in to my frustrations. Because although I might be the customer, that’s still a few rungs lower on the entitlement-ladder than that which would justify my hissy-fit temptation.

I need to remind myself, do I want to be right or do I want to be happy?

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The long take ..

I can’t figure out a way to embed this into the newsletter (if anyone has a solution please reply to let me know) but I suggest you check out this short video showing the behind-the-scenes craziness that goes into pulling off the ‘long take’ in video production.

It only goes for a few minutes and I was blown away by how much is happening behind the camera!

Behind the Scenes of a Long Take | Reddit

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- Bennett

bennettgreen.com

Cover Photo by Samantha Lorette on Unsplash