Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

What Happened to Properly-Made Cappuccinos?

I’m sitting at a counter at a local coffee joint – Futures Bakery – occasionally glancing up at the full moon and brightly-shining Jupiter in the clear night sky. I just finished my capuccino and I’m wondering how a coffee joint can call this thing a capuccino.

I ordered a capuccino at Costco on the weekend and ended up with what was essentially a latte. Okay, that was Costco where you can get a hot dog and huge soda for $2, so what level of quality could I reasonably expect?

This is different, though. Futures is supposed to know and do better.

A proper cappuccino, as you probably know, is espresso coffee topped with steamed milk foam. It is not, as I have now received for the second time within a week, espresso coffee with steamed milk mixed in. That’s called a latte.

Is a proper cappuccino really that hard to do? Is it a matter of baristas no longer giving a damn or no longer having the proper skill & knowledge? I know people tend to drink lattes these days because they don’t really like the essence of strong coffee, but a cappuccino should still be a distinct and different experience from a latte!

I’m not a big Starbucks fan – I’d rather give my business to smaller operations – but I think I need to try out their cappuccino and see if the vaunted Starbucks does it properly. I’m not a huge coffee expert, but I know what I’m ordering and what the experience should be like.

Please tell me the art of a fine cappuccino isn’t disappearing!

Are You Selfish Enough to Be Successful in Business?

Perhaps Gordon Gecko got it right with his infamous quote, “Greed is good.” Everything worthwhile takes sacrifice, but the sacrifice necessary for business success and building a successful business is one born of a burning self-interest – and given the challenges inherent in competing in the commercial arena, that flame of self-interest has to burn extremely hot to keep a person going strong.

“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed – for lack of a better word – is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind.”

I was skimming through a copy of the book Driven by Robert Herjavec yesterday, and read a short chapter discussing why the military produces great leaders but so very few of them go on to become great business leaders. The answer, provided by the soldiers he spoke with and even by the experience of some of his family members who struggled through conflicts in Eastern Europe, is that the underlying values are different. Military leaders are trained to sacrifice for the greater good beyond themselves: the good of their unit, and the good of their nation. Business leaders, on the other hand, sacrifice first, foremost, and perhaps only, out of self-interest.

Though I certainly have business aspirations and goals for myself which I continue to strive towards, I have to admit that throughout all my teenage years and into my early twenties, I was ardently anti-business. I can certainly understand why people protest vehemently, even violently, at international summits like the G20 and International Monetary Fund (IMF) events. Business is ultimately built on greed. There’s no two ways about it – businesses exist to make money for someone.

However, the turning point for me was understanding that (1) I have to take care of myself and being a martyr for the a amorphous “common good” does nobody any good in the end, and (2) businesses exist to make money but they can also add and contribute to the greater good while doing so.

A number of business authors point to this, and for me most memorably by Jim Collins & Jerry Porras in Built to Last, when they say that profits are like oxygen: profits are necessary for the survival and continuation of a business, just like the air we breathe, but they are not the reason why a great business thrives, just as breathing is not the point of life itself and is not the reason why we thrive.

It has been, and continues to be, a struggle for me to reconcile my desires for a better economic future for myself through business ventures and the recognition that business success is built on a foundation of self-interest. Business, and therefore greed, is indeed good on the grand scale of a society, nation or global community – it is the reason why we in the developed world have the comforts, the safety & security, and the possibilities that we have – but on an individual human scale, I still find a strong focus on self-interest a distinctly dishonorable thing.

I identify with the ethos of the military service in the sense that the men and women in uniform sacrifice and devote their lives and their families to the betterment of their fellow citizens. I have sought that kind of environment and culture and have not found it, not even in church if you can believe that.

Did Gordon Gecko get it right? Is greed good? Is Herjavec right? Are you selfish enough to be successful in business? Are Collins & Porras right? Can – or even must – a successful, thriving business live for a reason beyond profits? It is my opinion that a workable answer is a combination of all 3 views. Still, I think it behooves each of us to ask the question, “Are you selfish enough to succeed in business?” and to acknowledge the answer we give ourselves.

Some People Live on Tips – Please Don’t Shortchange Them

Some people in the service industry live on tips, but they keep getting shortchanged by people who either don’t know they live on tips or just flat out don’t care. I know some of the guys reading this might be thinking, “No… I tip strippers well!” Okay, I’m not talking about strippers, although admittedly they do live on tips and they do work hard for their money. I’m not talking right now about strippers – I’m talking about waiters/waitresses and fast food delivery drivers. The reason why I want to bring up these two lines of work in particular is because I was just talking to a former waitress very recently, and she was justifiably griping about some of the super-cheap customers she’s served over the years.

I’ve heard the stories before, of course. Yet, each time I hear the stories, I am reminded of the stories I’ve heard from someone I know who is now an auto dealership manager but worked his way up starting as a regular car salesman. He’s come across some really cheap customers and prospects as well. Without mentioning what particular ethnic groups were singled out, I notice that both of these individuals working in different fields cite the same ethnic groups as being picky, hard to please, and damn cheap.

Some people are cheap, fine. All of us want to be economical most of the time, fine. But fair is fair – some people work hard to serve us, and they deserve to make a fair return for their efforts. Wait staff are one such group of people. So are fast food delivery guys. I know because these are my family members who have worked in restaurants, delivered pizzas, and sold cars. Waiters and waitresses don’t really make a salary – the money they make comes from tips, which more often than not is split with the restaurant management.  I just heard (actually, re-heard) the story about the family who rang up a $40 bill at Boston Pizza and left a $2 tip, even after asking for practically everything under the sky and still getting good service. That means my relative got $1 for all that effort because all tips at Boston Pizza are shared 50-50 with management (and this is the case with many of the franchise chains). Doing that to waitstaff really sucks – after all, you don’t work for free, do you? Then why make someone else work for you for free or nearly-free? These service providers really get practically nothing from their employers, so don’t think “Oh, but they make a salary anyways, and the company is making money off me, so why should I give any more?”

I also heard again tonight about some of the tables who left no tips at all. Again, there’s a theme here – the tables that give the least (or nothing at all) are the most demanding, the hardest to please, and for some reason, tend to be from one of just a few ethnic groups.

If you don’t want to pay any tips, don’t eat out. It really is that simple. The tip is part of your cost of dining out.

Likewise, if you don’t want to pay the pizza delivery guy any tips, go and pick up the damn pizza yourself. The few dollars that fast food delivery guys get from the restaurants themselves barely pays for the gasoline it takes to make the deliveries. Once again, they rely on tips. They live on tips.

A friend from highschool years ago honestly did not know that pizza delivery guys live on tips until I told him. He never gave the poor guys even a cent until that day I told him in all seriousness that the men (and they’re always men) who appear at the door bearing hot food rely on tips to make a living.

Please, if you have any sense of decency, tip the folks who work to provide you good service and who depend on tips to survive. Yes, if you really do go to strip joints, tip your strippers well. But more than that, please tip your wait staff and delivery guys. Don’t shortchange them just because they’re in a line of work that you think is beneath you – heck, for all you know, some of these folks have better qualifications than you do.

Cutting Yourself with a Cooking Knife Means You’re Doing Something Stupid

Have you cut yourself with a cooking knife? I have. In fact, I just cut myself for at least the fourth time just earlier this evening. At least with all four instances that I can remember, I cut myself because I was doing something stupid.

Case #1 was the most serious and required using special bandage “clips” to hold the wound together. It was one step away from actual sutures. I still remember how I did that one. I got lazy ripping the plastic wrap off my cucumbers and decided to use my chef knife to do it. Oops! Somehow the knife got away from me and I got a deep cut on my left thumb. I shouted out at least one swear word and ran some cold running water over it before applying pressure. It bled a fair bit, and I got lightheaded – not from the blood loss, it wasn’t really that much blood in the grand scheme of things, but was likely my parasympathetic system compensating for the adrenaline that had dumped into my bloodstream in an instant. After all, this was the very first time I had ever cut myself with a knife and it took a while to stop the bleeding.

Moral of this story: Use your knife only for cutting food, not for cutting open food packaging away from the cutting board.

Cases #2, #3 and #4 were from not paying attention at crucial moments. I don’t recall exactly what the circumstances were for #2, but I remember chiding myself afterwards for not paying attention and from improper technique. I think it was while practicing peeling fruit with my knife and instead of keeping the blade steady (laterally) and moving the fruit to the blade, I was moving both. Oops! I ended up cutting my left thumb on the tip.

Moral of the story: use proper technique when cutting or peeling, and pay attention the whole time you’re doing it.

Case #3 was actually just yesterday and in a moment of inattention – I’m not exactly sure what happened but clearly I wasn’t paying full attention – I poked my knife tip into my left ring finger tip. It was a very clean cut, didn’t bleed much though it’s a good 4mm long and who-knows-how-deep puncture.

Moral of this story: pay attention to what you’re doing, particularly if you’re dealing with novel ingredients on the cutting board.

Case #4 today was actually a deeper cut on the inside of my thumb tip. This was while working on a particularly hard, dense squash and at the end (1) rushing because I already had onions sauteeing and someone was urging me to hurry up, (2) I was standing incorrectly, square to the board and cutting off on the corner of the board rather than more centered, and somehow (3) my left hand wasn’t in a claw grip. I think it was the combination of (1) and (2) together that led to my inattention and doing (3), resulting in my putting an edge to my thumb. Again, a clean cut, and it didn’t hurt much.

Moral of this story: always have a proper stance, body posture, and hand position when cutting.

I find that one’s stance while cutting makes a big difference, and I continue having to fight my old habit of standing square to the board/sink/garbage can – whatever it is that I’m cutting on or peeling over. My cuts are cleaner, faster, and safer when I stand with my left foot forward, right foot back like a fighting stance. Heck, sometimes if I’m really getting into it, I’ll bend my knees a little. One of my highschool PE teachers used to say that power comes from the ground up, so make sure your body is positioned with strength from your feet all the way through to your head and shoulders. I never would have guessed that this advice applies to cutting in the kitchen as well, but it does.

It’s best never to cut oneself by accident in the kitchen, but I have a feeling it’s bound to happen to everyone – at least everyone who spends any amount of time cooking – at least once eventually. Just avoid doing anything stupid and you will eliminate your chances of being cut. Those rare times when you do cut yourself will likely be because you’re doing something stupid and you just got good feedback on what to do or not do in the future!

Demand Faster Emergency Communication from Your Government

We live in an age of rapid, nearly-instant communication. Emergencies depend on the rapid exchange of information between those who are on-scene and those who can support them, between those who have information to protect others and the public who needs that information to keep safe and help themselves. Internet technologies are among the fastest, most efficient ways to communicate. Police forces, private citizens, and even the mayor of Toronto use Twitter to communicate with the public. Emergency response is one of the responsibilities that rightfully remains with government, yet government is woefully lacking in terms of web agility.

Perhaps this is the case in all large organizations bound by the red tape of bureaucracy, but I know firsthand that it is an issue within government. I just came from a meeting where business continuity coordinators from multiple ministries discussed issues related to notifying the public of service disruptions. Internet technologies ranging from the now-venerable static webpage to real-time social media are great tools to use to communicate to the public. Unfortunately, government is the poster child for bureaucratic delays, and my business continuity colleagues mentioned that they do not rely on using their ministries’ websites for emergency communication with the public because updates cannot be posted fast enough.

Not fast enough? Sure, you know you can put up information in an instant. A tweet takes under a minute to put up, including the time it takes to log in to Twitter or an associated application. Even updating a static web page is a quick and easy thing, particularly if you already have some pre-scripted content to post up. It could be done in under 15 minutes, really. However, the reason why government lacks web agility has nothing to do with the technology. It doesn’t even have anything to do with the technical abilities of public servants. It has to do with senior management risk aversion.

As I’ve discussed before, government is one of the most risk-averse entities in a democratic society. The underlying culture is that it is better not to do anything at all than to do something wrong. The corollary is that it is better not to say anything at all than to say something wrong. That is why public communication from the government takes so damned long. Emergency information has to pass through many layers of approval before reaching the minister (who is politically elected, of course) and then finally being posted online.

When minutes count, a process that can take an hour or more – and an hour would be considered extremely expedited – you have serious communication issues.

Government has good information. During the H1N1 pandemic, the government was an information source that medical professionals trusted. However, front-line medical professionals have said to government loud and clear that the information needs to come faster and be structured in a manner that is efficient for readers.

It is a rare politician in power or government official who will speak with directness and candor in public when the stakes are high – though admittedly this is something you’ll notice from corporate spokespersons and corporate leaders as well. Words are wrapped in soft, safe language that dilutes their meaning sometimes to the point of ineffectiveness or even obfuscation. It is equally rare for public communication to come out quickly because it has to be crafted and massaged just so prior to public consumption.

You can’t totally blame politicians and the government bureaucracy for this risk aversion, though. Witness the public confusion over information provided related to H1N1 vaccination in Ontario. The government endeavored to provide the most up-to-date information available at all times, but because the scientific understanding and assessment was continually evolving, the information changed over time. The public has told us that they want more detailed information and real-time information, yet when given real-time information many people got confused and frustrated.

There are two sides to this issue. Government is a human enterprise, and emergencies are dynamic, often-unpredictable situations. Government is not web agile because it knows what kind of political pain can result from saying the wrong thing or saying something that can be misconstrued. Conversely, the general public is feeding this risk aversion by expecting government to be perfect, make no mistakes, and know the facts and outcomes definitively right from the start.

I cannot offer any quick solutions, but I can advise you to push your elected officials to streamline public communication, particularly when it comes to emergency information. Government, at least at the provincial level from what I have seen, and likely at the federal and municipal levels as well, is not web agile at the moment. Updates will not come speedily and rapidly via social media or static webpages – not until the voting public demands better and lets the political leadership understand that (a) delays when public safety is at stake are unacceptable, and (b) we understand that emergencies are dynamic and information and assessments of the situation will change over time.

Those of us within the government structure continue to do what we can to streamline processes, but there are limits to what those inside the system can accomplish. However, the voting public wields the ultimate power and can provide the impetus and pressure to change the system from the political top, as well as provide the understanding and leeway to allow government to give out the best information it has as soon as it has it rather than wait until there’s no risk left before saying something. The voting public is at once the boss and the customer, which means the voting public has the most to gain and the most power to make things change.