Apple goes to the wall for its employees in Japan

Treat your people well and they will reciprocate. Here’s one way  to do that. I saw an article last week on how Google figured out what made a good manager; turns out, compassion for and caring about employees was the trick, not super-intelligence or knowledge. I could have told them that, having supervised people far more intelligent than I was (am) , including legal secretaries, but Apple seems to know that without a study.

UPDATE: By the way, a number of commentators have noted the complete lack of looting in the worst-hit areas of Japan. The consensus seems to be that Japanese culture creates  a sense of community and family pride, so that to shame one’s family by stealing from one’s neighbors is unthinkable. That same culture produced the atrocities of WW II,  so I won’t go overboard here, but still, there is much to admire in the Japanese.

UPDATE II: this brings up an interesting thought experiment: who would loot or steal from a neighbor they know (okay, I might hit Mike Horton’s house, but that’s personal)? I’m pretty sure that Greenwich residents would never go on a rampage, but how does  Japanese culture produce the same restraint even in cities, where presumably no one knows who owns the house fifty blocks away?

Speaking of Wall Street

There’s some great theatre going down at the Raj Ratsorama trial. I love it when, on X-am, a witness raises “his voice several octaves”. That’s when you’ve caught him lying, in my experience. I’m going to try to get down there to see this, but why isn’t it televised?

Downtown living

I’d still rather live in Wyoming, but this new apartment building by Gehry in lower Manhattan looks pretty neat. Back when I visited Wall Street, hunting stock brokers, I often thought that it would be a great place to live. Then, when prices dropped low enough to almost make that a possibility, I couldn’t take advantage of it. Next lifetime – thank goodness for reincarnation.

I’m no genius, but it’s the builders and their agents who are dumb

25 Beechcroft

When this truly awful spec house showed up for sale 3-4 years ago at the price of $7.950, I pointed out that a similar spec job across the street had just sold for around $6, and I questioned how this one would command more. That ended my friendship with that listing broker but now there’s someone new representing the house,at $4.995 and according to today’s open house listing sheet, “welcomes any and all offers”. I’ve got to believe it’s worth something, but what?

UPDATE: Readers are no more impressed than I am. Question: can a spec builder sue an architect for malpractice?

UPDATE II: Last time I visited this house I noticed it had been “staged”. It hasn’t sold since that expense was incurred. Lipstick on a pig.

So stupid, so Democratic

 Danno Malloy has a “new” idea: tax the rich! The trouble with this brain storm is that it’s a game of “whack-a-mole” – As our most famous Viet Nam Veteran, John Kerry, demonstrated, rich folks head elsewhere when threatened with taxes. Kerry  registered his new yacht in Rhode island to evade $500,000 in Massachusetts sales taxes. Better to grab ahold of income and business taxes and let the rest go rather than lose everything. This was demonstrated when the feds tried a “luxury tax” decades back, but Danno has obviously, a very short memory.So boat builders will lose their jobs, Connecticut will lose revenue and Danno will appear a champion of the very same “little people”  he’s tossing out of work. Great.

RTM does the right thing, Boy Gary appointed to Parks and Rec

I’d pretty much stayed away from this topic, figuring that the best thing for Gary Del’Abate was no publicity at all, but I’m delighted to learn that the RTM approved his candidacy last night. Boy Gary is, in case you missed it,  the producer of the Howard Stern show and has been since he was a young kid of twenty or so.  I thought Stern was funny back in the early 80’s – I haven’t listened to him since he divorced his wife Allison and, to my taste, stopped being funny.

But what does that have to do with the producer of his show? Heck, I had a wonderful legal client who produced the Geraldo Rivera show. I was no fan of Geraldo but my client was a terrific guy. And Boy Gary is a wonderful resident of Old Greenwich  – he, as I did, coached little league teams – the ultimate test of self-sacrifice, and wanted to step up that committment to serving on Parks and Rec. I say God bless him, and I’m really pleased to see that the RTM felt the same. Thank you for your service, Gary.

There goes England

After 14 years of huge success, the bosses of Midsomer Murders have discovered that there are no people of color in the show. The producer has been sacked and we can all look forward to a new, final season of political correctness.

Headline of the morning

Snake dies after biting breast implant. Amazingly, Charlie Sheen was not involved.

Possibly illegal and definitely dumb

Weston home owner runs ads slamming Stamford school system. Individual homeowners are pretty much free to say what they want, but this house is listed with a broker so I wonder if the owner falls under the reach of Fair-Housing laws? I don’t know the answer to that, but it seems to me there are better ways to tout the virtues of your house than blatantly attacking another town’s schools. Here in Greenwich we do it so much more subtly, simply raising an eyebrow and suggesting, “Stamford?”