A Seattle University professor was forcibly ejected today from a Pike Place Market deli after he attempted to pay for a sandwich with a sack of potatoes.
The professor, Frenchman Francois Cloche-Fin, a native of the Isle Noirmoutier, is an instructor of economics, management and leadership at the Albers School of Business. He was not immediately available for comment.
“We get our fair share of freaks in this neighborhood, no doubt,’ Deli owner Pieter van der Hoogstrand said, “but I had never seen something like this before.”
At approximately 11:45 am Wednesday, Cloche-Fin entered the deli and ordered a Polish Sausage ciabatta with Emmental cheese. When he approached the cash register, he allegedly brought out a potato sack and pulled out two La Bonnotte de Noirmoutier potatoes, placing them neatly on the counter in front of him.
“I said, ‘what the hell is this?’ van der Hoogstrand recalled, “and he said that the sandwich cost $7.50 and so he wanted to pay with 2 potatoes. At first I couldn’t believe it, but the line kept growing so I told him to either give me cash or a card or get out.”
When van der Hoogstrand refused to accept his potatoes, Cloche-Fin allegedly grew agitated. “He kept shouting, ‘How dare you reject my potatoes? This is discrimination! My money is just as good as everyone else’s!’ ”
At that moment, two Pike Place Market Deli employees emerged from the kitchen and removed Cloche-Fin from the premises. As he was leaving, Cloche-Fin reportedly screamed, “You owe me a half-potato in change!”
Speaking to reporters some hours later, all van der Hoogstrand could do was shake his head and laugh. “I guess where he’s from, potatoes are a form of currency. But where does he think he is? We don’t even accept Diners Club here.”
The La Bonnotte potato variety, grown only in Cloche-Fin's native Isle Noirmoutier, is of course one of the most expensive foods in the world. Due to the manual nature of the growing and harvesting of this potato variety, one kilo can fetch us much as $700.
It's quite possible that Mr van der Hoogstrand and the Pike Place Market Deli missed out on a very good deal...
Showing posts with label Spoof. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spoof. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
[(ET + LR + IA = BC –> ROI ) | (DVKB > R) | (C = (P+L)xF)]
WTF books have come out with some chestnuts in recent months, but the latest offering from Terry T. Derby titled Formulae for Change, Leadership and Leadership Change amplifies to a tee the whole genre of change metrics.
A compilation of compelling anecdotes and radical simplifications of concrete truths, this synopsis of the mechanisms of change, leadership and changing leadership girates the reader through the full spectrum of organizational scenarios that aim to incubate leadership gametes.
Derby focuses on a range of simple formulae offered by a variety of commentators and experts that help us focus on the weights and measures required to effect the desired results.
These include the Trinity Training Formula - How to maximize ROI from Day Camp, which outlines where to focus efforts in situations where an organization attempts to engender behavioural change through mind management:
Which means Effective Training (ET) and Leadership Reinforcement (LR) and Individual Application, result in Changed Behavior (BC), which implies some possibly unmeasurable factor of Return on Investment (ROI).
Or there's the Downtown Pastor's negative input formula for positive change:
Meaning Change (C) comes from Pain (P) + Loss (L) multiplied by a bucket load of Frustration (F).
Or there's the Borat Armalyetee balance formula for implementing effective transitional change:
Which translates to the idea that Demand (D) x Vision (V) x Knowledge of next steps (K) x Belief (B) must always be greater than Resistance (R) in order that forward momentum be first instigated, then maintained.
In summary, this book is a must-have to all those desperate to be led in how to lead, or those wishing to change their current change management regimes. Available in all reputable book selling locations.
A compilation of compelling anecdotes and radical simplifications of concrete truths, this synopsis of the mechanisms of change, leadership and changing leadership girates the reader through the full spectrum of organizational scenarios that aim to incubate leadership gametes.
Derby focuses on a range of simple formulae offered by a variety of commentators and experts that help us focus on the weights and measures required to effect the desired results.
These include the Trinity Training Formula - How to maximize ROI from Day Camp, which outlines where to focus efforts in situations where an organization attempts to engender behavioural change through mind management:
ET + LR + IA = BC –> ROI
Which means Effective Training (ET) and Leadership Reinforcement (LR) and Individual Application, result in Changed Behavior (BC), which implies some possibly unmeasurable factor of Return on Investment (ROI).
Or there's the Downtown Pastor's negative input formula for positive change:
C = (P+L)xF
Meaning Change (C) comes from Pain (P) + Loss (L) multiplied by a bucket load of Frustration (F).
Or there's the Borat Armalyetee balance formula for implementing effective transitional change:
DVKB > R
Which translates to the idea that Demand (D) x Vision (V) x Knowledge of next steps (K) x Belief (B) must always be greater than Resistance (R) in order that forward momentum be first instigated, then maintained.
In summary, this book is a must-have to all those desperate to be led in how to lead, or those wishing to change their current change management regimes. Available in all reputable book selling locations.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Targeting from the viral hub - harnessing disintermediated networks to optimize ROI
It was last month at the Fantasietechnik-Imagineering conference in Munich that I first encountered The Viral Hub, a South African based outfit offering a range of software solutions and services to enable optimization of ROI by marketeers, web developers and researchers alike.
Their Hub solutions use bleeding-edge cloud architectures and sticky infrastructures, to leverage both back-end and front-end services to deploy a genuine motherboard of syndicated bandwidth. This enables end users to grow their capacity to facilitate the revisualization of cross-organization networks, and allow their websites to act as the fulcrum in the monetization of bricks-and-clicks paradigms.
Their Hub solutions use bleeding-edge cloud architectures and sticky infrastructures, to leverage both back-end and front-end services to deploy a genuine motherboard of syndicated bandwidth. This enables end users to grow their capacity to facilitate the revisualization of cross-organization networks, and allow their websites to act as the fulcrum in the monetization of bricks-and-clicks paradigms.
With low-cost packages such as Poll Hub, a disintermediated network of web polls acting as your "website visitor mind reader", and Typo Hub, branded as "SEO on steroids", a tool to auto-generate misspellings of all your keywords to boost your page rankings, The Viral Hub promise to drive eyeballs to your website, aggregate and engage your audience and power up your ROI through quality-focused visitor click-throughs.
At just $37 a package, it seems too good to be true.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Why huh? - They do stuff
I recently stumbled across huh?, a new and very agile design, consultancy and market solutions agency whose methods either leave you breathless, or speechless. You take your pick...
huh? is an enclave of new-age e-movers. They use catchy names for their job titles, like Vision Guidance Leader instead of Consultant. Cool names make them sound smarter and more clever. And that they are.
The CEO is rarely in his office, and all female team members are expected to go to dinner with him, or at least pretend like they'd want to sleep with him. After years of hard labour and Just For Men, it's the least reward we should expect for him.
huh? designers ride Razor scooters around the office, while wearing mail-bag style backpacks to hold their iPods. Once in a while they pause on the sofas and discover new ways of getting Flash on their iPads.
They have lots of shiny espresso machines, and all their new-age eMovers (that's the cool way to say "consultants," remember?) drive to work in VW Beetles, New Minis or minty-choccy-chip coloured Fiat Cinequecentos.
Appearance is everything, because huh? will get more of your money by looking cool than by doing quality work. And who cares, right, provided your customers are stampeding at your door with dollars dripping from their palms, just so they can get a piece of the shiny stuff.
If you call their office, the phone will be answered by a very disinterested intern, giving you the impression that they're too important to talk to you. And if you're reading this, then it's because they are.
Want more huh?
huh? is an enclave of new-age e-movers. They use catchy names for their job titles, like Vision Guidance Leader instead of Consultant. Cool names make them sound smarter and more clever. And that they are.
huh? designers ride Razor scooters around the office, while wearing mail-bag style backpacks to hold their iPods. Once in a while they pause on the sofas and discover new ways of getting Flash on their iPads.
Appearance is everything, because huh? will get more of your money by looking cool than by doing quality work. And who cares, right, provided your customers are stampeding at your door with dollars dripping from their palms, just so they can get a piece of the shiny stuff.
Want more huh?
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