Just a little (link) love: Tonys edition
June 23, 2016
CAREER + MONEY THINGS
Taylor continues the conversation about parenting and gentrification and schools
I’m surprised how pleased I am for Freddie Prinze, Jr that he made proactive decisions about leaving Hollywood and building what sounds like a pretty awesome life. He chose to be a stay at home dad and still earns income from his hobbies, reportedly working 6 hours a week. A Hollywood (or rather, ex-Hollywood) story I enjoyed, for once!
I shouldn’t laugh about this but I did. Call it the schadenfreude of the working executive. I’ve been the executor of many a rushed and ill-conceived plan dreamt up by top management. Despite all my warnings about the time and resources we needed to properly roll out whatever we were working on, they never listened and it was almost always some kind of a PR disaster.
You may have heard that Costco and AmEx broke up some months ago, and Citi Visa was taking AmEx’s place. Well, the changeover was official on Monday and it wasn’t pretty. Costco reportedly has 81 million members, all of whom needed to receive an activate a new card. Considering that number, don’t you suppose the smart money would have been on bolstering customer service employees and staggering card mail outs and activations over a period of several months? Nah. The almost inevitable train wreck went into effect on Monday and Business Insider blandly reports: “Citi may not have put sufficient additional resources toward the project.”
No kidding? We got our new card a few weeks ago but it’s just been sitting on our table because we’ve been too busy to activate it. I’m sure that’s the case for many people and is in no way surprisingly human behavior. With all we have on our plates, activating a new card is really low on the priority list. So I’m guessing 80M of those 81M were all calling this week trying to activate their cards!
I adore Costco but I have never been impressed by Citi or Visa, and suspected it would be a kludger of a transition.
FUN THINGS
The Little Mermaid’s “Kiss the girl” like you’ve not heard it before. I’m trying to imagine Sebastian singing it this way.
Lion eating man’s pants. This is not unlike any given Thursday at our house.
INTERESTING THINGS
A Muslim woman in a feminist marriage
On Isabel Allende and our failures in imagining the past
Thanks for the link!
I love that Hamilton has gotten all the recognition it has and deserves. It’ll be a long time before I experience something quite as inspiring again.
You’re welcome!
Me too. The story of someone working hard, putting their talents to work, lifting up others around them, and of course, for me, the quintessential essence of “Immigrants, we get the job done.” It’s not just inspiring, it feels satisfying. Someone who deserves it, and is grateful for their good fortune, who cares for others and doing good for others, that validates my feeling that good guys do win.
I need to write a post about Hamilton and all the reasons I’m so glad it exists. In the meantime, thanks for the link! I haven’t gotten to see the clips, and they’re always a revelation.
I can’t wait to see your post!
Fidelity has been doing a similar transition on a similar timeline with their credit cards. They’re moving them from FIA Card Services to Elan Financial Services. They’re doing it slowly though – not everyone is getting their cards at the same time. A much smoother transition! It’s been amusing watching the Costco transition versus the Fidelity transition.
Leigh recently posted…Pre-nups and marriage: the future of shared finances
It’s nice to know that some companies are capable of managing a transition the smart way š
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