Lazy Man Update |
16 Comments |
It’s been a little more than two weeks since I’ve been without a day job. Here’s a little update of the odds and ends of how that is going and what I’m doing.
I find myself twice as busy as I’ve ever been when I had a job. It’s a good busy though, making time for myself. I’m getting to the gym more, the home is cleaner, and I’m slowly getting thing done that I’ve been putting off for a long time. We are also better prepared for emergencies. My wife had a small accident and needed a couple of stitches. I was available to get her quickly to the emergency room and help her with the injury afterward.
Before I left my last job, I mentioned that Google contacted me to interview with them. I passed the first round of interviews. It was pretty difficult interview as you might expect. At the end, the interviewer asked if I had any questions. I simply asked him the three things he likes best about working at Google. He wasn’t too happy with me asking him a question (even though he through the ringer), saying that this interviewing isn’t a “symmetrical relationship.” I wish I had thought to remind him that Google asked me to interview, not the other way around.
I started a new blog this week. I should have put more focus into my health blog, but I couldn’t resist it any longer. Can you find it? (If you do, please don’t spoil the fun for the other’s.)
Random thoughts:
- Why can’t grocery stores have one line and many registers like you find at banks, post offices, and Barnes and Noble? I’d still have the express line, but it seems this is by far the most efficient system. It seems like I always get in the line where there’s one problem that holds it up for a half hour. With the “bank line system” this would be spread across all customers, not just an unlucky few.
- CNBC aired one of the most outstanding sound clips ever. It’s Kelly Ripa saying, “I will do anything for a dollar.” I’d like to pay her a dollar to wear a Lazy Man and Money T-shirt in public once a week.
- Walt Mossberg did an interview on CNBC with his Red Sox hat on. I knew I liked him for some reason.
- Pushing Daisies is by far my favorite new TV show. It’s a quirky premise, but it provides a for a good story.
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November 5th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Setting aside the practicalities, there’s an operations management proof that the system throughput would go up with a single line served by multiple registers. I don’t have it offhand but probably any master’s level operations management book would have the proof.
I’m sure there must be some reason the stores don’t implement something like this. Maybe it’s that they make more money off the impulse-buy trinkets that are lining the end of the register aisles.
2Cor521
October 30th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I’m hoping i’ll be able to get to the gym more often now that I won’t be working.
I’ve slipped from being buff to looking overweight. Not good.
Health beats Wealth any day of the week!
I like pushing daises too. along with bigshots, house and dirty sexy money.
thank god everything is online now - i can shave off 50% of the viewing time
since they have limited ads.
October 28th, 2007 at 7:09 am
Trader Joe’s doesn’t have conveyor belt to put things on. I don’t think the queues need to be that much bigger. It’s a small price to pay to never be stuck in the slow lane. Customers would love it, which means more business allowing you to make up for the space.
October 28th, 2007 at 6:48 am
The grocery store idea won’t work because:
- space needed for queues would be bigger
- you cannot start to put items on it while the person before you is paying
But I am sure in 1 or 2 years we will have these automatic checkout registers where the shopping cart has already calculated automatically what you put in via RFID and you just pay by credit card and leave.
No register, no personal, no queue
October 27th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
I’m surprised- the Google interviewers I talked to encouraged me to ask questions and were very responsive. And saying that it’s not a symmetrical relationship is just stupid, given that the best potential employees need you the least, and hence have the most symmetrical relationship. I think you just got a bad apple.
October 27th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Whole Foods and Trader Joes and maybe some other stores in NYC DO use that system and it works pretty well. There was an article about it awhile back in the Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/business/23checkout.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss