Shallow | Center

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

YES, ABSOLUTELY, newspapers are commercial enterprises. Their owners, whether closely held private groups or shareholders of large media corporations, rightly expect a return on their investment. And when times are tough, cuts must be made, and often that means letting good people go, just as it does with companies that manufacture widgets. What makes newspaper layoffs tough for readers, I think, is that the writers and editors who are nudged not so gently out the door have built a common voice, one that speaks to us daily, and we know that we will miss them when they're gone. Reading Dan Rubin's agonizing description of yesterday's sadness inside the Inquirer's newsroom, I was struck by all the familiar names whose hard work will no longer appear in the paper I read most often: Solid reporters such as Kellie Patrick and Natalie Pompilio, Benjamin Lowe and Jeff Shields, Dawn Fallik and Julie Shaw, folks I dealt with when I was in PR and whose stuff I've read and enjoyed for years.

Comlastic

HAVE YOU noticed that the two teams owned by the city's signature commercial enterprise -- an organization rolling in money, an organization I pay an obscene amount to monthly for the privilege of watching television and e-mailing my friends, an organization that's a true market leader in its industry -- suck? The 76ers have just traded one of the league's very best players, and if history is any guide, it will take them years to recover. Meantime, they have lost nearly a dozen straight games. The Flyers are busy discovering that their own very best player's legacy of injuries didn't stop the moment he stepped off the plane at Philadelphia International. In the course of a few short seasons, they have plummeted from the conference championship series to being truly, heinously awful. Both teams, of course, are part of the Comcast empire, which must regard them as nothing more than cost centers at this point. I spent a couple of years publicly hoping that the Robertses would pick up the Phillies and infuse them with cash. But as has been proven elsewhere and has become abundantly clear here, there's an enormous difference between spending a lot and spending wisely.

That's One Tall Step for Man, One Venti Leap for Mankind

Fighting the Power, One Cup at a Time

SO I'M AT Starbucks late this afternoon, having decided to kick back for a few minutes with a decaf, and I do what I always do: eschew the chain's absurd, faux-European size designations and ask for a "medium." Not once has the chick behind the counter -- sorry, the "barista" -- ever held out and waited for me to say "grande" instead. I always get my medium, as I did today, and I always get the (very) small satisfaction of thwarting corporate America's furious attempts at mind control. Power to the people, man. Or, as my brother would say, get a haircut, hippie.

(I know, I know -- you waited almost five days for a post, and you get this? Hey, it's spring training -- if the guys in the Show can take it easy until the real games start, then so can I.)

Always Right

Applause for Customer Service Done Correctly -- Thank You, L.L. Bean and Southwest Air

CUSTOMER SERVICE, REALLY, IS NOT a difficult thing to do right, yet it's amazing how many companies manager to foul it up. We all have our horror stories -- the waiter who sits on the check for 45 minutes, not even bothering to heat up your coffee; the supermarket cashier who conducts your entire transaction while mumbling into her cellphone; the special hell this is a voicemail routing system -- and as much as my four years as a bookstore clerk fosters empathy for the country's retail wage slaves, I know bad service when I see it. Likewise, I know its overshadowed sibling, good service, which never receives the attention it ought to.