How to Motivate Your Team

HEY EVERYBODY, I HAVE A NEW NOVEL OUT!

It is called Grand Theft Astro, and it’s available now as an Audible Original. The e-book and paper editions will be out in January, 2022.

Now, on to your regularly scheduled commentary.

Once, in high school, when I was working at a chain restaurant, I made an offhand joke about the crew unionizing. The very next shift the store manager took me aside to explain at stupefying length why unionizing would be a terrible move for the crew, so much so that if I attempted to actually follow through on the idea in any way, she would have to fire me for the common good.

I remember wondering why the idea of the crew unionizing seemed to freak her out so badly.

In retrospect, the fact that she would regularly have me—a restaurant worker—wash her car, watch her kid while I worked, and on one occasion go to the store with her kid and a list of household items to buy for her (including pantyhose) might have had something to do with it.

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How to Discuss an Uncomfortable Topic

HEY EVERYBODY, I HAVE A NEW NOVEL OUT!

It is called Grand Theft Astro, and it’s available now as an Audible Original. The e-book and paper editions will be out in January, 2022.

Now, on to your regularly scheduled commentary.

I write down my ideas for these comments as I read the comics, and often I find that the third of fourth panel contains a joke based on the very idea that I came up with while reading the first panel. Clearly I’m having the same ideas now that I did back when I wrote the comic. This gives me hope that I haven’t “lost it.”

Sadly, it also makes me worry that “it” hasn’t improved much either.

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How to Figure Out Who's the Jerk

HEY EVERYBODY, I HAVE A NEW NOVEL OUT!

It is called Grand Theft Astro, and it’s available now as an Audible Original. The e-book and paper editions will be out in January, 2022.

Now, as for the comic, I really like the first panel in this one. Well done, past Meyer!

Since I don’t really have much else to say about this comic, I’ll clarify something that has been the subject of more than a little supposition and debate: the proper pronunciation of my go-to shout of alarm, “NGAAAAH.”

NGAAAAH is, sadly, the closest phonetic spelling I can think of to the actual noise I make when I’m startled. I think the “AAAAH” part is self-explanatory, but it starts with the sound one makes at the end of a word that ends with ING. Take “singing,” for example. Silently mouth the word “singing,” but only make noise after the second I. You should end up with something similar to an N, but more strangled, and emanating from the back of the throat. Practice making that sound. Eventually you’ll get the hang of it, and any family members/office mates who hear you will avoid you for the rest of the day out of a vague, unnamable fear of whatever it is you’re struggling with/afflicted by/transforming into. Once you have the “NG” mastered, roll directly from that into a staccato shout of alarm, cramming all seven letters into one big syllable, and you, my friend, will be shouting “NGAAAAH!”

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How to Help Someone See How They Are Perceived

I feel about hugs roughly the way Richard Ayoade does.

Forward to 2:50. For some reason the internet won’t let me auto-start the video there.

It’s funny how people who are huggers, when they find out you are not a hugger, will just smile and inform you that they will continue to hug you no matter what you want, then mock you for not wanting their hug.

No, funny isn’t the word. Infuriating. That’s the word I want.

I’m not against hugs in general, for specific people. My wife, my mother, small children . . . cats? Does picking up a dog or a cat count? The point is, I have never, and will never hug, say, Ric. It wouldn’t feel right, and he wouldn’t know how to respond. He would probably interpret it as some sort of attack, or possibly a physical form of sarcasm.

I once had a guy inform me that he was a hugger as he came in for a hug. I told him I was not, and it did not slow him down at all. I resigned myself to the fact that the hug was going to happen, and out of some weird awkward impulse I patted him twice on the back during the hug. He kept me in the embrace and said, “You don’t have to do the awkward heterosexual back-pat with me.”

I fought the urge to point out that I am, in fact, an awkward heterosexual. I also managed to keep from explaining to him that forcing a hug on me, prolonging the hug when I was clearly uncomfortable, and criticizing me for my poor hugging technique was not doing anything to change my mind about hugs.

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How to Discuss Business Theory

To sell a printed book you need to write it, edit it, format it, design a cover, market it, tweak the layout page by page to avoid text problems at the page breaks, buy all the paper, print all of the copies, bind them into books, package the books in boxes, store the boxes until orders come in, ship the boxes all over the country (you hope) to bookstores. Then the bookstores have to store them, stock them, stage them, and sell them at a profitable price. If the print run sells out, you do every step from “buy the paper” on all over again. More often, the first run doesn’t sell out and the remaining copies are sold at a loss.

When you make an e-book, you need to write it, edit it, format it, design a cover, market it, and convert it into the proper format, and set a profitable price. Then is sits on a server and is copied and transmitted via the internet for fractions of a penny per copy to any and all purchasers for years to come.

So, is there any logical reason why an e-book shouldn’t be at the most, half the price of a paperback? You tell me.

Missy says: I saw one the other day where the e-book cost MORE than the paper version. Flames. On the side of my face.

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How to Impart Wisdom

“The stick always wins” sounds like a good slogan for something. Maybe a guy who uses a stick for something, or calls himself “the stick.”

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How to be Productive

One of my favorite sketch shows of all time is The Kids in the Hall.

My favorite kid in said Hall was Kevin McDonald.

This is a sketch he wrote and starred in about a guy with a to do list.

I’ve always enjoyed that sketch, but I appreciated it far more after I learned that it was inspired by a conversation he had with Dave Foley in which Foley made fun of McDonald after seeing that he had a beat up, tattered to do list, the final item on which was “Make new list.”

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How to Talk Nonsense

When I was a kid, I heard the term “hiding your light under a bushel” and couldn’t figure out what it meant. I asked my mom, who explained the concept.

When she was done, I believe the three primary questions I asked were:

Why would somebody do that?

A bushel of what?

 and

Wouldn’t the bushel catch fire when the lightbulb gets hot?

I was a very literal-minded child.

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How to Recast a Superhero

Apparently Michael Keaton is coming back as Batman in the next Flash movie, which they’re making as I write this. I hope they have to go to Arkham Asylum and question Jack Nicholson’s Joker. I know there’s a continuity problem with that, but I propose the following dialog to fix it.

Flash – He’s still alive? I thought he fell to his death.

Batman – He faked his death.

Joker – That actually fooled you?! It was all done with toy helicopters and cartoons!

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How to Learn from History

When I was a kid, we used to save all of our pop and beer cans. (The beer inside the beer cans were 100% my parents’ property, but once they were empty, and essentially trash, the cans belonged to all of us. There’s some sort of lesson in that, I think.) We would collect them in giant garbage bags for that one time a year when we would drive down to Oregon to visit family, because you were paid something like 25 cents a pound to recycle aluminum in Washington, but in Oregon you could turn in the cans for a refund of the 5-cents-per-can deposit all Oregonians had to pay. We didn’t pay the deposit, but got the refund anyway.

I often suspected that a lot of Washingtonians were drawn to vacation in northern Oregon by that deposit, but only the cheapest Washingtonians, which might have fed into why Oregonians seemed to resent Washingtonians so much.

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