When I visited Trader Joe’s over the weekend, the cashier asked for my zipcode. That’s a common question in many retailers, but unheard of at this one. I asked him why they were collecting that info, and he said they’re trying to figure out where customers live in order to choose the locations for their […]

On Saturday, I tried out a new 24-hour breakfast place. As the hostess led us to our table, we walked past numerous empty booths and tables near the front of the restaurant, and found ourselves deep in the bowels of the venue. I politely rejected this location, and asked for a booth instead. The hostess […]

If I remember correctly from my first microeconomics course, “price elasticity” refers to the often tricky relationship between price changes and the volume sold. It seeks to answer a simple question: if we raise prices, will people still be willing to buy enough units to keep our revenues at the same or a higher level […]

Email signatures have become a dumping ground for all sorts of unnecessary and ironic text. For example: – “This email may contain confidential information.” Email is not a secure communications channel, so why are you sending confidential info in the first place? – “Please consider the environment before printing this message.” Since every byte of […]

While riding in a taxi last week, I came across one of those newfangled credit card machines that has a digital signage screen built into it. Basically, it’s a small display with local news updates in one zone, and ads in the other zones, attached to a credit card reader. Aside from the video quality […]

During a typical trip, I use my laptop in a variety of places around the airport. Here’s how I would rank them, from most productive to least productive: – Wrap-around desk with proper office chair (San Francisco-SFO) – Countertop with bar stools (Chicago Midway-MDW) – Oversized recliner-style chairs (Midway again) – Regular airport waiting areas […]

When you’re going out to lunch or dinner with a business associate, a few basic guidelines apply. In my experience, it’s good etiquette to pay for the meal when you are: – The person doing the selling, if the relationship is that of customer (or prospect) to vendor – The person who invited the other […]

Earlier this week, I was on the phone with an airline to ask why they had changed my reserved seat to a different, much crappier one. The customer service rep basically told me they screwed up but had no way of assigning me the original seat again. I could get into other details, but I […]

While going through some travel documents, I came across a few unused flight credits from Northwest Airlines. I actually tried to use them once, but there was some technical issue with the Northwest website. Rather than throwing them away, I decided to contact the airline and find out if they were still valid. As you […]

Compare these two grocery shopping scenarios: – You’re totally out of the basic foods that you eat on a regular basis, so you have to visit the store. – You have plenty of the essentials in the pantry, but you want to try out some new things for the fun of it. Virtually any store […]