from JPT Group | January 2024 | Vol. 17 No. 1
No Fair!
➔ When there is a discrepancy among children, it’s almost inevitable to hear someone yell, “No fair!” A typical childlike response to what is probably a childlike dilemma.
Unfortunately, not all children grow up and many adults respond in kind. “It’s just not fair,” says a typical adult response. In the end – especially among adults – fairness is like beauty, it resides in the eye of the beholder. What may seem fair to you, may be egregiously unfair to me – and vice versa.
Perception is reality
This is true in all walks of life, in all countries, in business, in religion, among total strangers and even within families. Men, women. Black, white. Young, old. Sometimes life is just not fair. This can be true even at the highest levels of government.
After hearing his response to a question regarding a “farm bill,” a reporter followed up to President John F. Kennedy, “That’s not really fair to the farmers,” said the reporter. To which Kennedy replied, “Life’s not fair.”
Only the good die young. That’s not fair. That official’s bad call (or missed call) caused our team to lose the game. That’s not fair. Gasoline at $4.00 a gallon. That’s not fair. That girl turned me down for a date, only to go out with my best friend. That’s not fair. (In the long run maybe it is, but that’s another story for another day.)
It’s the new year and you can rest assured that some good things will happen to you this year, and some bad things will happen as well. Either way, it’s probably not fair. But who’s the final arbiter of fairness? No fair peeking.
“If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.”
— Johnny Carson,
American television host, comedian, writer and producer
BUSINESS UPDATE
Real inflation
The franchise fee to establish an NFL team in Detroit in 1925 was $50. In 1999, the franchise fee for most recent new team in the NFL, the Houston Texans, was $600 million – an increase of… you don’t want to know.
— Wikipedia & Statista
Questions and Answers
➔ This is especially true for purveyors of customer service surveys. Please, don’t be insulted when you receive brutally honest responses to your questions. If you don’t want to hear responses like that, don’t ask the question. You’re asking for our opinions, so we’re going to give them to you.
We can appreciate that not all criticism is constructive. But, if you are truly seeking the truth, you must accept the bad with the good.
And another thing. We don’t necessarily have opinions or answers for everything, so please, please give us the opportunity to say, “I don’t know.” If you don’t know, that a perfectly honest and accurate answer. So, would it kill you to include choices such as “Don’t know,” “neutral” or “n/a” or “none of the above”?
“When companies sending out their inevitable surveys receive negative complaints about service, why don’t they improve the service?”
— Alan Weiss, business consultant
KEEPERS
ChatGPT was the most-visited Wikipedia page in 2023, with 49,490,406 page views, according to the crowd-sourced encyclopedia site.
— Associated Press
Watch that first step. Porch pirates in Georgia were charged with felony theft after taking an entire porch from a neighbor’s yard.
— nypost.com
AR – Artificial resumes. In a study of more than 100 CVs, ChatGPT made an average of 14 embellishments per CV.
— theundercoverrecruiter.com
Bon appetit. Unsold Christmas trees are fed to elephants and bison at the Berlin zoo.
— Associated Press
No “beer goggles.” Researchers found that alcohol does not influence judgments of attractiveness.
— news.sky.com
Different days, different years. In New Jersey, one twin baby was born at 11:48 p.m. December 31, 2023 and the second at 12:28 a.m. January 1, 2024.
— upi.com
Very statuesque. A man in Warsaw, Poland posed as a mannequin in a window and waited until the mall closed after which he robbed several stores in the empty mall.
— New York Times
Drink up, butthead. A butt is a real unit of measurement for a cask of wine. A buttload is about 108 Imperial gallons.
— Mental Floss
Small is beautiful. Small businesses generate a whopping 44 percent of all economic activity in the U.S.
— HR Brew
Not happy to be here. Mori Ouchi, a small cafe in Tokyo is famous for “only catering to pessimists and people with a generally negative mindset.”
— Oddity Central
Wake me when it’s over. About 15 percent of the population walks in their sleep.
— oddee.com
The Month of January
Month of the Month
After the generosity and goodwill expended on December, January is continuing with that theme. This month is Adopt A Rescued Bird Month as well as Be Kind to Food Servers Month, and California Dried Plum Digestive Month. What? Sorry. It’s also Self-Love Month.
Today is January 15th. Don’t fret because it’s Blue Monday. You won’t be blue if you observe Rid The World of Fad Diets and Gimmicks Day.
Question of the Month
Who is the only man to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring?
It might help if we gave you his uniform number or the team for which he played. But we’re not going to. You’re on your own.
Quote of the Month
“The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The realist adjusts his sails.”
— William Arthur Ward,
author and one of America's most quoted writers of inspirational maxims
Get a Headstart
If you have ever thought about including a newsletter in your marketing communications toolkit, before you begin, download our free digital booklet – Getting Started with Your Newsletter – to get some basic questions answered as well as a little inspiration to nudge you forward. Be sure to check out “Something Special” at the end. Download your copy.
A Gridiron MBA?
Maybe that’s not possible, but there is much you can learn about business from football in the book, Hard Hitting Lessons. The subtitle says it all, “Some not-so-obvious business lessons learned from playing football.”
Get your copy here!
