Dunkin' Donuts

Interesting premise for a feature: go back to your very first job and see what's changed. Dunkin' Donuts Redux by Cait Murphy [Fortune Magazine, via faisal]

...in communities like Cos Cob ... the idea of the first job is changing. Dennis Tournas, who bought the franchise in 1983, prefers not to hire high school students anymore. Unlike in my day, when we teenagers were all paragons of dependability, kids these days hog the phone and cancel shifts at the last minute. But then, they aren't exactly begging to bag doughnuts, anyway. When the manager of the store, Jose Illescas, shows me a sheaf of applications, none are from local teenagers. So who's making the coffee? Immigrants. Every single worker at the Cos Cob Dunkin' Donuts, from the owners, who were born in Greece, to the manager (Guatemala), to the most senior baker (Brazil) and the longest-serving counter help (Taiwan), is an immigrant.

That tracks with our local D'Donuts, which I cheerfully frequent. Goooood coffee.

In my first Dunkin' Donuts tour ... I learned that in the workplace, not wanting to do something -- say, frosting chocolate doughnuts -- just doesn't matter. You have to do it, so there's no use whining. I learned how much smoother the day goes when people act with civility; a shift filled with pleases and thank-yous is better than one lacking in such grace notes.

I can't go back to my first job, because Randall Foods went away long long ago and there would be no shelves to face.  

 E.R.

Just saw last week's E.R., and man is it going back down the tubes. They did a very 'writerly' thing this time: hey, it's Abby's birthday so let's make it a bizarrely, implausibily, impossibly hellish day for her. Hey presto, cheap irony! I stopped watching E.R. for a couple of years because there was nobody to like, nobody to root for and nothing went well for anybody. Looks like the patient may be having a relapse. Ah well, at least it was decent again for a while.     2 comment(s)  

Although it looks like for the first time this year Abby will get an actual storyline -- the shot of her drinking a beer with the neighbor -- when she's an alcoholic -- indicates she'll be headed down a nasty path. I think the problem with ER in recent history is the lack of storylines that have any depth or originality to them...
      ...posted by AmyK on January 14, 2002 1:28 PM

Not only that, but they showed Abby having a BEER!!!! What happened? Never thought she'd go off the wagon.
      ...posted by Princezz on January 18, 2002 4:08 PM

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 West Wing

C.J.: Don't you have work to do? Toby: I have a lot of work to do. C.J.: And? Toby: You can't rush these things. -- "H.Con 172", The West Wing

 

 'Google effect'

Noodling about Google: I agree with these musings by Dan Gillmor: `Google effect' reduces need for many domains [Mercury News, via Tomalak]

With the rise of search tools that unerringly bring you to the page you want [Google], the need for a highly specific domain name -- one that a casual Web user would be able to guess -- has practically disappeared. What's happening here is the separation of the domain-name database from the real-world lookup. This is a Good Thing.