I’m a guy, and as my mostly female staff would attest this week’s topic comes way to easy. My loyal readers realize that there are some days when I want to take on difficult and controversial issues. This is not one of those days. Today is a rant day!

I’m just back from nine days on the road in two large cities (Vegas and Phoenix) and I found something that perturbed me. (Go figure.) There are automatic bathrooms everywhere. In airports, restaurants, tourist attractions, golf courses–you name a location and I found an automatic bathroom there.

What exactly is an automatic bathroom? It’s the one that the door opens automatically as you approach it, brings down the little seat cover paper automatically, flushes the toilet automatically, starts the water faucet automatically (in theory when you put your hands under the spout) and then dispenses paper automatically as you stand there dripping wet!

Has the world become so lazy that we can no longer be trusted to do these functions ourselves? I mean, I have heard of big brother but this is absurd. Okay, for health and environmental reasons I can understand why these functions may “benefit us.” That presumes the functions actually work properly and don’t take three times as long to work as their manual alternatives.

So, if we have gone so far as to automate personal hygiene, here are a few other things that could stand to be automated for the benefit of us citizens: the United States Congress, The President, my golf game, lawyers returning phone calls (now that would be great), grocery shopping, laundry…

Hopefully you get my point…automatically!

One of the toughest jobs in this world is being the person who has to tell someone they no longer have a job. I am that person and I must admit there are occasions when it’s cathartic, but only because that person has been a cancer in the organization and letting them go will hopefully make that go away. This is especially true in a small organization of less than 25 people where one person is really a big part of the company. But when the layoff doesn’t pertain to a “cancerous employee” you find yourself in the position of letting a good person go and that’s an entirely different situation.

In an office that is small, friendships are created and nurtured over time thus making the departure even harder on the person who must leave and the staff who will remain. The person being let go, especially those who have next to no idea it’s coming, is summoned to maintain composure–and that my friends, is the responsibility of the person doing the letting go. Handling the layoff with compassion and understanding is a must.

There is another downside to layoffs: the effect it has on the rest of the employees. It is natural for everyone to worry if they will be next. Business owners must be candid with their staff and explain the circumstances surrounding any departure. Only then will the staff begin to heal itself and continue to work effectively.

With the economy speeding toward a self-fulfilling prophecy of a “recession is coming” there will be more layoffs before there are new hires. While the link to the article that follows talks about layoffs in larger companies I find a good deal of it also relates to smaller companies. Take a look and see if you share the same approach.

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/07/the_art_of_the_.html

David Scannell (be prepared, I am now exercising my First Amendment Right) is an idiot! Yes, I said idiot. This is the guy, a state representative I might add, who voted to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana on Tuesday of last week. Then went to work for the Manchester School District on Wednesday where he is the school spokesperson and, get this, the head of the safe schools program! What was he thinking? Rather, not thinking? I’m not pandering to the Mayor; in fact during the last two elections for Mayor I supported his opponent with a big sign on my lawn. But Mayor Guinta is right here, Scannell was not thinking clearly.

Moving right along, lets talk about how fast a lawsuit was filed by some Concord Law Firm because Hannaford had a very sophisticated breach of it’s debit and credit card numbers. I concede that nobody wants to have his or her credit or debit card numbers stolen and that computer security is very important. I only ask that you tell me how much the folks who actually have had their numbers stolen been hurt? How many of the false charges are they liable for? I think the answer is zero. So this is just another case of legal greed.

Then my favorite of the week (which also involves lawyers) is the story of the lady who fell trying to get a good seat at an Oprah taping and who is now suing Oprah for not controlling the audience. Give me a break and get a life!

Hey I don’t make this stuff up–it just happens.