Thanks, But No Thanks for Your Advice

After my second son, Jonathan, was born, I received lots of presents for him. Never mind that he will be wearing and playing with his older brother's hand-me-downs. (Don't take it personally, Jonathan. We registered with Handmedowns R Us before your brother was born.) As I was snipping off the tags from the clothes, I noticed this from a garment made for Little Me Essentials:

Welcome Baby Home with:

• 10 bodysuits
• 2 bodysuit/pant sets
• 10 footies
• 2 bib and burp cloth sets
• 2 take me home sets
• 4 sleep gowns
• 4 receiving blankets
• 1 plush stroller blanket
• 2 towel and mitt sets
• 6 pairs of socks

Who came up with that? A man or a woman with a nanny? I do laundry at least five days a week and the most popular items that get washed are bibs. Every time I feed Jonathan, I need another bib. I use the bib to wipe his lips and chin and then toss it in the laundry chute. Hello! The smell of formula is vile and bacteria grows on the wet bib. No, I'm not being paranoid. The instructions on the formula container warn parents and caregivers to discard any formula that remains in the bottle after one hour.

Not to be picky, but the suggestion about body suits isn't that great. Most of the bodysuits I've seen have short sleeves and end at the thighs. They are just cute underwear for winter babies.

By the way, I don't know about other people who do laundry, but I have a tendency to lose socks. Especially tiny ones. Six pairs is simply not enough.

Thanks, but no thanks to the advice dispensed by the people at Little Me.

The Plain Truth About Apple

There is no denying it. Apple is the most innovative company in the world. Yes, Steve Jobs, who was almost beatified until just days after his death, made people want to spend a fortune on Apple products. Even when people admitted he wasn't such a nice person, they couldn't resist the seductive design and brilliant uses of Apple products. But here is something that everyone who even thinks about buying an iPad or iPhone should think about seriously.

Apple, like every American company that has manufacturing overseas, exploits people. It isn't just about the low wages. If the going rate is $1.00 a day or whatever, there isn't much to argue about. However, when Steve Jobs demanded a superior screen for the iPhone, the manufacturer he used with in China pulled people from the dorms and gave them a biscuit and a cup of tea before they started a 12 hour work shift. That is sheer exploitation. It is a step above slave labor. How stunning does that tablet or smartphone look now?

The irony is that Americans consider China a Communist country and the exploitation of labor was the whole point of a country's choosing Communism.

Steve Jobs, you died with blood on your hands. And those in your company who went along with what you said and did are also guilty.

Bradshaw Smith, RIP

Bradshaw Smith, producer of Broadway Beat, died Monday, January 16 of a massive stroke. He was 57.

Born on April 14, 1954 in Derby, Bradshaw attended Ansonia High School and Western Connecticut State University. He moved to New York in the mid-1970s and did cabaret at Don't Tell Mama. He received the first MAC award for Best Male Vocalist and the Backstage Bistro award.

Bradshaw also thrived behind the scenes with his award winning cable television show, Cabaret Beat and later with Broadway Beat, which documented thousands of theatre professionals during rehearsals, performance, interviews and fundraisers. Funeral services are private and a memorial is being planned. Contributions may be made in his memory to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

We Spooked The Grey Lady!

Recently, the Grey Lady sent me a rather seductive email, inviting me to be a trusted commentator I thought the timing was a bit odd because one of my most recent comments had been purged. It was in response to a Harvard professor's column that we all have to expect to work past the traditional retirement age and that employers are going to have to keep older workers on payroll. I I wrote, "With all due respect, The New York Times needs to revamp its policy on op-ed contributors." I mentioned that some of its staff columnists and contributors are woefully out of touch with the real world. I wasn't the only commentator (some of whom I trust) who have posted similar items before.

OK, so I ticked off The New York Time and they deleted the comment. But the thing about inviting me to be a "trusted" commentator turned out to require my hooking up my comments to my Facebook accounts. I interpreted this is as getting more digital ink for the Grey Lady. That, too, is odd because I use Facebook briefly when I do. I just like to keep up to date on friends' birthdays and occasionally feed my account with what's happening (a new baby!) or to post a sympathetic comment on someone's woe. No, thank you.

Obviously, I wasn't the only one who thought the invitation was about as gratuitous as the one sent at the end The Razor's Edge to the dying snob who was miffed at not being included in a society party. A lot of people made it clear that they thought it was unacceptable to have their comments suddenly come under a new set of rules by someone who may or may not be qualified to judge things in proper prospective (meaning: intelligent readers who are perhaps more knowledgeable than the people who write articles and columns).

It turns out that our instincts were correct. We were not being paranoid at all. Someone referred to this as "big brother." Today, three days after having a new baby, I got to read the new comments format on my laptop instead of my smart phone and I don't like it a bit. Instead of "All Comments," "HIghlights" and "Readers Recommendations," we now have a choice: "All," "Readers Picks" and "NYT Picks." The timing for me could not have been better than to verify my initial feelings. The story I chose was the one on how the unemployment numbers fell dramatically. To paraphrase some comments, the Grey Lady is now a flack for the Obama administration by writing such stuff, that the numbers are outright bogus, that the article means nothing because well under 10 percent of those who got jobs got better paying ones and, finally, that this new format is nonsense.

Ouch! There hasn't been such decision-making since Bank of America decided to impose monthly fees on customers who had the nerve to use their debit cards. Perhaps the powers that be behind the Grey Lady (or Wizard of Oz) will learn from BOA and reverse its bad.

Phone Phobia

I run a writer's group and need help. The problem is that most of the people who say they are willing to help have become phobic about using the telephone to contact speakers for our programs. Regardless of age, they rely on email. They think it's faster and quicker. Shoot off an email and wait for a reply. And wait. And wait. And wait.

The truth is that many emails do not get to their recipients, especially if the intended recipients rely on corporate emails. The term blacklisting has not been retired since the days of Joe McCarthy. I've been working at the same newspaper for more than 10 years and my emails are sometimes lost in the company's email system. Similarly for a magazine for which I freelance regularly. In fact, the managing editor's daughter's emails get lost in the company's spam folder. Why? Some domain names are automatically classified as spam. Some services, such as Constant Contact, are classified as bulk emailers and, therefore, get automatic rejections. Sometimes emails from people and organizations I've accepted for years go into my spam folder. I don't know why it happens, but it does. What was most annoying was when I had AOL as my email provider and I would get daily emails about Viagra and penis-enlarging pills. Despite that, AOL would reject emails sent through Godaddy.com domain names in the days when some people still used dial-up only. Go figure.

When I get a chance to look at journalism boards, I see the postings of writers who ask the same questions all the time. What's the email format at Such and Such publication? At The New York TImes, it's often lastname at nytimes.com. But not always. How do you get the correct email? Pick. Up. The. Phone.

What I find so surprising is that this issue is huge among writers. What do they do when they have to interview people? Unless they're doing a face-to-face interview, they have to disclose in the article that it was a telephone or email interview. Person-to-person is preferable because the interviewer can note body language and, depending on the locale, get a better handle on his subject. Even phone is preferable to email, even with the risk of not getting a quote accurately. The interviewer can at least get a sense if the subject is trying to evade an answer or is articulate and well-prepared.

Journalists, like artists and salespeople, often expect rejection and perhaps that's a main reason for their phone phobia. The vast majority of people are insecure about what they're doing, especially in fields where every assignment is new and perhaps different. We never really know what to expect. The upsides of that are that it's hard to get bored and that we always get another chance to improve our technique.

The Prince and the Super Committee

It's complicated. That's the only way to describe the debate on where and how to raise taxes. Unfortunately, the pundits have a tendency to paint everything with a broad brush and the reality is that there is no quick or easy solution.

Take the estate tax, for example. Whether a person's estate is valued at $30 thousand or $30 million, that's double taxation, unless the income was solely from municipal bonds. If a couple a total of 120 hours a week and earned a high income and saved and invested wisely, they've already paid taxes on the money they're leaving to their heirs. Another example is a tax on financial transactions. Since the stock exchanges were created, it was drilled into people's heads that in the long run one can make more money by investing stocks than by having a savings account at a bank. Until Glass-Steagall was repealed and Wall Street turned into the world's largest casino, that concept held true in most cases. Here's another thing to consider about a tax on financial transactions. What about employees who contribute to their 401(k) plans? Would that tax apply, as well? Would it apply to corporations that match contributions, or would corporations be exempt from this tax?

Decades ago, the thinking was that one started out by investing in 10 shares of a blue chip company and reinvesting the dividends and investing more as one's income grew. By retirement, one's portfolio was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not at least a million and the dividends would be taken as cash to supplement Social Security, annuities, IRAs, KEOGHs and personal savings accounts. People also had realistic expectations, then. Now being comfortably well-off isn't good enough. Two weeks or one month's bonus isn't enough, either. Nothing counts unless it starts in the millions. When I worked in the marketing department of a real estate firm, luxury housing was anything that was priced at $1 million. Now every condo and house is marketed as luxury. It's the financial equivalent of Prince Metternich's quote, quote, "For me, mankind begins with barons." (Note: some people attribute it to Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Graetz.)

The bottom line is that the secret Super Committee failed in its mission to figure out a way to reduce the deficit, something that everyone with half a brain knew could be done without raising taxes on the rich. Even if it capitulated and raised taxes, deficit reduction is not the same thing as creating jobs, which is what concerns the millions of people who are unemployed and underemployed. Americans have been swallowing the Kool-Aid about tax cuts and job creation. Now that drink is rising painfully in their throats like acid reflux. What's the solution? The only thing I can suggest is to impose taxes and tariffs on imports and make it as expensive to produce goods and hire services overseas as it would to have it here. Even that's complicated. When a corporation moves into a building, every cost is factored in, including how much desk space, utilities and workers comp costs. They can make adjustments, if necessary. Let it become necessary.

Advice on Patient Relations

Most people who go to the doctor or hospital do so with reluctance, often even with trepidation. Many, but not all, doctors and nurses understand that. Sadly, most receptionists do not. I never really thought much about that until Friday, when I was becoming stressed out after learning that parking would cost us $10.00, my four and a half-year-old son was starting to get restless after a 45 minute car ride and I needed to find the nearest Temple of Relief.

I don't think that it was the receptionist's having to work the day after Thanksgiving that made her rather unpleasant. It might have added to her lack of compassion for nervous patients. When I think back to other doctors' offices, I recall some of the receptionists and clerical office staff members who actually made me change doctors. (I even blogged about it last year in the post, "Firing Squad.") When I've interviewed some of Connecticut's top doctors, many of them credited the success of their practice to having a "truly wonderful team" or "fantastic office staff." One doctor noted that they are the first people patients see and their friendliness makes a huge difference. He's absolutely correct.

My gripes in the aforementioned blog were more about their lack of cooperation than their lack of friendliness. Over a six year period, different receptionists for the same doctor at separate practices failed to tell him that at least two patients left messages for him. One patient had been released from the emergency department just a few days before. He never called them. Either he didn't get the messages or he is just an uncaring doctor (and there are some like that). My biggest issue was with a doctor who refused to call my insurance company to authorize a treatment. This came up because I had a bill for $1,600 for out of pocket treatment. As the bill kept running up, I assumed that his outsourced billing group messed up yet again. I was unaware that my insurance policy no longer covered the treatment. I gave him the information that the insurer needed, in addition to a telephone number. His office staff was quite large and they were always chatting with each other. The receptionist had ample time to read many books while "working." The irony is that he asked me to settle the bill by making an offer so that he would get something for the treatment. I offered him just under one-third the amount and he accepted it. I was pleasant about paying him (and why not since I probably gave him more than the insurance company would have reimbursed him had the treatment been covered?). After that, I fired him and his replacement turned out to be exact opposite of him. I lucked out.

Recently, my mother had a nightmare of a health issue. Her first doctor, who represents a division of Stamford Hospital, misdiagnosed her big time. In 10 days, he saw her walk in with some discomfort and ended up in a wheelchair and bedridden. He refused to give her a pain killer. He told her that she must be in bed (which she did) and that she "would just have to live with the pain." I had bad vibrations about him from the get-go. Three doctors later, she finally had the right diagnosis, but it was with "I think I know what it is" and that doctor threw her hands in the air and put the onus on us to find a specialist who might be able to treat her very rare condition. The Internet wasn't helpful, even my three go-to sites: The Mayo Clinic, the CDC and the NIH. I picked up the phone to get leads on medical centers, clinics and research centers that treat it, and got the runaround about how they don't recommend doctors. I reiterated my purpose. I finally got a lead to an organization and heard the same spiel. That receptionist finally agreed to let me send an email to her and she would pass it along to the board of the organization. She sent me the names of two doctors, one in New York City and one in Boston, who have had experience with this disease. Meanwhile, I found the names of two doctors in Washington, D.C. and one in New Haven. That's how rare the disease is.

When my mother called for an appointment, she was told there was a five to six week wait. I spoke to the practice manager rather than the appointment maker and found out what we had to do in order to make her a priority patient. (I remembered another top doctor who told me that at his practice, they try to see patients quickly so that that they don't have to be in pain.) What was required? We had to fax her medical records (from two hospitals) and a referral on their form marked "URGENT." I took her 75 pages of medical records and created a four-page Excel spreadsheet in which I logged the dates of visits, levels of pain, whom she saw, diagnoses, treatments and outcomes. She got a call from the practice manager who said that the doctor could see her in two days. What a difference! And he was the only doctor who did a biopsy to verify his diagnosis.

The moral of the story is that everyone in a health care practice should know what he or she is doing and do right by the patient -- even an outsourced billing group.