In a weird coincidence, my local Autozone is currently running a special where if you buy a bottle of a certain brand of fuel injector cleaner and an air filter, you get a free air freshener. As luck would have it, I happened to go in there Tuesday night to purchase those two items, unrelated to the totally random promotion.

Honest.

Well, at the checkout I was allowed to pick from an aromatic bin full of tree-shaped air fresheners, and chose the one that seemed the least obtrusive – “the Designer Series.” After pulling the product off the cardboard backing I found that my choice came with a free designer gift: a gold tree-shaped decal.

I realize that the concept of time as we know it isn’t over, but I’m pretty sure this will stand out as one of the worst promotional ideas ever. Unless you’re a sixteen year old guy with your first new car, does anyone really actually like the concept of these little trees? They block your field of view if you hang it from your rear view mirror, or blow around distractingly in any breeze.

What are the chances that I’m going to permanently mount a gold-foil version of this item to my car? In fact, the only benefit of these products is that some of them smell slightly less offensive than Pine-Sol, but a decal doesn’t even have that.

Could there be a better way to get their point across?

My department at the office has begun incorporating a new tradition into our staff meetings: peer recognition. What probably began as an effort to encourage relationships, I guess, was quickly discovered to be a no-cost incentive program that works like this:

Employee A is given an award. It could be anything – an old bowling trophy, for example. Employee A holds onto said award until the next staff meeting, when he/she is supposed to pass it on to another member of the staff and give their reasoning behind why the recipient deserves this prestigious honor.

The one rule (besides a strong probability that the giver will be instructed by management who gets the award next) is that you are supposed to add something to it before passing it on.

Some sort of personalized touch to commemorate the time that you spent with the award? Perhaps. But really what it’s turned into is whatever loose crap sitting near it on the desk gets hastily tied or taped or rubber banded to the it five minutes before the next meeting.

The result is the wonderful objet d’ art that you see below:

When cash isn't an option, apparently
rubbish can be substituted

And yes, it was my turn to hold on to the coveted Rooster – at least for the next two weeks.

And what about my contribution to the award? Well, since you asked, I’m trying to figure out how to affix the spray painted gold mallet I received at the last white elephant gift exchange. And keep the Rooster in one piece.

What’s the strangest/worst incentive you’ve ever seen? And if you won it, what did you do with it?

In an effort to be a little more easygoing with my schedule, I got rid of the clock in my menu bar.

Sort of.

I recently came across an application for OSX for Mac called FuzzyClock, created by ObjectPark. Rather than the sterile digital 10:15 AM that is normally displayed in the menu bar, the application displays the time in what its creators call a “more readable human style”, in this case, “shortly after ten.”

While it does take a little bit to get used to, once I did I’ve found it’s more calming. The application is obviously not geared towards the type of person who lives and dies by the second hand on their atomic clock, but then again, I don’t work for NASA. An approximate time is fine for most of the things on my daily schedule. If there is ever a need to know the “real” time, clicking on the application displays the time and date in normal, Type-A specificity.

So, if you ever feel the need to soften up your schedule, try snuggling up to FuzzyClock.

Last night I decided to try a new dry cleaner near my home. After greeting me, the young woman behind the counter asked me if my clothes were for dry cleaning or laundry. I replied “dry cleaning only,” and stood there while she took down my contact information. Then she asked if I wanted my clothes starched.

“I thought you could starch laundry, but not dry cleaning” I replied, a little confused. “These clothes are to be dry cleaned.” Hopefully, I added “But if you are able to add starch to…”

She cut me off.

“Ugh! Are sure you want dry cleaning? Because now I have to void the whole ticket. See, this ticket is for laundry, and this is for dry cleaning, and you can’t mix them up.” She wandered off to find a supervisor.

I stood there looking for the candid camera stashed in the fake trees.

Read the rest »

Sadly, this late in the game it seems it’s more about entertaining the viewers than the candidates selling their position.

That said, this Saturday Night Live clip is still pretty funny.