The dreaded ALL company meeting

woman standing in front of sitting people

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You know what really sucks? Those all company meeting!

“Hey, even though we’ve worked together for years, let’s do an ice breaker.”

“Thanks for being here today. I am going to show you a PowerPoint about company/organization policies. This is our annual reminder and the same PowerPoint you have seen the last six years, but we’re gonna do it again anyway.”

“So, wasn’t that great? Thanks for being patient with that as we covered exactly the same things we covered last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.”

“Moving on, we really need you people to buy into what we’re doing here at our organization, so let’s sit around and brainstorm ideas for goals. Let’s write those goals on these giant post-it notes on the walls. Then let’s go around and place these colored dots next to the ones we thing are most relevant. Then we’re gonna rank the ones that are most relevant.”

“Now we’re gonna take those goals we came up with and in your teams please write some S.M.A.R.T. goals that your team can work on over the next year.”

“Finally, we are gonna post these goals in some really obvious spot where we can all see them and remind ourselves about why we do what we do and what we’re working towards.”

Then we all leave the room, looking at each other like we all just went through a painful root canal. We find the posted goals on the wall the next week and promptly forget they are there and ignore them for the rest of the year.

The life cycle of the dreaded ALL company meeting.

adult dark depressed face

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Clickbait and Google News feed

Click bait 1

The clickbait around here is so obvious it hurts. The screen shot of the Google News feed from a few days ago is a prime example. All of the news articles are about the same topic, on the same day, but one of them is using the “clickbait” title tactic.

Click bait 2

CNN should know better than this, but I guess that is what we can expect when you’re desperate to compete. Notice all of the other headlines are pretty much the same, but CNN takes it to the next level of sensationalism. Also, when you look at the timing of the article – “one hour ago” – you can clearly see that it wasn’t “just tweeted” or “something new”. Again, it is an under-handed and dishonest attempt to get traffic on their site. Pure clickbait and there is no way of defining it any other way.

The fact that is stands out so obviously is disturbing, though I suppose if you get your news via social media or something similar there is probably no point of reference and you probably would click on it. CNN once used to be a reliable source of news info, but as you can see headlines like this make it a “less than news service.” You can also see why so many people bash on CNN for being a terrible purveyor of news and information.

People need to stop “consuming” this crap. It is time for CNN to go away because it’s desperation is showing.

* Discussion for another time: The Hill is the only balanced reporting on the list above.

 

Transaction fees are not my friend

TpT commission

The “Transaction Fee” column is killing my vibe.

The transaction fees at TpT (Teachers Pay Teachers) are killing the positive vibe of teacher authors and it is really annoying.

I realize they are providing a service for me and I am OK with them taking a cut of the sales since they are providing the service, but that flat fee of $.30 has got to be making TpT money as well, which I don’t find OK.

In most cases credit card transaction fees are between 1-3% of the purchase price and based on volume they typically offer the retailer a discount on the fees to encourage them to use their service. Plus, there is usually a monthly “subscription/membership” (for lack of a better term) fee for the retailer to use the service as a whole. Either way, what I am being charged and what they are being charged don’t line up in my mind.

For all these small transactions, there has to be a better deal than what I am getting. The credit card company (or someone) is making as much on my material as I am.