Otto Berman was, by all accounts, a brilliant mathematician. His early work as an accountant catapulted him to unprecedented success when he took a job with an up-and-coming company run by New York businessman Arthur Flegenheimer. Dissatisfied with standard earnings, Flegenheimer challenged Berman to create a new profit formula, a task for which he was […]
My favorite image of Charlotte is Tryon Street during the 2012 Democratic National Convention at CarolinaFest, the public celebration that was the capstone to Charlotte’s shining moment. I remember looking up and down the street filled with 50,000 revelers—people of all colors, ages and backgrounds—and thinking, yes, this is my town. Despite our occasional lurchings, Charlotte […]
Some salacious news hit my hometown a few days ago. Our relatively new and presumably high-performing public school superintendent abruptly resigned. For a skinny minute, he cited the ubiquitous “more time with the family” explanation, which put everyone on high alert. No way that was the whole story. And, it wasn’t. As it turns out, […]
When I was in high school, I hung out with a group of guys, all a bit older than me, who liked to make movies and asked me to be in them. Get your mind out of the gutter. Albert, Bill, Lee, David and the guys were not porn producers…they were funny writers and would-be […]
Whenever I’m on a roll (existentially at least), I find pennies. I’m not talking about a sporadic coin here or there. I’m talking about a down pour of pennies for weeks on end. I stumble across at least one a day, sometimes in the most unlikely of circumstances. Once during a long stretch of daily […]
I’ve been writing for some time about living in the “alternate universe–” meaning, life on the surface at work doesn’t match up with the values you carry deep down. It may be something innocuous, such as having to adjust to the reality of cultivating “alliances” rather than meaningful relationships. Or it could be one bad […]
I used to have employees of the two-legged variety–and many of them remain good friends to this day. Nowadays, however, I tend to hire the four-legged type. Buddy (shown left), my chief of staff, has been with me the longest. Lumpkin, the Court Jester, barged in with little warning (at least that’s Buddy’s recollection) a […]
I’ve been thinking about thinking lately. Mostly, that we don’t cultivate the time to do it anymore. I used to think while I stood in line at the post office. Now I scroll through my newsfeed. Or, I would think on the treadmill; yesterday, I plugged in my ear buds to listen to a podcast. […]
It’s upon us—that annual event that sends us in panic to the store, wondering how we’ll survive it all. No, not snowmageddon—I’m talking about Valentine’s Day. For single people, it looms like an impending winter storm. We fret that we don’t have “that special someone” who will send flowers or join us in a chocolate bender. […]
