Juniors, ranked

There seems to be a lot more 'Juniors' or if you prefer, 'Jrs.' around lately. I am not really sure why. But I heard a couple of guys on a podcast toss around some of their favorite Juniors, I thought it made sense to take 8 minutes on a rainy Sunday to set down a marker.

Thus, here is your unscientific, incomplete, unresearched, and 100% accurate break down of the 'Junior's that matter.

10. Ed Begley, Jr.

9. Cuba Gooding, Jr.

8. Ken Griffey, Jr.

7. Sammy Davis, Jr.

6. Junior Mints

5. Cal Ripken, Jr.

4. Junior Soprano

3. Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

2. Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. Junior's Cheesecake

Of course you could disagree with this list, but you would be wrong.

Happy Sunday.

Situations where you should mark Emails as "Urgent", ranked

It's Saturday!

Woo hoo!

I woke up this morning to the sun shining, the snow melting, (yes, it was STILL snowing yesterday where I live), the birds chirping, my Liverpool Reds on TV, and not one, but two early morning business emails both marked as "Urgent".

Since I believe many readers would benefit from a better understanding of when, why, and in what circumstances one should mark an email as "Urgent", I present my unscientific, unresearched, subjective, and COMPLETELY biased breakdown of the situations where you should mark an Email message as "Urgent".

Here goes....

10. Never

9. Never

8 - 2. - Never

1. Never

Never mark an email as "urgent".

If your message is truly urgent, then email isn't the medium to convey that message. Call, or text. Or get off your butt and walk down the hall to my office.  And besides, who are you to decide your problem is really "urgent" to me? Maybe I don't really care. Maybe I have 37 other problems that are more pressing. Maybe that little red flag you just dropped in my Inbox has the opposite effect that you intended, and I shuffle it to the bottom of the 'respond' pile because I just got annoyed.

And if you are the boss, or CEO, or owner, then you don't have to make your messages as "urgent", if the folks on your team are not reacting to your directives in the way you see as appropriate, then you have a people problem, not an email problem.

Never mark email as "urgent". Especially on a sunny, springtime Saturday morning.

Of course you could disagree with these rankings, but of course, you would be wrong.

Have a great weekend!

Final Four teams, ranked

I'm off to the Final Four and folks who know me personally know my allegiances well.

But for folks that may not, here I present my unscientific, unresearched, subjective, and COMPLETELY biased breakdown of this weekend's Men's College Basketball teams.

4. North Carolina - Almost as smug and easy to despise as Duke. Not quite at that level, but easily the most loathsome of this group.

3. Gonzaga - I am so tired of hearing about this team being the 'little guy' that has only been a contending team for almost two decades. "Crying Adam Morrison" is my favorite memory of this squad. Google it.

2. Oregon - Don't know anything about them. Have not watched any of their games. But they always have sharp looking uniforms.

1. South Carolina - The only team worth supporting this weekend. Have not been relevant in 45 years. First Final Four ever. And the team that ESPN gives a 2% chance of winning it all. Everyone loves an underdog.

Of course you could disagree with these rankings, but of course, you would be wrong.

Have a great weekend.

Go Gamecocks!

The Outsiders characters, ranked

Over the weekend I caught the news that 'The Outsiders' by S.E. Hinton is 50, that is five-oh years old.

A classic, and long a staple of middle school reading lists everywhere, I think a fitting honor for the book's 50th is a treatment on the VERY popular 'ranked' series here on the blog.

Reminder, these rankings are unscientific, unresearched, subjective, ill-informed, and 100% accurate.

Here goes - (Note: Character name is followed by the actor or actress who played that character in the 1983 movie)

10. The rest of the nameless Socs (various)

9. Bob Sheldon (Leif Garrett)

8. Two-Bit Mathews (Emilio Estevez)

7. Cherry Valance (Diane Lane)

6. Steve Randle (Tom Cruise)

5. Johnny Cade (Ralph Macchio)

4. Sodapop Curtis (Rob Lowe)

3. Darrel (Darry) Curtis (Patrick Swayze)

2. Ponyboy Curtis (C. Thomas Howell)

1. Dallas Winston (Matt Dillon)

Of course you could disagree with these rankings but of course, you would be wrong.

Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold.

Happy Wednesday.

Terms that mean 'employee', ranked

Lots of us are employees. But some of us work at places that don't refer to us as 'employees.' Somewhere along the line, (I am guessing in the late 1970s, but I really don't know for sure), it became trendy, if not fashionable for organizations to move away from the more formal sounding term of 'employee' and start referring to their, well, employees using other terms.

Inspired by a weekend spent in heavy retail environments and overhearing an 'All available associates, please report to the front of the store' announcement, I started thinking about all the various terms that are now used by organizations to substitute for 'employee.'

And then I thought it made sense to rank said terms.

As always, this list is unscientific, unresearched, incomplete, subjective, and 100% accurate.

Here goes -  Terms that mean 'employee', ranked:

10. Worker - About as cold as it gets. Unless you go with 'peon' or 'serf'. Which don't seem to be used (much), any more.

9. Co-worker - Slightly softer version of 'worker'. Still pretty cold though/

8. Staff member - As generic as it gets. Best used when the organization hates taking any kind of a stand about anything.

7. Teammate - Unless the 'team' is designed to kick a ball or run really fast, probably should not be used in the workplace.

6. Team Member - A little less cloying than teammate. But still not great. But yay - we are on a team!

5. Crew or crew member - Are you on a boat? Do you build boats? No? Then you are not on a crew.

4. Partner - This is actually sort of dumb. Unless the company is just made up of actual partners. Then it's ok.

3. Colleague - This actually would be the one I would choose if I had to choose. Rides nicely that fine line between 'touchy-feely' and 'we all just work here' that I like

2. Associate - a solid move if you for some reason need to move off of 'employee', but want to stay appropriately distant, yet convey a (fake) sense of importance to everyone in the organization. 

1. Employee - Call me old school, but I still think the simplest solution is the best. I don't think anyone is really offended by being called an employee. At least I don't think so.

Did I forget anything? Hit me up in the comments.

And as always, you could disagree with these rankings, but of course you would be wrong.