So What, Who Cares (vol 1, issue 38) Why sweating the small stuff is not always a bad thing
Happy Wednesday night/Thursday morning to you. October 23 is National Boston Cream Pie day, so I hope all of you people who live/work near a Dunkin Donuts take this oppotunity to have a Boston Kreme donut and think of me, out in a Dunkin-less land.
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Chronic stress can kill you in a variety of ways, thanks to the invidious effects of cortisol. The so-called stress hormone can interfere with learning and memory, lower immune function and bone density, and increase blood pressure, cholesterol and heart disease. To combat the effects of stress, experts recommend exercise. (Which gives you one more thing to stress over if you are trying to figure out how to juggle your overpacked schedule to fit in exercise ...)
A common bromide is to avoid "sweating the small stuff," but it turns out that provides a tactical advantage in some situations: If you're in a negative-mood mindset, you're more likely to focus on small details, and that can be effective in situations ranging from home improvement to negotiating a seat on a plane after an airline cancels your scheduled flight.
So what? There's no denying the mind-body connection when it comes to stress, but if you can use that stress for good -- if you can identify the situations where it's in your long-term best interest to zero in on small details and grind your teeth through the short term.
Who cares? Anyone whose blood pressure has ever spiked on opening an in-box. (Suggestion: Take a walk?) Knowing what you can do to address stress in the long term and use it to improve your life in the short term? Useful skill to have.
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The Container Store pays its sales associates an average of $50,000 a year, compensation that is more than double the national average retail salary of $23,690. It's not the only retail-type outlet that pays well. Trader Joe's associates start at $40,000-$60,000 per year, and Costco is well-known for its above-average compensation.
So what? There's a small school of management that believes paying employees more at the "bottom rungs" of the corporate ladder actually provides greater profitability for companies in the long run. This is noteworthy because wisdom on the street used to be "Whatever goes to employees comes out of the pockets of shareholders." To have more companies trumpeting their high wages/high profitability could presage a new metric for companies in the investment arena.
Who cares? The counterargument to "It works for The Container Store/Costco/Trader Joe's" is that those stores can afford to pay more because they primarily target college-educated and affluent markets, and the number of SKUs (i.e. individual items on the shelves) tends to be smaller than what the average Wal-Mart carries. Small inventory/high customer service/affluent market is a specific retailing strategy, the argument goes, that is set up for making more money. Therefore, the comparisons between Costco and Wal-Mart shouldn't be made in the first place because the two aren't going for the same customer base or using the same playbook. The question remains whether it should be acceptable to pay less to employees at a discount outlet because their customer base is less affluent.
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Your pop culture note of the day: You have probably seen Glen E. Friedman's photos without knowing his name -- iconic shots of the Beastie Boys, Ice T and the original lords of Dogtown. Friedman has a gift for photographing the young (mostly male) subcultures that are about to alter the current of mainstream pop culture. This PBS NewsHour brief is a lovely introduction to his work and a great promotional tool for the seven-pound book that collects his life's work. His personal blog is also an amazing time-suck and it's got a place of pride in my Feedly.
Once you've marinated in Friedman's photos, treat yourself to a double feature: iTunes sells Dogtown and Z-Boys and Lords of Dogtown as a bundle. The first is the documentary Stacy Peralta made about the Zephyr Skateboard Club (with whom he skated) and the rise of skateboarding from subculture to a professional sport. It's one of my favorite documentaries and any time it's on, I'm helpless to stop watching.
The second is the fictionalized origin story of the Z-Boys. Catherine Hardwicke directs it, so you've already been warned about the mandatory inclusion of Nikki Reed, but there are vivid, soulful performances by Rebecca De Mornay, Heath Ledger, America Ferrara and Victor Rasuk. And the 1970s SoCal chic is to die for.
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Did you miss an issue of So What, Who Cares? The archive is here. Also, there is now a topic index that tells you what was in each issue. If you're like, "I remember there was an issue with a gratuitious picture of The Rock, but when ...?" -- well, now you can find it. (It was September 4, 2014, btw.)
As always, I welcome your feedback and suggestions via email or Twitter. Always let me know what you think about So What, Who Cares? If you really like it, tell a friend to subscribe.