Category Archives: Rants

Rants

Ghost(ing) Story

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In business, many of us spend hours networking. We seek out opportunities to connect with other people to expand our existing networks, or to meet people whose skills or custom we might be able to use down the track.

Interacting with others is a basic human need, and a skill we try to hone for business success. But imagine if you walked up to someone at an event and they turned their back, or walked away.

You wouldn’t physically ghost someone, would you?

And yet, increasingly I hear of, or see people reaching out to business connections via email or providing a proposal or a piece of value-add work and  … crickets. No ‘thank you.’ No ‘I’m flat out at the moment but I really will come back to you.’ No, nothing.

It’s the corporate version of ghosting. It’s rife, it’s accepted, and it goes mostly unchallenged.

Ghosting, as the name suggests, is when someone suddenly stops communicating with another person without any explanation. It’s a term that gained traction in popular lingo in the dating world.

Poof! They’re gone

You connect with someone online and then, poof, they’re gone. Their profile vanishes, and it’s as if they never existed.

It’s increasingly evident in the recruitment sector too. Post Covid, I’ve heard countless cases of people going for a job interview and waiting for the follow-up call from the recruiter.

They’re still waiting. Apparently, it’s not the norm these days to advise unsuccessful applicants that they can move on. They are left hanging, wondering if the position was filled or if they’re still in with a shot, or where they went wrong? It’s a guessing game.

Likewise, job candidates don’t show for interviews. Successful candidates don’t turn up for the first day. They vanish without a word.

The Harvard Business Review quoted a 2018 study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships: 25% of participants reported having been ghosted by a partner. When it comes to job seeking, 93% of respondents in a 2020 LinkedIn poll said they had been ghosted during an active hiring process.

It’s a problem and it’s only getting worse.

At its core, ghosting is a sign of disrespect for the time and effort others invest in reaching out to us.

Just say No!

So why do people ghost?

In the era of everyone wins a prize, there are no losers, could it be that people have forgotten how to say no? Is there a phobia around rejecting an approach from someone or turning down a proposal. Are people scared to have a difficult conversation? Do they think that ignoring the elephant in the room will make it go away?

Of course, it will go away (eventually) and with it goes your reputation (eventually). When a business turns cold and fails to acknowledge your proposal or your email or a piece of work you’ve done for them, their brand is devalued by the people they ignore. Word travels fast and no one wants to be known as unresponsive, or rude.

So, short of sending a copy of Debrett’s etiquette guide, what do you do if professionally ghosted? Walk away and chalk it up to bad manners, or call it out and keep prodding for a response?

Rants

What I Like About You …

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Our seven-year-old declared tonight that we all seemed happier living in America, and my heart broke a little bit.  She put into words what I know I’ve been thinking – observing – for awhile now. We moved to Australia for all the right reasons – family, space, and a good lifestyle – but I have to agree with the little one, we were more functional in our Brooklyn community.

The kids were well adjusted and generally happy.

Many of the things we moved here for now seem to have been a mirage, or just no longer exist: the extended family that congregated often for laughs and feasts and creating good memories; the big backyard, fishing and beach houses; seafood and generally terrific food aplenty.

The family is a soap opera in the making, we have a nice place in a good suburb but no big grassy backyard, and everything is ultra expensive. The cost of living in Australia is through the roof compared with the US and Adelaide can be mighty cliquey if you’re a newcomer.

Maybe we haven’t given it a fair go. Maybe things will get better. I hope so, because the thought of packing up and moving overseas AGAIN just makes my head hurt.

And if I leave again, I know I’m never coming back.

As the Brooklyn saying goes, ‘not for nothin’ I’ve decided to write a random list of what it is I miss about the US. Perhaps it will help give me some perspective and make it easier to just shutup and stick it out in Adelaide. If nothing else, it may be cathartic to at least think about what I miss. So here goes, in no particular order:

Friends and family, of course: the kids especially miss their paternal grandparents and their cousins, who are closer in age to them than their Adelaide relatives. We took for granted how well the kids all played together and the strength of the bonds they forged with their grandparents and aunt and uncle, even though we didn’t see them often enough.

My hairdresser: Michelle at Serendipity in Soho – you cannot be replaced. I have had three haircuts in Adelaide; one was a complete botch job, the other two were just ok. I went to Michelle for many years, from before I was even married to the week I left NY – she will be one of my first stops when I go back to visit.

Cheap manis/pedis: never underestimate an inexpensive mani/pedi from one of the hole-in-the-wall Korean nail joints in Manhattan or Brooklyn. For peanuts you can get your feet rubbed, scrubbed and toes polished and looking clean and shiny for weeks to come. I had one pedicure in Adelaide and besides the woman gouging my nail until it bled, the polish peeled off in a day – and it cost about $45.

Walking: it goes without saying that NY is a walking city. I walked the kids to school and back again everyday, I walked to the shops, I schlepped my groceries home. You walk and walk and walk – even when you ride the subway – you walk at either end. You don’t notice how much you are walking but your body notices when you stop walking and start getting into a car to run errands, to get to school or go around the corner.

To be sure, my husband and I have noticed a HUGE change in Adelaide since we first came here together to visit in 2000. People are getting heavier– there are more chubby folk than ever before squeezing themselves in and out of their enormous, sole-occupancy, gas-guzzling vehicles to go 15 minutes in any direction. I reckon it won’t be long before Australia was more heavy people per capita than the US.

Subway, Stoops + Street Noise

The subway; you can go anywhere at anytime. Enough said.

Stoops: there’s nothing nicer than hanging out on someone’s stoop – chatting to neighbors, watching the world go by, or holding a stoop sale. Stoops bring communities together. Front fences and gates and intercom-activated entry does nothing for community.

Street noise: even the occasional gunshots and police helicopters were okay. You knew you were living a city and there was life going on outside your four walls.

Neighbors: knowing that there were other people nearby whose door you could knock on it you needed to borrow a rolling pin, or a cup of sugar was comforting and handy. We could send the kids upstairs to a favourite neighbor’s apartment with a plate of cookies or some leftover dinner, without fearing they’d be abducted.

Cheap cabs: speaks for itself really. You could always find a way home, without breaking the bank.

Coffee: just a regular cup of joe from a street stand, with a splash of milk for a buck 25 – that’s $1.25 – not the average $4 you pay for a coffee here. I still haven’t worked out which coffee I actually like drinking here either. I just want a big cup of black coffee that I can pour milk into, godammit.

Delivery at all hours; one of the biggest issues with living in a small city like Adelaide is that you cannot eat after about 9pm. Kitchens close. Delivery is almost non existent. I miss the Spanish places on Smith Street that would bring beef stew, and rice, beans and plantains at 10pm for $12; I miss the pizza places that would deliver a piping hot pie at 11pm.

Pizza: there is no match for a good New York pizza. All the organic flours, handmade, flown-in-daily artisanal mozzarella and toppings in the world are no match for a plain NY pie.

That’s round one. I’ll add to the list as I think of things, but I already feel better for spilling my guts and remembering the good stuff.  I’m not trying to piss off anyone in Adelaide. This is a great place to live and raise a family – I wouldn’t have chosen to live here if I didn’t believe it, but I didn’t think for a New York minute that it would be so hard to settle back in.

 

Rants

Helpless from afar

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I know how my parents felt now.
Watching Hurricane Sandy rip through the East Coast of the United States from a comfortable, dry and unthreatened space in Adelaide, South Australia, has been a daunting experience. And not knowing if family and friends in the path of fierce winds and flooding were safe was stressful.
Now I know how my parents felt on the many occasions when I was in New York and bad things happened. Bad things like the 911 terrorist attacks on the city and bad things like tornadoes in Brooklyn and snowstorms that cut power, halted the subways and closed schools.
Or bad things like when I had to have emergency open-heart surgery without any warning to them that something might be up.
Unsurprisingly, I have slept with my cell phone close by the past few nights, monitoring Twitter and Facebook and keeping tabs on friends and family through email. Thankfully everyone in my world in Brooklyn, Manhattan and New Jersey is alive and well and by now, suffering from cabin fever and frustration by cuts to power or water, or both.
But many others have lost their homes and businesses. Neighbourhoods like the lovely Red Hook on Brooklyn’s waterfront are in soggy ruins. I’d like to be there to take the short stroll from our old apartment in Carroll Gardens to Red Hook to help toss ruined possessions onto the mounting trash heaps on the sidewalk, or to help bail water from residents’ flooded basements but I’m on the other side of the world.
I know how my parents felt now. Helpless.
Americans are tough, New Yorkers especially so, and I know they’ll pull together for the rebuild because there is no other way.
All I can do is send good vibes and support.

 

Rants, Style

Thursday Friday, Together Bags Any Day Now

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 I admire go getters who turn that one great idea into a money-making business. But sometimes, things move too fast or not fast enough, and those go getters make big promises they struggle to keep.

I really hope that’s not the case with LA-based accessories brand Thursday Friday whose founding duo Roni Brunn and Olena Sholomytska created the Together bag – a wildly popular canvas shopper emblazoned with a pop-arty Hermes inspired bag print on the outside. With the original $35 price tag (the price has since risen to $45 to counter rising cotton prices), they literally sold like hotcakes.

What could be wrong with instant success and enormous publicity you ask? Well, this fledgling company has had a very public struggle to fill orders placed as long ago as January, causing an outcry on its Facebook page from frustrated buyers. In full disclosure, I’m among the hundreds of people worldwide waiting on bags I ordered and paid for at the start of the year.

It seems the wait may soon be over. Late yesterday, Thursday Friday posted the following to its Facebook page: 

“We understand your frustration with us. We have been dealing with the delayed shipments, cotton price rise and production halts since we started. When we designed our products, we did not expect it to explode in (the) way it has and the overwhelming demand from all over the world has exceeded our production. Please be patient with us, we take your orders very seriously and we are shipping all orders from Jan/Feb.”

This long-awaited assurance prompted many hits of the Like button, and was met with a flurry of thankful, hopeful comments from Facebook fans.

Sure, we all knew when we ordered bags in January that they were on backorder and would be delivered sometime in March. But as March turned into April and spring weather coaxed us to swap chunky leather bags for a lighter tote, there were still no bags and intermittent communication from the firm left shoppers wanting. There were discussions about how to get a PayPal refund, and even threats of getting the Better Business Bureau involved.

‘Production Snafu’

The problems started when, with unexpectedly high and relentless demand, Thursday Friday had to work with an unfamiliar factory which was not only seven weeks late with orders but produced bags of unacceptable quality that Thursday Friday wouldn’t sell to customers. Even once a suitable factory was booked, it was slow to replenish stocks.

“During this production snafu, we understandably got more incoming customer emails, and this volume overwhelmed our support team,” Creative Director Roni Brunn, half of the Thursday Friday duo, told G’DayBklyn. “We’ve been hiring and training new staffers with the same eye for quality and care that we have for our products.  Again, this level of attention to detail has created another lag – a delay in answering support emails.”

What there has been all along though is enormous publicity for the bags – from blogs like this to The New York Times, Elle and The Daily Mail, and a prolific Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr presence by the company. That presence, as it turns out, can be both a blessing and a curse. Sure, a company can promote itself brilliantly through social media, but on the flipside, when something goes awry all those chatty friends and followers have a very public place to rant. And that they did.

A string of negative comments and delivery queries litters Thursday Friday’s Facebook page. So much so, that the company repeatedly asked people to take their issues to customer support rather than use Facebook  as a complaint forum. 

“We try our best with those whose frustrations are voiced on Facebook, and we completely understand that our responses may not work for everyone,” said Brunn. She said the company contemplated sending an email to customers “but thought it’d be whiney of us. We’re lucky to have anyone interested in our products and just want to push through any setback.”

Interestingly, even bad publicity – in the form of legal action from French luxury brand Hermes, whose iconic Birkin bag inspired the Together tote – has only fueled demand for the quirky bags.

Hermes, whose Birkin bags sell for upwards of $9,000, contends that Thursday Friday is  “riding on the reputation and recognition of the Birkin Bag” to sell its otherwise generic tote. And in so doing,  Hermes says Thursday Friday is creating confusion among customers and putting Hermes’ reputation at risk.

I’m not sure that anyone is confused by a leather bag worth thousands and a cotton tote, but the suit has done nothing to damp demand for Together bags.

As we cross our fingers that the wait really is coming to an end, Brunn assures Together bag carriers can still be the coolest kids on the block.

“These bags aren’t close to ubiquitous,” she said, putting a positive spin on the setbacks and delays.  “People who ordered them in January will still be among the first to carry them.”

Rants

Sticks + Stones …

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It’s not often that I am reduced to tears by a news story but the latest tragic tale of a Rutgers University student killing himself after fellow students outed him on the Internet makes me sick enough to cry.

As a human, it makes me wonder what sort of children we are raising that two college students would think it a funny prank to ridicule another person’s sexuality in public. And as a mother, I feel a massive responsibility to ensure that my children would never think to treat another like this, and to protect them from ever being bullied.

Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22 after learning that his roommate and another student had used a webcam to film a sexual encounter between Clementi and another man and posted it not once, but twice on the Internet . The two 18-year-old freshmen Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei are charged with invasion of privacy, with the most serious charges carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison. Of course, nothing will bring back Clementi or any of the other young people who have taken their lives after repeated bullying.

What really gets to me, besides obviously the length Clementi felt he had to go to in order to flee the public humiliation inflicted by his perverted roommate, but just why anyone would think it okay, let alone funny, to target a boy for being gay. I realise this is naive of me, but I really thought we had come far enough that young adults – especially once at college-age – didn’t have to hide their sexual preference.

Back in the old days when I was at school, I’m sure there were mean girls. I remember being teased for having Greek heritage (unlike some of the pristine WASPS I schooled with), oh and for wearing glasses, and being on the debating team but it was harmless stuff back then. I don’t remember ever feeling shut out by it, and certainly not suicidal. What has happened to make kids so extraordinarily horrible to their peers?

Apparently while technology has made leaps and bounds, allowing social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to broadcast exploits far and wide and encroach on privacy all around,  kids today are dragging their knuckles on the ground and getting thrills from belittling anyone different to themselves.

 Bullying is alive and well, and with more terrifying consequences than ever.

Events, Rants, Style

Streuth! Crikey! WTF? To Aussie National Costume

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Arghhhh ... my eyes!

When  you  switch on the TV come August 23 to watch the Miss Universe pageant, which I know you all will, please disregard this crazed ensemble on Australia’s entrant. High-heeled Ugg boots, a sheepskin shrug and a cutout cossie, that’s a swimsuit in Oz-speak: Is this really worthy of a national fashion identity?

Please, Ugg boots shouldn’t be seen outside of your cold apartment in the dead of winter, or at least that’s my take on them, let alone adorned with heels and on a catwalk. Hideous. But, what do I know. Jesinta Campbell, the 18-year-old Aussie pageant queen, is chuffed with the costume, which she will wear to represent the land down under in the national costume section of the contest. “Isn’t it incredible,” Campbell said when revealing the outfit, which a-la-pageant style also reveals plenty of her.

Well, yes Jesinta, it is incredible, in the same way that the Crocodile Dundee stereotype was incredible, and horribly embarrassing. The costume was designed by Sydney’s Natasha Dwyer who works under the Arthur Ave label, and the swimsuit bares a design hand-painted by an Aboriginal artist. To be fair, I actually don’t loathe the multi-layered skirt, but I am not sure how it really speaks to Australia. Perhaps the color palette is reflective of the earthy reds and ochres of the landscape, and common in indigenous art. Or perhaps Jesinta is headed to Rio for Carnival after her Las Vegas jaunt?

Please, before you judge Australian fashion sense based on this national garb,  think Sass & Bide,  Lisa Ho, Peter Morrissey, Richard Tyler, Collette Dinnigan, Carla Zampatti – there are plenty of great designers to emerge over the years, and they really are incredible. Oh and feel free to smack me silly if heeled Ugg boots catch on!

Rants

Aren’t Yuppies Just Grown-Up Hipsters Anyway?

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Spotted On A Construction Site

 

This snippet of graffiti on some construction to the Area Yoga building on Court Street got me thinking: Aren’t yuppies just hipsters all grown up? Not necessarily older, but in a different phase of life.

Yuppies are by definition young; so are hipsters. Both are urban and both have professions of some form, lawyer or book publisher perhaps VS indie rocker or graphic artist. Hipsters like arts and pop culture, as do yuppies who, to go with the sterotype, typically spend plenty of money on cool stuff … so isn’t it more about a state of mind. Yuppies are settling down, while hipsters are hooking up; yuppies are having babies, while hipsters just have sex.

Maybe I’m missing something in the call for “Yuppies Out: Hipsters In.”  To be sure, these could have come from different scribes, but it seemed an amusing juxtaposition, especially given the makeup of the neighborhood – old-timers who grew up here mixed with Manhattan transplants in search of more space to push a stroller and perhaps a million-dollar brownstone to store it in, and the singletons in creative fields who start work sometime after 10am, once they snarkily dodge the strollers.

Coincidentally,  I spied the graffiti from across the street only because I noticed that upscale children’s store Ola Baby  is going out of business.

Yep, breeders take note; there is a closing sign on the window and a 50-70 percent off sale in the meantime. Perhaps we’ll get another organic, fair-trade, pricey coffee shop … or just another boarded up building.

Ola Baby is at 315 Court Street, between Degraw and Sackett Streets.

Events, Rants

BKLYN Yard Shuttered

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It is bad enough that it is crazy hot and I have been outside at my son’s Field Day since 9.30am, but now I get word that BKLYN Yard is closed for business. As quickly as I fell in love with that oasis on the stinky Gowanus Canal, it is gone.

The folk at Mean Red Productions, say last weekend – which was a bonanza with events including Score! Free Pop-Up Swap and Parked, where some of the city’s hottest food trucks gathered and fed thousands for the holiday weekend – was the finale. The landlord apparently won’t honor or even renegotiate the lease on the Carroll Street property and has told Mean Red to take their four-year vision elsewhere.

The landlord “requested that we take what we have built, and terminate all of our confirmed plans and schedule for BKLYN Yard this summer, ” Mean Read, the production, marketing and promotions company that dreamed up the yard concept, says in a posting on the BKLYN Yard web page.

They may be down, but definitely not out: “Rest assured our renegade spirit and love for pop-up spaces will come alive again this summer — very possibly with the same collaborators and programming you see on our current schedule… And very possibly even better than we had planned before,” says Mean Red.

Meantime, Doug Singer, Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter’s Sunday Best series will continue on at another location, including this Sunday with DJ Koze. To find out where, keep an eye on www.sundaybestnyc.com.

Just when it looked like there was a grassy patch to loll about on through hot summer days … good luck Mean Red and keep us posted …

Rants, Style

Where Do Designs For the Masses Wind Up …

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Where do cheap designer duds go once the buzz is over? To the clearance rack, that’s where.

I traipsed over to the Target store this week, after following my own advice and dropping two bulging bags of clothes at the Salvation Army on Atlantic Avenue. My Target mission was two-fold: to check out the Zac Posen collection in person, which was unveiled a week ago, and to see what was left of other recent designer collaborations, including  the much-hyped Liberty of London for Target range and Jean Paul Gaultier’s collection.

Well there they were, the remnants of both designers’ clothes, piled high on the clearance racks. Needless to say there was no buzz there. No styling. No huge “get it while it lasts” graphics; nary a coat hanger even for these forgotten clothes. They were crammed onto a couple of racks, hanging haphazardly or trodden underfoot beneath the 50%-off and 30%-off banners.

These were the same floral dresses and saucy swimsuits that people lined up for just a few weeks ago, though admittedly the choice of sizes was limited to very small or very large. Quite a contrast from Liberty’s fanfare introduction to the masses at a pop-up store in New York, that came with an enormous ad campaign, spring flowers and even hyacinth scent wafting through the air. Jean Paul Gaultier would be no less thrilled, I’m sure, to see what’s left of his collection shoved unceremoniously onto the bargain racks.

Somehow even the deep discounts  couldn’t make this mish-mash of frocks and bathing suits and tunics appeal; everything looked unloved, cheap and garish.

That leads me right to Zac Posen’s collection, which is still very much front and center, having been in store only since April 25. I was disappointed it didn’t show better than I expected. The fabrics had that cheap sheen; the red tulle party dress didn’t live up to my hopes; the cherry-red leather jacket, the most pricey of the clothes at just under $200, looked plastic and glaringly bright; and some of the prints were just plain tacky.

Needless to say I left empty-handed and even more resolved to buy only what I love from now on.

Events, Rants, Style

Outnet’s $1 Birthday Sale Leaves Partygoers Wanting

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I had my game plan. I set my sights on one dress, a Manoush tiered silk gown I’ve had my eye on for months, and a Kenneth Jay Lane leather cuff, but neither item was included in the much-hyped Outnet 1st birthday sale that was over in a  flash this morning.

Like thousands of fashion lovers, I cleared my Friday schedule to be ready for the email from theOutnet.com, the discount offshoot of high-end online retailer Net-A-Porter.com,  that would provide the top secret time of the $1 sale. Instead, when I wandered downstairs this morning to make lunches for my children and get them up and ready for school, the email alert flashed and lo and behold just before 7am, the sale was on.

Fast and furious I logged in and filtered for my size only to find a paltry selection; two pages of clothes that I didn’t care for.  For those who’ve asked, the only noteworthy things left at that stage were studded Mary Janes and a Stella McCartney Taffeta jacket that, at a stretch, I may have bought for a buck. The jewelry flashed SOLD OUT, and the handbags, which I would happily have settled for, were long gone. A Sold Out sign abounded by 7.25am, and the next time I checked, the sale was closed.

What a fizzer. It was a great concept. Who doesn’t want a designer piece for just a dollar? But like so many of these recent pop-up stores, Liberty of London for Target  which sold out a day early and the current Zac Posen for Target  24-hour sale come to mind,  or even the snatch and grab for  Stella McCartney children’s clothes at the Gap, the attempt to give everyone a chance to participate leaves most people wanting.

I was one of the lucky shoppers who could actually sign-in to the Outnet site this morning, but there are many, many people who’ve complained that the site crashed or it took them hours to log-in, only to find the sale closed by then. There are gripes galore on Twitter today, calling the sale a bust, a hoax, a joke; a couple of tweeters commented that it was like getting an invitation to a fabulous party and then having the bouncer not let you in!

Not surprisingly, the Zac Posen for Target pop-up sales party, which started 11pm last night and runs until 11pm tonight, was another bloodbath.  I didn’t go after hearing from a friend that racks were bare by 11.25pm. I’m not so enamored of the range that I have to have something right now, but perhaps I’ll take my chances to peruse what’s left when it hits Target. com on April 25.

The moral of all this?  Maybe with the proliferation of social media – Twitter and Facebook, in particular, where loads of people have shared their Outnet frustrations – and guerrilla advertising, have elevated even the world of pop-up stores and deep discounting to heights beyond the average consumer.

Now, even designing or discounting for the masses have become exclusive.