Fry Guy

I want to make a suggestion. No, a mandate. I would never do anything to put Grimace's primacy in question. But the Fry Guy? I barely remember what he even looked like. Which is fine, because I just found his replacement. So here goes. On a recent night out on the Lower East Side, a 4am kind of night out, I stumble into a fry and frozen yogurt joint. Because those two things seem to go together naturally for the fry guy. He's about 80. He works until the next person comes in, and he doesn't worry about exactly when that is. It's not a shift to him. As my grandmother says, if you love what you do you'll never work another day in your life. And he loves it. You can tell by his grin. Although he doesn't have teeth, he's got a dazzling smile. He eats his potatoes, as he calls fries, everyday. Sometimes with an egg on top. Even if you order a small size, $4, he gives you a large order. Or maybe the small is really large. Like Starbucks. The menu's a formality, but the customer service is genuine. I have no reason to linger, but I stand there for twenty minutes, enraptured as he talks. About the truck he gets his potatoes from. Which he assures me sells everything, except his "medicine," a value-sized bottle of Metamucil he proudly takes off a shelf to show me up close. I thought you're supposed to hide stuff like that in the bowels of your medicine chest. Not the fry guy. There's something extraordinarily endearing about people who share their Metamucil the instant you meet them. And his fries are good and there are a lot of them. Unless Grimace personally escorts me to McDonald's, I think I'm through with them. For everyone else, go find a place called Beglian Fries at 113 Avenue A. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, there are a whole eight other people at Yelp who agree. Or is it "a whole eight other people at Yelp that agree." Shit. I've gotten off topic. Just get the fries.

Happiness

Thanks to Columbia Business School professor Hitendra Wadhwa, I was reminded of something that has nothing to do with business:

H=S+C+V

Where H is happiness, S is the set point your born with (think disposition), C are your circumstances (job, salary, family, friends, etc.), and V is how you view the world, how you think about things like C. What's interesting about this equation are the values assigned to S, C, and V. On average, S determines about 50 % of H, C about 10% and V about 40%. I spend a lot of time each day on C things -- at the gym so I can fit into the jeans I bought to look good for so and so, freaking out about work -- circumstances. So here's a little resolution which I always make, but I'll make it again. I want to deliberately practice spending more time on V.

And fixed versus growth mentalities. Let's talk about those because we haven't done that and I think we need to. Fixed is saying "I'm like this" or "it's like this" and I'm not gonna question why. It's doing things that we're good at because we're good at them and why look like an idiot doing something we suck at. It's thinking about something they way we've always thought about it. Because it's comfortable. It feels natural. The thing is, if all you do is what you're already good at, you never get good at anything else. And it's likely that if you're good at one thing, you can probably be good at another. It just may take some patience with looking like a fool for a while. No chicken costume necessary. And how often can you say that?

<3

It's February 14th (although my computer thinks it's in another time zone, so the little date stamp here says it's February 13th), the perfect day to come clean about something I've been holding inside me for a while now. I'm in love with my boss. <3. <3<3<3. If you're reading this, don't worry, I won't get in the way of your relationship with your boyfriend. It's strictly platonic between us. No, platonic's not the right word. It's a total girl crush. The kind where you wish you were her and you start dressing like her and talking like her and eating the same food she eats and following her home every night. No wait. That's Single White Female. This is a girl crush. The kind where you want to grow up and be just like her. I guess that's also called admiration in some parts of the world. You know, the less developed parts where almost 20% of children under 18 are poverty stricken and 15% of citizens don't have health insurance. No wait. That's America. But back to my girl crush, who I'll refer to from now on as my boss because that's probably the way she would want me to refer to her in a meeting because people might get confused and then the point of the meeting would be obfuscated by people wondering exactly what I meant by that, what I like about her is that she's not afraid to take someone who doesn't know everything about everything, and mentor that person. It's rare in this world to go to an interview, admit you don't have experience in the job you're applying for and have someone say, "I think you'll grow into it."

And since you ask, I was always really crappy in art class in elementary school. I never took home my art projects because they were so bad. The teacher would take the first few minutes of class and make a sample of whatever that week's project was. You know, a turkey made of tissue paper and pipe cleaners. But when I tried to replicate it, all I would get is a big oval, to which I always applied googly eyes liberally. Now and again I'll make someone a homemade card. I should probably just go to Hallmark and spare everyone involved, but it's sort of become a thing for the people I care about. Maybe it's really just a form of catharsis. The net of this all is that I think I'll stock up on googly eyes because I miss them.