Attentive readers will recall that we are in the midst of a major training initiative at the hardware store. An initiative, that if successful, will increase profitability five percent. That is a noble and exciting goal if your name is Mr. and Mrs. Owner. If you are Merle Sneed, hardware schmuck, the eager anticipation is more restrained. After all, as Janis Joplin once sang, "Retail's just another word for nothing left to lose". Or she would have if she hadn't died an early death. For the rest of us, and by us, I mostly mean me, the main focus of concern is having to endure the crush of new buzz words associated with the new program. To be sure that these bits of organizational jargon take root and grow, the store manager and assistant manager have made it a point to really work them into their daily store chatter. The main focus of the plan is to "work smarter", so that we have more time to spend with the customers. The old "work smarter". That's code for squeezing the last bit of life out of the little people. Luckily, I've been to this battle many times over the last forty years and I know what the bosses don't know. That their war is not my war. So, I will continue to do my best, despite the meddling from headquarters. Most of the time they are so busy administering the new plan, that the results get lost. A guy who keeps his head down and his nose clean, largely goes unnoticed. Now that's a plan.

Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky