Nixon Nose

When Tricky Dick met his future wife Patricia, he knew he wanted to be with her. She didn't. So he waited until she made her mind up. He even drove her to dates with other men because that way he'd get what he desired...time with Pat. It may even have been a ploy to market himself by making sure she had him on her mind when she's with another man. Whatever the reason, it's inspiring.

Inspiring because it teaches you a few things:

• Don't be reactionary - Let Pat worry about what Pat wants. 
• Set your bullshit aside and be patient - It can't be too good for your ego to see the girl you desire walk away with another man, but you can live with it for now.
• The outcome is both all-important and pointless at the same time - Do what you have to do. Tricky would have found someone else to be with, had Pat not agreed to be his wife eventually.

That's all. 

Now here Tricky gets a shoeshine because he wants one:

The image is taken from the blog http://tsutpen.blogspot.com/ which comes highly recommended...by me.

E-mail Succinctness

or more specifically, 'work' e-mail succinctness.
Don't:
Hi John,

I'm writing to let you know some of my observations regarding the web app you deployed on Wednesday. I noticed that the ruler on the left hand side is a bit farther than I thought it should be. It's not a big deal for now, but it's something I'd like to keep in the pipeline of things to fix. There's also the content itself. Did you receive the lates XML feed of content that Patricia said she would create? I'm wondering about this because I'm not seeing the latest content on the web page. This is something that should get corrected ASAP. I would also like you to come up with a plan to leverage the time we have left to best transfer the knowledge of the code you've written to Tim and Jim.

Cheers,
Billy Bob

I'll let the erudite Mr. Carlin express my thoughts:

Now here's what you DO:

John,

Please address the following prioritized items:

• The latest content is not being displayed on the site. Please work with Patricia to diagnose and solve the problem.
• Come up with a Knowledge Transfer plan that includes Jim & Tim.
• The left ruler line is too far off. Please fix it.

-Billy Bob

So, how is the second e-mail better?

• No salutation. Lose the "hi", "hey", "dear" (*shudder*) etc. It's unnecessary.
• It creates a list of tasks.
• It prioritizes the list of tasks.
• It's tight with no fluff.
• It does not include shit like "ASAP". If you need to use these acronyms, then you don't trust your employees to do the work they are assigned. You should really be reconsidering your hiring strategy instead of writing long winded e-mails.