Ringo was in town today at the Berklee School of Music, receiving an honorary doctorate. Here’s his message to this year’s Berklee grads.
Calling Dr. Starkey
Author: DOuG pRATt
It’ll Never Happen
From 1919.
Welch’s Jelly Brain
Jack Welch was a chemical engineer who thought he was the world’s greatest CEO. Many of his admirers agreed, but in hindsight he was a terrible executive. Like the far less accomplished Trump, Welch’s actions were extremely destructive.
To me, Welch’s management ideas were bogus on their face, especially the annual culling of the ranks, based upon the “stacked ranking” of employees. If a company lets go of the bottom 10% of its staff every year, even assuming valid criteria are used, competent employees will be lost. All you’re doing is providing talent for other companies to hire, and lowering morale in the process. Ultimately, productivity will decline, and that was exactly what happened at General Electric.
No, I don’t get any money if you buy Gelles’ book. I have no relationship with Amazon, other than being a customer for the past 26 years.
Prep Walk
Front walk is done. Prep work for a new driveway will be done tomorrow, with paving on Monday.
Update: All of the driveway work, from removal to paving, will be done tomorrow. Wah-hoo.
Boston Calling
For various reasons, I haven’t done much concert-going in recent years, even before the pandemic. But I saw England’s Harry Christophers conducting the Handel & Haydn Society at Symphony Hall a couple of times.
Boston Calling was a BBC podcast produced, of course, in Boston.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00y7fqz/episodes/downloads?page=1
Vintage Variants
Faux fact: Designations for virus variants were inspired by model numbers for audio gear from the heyday of hi-fi.
