Used to go to John Lewis when we lived in Edinburgh.  Didn’t know they had a popular holiday ad series.  Saw that this year they had one featuring Elton John that was supposed to be good.  I grew up listening to Elton John, so I thought I would give it a look.   I know it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet, but here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNbSgMEZ_Tw

I love reading Wiki.  Just about anything you can wonder about, there is a wiki page with information on it.  This morning for some reason I was thinking about the old long distance telecom company MCI.  I was an early user when I was in college and I remember typing in my access code from a card and saving a pretty good bit (for a college student) on long distance telephone calls, mostly to my family back home in New Orleans.  I remember the company was run out of Mississippi and that it went up in flames in a spectular bankruptcy.  The truth is a little more complicated than that.  A bit technical, but a fascinating story of huge deals (tens of billions — this was 20+ years ago) and a CEO, Bernie Ebbers, who ended up in jail in Louisiana, where he still resides.

Not to slight another old friend from the same era that I saw just a few weeks ago.  Here is another before and after.  Earlier photo was from my first trip to Austin.

Ran across my old roommate this week.  Hadn’t seen each other in, let’s say, 25 years.  Two photos, one from this week and one from 1985 when we were roommates.  Haven’t changed a bit.

I spent seven years at BoA.  One of the nicest places I have ever worked, at least at first.  By “nice” I don’t mean free coffee or any silly perks, but competent professional people doing meaningful work.  Of course, there was bound to be some bloodletting after the financial crisis, and it seemed like the real hit was to the brick and mortar banks.  But eventually the other parts of the organization took their hits.

After I read the article below, one thing that always bothered me made more sense.  I saw a string of very capable people promoted, then quickly fired.  I’m not talking about one or two, but a bunch.  At first I though it was just some twisted version of “up or out”.  Now I think I see where these “managers” came from, at least where I was.  Can’t recall seeing a “real manager” go, even though a few really deserved it.

Bank of America CEO Moynihan says he cut jobs equal to the workforce of Delta Air Lines

“While cutting rank-and-file positions, Moynihan realized three years ago that they had left too many managers — about 30,000, he said. He slashed a third of those jobs in just a few years.”

From the BBC.  80 years ago this week.

Kristallnacht: Lights left on to mark 80th anniversary

By Chayya Syal

UGC Hub

Between 9 and 10 November 1938, more than 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms, thousands of Jewish-owned homes, hospitals, shops and cemeteries were damaged or destroyed across Nazi Germany and Austria.