Etiquette is not a universal truth

Etiquette is not a universal truth

Etiquette is a strange concept. While some would think that there was a right way of doing something, based on their own notion of manners or social niceties, others will have an entirely different point of view and will act accordingly. Driving is a great example,...
Cafe owners’ reputation garners unwanted attention

Cafe owners’ reputation garners unwanted attention

Hospitality is a hard industry to work in. The customer is always right and customers are pickiest about what they eat, where  they stay, and how they are treated in the process. I’ve worked in hospitality, many years ago, and I can still remember being summoned...
Zip codes and sea monkeys

Zip codes and sea monkeys

When I was a kid I used to love poring over the advertisements for toys, magic tricks, and gimmicks in the back pages of comics. There were two items that myself, and my friends coveted the most – sea monkeys and the 1000 piece US Revolutionary War set. One...
The dangers of relying on word of mouth alone

The dangers of relying on word of mouth alone

For a while I have been thinking about one of the more remarkable statistics about online reviews that has been steadily increasing in the past few years. I thought about it again after reading a news story about a roofer in Dunedin who has allegedly done a runner and...
Forging a new reputation

Forging a new reputation

A renowned writer once famously wrote that there’s no such thing as a second act in American lives – meaning that it’s not possible to change, to reinvent, to forge a new path. F Scott Fitzgerald’s epigram isn’t a truism and wasn’t...