Don't ask for opinions you don't really want.

The stereotypical question that all men dread goes something like this: "Does this outifit make me look fat?" Men are sent scurrying every day trying to avoid responding to this one.

Here's another: "Should I keep seeing him/her?" This one is usually asked of friends, mainly female, who know that there isn't a good answer.

And another: "Why don't you like my family?" This has to do with mothers-in-law and also siblings who adore your spouse and indulge him/her relentlessly.

One more: "What do you think of this new company plan?" If this is asked by a superior, and you're a junior partner, or new hire, you're in for potential trouble.

What all these scenarios have in common is a question asked by someone who is not really asking for an opinion but is trying to bolster his/her own. The asker already knows the answer he/she is looking for and is hoping you will agree. If you don't, you're the enemy.


"Does this outfit make me look fat?"


"No, of course not," you say. And then button your lip. The asker already knows if he/she looks fat and is only testing your love. For God's sake, don't say something like, "I'd love you no matter how big you are." Just say no and then shut the f*ck up.


"Should I keep seeing him/her?"


You probably know that your friend is more or less in love with the person in question but is having trouble with his or her (usually his) behavior toward your friend. Maybe he's just non-commital, a common ailment of men. Maybe he's seeing someone else on the sly, which you know about. But maybe he's hit her. Uh oh. Red flag. You love your friend and want to spare her future abuse. But guess what? You say something bad about that person, and it's likely to come back to haunt you. She may well end up with the guy and may resent your comments about him. "You said you didn't like him, right? Well, we're married now . . . "


Don't get sucked into no-win situations like this.


"What do you think of the new company plan?"


If this is a colleague, someone on your level, you might answer honestly: the company plan sucks or needs work or whatever. If it's a superior, then assume your opinion is really not being sought: that person has already made up his/her mind and is, again, trying to get you to agree. He or she isn't confident and wants support.

CAUTION: If you don't like the new company plan, don't sign on to it, verbally or otherwise. It could come back to haunt you if things don't work out, if the person who proposed it falls out of favor, even gets fired -- and if you sided with him/her. Protect your flank.

Here's what you say: "It's very interesting, but I haven't studied it enough. I'll get back to you on it, okay?" (And then hope it never comes up again.)


We're all guilty of asking for opinions when we really don't want them, when we're just trying to shore up our own decisions. We shouldn't impose on our friends and family and colleagues like that. They have their own problems. Try not to put anyone on the spot unless you sincerely want to know what he or she thinks. And if you're the one asked for your opinion, try to figure out if the asker really wants it or is just trying to get support for something he or she has already decided. Be careful which side you come down on because you never know which side will win.


What all this means is that you should try not to ask for an opinion unless you really can't figure something out. It may have to do with business, but it may as well have to do with your wayward teen or your drinking husband or your stunted dreams or just the neighbor's barking dog or the newspaper delivery person always throwing the morning paper under your car. Whatever it is, don't ask for an opinion when you already know what you want to do. That's putting your loved ones and others under lots of pressure and with no way out.


We're all uncertain, at times, about our decisions, whether in business or in life. And some of those decisions are life-changing. Sometimes we do need some advice and should ask for it. And sometimes our bosses are really asking for our input because they, being human, really don't don't know how to turn the business around.

The key is knowing when advice is being solicited because it's really being asked for or when it's just to make someone else look good. Don't ask for advice unless you really want it. Don't give advice unless you're sure someone really wants it.

Sounds simple but, as with most things in life, it isn't.

In the end, be yourself, and offer advice when you think someone wants it and ask for advice when you really want it. And always say thank you, whether you take the advice or not.

In the end, do what you think best.

Buy technology only when you need it.

When cell phones first came into use, I had one from my company. It was the size of a brick.

I never checked it because I wanted to be left alone while I was driving, a big part of my job. When I finally did check, months later, it didn't work. The service had been cut off because I never used it. They had to send me a new phone. The tech guy said, "You might want to check it every week or so." Nowadays I do check, once in a while, just to keep it working. (And now it's the size of my wallet.)

The problem, of course, is that I'm kind of retro that way: I don't want or need to be in constant contact with anybody, even my family. For the record, I do check in with my wife to be sure I didn't miss an urgent call, but, otherwise, I'm okay being out of the contact zone, at least for a while every day. Whatever happened to down-time and privacy and all that?

Which brings up the point of this post: What technology do you really need?

Do you have to be in constant contact with friends and family? Do you really need to download a thousand songs to your I-Pod? (How many songs do you want to listen to over and over? Maybe a hundred?) Do you need a cell phone that takes pictures? (What are you going to do with all those photos?) Do you need a certain ring-tone, which only serves to alert you to who is calling you, or can you live with the default one that tells you that you have a call? Do you need satellite radio? If you're a cross-country trucker, maybe yes. If you listen to the radio at home and have a few favorite stations you listen to regularly, probably not.

I think we should buy and use the newest technologies as we need them. And keep in mind that they will all likely be out-dated, replaced by something newer and much more cool, by the time we learn how to use them.

If you record TV shows to view later, TIVO is the latest innovation, but a VCR and tapes do pretty much the same thing.

If you want to watch rented DVDs, you obviously need a DVD player. But some smart marketing people have developed machines that play both tapes and DVDs. (If you want to record on a DVD, apparently you need something different, a DVD recorder, but that's a subject for someone who is more techno-savvy than me.)

Of course I'm behind the times, and of course there are or will be developments in technology that I will have to embrace -- including TIVO and DVD recorders -- but until I have to adopt them, and learn all the new stuff I have to learn, I'll stick with what I know and feel comfortable with. Hey, if it works and ain't broke, why fix it?

Let me give you another example. LPs, meaning long-playing records, were long ago replaced by tapes and then CDs and now by computer downloads, but if you put an LP on a turntable (which do still exist and are for sale), you will be -- assuming you have good speakers -- amazed at the sound quality. I think sound recording hit a high with LPs, and anything that's come after was just for convenience. Plus you have all that great LP art. Those covers are worth framing.

So I trudge along through life with my cell phone, which I never turn on except when I'm picking someone up from the airport or whatever, and my laptop computer, on which I check email once a day or whenever I think of it, and my VCR/DVD player, which is good for airing whatever bad movie I've just rented. What else do I need?

By the way, I don't need to take photos on my cell phone. As a father, I took thousands of photos over the years of darling children doing cute things, using a real camera, and had them printed out and put into albums that are easy for any relative or guest to peruse just by turning pages. No need to boot up the computer and hook it up to the TV to display the images.

And I don't feel the need to capture every new vacation vista as a download slide-show that some guest will have to suffer through while huddled over my computer monitor.

That doesn't mean that if I run across a robbery in progress, or a horrific car accident where someone drives away, I shouldn't know how to capture that -- as evidence -- on my cell phone camera. But how often does that happen? In the meantime, how many more photos of mountains and sunflowers do we need? We're awash in them.

So what I'm saying is don't be intimidated into buying a computer that will store a million photos if all you really want to do is email your friends. Don't get a high-resolution monitor if you only want to see photos from friends and family -- or just the text of emails. Don't buy a high-end digital camera, with many mega-pixels, if you only plan to take photos of the family.

In short, don't buy anything more than you need. Whatever technology you're buying, start with the basic model and then upgrade only if you find that you really like it and/or need it and want to move on to a more expensive model. These days, the most basic models are more than most of us need.

What about traditional phones?

Should you get rid of your land line -- the telephone hooked up to your wall? Lots of people are doing it. They use only cell(ular) phones. I still keep mine, for several reasons. I like being able to pick up the big receiver and nestle it against my ear and dial whoever and get an absolutely clear -- by land, not air -- connection. In case of a power outage -- because of a storm or a blizzard or whatever -- the land line is most likely to still be functioning. Also, I like the comfortable size of the receiver: it fits my ear, and my shoulder if I have some kind of attachment so that I can talk hands-free. It's reliable and proven. It works. Why not keep it?

Use -- and buy -- technology as you need it. Don't be cowed by others. There are always those who have to have the latest and fastest and most advanced. But you may not need it. When it comes to the developing technologies, decide what's important to you and tell the sales person how you plan to use the technology before you spend your money.

And remember this: technology is advancing so fast that you not only don't lose anything by waiting a while, but the longer you wait, the better equipment, and the better deal, you'll get.

Oh wait. Is that your cell phone ringing? I think I recognize the Star Wars tone. I just hope you're not in the movie theatre. Or crossing the street in front of me when my light is green and your phone is at your ear. I hate that.

Watch out!

Perspective is all.

Tonight I bought a rotisserie chicken and brought it home and dutifully pulled all the meat off the bones before offering it to my family. Then I boiled the remaining carcass down to get broth for future soups, etc.

There was a lot left: boiled-down bones with scraps of meat still clinging. What to do with it? Throw it out with the next trash pick-up, of course.


But then it occurred to me that, in certain parts of the world, children -- and their parents -- would be fighting over such leftovers, not just plucking the last strips of chicken meat from the bones but probably sucking the bones themselves for any hint of nutrition.

I remembered my mother, back in the 1950s, saying that children were starving in Korea (or wherever) and that I should be ashamed for not eating my peas. "People around the world are starving," she'd say, and, being a kid, I brushed it off. Yeah, right.

I'm not a kid now, and I realize that people really ARE starving. It's hard to understand if your only scope is the grocery stores of America, where we have so much to eat, and at cheap prices. And where/when we probably throw away as much as we eat.

In this age of photos shopped around the globe, it's hard to avoid the image of someone actually starving in some other country. I'm pretty sure that you and I don't know what it would be like to starve, but the pictures -- if you care to look at them -- paint a pretty vivid picture. Kids with visible ribs and eyes too big for their sockets. Unlucky enough to have been born in some poor country instead of in L.A. or Denver or Charlotte or Tulsa.

I've been through periods in my own life, when I was younger, when I was on food stamps, those pieces of paper you present at the grocery store in exchange for whatever you bought, and which identify you as poor. They're honored, but you may be looked at in the check-out line in a different way. But what if you were that poor, or poorer, and there were no food stamps?

What if you had children and no money and were living under a thatched roof you'd fashioned yourself from whatever big fronds you'd gathered from the forest? What if you were a woman with children whose husband had been murdered by a government goon squad or by rebels fighting against that government?

What if you had to catch small animals or frogs or fish just to live? And then figure out how to cook them? And hope that while you were out gathering fire wood, no vigilante band of young men drunk on cheap booze or narcotics didn't catch you out there and rape you? Or what if they came into your make-shift camp and raped not just you but your ten-year-old daugter? What if they then killed you all with machetes?

Can you really imagine your own family living that way?

Of course not. None of us can. But that's the way lots of people live their lives in this world we all inhabit. We can't place ourselves in those circumstances, because we can't bring ourselves to imagine it, but it happens, too often, everywhere. And we in the "civilized" world don't know how to respond, how to make a difference, how to help.

So what to do? Well, I guess we can donate to organizations that are recognized and sponsored, where our money won't end up in the hands of the despots who initiated the violence, etc., but I think it's more important, on a personal level, to understand that perspective is all: we are lucky not to have been born into such situations and should try to figure out ways to help those who, through no fault of their own, are. Perspective is all. We are lucky to have what we have. Others are unlucky enough not to have been born that way. Just thinking about that injustice is a start.

My mother's point, and mine, is that we should adopt the bigger view, the world view, the whole human view. My ills are my own, but they're related to the ills of everyone on earth. We're all in this together. We are humans on the only known inhabited planet. Maybe there are others out there in the universe, but we haven't discovered them yet. So far as we know, in the 21st century, using the best minds we have available to us, we are the only planet with life as we know it. I don't know about your mind, but mine is boggled by not just that concept but by the cruelty we inflict on each other. Surely there's a better way. Don't you think?

Perspective is all. We in America turn on a tap, and water flows abundantly. In parts of the world, women walk for miles with heavy jugs on their head to get water from a central source.

Can you imagine you or your daughters doing that?

Can you imagine gathering firewood to cook a meal of squirrel?

Can you imagine boiling bark from trees to get some kind of nourishment for your kids?

What? No Ding-Dongs? No pizza? Oh no, not KFC again tonight!

Perspective is all.


There isn't much we can do to relieve the suffering of the millions around the globe who have it so much worse than we do -- except, as I said, by contributing money to respeceted agencies who work tirelessly to make that suffering less -- but one thing we can do is not to pity ourselves too much before we think about those less fortunate than us.

Tomorrow I'll drive through Taco Bell just to keep from having to make supper. In some other parts of the world, someone is digging for edible worms.

Persective is all.

Spelling and punctuation matter -- sorry about that.

Relax. This isn't a lesson on punctuation and spelling. And you won't be tested, I promise.


It's an explanation of what they're for and why they matter.


When we went from writing letters to making phone calls, lots of us were relieved that we wouldn't have to pay attention to spelling and punctuation anymore. We never understood all the rules in the first place and were glad to be done with them.


But guess what? They're baaaaaack!


Now that we're all doing email, we have to learn to spell and punctuate all over again.

Why? Because what you write, even in an email, is read by people who may or may not know you, and this is often the first impression they'll have of you. You may be assuming/hoping that the recipient of your email message won't know any more than you do about spelling and punctuation, but -- if a job or a grant or something you really want depends on that recipient thinking highly of you -- can you afford to take that chance?

[Just a note: I am not addressing the new communication method called texting, partly because I don't do it, partly because it has its own symbols, but mainly because it's generally considered way too informal to be an accepted form of written expression in the world of business, etc.]

Before we get to what you can do, without much time or effort, to master the rules of spelling and punctuation, let's consider this question: What the #$*& are they for, anyway? Here's the simple answer: Spelling and punctuation rules are guides to reading. Period. That's it.


All those weird little symbols -- not just the letters in words but the comma, the period, the dash, the colon, the dreaded semi-colon, the mysterious parentheses, etc. -- only exist to help a reader read what you've written. And errors in spelling and punctuation interrupt the reading.


Think of punctuation marks as sort of like traffic signs. Period means stop. Comma means yield, pausing briefly, but then keep going. The colon means stop and be ready for some kind of explanation or list that is to follow; the semi-colon means stop and get ready for a related thought/sentence joined to this one. The dash -- one of my favorites -- has lots of uses, none of which you need to know.

Why do I say that? Because, to be competent at punctuation, you really only need to master two marks: the period and the comma. (Go back to the first line of this posting: you'll see several sentences that are easy to understand and that use only periods and a comma.) I won't get into the many examples of how they can be used, because all you have to do is dig out that old freshman English handbook (unless you sold it way back when, which you probably did) and study the sections on periods and commas.


And yes, forget all the others -- the dash, the colon, especially the semi-colon, etc. You can be a competent writer -- of emails or job applications or grant proposals -- just by using periods and commas effectively. Some popular/famous writers -- namely Hemingway -- wrote great literature that way. Do a little study; do a little practice. You'll be glad you did.


Spelling is another beast altogether, and I must admit that I don't have any tricks or secrets or even good advice on how to become a good speller. Why? Because the rules of spelling in our language are too complicated and unpredictable. Here's a nasty example: The word "phlegm", meaning that gross goo we cough up when we're sick, is pronounced to rhyme with "him". I kid you not. We used to be advised to track down the Latin roots of words as an aid to good spelling, but Latin is a more-or-less dead language that even most English majors know nothing about.


And how can you look up a word in the dictionary if you don't know how to spell it?


Some of us -- the good spellers (and I'm sure you know a few) -- can "visualize" words. But most of us can't. So what's the solution? You know very well what it is: Spell Check (or whatever the program is called in your word processing program). Before you write, be sure your spell check is on, and when you're given a choice of several alternative spellings . . . THAT'S when you get out the dictionary. Look up the alternatives one by one until you find the word in the dictionary that has the meaning you're looking for. (But keep in mind that all a spell check program can do is tell you if you're written a real word. It can't tell you if you've used the right word. If you type in "there" when you meant "their", the spell check won't catch it. Learn to re-read what you've written before you hit the SEND button.)


So that's it. You need to become better at spelling and punctuation because email is making us all write more, and what we write creates -- for better or worse -- an impression of us in the mind of the reader, who may well be someone we want/need to impress and who is likely to be someone who is pretty good at spelling and punctuation, and someone who is also busy and resents having his or her time wasted trying to maneuver through your writing with faulty signposts.


Once again, the laws of spelling and punctuation exist to make reading easy. We don't use them when we talk to each other; it's only in our writing that they are necessary.


So boot up and start typing!