The $100,000 Customer

From here:

In the New York Times best seller The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch tells the story of the $100,000 salt and pepper shaker. The story is about how when, as a child, the authors parents took the whole family to Disney World in Orlando for the first time the author and his kid sister bought a souvenir salt and pepper shaker for their parents. In the excitement, the salt and pepper shaker fell and broke minutes after purchasing it. As any kid would, they were upset to the point of attracting the attention of a fellow guest who suggested for them to ask the casher for it to be replaced. They did and to their surprised the got a new shaker set and apologies for not wrapping it correctly. The salt and pepper shaker that they had bought was not worth $100,000, it was worth no more than $10 dollars. But on learning about this, and having the family vacation of their lives, the authors family gave Disney World over $100,000 in business over the years. The authors father in his capacity as a volunteer in English as Second Language organized student trips to Disney World well worth $100,000.

You are a $100,000 customer, so demand $100,000 customer service. Take back and take control your purchasing power.

The Myth of the Middle Class

Interesting report by Reason TV on living large as the middle class.

And because of wonky WordPress, I can only post the link to the video.

In “Living Large,” Drew Carey and reason.tv examine the plight of the American middle class. What do they find? That we are better off than we think.

I was expecting to be vindicated in my middle-class woes. But I was surpised to find out that relative to American economic history, we seem to have it made.