Are We There Yet?
June 25 - July 1, 2018
By Jay Edwards
jedwards@dailydata.com
So, just a word or two on a few things that caused a double take the past week. Like the bank robber in Alaska who did a couple of things that were very un-Dillinger like.
Mike Nash walked into the First National Bank in Anchorage and handed a teller a note that read, “This is a hold up. Please put the money they want in the bag. God help us!!!”
Nash’s problem, well, one of them, was that he wrote the note on the back of a form he had previously filled out for affordable housing, on the front he’d written his name and birthdate. The Anchorage cops didn’t need the note to nab Nash however, because he decided to take a few minutes outside in the bank parking lot to count the money, before hightailing it out of there. That’s where the police grabbed him. Nash is obviously not a big country music fan, otherwise he would have heeded Kenny Rogers advice from “The Gambler,” – “Don’t ever count your money, while your sittin’ in the bank parking lot. They’ll be time enough for countin,’ when the thievin’s done.” (Apologies to songwriter Don Schlitz).
The “Me Too” movement was in the news again this month with a couple of stories. One was that Morgan Freeman was accused of making “shocking” sexual comments, to eight women, who talked to CNN about it. Oh my God! Not Morgan Freeman! Wait a minute. Morgan Freeman was God, wasn’t he?
The other story is that Netflix has banned its employees from looking at each other for more than five seconds, as one of the company’s new anti-harassment rules. It seems some of the senior staff went to a harassment meeting and this is what they came back with. Apparently the people running the meeting have determined that if you look at someone for over five seconds it’s considered creepy. One to three seconds is pretty safe. You get to four, though, you better beware because you’re about to enter that creep zone.
Netflix employees are having fun with it, like when they pass each other in the hallway and catch each other’s eye, they start counting. But they can’t count too fast, remember it’s five seconds. To be precise they should probably count, “one Mississippi … two Mississippi … and so on. Which, oddly enough, is the same state where Morgan Freeman grew up. Not sure if there is a connection but those harassment-meeting schedulers should probably look into it.
There are other new policies that came out of the meeting. One bans the company’s film crews from asking their colleagues for their phone numbers. Just the film crews? What’s up with those guys?
And you should never, ever ask out a colleague more than once if they have already said no. Just stay away from them if they have expressed no social interest in you. And if you should pass them in the hall and catch their eye, for God’s sake, start counting immediately.
Speaking of Mississippi, I’m finishing up a good book called, “Dispatches from Pluto,” by Richard Grant. Published in 2015, it’s about the British author’s years spent in the Delta in Mississippi. I highly recommend it.
In one memorable part a friend takes Grant to play golf at the Bayou Bend Golf and Country Club in Sumner. On that day Grant met and played a round with a very famous movie star. I’ll give you a hint, he’s mentioned above.
According to the author, even though Morgan Freeman’s left arm had been injured in a near-fatal car crash, he is still “very good around the greens.”
See all of Jay’s past columns on our website at www.dailyrecord.us.
