Category Archives: George

The Customer is Always Right Bonus

George, Idea Polish Level: 2, My Ideas, ,

My family and I were eating at a high-quality restaurant today and my Dad wanted a straw. Because our waitress wasn’t in sight, he tried asking one of the clean-up ladies for the straw and was surprised when she actually brought him one. He said that usually when he’d ask someone who wasn’t going to get a tip from him (and thus had no interest in his happiness) to get something, they’d say yes but never be seen again. As I said earlier, this was a high-quality restaurant, so I suggested that maybe they were paid something like what I on-the-spot called a “The Customer is Always Right” bonus.

A “The Customer is Always Right” bonus would be small cash incentive to make any customer happy and not just the ones that are going to tip you. The idea is that if everybody is paid the same flat sum of let’s say a $10 bonus everyday/week (this’ll be cash and not part of the regular salary), they could spare up to $10 worth of time to help customers with random thing like getting a straw for them. This way, those who want to be helpful and give the restaurant a good reputation can be helpful without worrying that they are wasting their time on something that won’t benefit them.

Of course there would still be some who would just pocket the money and still not help customers, and at some point all would start to consider the $10 as part of the salary (not a bonus, just a given), but I still think the idea has promise. For those who just keep the money, perhaps have someone make sure they at least try to do something to help customers sometimes. As for the others, maybe the bonus would be changed each week. It’d retain a constant value of about $10, but what the $10 was spent on would be different from week to week, with things like putt putt tickets or candy or whatever. Since the bonus would change, the employees wouldn’t get used to the bonus and start to ignore it.

~ George

101st Published Post!

George, miscellaneous, Miscellaneous Posts

This post gets us passed the landmark of 100 posts!!!!! Whoo Hoo!!

It’s fun to write these, and thanks to whoever is out there reading these for, well, reading them. I write in hope that someone else finds what I have to say is interesting, so even if it was fun I might not write if I didn’t think there would be readers. Of course, I’m not the only one writing posts. My dad (Steve) also writes, despite not being able to commit as much time as he would prefer. Nevertheless, this whole site is thanks to him. Thank you Dad! Now we just need to get my sisters and mom writing… 🙂

Up Next: 201 posts!

Merry Christmas!

~ George

(BTW, if you could post something in the comments it’d mean the world to us. A special occasion like this deserves a comment, right? Right? Right????? Good, I thought so 🙂 )

Air Calories

George, Idea Polish Level: 1, My Ideas, , ,

I wonder how many calories you get just by breathing. Would location matter? I think it would, because somewhere like a pizza place probably has more microscopic particles of food in the air than somewhere like your house. After all, they deal with a lot more food than your house (unless I’m completely misjudging the average household).

What about places like the forest, where there would be lots of pollen and stuff like that floating around? While that’s not food for us, it would certainly still have calories.

Finally, would it be possible to have a restaurant in which you only “eat” by smelling the food? I guess it’d be possible, but it wouldn’t last long…

~ George

World Delete Button

George, Idea Polish Level: 2, My Ideas, Uncategorized, , ,

What would the world be like if there was a world delete button?

The world is in chaos. A now deceased scientist designed and built a button which, when pushed, will delete the Earth. The world already knows that it works because the first button he made deleted a 100 mile crater in the US, the second button he made deleted Africa, and the third button he created deleted the moon. Each of the buttons self-destruct when pushed, blowing up everything in a precise, planned radius. No buttons other than the scientist’s last button still exists. Its radius is set to 10,000 miles, and another thing: it’s wired so that if it goes farther than 100 miles from the earth’s surface, it will detonate automatically.

What would the nations do to get a hold of that button? It’s indestructible by any known means, and it can’t leave the planet, so they can’t get rid of it. Hiding it would only work for so long, and no country would want it to be unguarded, less some mad civilian were to try to push it. None would want to use it themselves, but they certainly wouldn’t want the others to have it. There would be wars and wars over which country would hold the power to delete the planet, meanwhile all the capable nations would be looking for ways off the planet. Whoever controls the button and is no longer on Earth would have the ultimate bargaining power in any trade opportunity with Earth; they might even just try to take it over. On the other hand, if you got off Earth but didn’t have the button, then you’d  be the one who’d be threatened with destruction.

However, if the button COULD get off the planet, the actual goal would be to get to another planet, but only if you are going to be able to have the button at that time. Thus, the constant warring over the button. Following that idea, it’s scary to think of someone who would threaten to delete the earth, have the power to follow through that threat, and actually be willing to do it if his demands are not met. Actually, that would be quite terrifying. With that happy thought, here’s a note to all who read this: DO NOT BUILD PLANET DELETE BUTTONS (please). It wouldn’t be very fun.

~ George

How to play Runner Games with Multiple People

George, Idea Polish Level: 3, My Ideas, ,

I often find myself riding in a vehicle with friends who either don’t have the game that I’m playing or don’t have a device at all, so I often end up sharing my tablet. Runner games are the easiest to switch between people and are also my favorite type of game (e.g., my high score in Temple Run 2 is over 22,000 meters with no re-spawns), so we usually end up playing them. Because of this, I’ve gotten pretty good at making sure that people don’t feel too left out when playing, even when I’ve played the game for hours and they’ve played the game for minutes.

There are two main things that you need: A number  of “runs” (usually three) and a minimum distance (usually 3 times 10 raised to some power, aka, 3, 30, 300, etc.). After the player has done a certain number of runs, he/she will pass it to the next person, no exceptions. However, for something to count as a run it must make it over the minimum distance, and if the run doesn’t make it past that distance then it counts as a half run. If the number of “runs” you are doing is 3, then if you get under the minimum every try you can do up to 6 half runs, but that should be highly unlikely.

Below I’ve made a list of some of the running game that I regularly play along with my recommended run count and minimum distance (and yes, 3 runs and 300 meters is the base number that I always go to):

  1. Temple Run – 3 runs over 300 meters
  2. Temple Run 2 – 3 runs over 300 meters
  3. Ski Safari – 2 runs over 3000 points
  4. Subway Surfer – 3 games over 300 meters
  5. Jetpack Joyride – 3 games over 300 meters
  6. Benji Bananas – 3 games past level 1
  7. Ninja Ninja Ninjas – 3 games past 1/2 the high score of one of the players, the higher high score if the two players are equally good at the game, the lower or middle (if multiple players) high score if one player is much better than the other. Or past 30.
  8. Mr. AahH!! – 3 games, no minimum
  9. Cyclone – 5 games past 5 seconds
  10. Red Ball Run – 3 games past 30

I’ll add more as I have time, happy running (or skiing or swinging or whatever it is you are doing…)!

~ George

How to Commercialize Thanksgiving (Humor)

George, Idea Polish Level: 2, My Ideas, , , ,

Following the conversation mentioned in this post, me and my friends started (jokingly) trying to see what it would take to commercialize Thanksgiving, because it appears that no one else really has. First we thought of lights, like Christmas and sometimes Halloween, then maybe fireworks like 4th of July or New Year, but they didn’t feel like they’d work. (What would you do with brown lights or fireworks? Yuck.) Even candy, which so many other holidays have monopolized on, doesn’t quite work. But then we struck gold when we thought about Easter: We need to start doing Egg Hunts. Turkeys actually lay eggs (unlike a certain animal I could mention *cough cough*), so it’d be perfect! However, as mentioned before, candy doesn’t fit quite right, so we were stumped until someone thought of another brilliant idea: Pie! (After all, everything is better with pie; don’t pretend that you’ve never heard that before, I’ve heard it at least ONE time before writing this post) (Yes, indeed, that one time was myself saying it, but that still counts!) Thus, the Pie Hunt was born! You could manufacture some sort of egg-shaped pie and special plastic eggs that are Thanksgiving themed, then promote things like Church and State Pie hunts, run Pie Hunts in your own backyard/neighborhood, get it into the newspaper, etc. Do that for several years in a row until it starts catching on. Later, while everyone else is trying to catch up with the Pie Hunt trend, you’ll already be raking it in (whatever “it” is, probably leaves ; ) ), and then you’ll be your own millionaire or something.

Up next: Groundhog’s Day!

~ George

Interesting Observation: Thanksgiving isn’t a Money Holiday

George, Idea Polish Level: 2, My Ideas, , , ,

Recently I was talking with a few friends about the fact that stores are selling Christmas supplies long before Thanksgiving even started, when one of them pointed out that Thanksgiving isn’t really a money-making holiday. Apart from the famous Turkey and other foods, along with pilgrim supplies, there really isn’t much for the stores to sell you. Easter has eggs and candy; Halloween has costumes, decorations, and candy; valentines day has cards and chocolate; Christmas has decorations, gifts and candy; even 4th of July has fireworks. Thanksgiving has none of those; it is perhaps one of the more “pure” of the widely celebrated (national) holidays, that is, it is not a commercial holiday. Just thought this was something cool to think about.

~ George

(Later the conversation turned more humorous with us discussing ways to make Thanksgiving into a money holiday. You can see my post on that conversation here)