PETA needs to go away

A young man is attacked by a shark off the Florida coast. He needs 800+ stitches to sew up the wound in his leg. What does PETA do?

They come up with a billboard that says "Payback is Hell"

Even for PETA, that's disgusting.

Faster, please

New Vaccine Could Turn HIV Into Minor Infection

The vaccine, developed by scientists at the Spanish Superior Scientific Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid, works by training the immune system to detect HIV and learn how to combat the virus.

I hope this works out. AIDS has truly been a major medical issue in this country. I'm hesitant though, because I thought HIV mutated fairly rapidly, which is what made it so hard to develop a vaccine for. I sincerely hope I'm wrong about that.

10 years, and we still remember

Cranky Customer still cranky, but now at the right people

In my previous post, I related a tale of great woe, a tale of such injustice that all who heard it marveled I was able to withstand the strain

This screed was powerful, heart-rending, and wrong.

Randy Cassingham sent me a reply to one of my unsubscribe messages, letting me know that he had not been the publisher of 'Heroic Stories' since February 1, 2003. Still being in high dudgeon, I attempted to justify my stance, accusing him of guilt by association, since he had at one time been involved in the site and there was still a "sister site" link from 'Heroic Stories' back over to one of his sites.  His response pointed out the fallacy of my position, using a rather blunt analogy I didn't appreciate, but that's a different matter entirely.

I was still convinced in my own mind that there was a link between 'Heroic Stories' and the Cassingham community of sites. Wanting to prove Randy wrong, I began poking through his websites, just looking for the cross-link or other attribution that I KNEW had to exist.

Yeah, I found bupkis.

I did realize, however, that one of the failure emails I had received earlier contained an email address on one of Randy's domains, instead of on the 'Heroic Stories' domain. I realize now that my brain concocted quite the logical path, and I was trying to defend this monstrosity. In short, I remembered an old relationship between Randy and 'Heroic Stories', and in my attempts to unsubscribe one email address from their list, I saw an address pointing to one of Randy's domains. Since 1 + 1 still usually equals 2, I went racing off with a result of 4.

So, yes, I'm still a frustrated and cranky customer, and the unsubscribe process for 'Heroic Stories' is unjustifiably broken. But, my ire is with them, and the team that manages that site, not with Randy Cassingham. In fact, as I mentioned in my reason for unsubscribing from Randy's list:

At least This Is True provides a simple, easy, and convenient method for unsubscribing and managing their email lists.

I should have realized the irony of kvetching about a broken unsubscribe process while lauding the unsubscribe process in use by another site.

So, Randy Cassingham, I apologize. I should have done my investigation first, and waited on a response before firing with both barrels. I did you a disservice.

Cranky Customer is CRANKY!!

UPDATED: I've issued a retraction and apology, as my complaint is not with Randy Cassingham but with the actual owner/managers of 'Heroic Stories.


For years, I have been subscribed to a mailing list known as "Heroic Stories", originally started by Randy Cassignham. I was originally subscribed using a work email address, but I can no longer send messages using that address thanks to an email system upgrade/migration, and I've decided to move my subscription over to a personal email address. So, easy-peasy, right? I mean, listserv management has been around for years and years. I check the footers of the email, and there's an unsubscribe instructions section, but nothing about modifying your subscription. Okay, no worries. Some sites like to cut down on administrative messages included in their posts. So I head over to the website, where I find a "Change Your Details" section in the site menu.


This is promising!!!


Except, not so much.


This page is essentially a subscribe page. Its unsubscribe information simply refers to the instructions included at the end of the email, along with the smarmy admonition to "Follow them to the letter, and it works first time, every time." The site also says that "These instructions work even if you can no longer send mail from the address the issues are sent to." Well, since that's my biggest issue (being able to unsubscribe an address I no longer can send as), I decide to give them a shot.

Let's take a look at the instructions:

TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Email leave-heroicstories@example.com with
   the word "Gazelle" in the Subject line.
This copy sent to: my_old_email@example.com

Okay, all of a sudden I'm not very confident this is going to work. There is absolutely nothing in the email address that looks like a subscriber ID or anything like that. But, it does have a Subject line requirement, so maybe that's a unique word assigned to each subscriber. Or maybe it's just a spam filter requirement.

Yeah, it's a spam filter requirement.

The response from the listserv software said:

Regarding your "unsubscribe" request to Gazelle....
Sorry, but the e-mail address 'my_email_address@example.com' does not appear to be a member of 'Heroic Stories'.
If you believe you have received this message in error, then please contact the Heroic Stories Listmoms at .
- The Heroic Stories Listmoms heroicstories-listmoms@example.com

That's exactly what I was afraid was going to happen. There was no way for the listserv to know what address I wanted to unsubscribe, so it defaulted to the sender's address. I tried it from multiple email addresses, including the work address that is currently receiving the message. Yeah, no joy.

But wait, all is not lost! There is an alternative contact address. Unfortunately, while hope springs eternal, frustration trumps all. I received an SMTP 550 bounce message on that address.

I remembered that Cassingham also runs a website called Cranky Customer, wherein he relates customer service horror stories. How ironic it would be to submit a Cranky Customer screed regarding his own suite of websites and processes. And once again, my hopes are dashed on the cruel rocks of realities.

Note we do not accept submissions!

It seems that the site was set up as a personal complaint site for him and his friends. Well, I have a personal complaint site as well, my much-ignored blog.

So, let me just say that I will now be unsubscribing from any and all of Cassingham's sites and endeavors. He claims to have invented for-profit email list subscription services. Unfortunately, he hasn't invented an exceptionally easy way to modify, manage or cancel your subscriptions to his suite of sites.

This cranky customer is DEFINITELY cranky.

Thoughts on Leadership

With the recent changes in my career track, I've been spending a fair amount of time researching, studying, and otherwise trying to learn about "leadership" and "management". What is quickly apparent is that these two are NOT the same concepts. I shan't bore you with a link to Websters or the OED, but I think we've all experienced both managers and leaders in our respective careers.

There is one general concept or theme that has started to crystallize for me over this past week. For years, I've personally subscribed to the philosophy of CYBA instead of CYA (B == boss, hopefully you know the rest). I've also been a firm believe of "praise in public, criticize in private". Since I've not yet been a boss, I've usually preferred that approach be applied by my managers with regard to me, but I've also personally taken that approach when talking about whatever team I was on.  For instance, if I was in a conversation with the business about a failed deployment or some other problem, I would always approach it as "We (the IT team) messed up". If we were talking about a successful project, I tried to give props to whomever worked on the project.

Another concept that a manager I recently worked for presented was "We are IT". What he meant by this is that as far as the business unit or customer is concerned, we as an IT department were successful or we weren't. They could honestly care less if the admin configured the server wrong, or if the network guru messed up a routing rule, or if the business analyst missed a critical requirement, or if the systems/QA analyst mis-defined a test case, or if the development team introduced a horrific logic bomb. All they care about is whether or not the project completed on time with a successful deployment.

While listening to Andy Stanley's Leadership podcast earlier this week (it was an older episode, not listed on the iTunes website but available through iTunes itself), he talked about the concept of being a raving fan in public, and an honest critic in private. He basically distilled all of the above philosophies into a catchy soundbite, but his explanation is what really struck home with me.

Basically, his contention is that the team needs to present a unified front. Whenever they are talking with the customer, all of the members need to be reading from the same script. Obviously, any assessments and commitments need to be realistic, and we shouldn't be trying to deceive, but we also need to be supporting of each other and not trying to  undercut or demean each other. However, in private, in the inner sanctum if you will, the leadership team needs to foster an environment that allows for honest criticism. Employees need to feel that their thoughts and ideas are valued. They might not always be right, but they need to feel empowered to question the status quo. However, the employees also need to learn how to criticize. Or, as I've heard it said before "If you're not bringing a solution, you're just complaining".

This is definitely some good material for me to chew on, and I'm already trying to apply this personally, as an employee. You see, we work with a consulting firm that provides development resources. Some of those resources are located in the US, and some are located offshore. It's very easy to adopt an "us versus them" attitude, where "Us" is the business, and "Them" is the consulting firm. Instead of presenting a unified "We are IT" front, or being a raving fan in public, it's all too easy to air the dirty laundry and make excuses to the business as to why things aren't going smoothly. This does everyone a disservice, and I've personally committed to 1) not doing it any longer and 2) trying to squelch it when and where I can.

It's already caused some friction with some of my co-workers, but I guess that's another "management challenge" for me to work through.

Operation Freakout Commences in 3. . . 2. . . 1. . .

So, our HR department is apparently subject to clerical errors.  It's the only rational explanation I can think of. You see, my name has inexplicably been plugged into an open team lead slot on the org chart, and I now have direct reports.

I can now screw up more than just my career.

Oh happy, happy, joy, joy.

Seriously, I have been promoted and am now a team lead. I have 2(+) direct reports. I say 2(+) because there is one theoretical open position that I don't know if I'll be allowed to fill or not (it's complicated). The further complicating factor, however, is that both of my direct reports work in another office building, in a different state. Hooray for distance managing!!!

I am a bit apprehensive about this change in my career direction. It's something that I've wanted to happen for over 5 years now, so I'm glad it's finally started. And, to be honest, I think a small team like this is a perfect way to dip my toes in the water. It also helps (I hope) that I've worked with these guys for years, and that we all know the business area we're supporting very well. So, I don't have to learn a new business or technology, just a new skill set.

To that end, I have been poking around for various resources, and have found a number of podcasts. The one that I'm thoroughly enjoying right now is Andy Stanley's Leadership podcast. I've only listened to 3 episodes so far, but what he's selling resonates with me. So far, I can highly recommend it. I've also subscribed to some from the London School of Business and the Harvard Business School. I haven't really listened to those yet, so I can't offer an opinion.

All of that being said, I have a bleg for you as well. What are some of your favorite leadership training materials or resources? Is there a book that you really enjoyed, or is there a website you frequent? Do you have a podcast that is required listening each week?

I have a great opportunity in front of me, and I don't want to screw it up.