Starbucks and Target Are Good Places "To Go"

Ever get frustrated in a public restroom? You aren't the only one. Starbucks and Target are good places to go because they have in place excellent restroom policies and cleaning procedures. Despite their good intentions, however, you will LOL with these customer experiences.

Check out this "Gotta Go" video presented by Dr Lorraine Haataia at the Toastmasters International District 84 Division A Area 11 Humorous Speech Contest on September 24, 2009.

If you'd like to book Dr Lorraine for your next event, please contact her at www.DrLorraine.net. She's not always so funny. She's serious about helping businesses establish good policies and procedures that keep customers coming and going.

If you have other humorous public restroom stories you'd like to share, please leave a comment.

Manufacturing from Rags to Britches

So I'm driving down the road this morning and I end up at a red light behind a truck with rag-wrapped ladder ends. For years, I've noticed that painters do this! It's just one of those obvious things that jumps out at me because it doesn't look right. It's jimmy rigged! Painters don't want to damage the interior or exterior walls their ladders lean on, so they cushion the ends of their ladders. Since I'm behind the truck at a long light, I have time to have a brief conversation with myself. Haven't the ladder manufactures talked to their customers in the past decade or two, I wonder? Don't the Home Depot guys say something to the ladder distributors about the fact that all the paint guys come in and buy rags and tape with their ladders?

And about this time, I start laughing as I remember a comedian I saw a few months ago. She posed similar questions related to manufacturers and retailers understanding their customers:

• Why don't tampon manufacturers package a little chocolate in with each tampon?
• Why don't grocery stores put the chocolate bars next to the female hygiene products?
• Why can't you buy tampons with your chocolate ice cream cone at Ben & Jerry's or Baskin Robbins?

Studies show that about half of American women crave chocolate before and during their menstrual cycle. Chocolate helps to boost women's magnesium deficiency during this time. More importantly, chocolate sparks chemicals in the brain that give off feelings of euphoria, a much needed boost when you feel bloated.

Are you meeting your customers' needs?

Are you sure?

To the ladder manufacturers: do you talk to painters when they're on the job?

To the tampon manufacturers, such as Natracare: you may be intimately connected with your customers, but don't you know that they just want to have a good talk every now and then?

TV and Radio Go Well With Rainy Days

Last night it took me more than two hours to get home from work. This is one of the longest commute times I've had in the past year or two. A Nor'easter dropped about 8" of rain on our St. John's County neighborhood and the surrounding area. This caused knee-high flooding on many roads in Jacksonville and St. Augustine. I'm not used to driving through these deep streams on the roads and neither are most other drivers. My evening commute doesn't normally include dodging wakes from pumped up trucks. I left Pennsylvania many years ago because I didn't like the stress of driving in the snow.

Some people honk when they get stressed out. This really helps matters for the honkers, I suppose. In some areas, cars were stalling out in the water, while other people were trying to turn around, back up or go around the deepest parts of the water. This roadway chaos provides great fuel for honkers who want to let non-honkers know that they aren't doing what a honker would do.

Not long ago, I remember watching a comedian talk about horns. He had a great idea for the auto industry--to add more variety to horns:

• humble "I'm sorry" horn
• neighborly "excuse-me" horn
• friendly "the-light-is-green-stupid" horn
• frustrated "get-off-your-cell-phone-and-pay-attention-to-the-road" horn
• irritated "get-out-of-my-way-now" horn
• and so on, like the different dings and beeps we hear as our computer talks to us

Last night, I was glad that my husband and I have a habit of watching comedy. It gave me a funny thing to reflect on as I inadvertently became involved in road stress. I listen to books on CD or to my iPod during my morning and evening commute, so it was very easy for me to unknowingly drive right into the flooded area. I'm just wondering how so many other people ended up in the same situation. I guess they weren't listening to the radio either, or they didn't believe what they heard. I hardly ever listen to the radio, but last night it rained all night long.

This morning, before driving to work, I tuned into several radio stations and my husband turned on the TV. We got some good information that helped me to plan my route to work today. It definitely cut time off my commute this morning since I was able to avoid areas with flooding, accidents and road closures. Instead of taking up to two hours or more, I was able to get to work in about an hour.

TV and radio offer up more rubbish and annoying advertising than anything else, but they can offer some helpful advice on rainy days. Local officials obviously didn't have a quick or effective process in place to help divert drivers, but cell phones and radios help to empower everyone, even a caring teenager driving an old Honda who reports a bad spot on the road.

People generally process information just in time on an as-needed basis, leaving behind a lot of leftovers. People don't have time to care about all the flooded areas or accidents, just the ones that might get in their way.

Our local police force has a process to set up speed traps early in the morning, but they haven't yet worked out their less frequent flooded roads process.

And most businesses haven't yet understood the value of having a comedian on staff.