Daily Dose of Common Sense

As summer draws near, thousands of committees are wrapping up plans for their high school class reunions. Parties, BBQs, bonfires, brunches, and parades will take place to gather classmates that we have forgotten. Or, have we? Facebook has made it easy to reconnect with old school chums. So easy, in fact, there’s almost no need to make a pilgrimage to your reunion in order to find those folks you lost touch with.

Facebook claims it has more than 200 million active users, more than two-thirds of which are outside college. Not only that, the fastest growing demographic is the 35 and over crowd. Chances are, if you’re on Facebook, you’ve already been “friended” by old pals you lost touch with, an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend, people you never talked to in school, and people you hardly remember. And now, thanks to the ever-changing status updates, you know every detail (important and mundane) about what’s going on in their lives.

Some say that a virtual connection isn’t as meaningful as chatting in person. However, airfare is expensive and an internet connection is cheap. (And really, you do most of your Facebooking at work anyway.)

If you still want the intimacy only face-to-face can provide, use your reunion budget to spend time with the friends you’re closest to. Most graduating classes have two to four hundred people. How many of those graduates do you really want to hang out with? Instead, get together with friends and rent a beach house or go to Vegas. You’ll probably have more fun than you would if you were listening to the same old yarns around the reunion punch bowl.

In a move that will appeal to tens of people, designer men’s shorts are now carrying a price tag of more than $500 a pair. Tom Ford, Armani, Prada, and others have shorts on the market that will set you back hundreds of dollars. It seems like the wrong year to sell such an extravagant item considering the economy is in the tank. Remember, you don’t even get enough fabric to fully cover your legs.

For the cost of one pair of Tom Ford’s $650 chino tennis shorts, you could buy:
- 32 pairs of shorts from Old Navy.
- 13 pairs of shorts from H&M.
- 16 pairs of shorts from Banana Republic.

If you can afford $750 shorts, good for you. The question here isn’t whether you can buy them. It’s whether you should buy them.

It’s a recession and folks are looking for all the freebies they can get. So, everyone was all abuzz about the coupon KFC offered last week (via Oprah’s website) for free grilled chicken. I saw the coupon link passed around on Facebook, as well as mentioned by almost everyone on Twitter. Well, KFC really underestimated the desire for free chicken and the power of Oprah. Stores across the country experienced long lines and heavy traffic. Outside a location here in NYC, angry customers were turned away as the restaurant ran low on product. It was rumored that the police were called in to mediate. (You can’t come between New Yorkers and our food.)

KFC is offering rain checks for anyone who printed out the coupon and was turned away. You have to go to a KFC, request the form, fill it out, attach the original coupon…and eventually you’ll get a voucher for some free grilled chicken. It seems like a lot of work on the customer’s part for what was a huge blunder by the fast-food company. Is KFC not aware of how many people watch Oprah? (7.4 million people each day, according to a quick Web search.)

For companies contemplating future promotions, the equation goes something like this:

Free stuff + Oprah = Insane public reaction

Recently, the New York Daily News did a comparison about some of the different services the United States Post Office offers. In each case, they sent a first-class letter, a Priority Mail letter, and an Express letter at the same time to one address. In 8 of 10 tests, the first-class letter and the Priority Mail letter arrived on the same day.

A stamp costs $.42 (for now) and Priority Mail runs around $4.95. Priority Mail means delivery within 2-3 days, which even the Post Office admits is generally how long it takes for first-class mail to arrive. So, if your letter doesn’t need insurance or tracking, save some dough and just slap a first-class stamp on it.

[via PatsPapers.com]

Times are hard and there are a lot of folks looking for work. Jobs are scarce, so it’s tempting to take anything you can get. Is this job posting the best there is?

At first, the posting seems enticing. $60,000 – $80,000 a year might go far in South Carolina. But if you look closer, the ad is riddled with misspellings, bad grammar, too much punctuation… and a lack of punctuation. (Hard to accomplish both, I know, but they pull it off!) My favorite part:

“below in the keywords i ripped off other ads to pull in the keywords..cause im lazy but great spot for person seeking great growth position.. Will conisder as minimal as 2 yrs experiance 2-5 preffered..”

Companies, we know you have the upper hand right now: more people out of work than available positions. But, can’t you still give it the old college try?

(via reddit.com)