Levels of Service

Graham and I were in Eckerd's today picking up some drugs, and got some slow, bad service from a woman who was new there. It took me back to 2000, when unemployment was as low everywhere as it is in the great Garden State now.

I even wrote a little riff on it then and got it published on the Motley Fool's Fribble. For those too lazy to read that, the basic idea is that bad service indicates that people who couldn't used to get jobs are now getting them, and that it portends an overall rise in quality of services in the future, plus better distribution of wealth etc. Gotta like it.

Not much else to tell you. Waiting for a word on whether or not I'll be walking merrily to work for the next 5 months or so.

Went to a hedge fund industry do yesterday at Jasna Polana, former residence of the Johnson & Johnson Johnsons before a clever Polish maid snaked it from them. It was fancier than most of the places I usually hang out. Much fun was had when a guy from a moderately-sized university's endowment stuck it to a cocky bulge bracket I-bank Fund of Funds manager by suggesting that Fund of Funds managers in general shouldn't be paid incentive fees. They were rolling in the aisles.