The cost of neatness (Chapter One)
Kathy Waddill is telling a standing-room-only house of several hundred rapt professionals, most of whom are taking notes on broad yellow lined pads sheathed in expensive- and complex-looking leather binders, about the deep client discomfort they should be prepared to confront when setting up a first visit over the phone. “I'm the worst you've ever seen‚” Waddill imitates, her voice husky with emotion before it breaks to a mortified whisper. “I'm overwhelmed. I'm so embarrassed....”     read more


Messy desks
Industrial psychologist Andrew DuBrin at the Rochester Institute of Technology has noted, "Whenever you see a photo of a powerful person, the person always has a clean work area."  He's right, of course; a Fortune 500 CEO or U.S. senator posing in front of a desk surface obliterated by heaps of paper would risk being judged ineffective and undisciplined.  If nothing else, the failure to keep a neat desk suggests vague, non-leadership-compatible issues of character, in much the same way that divorce did until about the 1970s....  read more


Messy homes
People tend to worry about home mess too much, and often for no good reason.  Many of us are busier than ever with work or parenting or both, and letting your home get a little, or even more than a little, messy probably isn't going to hurt anyone.  But there's a great deal of external pressure to keep a reasonably neat home, and not just from the constant stream of "be-neat" messages we get from the media.  It also comes from friends, colleagues, neighbors and relatives.  The fact is, many people will think less of you for keeping a messy home.  And occasionally, they'll even let you know about it....    read more


A messy business
Though still a favorite of librarians and other wholesale buyers, the New England Mobile Book Fair is mostly a retail operation now, and has been for decades.  But don't tell this to the shoppers who pick their way through the dense, dingy, 35,000-square-foot forest of cheap, cramped shelving creaking with some two million titles.  Many of the customers think they're crashing a wholesale outlet.  What retailer would make it this hard to find a book?  Of course, to come to the Book Fair to find a specific book is to miss part of the point.  What the store excels at is providing an opportunity to find what you aren't looking for.  But even so, a customer who is looking for a specific title, or a book by a specific author, probably will find it faster here than they would in a Borders....     read more


Mess in Germany
Hans Rindisbacher, a professor at Pomona College outside of Los Angeles, was crossing an empty intersection on foot one night when a passerby on the sidewalk behind him started shouting angrily at him.  "Are you color blind?" the man roared, pointing at the red "Don't Walk" sign.  Rindisbacher was momentarily taken aback--there was, after all, no car in sight in any direction--but then remembered he was visiting Germany, where even minor transgressions of regulatory, business and social conventions can lead to loud confrontations....   read more


The trouble with Google
Google's impact is moving beyond Web text searches as it throws itself into shopping, maps, books and images.  It could even spill into the physical world, as the growing availability of tiny, dirt-cheap chips with built-in radio transmitters is expected to create an opportunity for Google to let people call up the exact location of their car keys or their children.  Imagine being able to simply toss things into your attic without any concern for any form of organization, and then going to Google when you needed one of the items and calling up its position within the attic.  In short, Google is a wonderful way to get your hands on a specific piece of information out of a vast trove that no one has to waste time putting in order.  Googling has become such a routine, comfortable and seemingly effective part of everyday life that it's easy to overlook its drawbacks....
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The greatest jam-bander of all time
Of all the jazz artists and jam-banders who might spring to mind when it comes to improvisation, the superstar musician who may be the greatest improvisationalist of all time is well-known to the public for everything except his improvisation.  Yet so intense was this performer's dedication to jumping beyond the music as written that otherwise adoring audiences and back-up musicians sometimes became annoyed at the length and off-the-wall intricacy of his extemporaneous musical wanderings, and he lost gigs over it.  Even when sitting in with other musicians he couldn't resist changing their compositions on the fly....    read more