Naughty or Nice?
Do you deserve that holiday gift? You know the rule – only if you’re nice. The holidays are upon us and rather than arbitrarily figure out what to buy for everyone on your list, perhaps it would be better to actually take stock of who really deserves one! Can you imagine saying, “Sorry, Uncle Bob, no gift for you, you haven’t been nice”? Why is it that we don’t follow the old proverb, give and thou shall receive? Let’s face it, we’re living in a score-keeping society and I think it all started with Santa and that song! So what’s the real value of the giving season and who will be opening presents this year?
There’s always an impetus for doing good things. Divorce attorney, Henry Baskin, together with Oakland University established The Baskin Family Foundation, which provides annual college tuition grants to children of single-parent homes to help lessen the hardship after divorce.
Joe Bergin, President of Perfect Mortgage, and his wife, Nicola, have a favorite charity: Operation Good Cheer. Each year they satisfy the holiday gift list of over 250 less fortunate children. The best part is they enlist their employees to help shop and wrap, making everyone part of the charitable feeling.
For over 10 years, Dick Purtan has been helping raise money for The Salvation Army’s Bed & Bread Club with his annual radiothon on Oldies 104.3 WOMC. Held every February, Purtan’s efforts result in the largest single contribution. The proceeds are used exclusively to provide food and shelter for thousands in desperate need, including victims of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
Motivated by the diagnosis of his mother, Larry Cappel, CEO of Ship Shape Custom Yacht Service and Director of Marketing for Boyne USA Resorts, is a big supporter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society and wears the MS Band of Hope as a way to motivate others to support the efforts to find a cure for this devastating disease.OK, the naughty ones are less individually identifiable. Delphi comes to mind. It’s never nice to reward management at the expense of the workers as they did in offering increased executive payouts while cutting the pensions and health care benefits of the rest of the company. Shame, shame.Were mayoral candidates, Freeman Hendrix and Kwame Kilpatrick, naughty or nice this year? Tit for tat. No presents for you! Or how about the Tigers? Hiring hometown favorites Alan Trammell, Kirk Gibson and Lance Parish, hoping to increase the popularity of the ball club, and then firing them like they were grounds keepers. (Although, to be fair, exits in sports are never pretty.)
I have a feeling that the Worst in Customer Service award should go to Comcast. I hear endless stories of bad behavior! How’s your cable service? Let’s take a poll. If you’ve had a Comcast experience that you’d like to share, visit our BLOG and tell the world your story. I want my satellite dish! |
