This month’s McSweeney’s publication is outstanding. It’s great long form writing, graphics, photographs—and many of San Francisco-centric stories. A great read to shake you out of your usual reading habits.

My friend RichB was nice enough to send a new camera my way, a Russian-made LOMO. Here are a few shots from recent ski trips in B.C. and the Sierras: Read the rest of this entry »

My friend Frank has been slowly collecting pairs of skis, sometimes in small quantities and other times by the box-load. The 500 or so pairs in his collection are mostly from the 1970s and 1980s. I finally had a chance to pay a visit to his outstanding basement museum, just a few blocks away from the base of Whistler/Blackcomb. Going in there makes you feel like you’re in a time warp back to Squaw Valley circa 1983. I think a quick visit by the NBC crew during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics will certainly be in order. The campaign to bring in NBC starts here, now!

Sculpture on the roof at SF Art Institute.

SFO Bike Commute

Bike + Flip

Here’s a good program put together by the American Marketing Association.

Outside recently published an article I wrote about the making of a mountain bike at Specialized Bicycle Components.

The magazine Strategy + Business recently chose my book Punching In as one of the best books of 2008. The book is reviewed by Sally Helgesen as a part of a longer essay on human capital. She pulls out some of the books true lessons. She writes:

Smart technologies may have the power to erase the distinctions between the development opportunities offered to those in management and those on the front lines, and so might reshape our definition of human capital in the years ahead, but at present the employees at most companies face a far different reality. In Punching In: The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-line Employee, Alex Frankel offers an insider’s look at this reality in a number of iconic companies. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s easy to see that this door handle is used often by a crew of painters with paint-covered fingers.

I was recently in Brazil doing some work with Unibanco, one of the country’s top five banks. I was invited by the executives who run the bank’s fast-growing Hipercard credit division. Hipercard is now Brazil’s third largest credit card, after Visa and MasterCard. Unibanco acquired the card after Walmart bought a chain of supermarkets and spun off the card division. The cards are chiefly sold in in-store kiosks at places like Walmart and Unibanco finds itself in a position of hiring many new employees.

Among a range of activities, I joined a group of executives from the company on a day-long field trip. I had a chance to meet and interview employees like this fellow who works at a Walmart kiosk. Read the rest of this entry »

A few months back I participated in a naming exercise with the crew at Gu Sports, the company that sells a line of energy gels which I have used in all sorts of activities–running, skiing, swimming, and others. A couple of years back they created a new product which they code-named “Hardrock” and distributed to a select number of athletes for testing in these simple, stealthy, unadulterated silver packages: I thought the less-is-more packaging would have been a great way to market the new product (which is said to have more of the special sauce and is geared to higher intensity racing and workouts)but the team chose the name “Roctane” and this packaging:

I’ve been getting my coffee fix at a new back alley coffee kiosk here in San Francisco’s Mission District. Jeremy Tooker is opening a new “third wave” “single origin” coffee house on Valencia Street but until the space is remodeled and ready he’s operating out of a hard to find back alley. What you find when you pull up on your bike is an espresso machine on a bar that just fits into the width of the building’s loading dock and a barista ready to make drinks. Tooker, the founder of this new shop called Four Barrels, was a founder of nearby Ritual Roasters which he and a friend named Eileen Hassi founded after they left a Starbucks owned chain to set off on their own. I wrote about Ritual in my book “Punching In” as a contrast to Starbucks. At the time of reporting there was one Ritual and around 14,000 Starbucks worldwide. Now, two years on, there are three Rituals in the SF Bay Area. More on local coffee and Four Barrels in a recent SF Chronicle story.

I was lucky enough to meet Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh a few months ago at a conference where we were both speaking. Tony immediately got what my book Punching In is about–corporate cultures–and invited me out to Henderson, Nevada where Zappos is based. The idea was for me to visit as a journalist and consultant and report back on what I saw as an outside observer. On many levels Zappos is very different from the five companies where I worked as a frontline worker, mostly because its frontline workers interact with customers over the phone not in person. Still, what Zappos has in common with companies like UPS and Starbucks is that it focuses heavily on creating a unique and authentic culture. I came away with several thoughts, posted below.

What is inspirational for an outsider?

There is much to see and hear that is inspirational for a visitor to the company. For me, the five key pieces included seeing how a call center has been reinvented by Zappos, finding so many people who are happy about their job and seemingly “on message” about this topic, the screening and training that employees go through, the role of the core values at the company, and the place that silliness has within the corporate environment. Read the rest of this entry »

Two years ago Zappos decided it needed to create a set of core values, things that the company stood for. After soliciting ideas from everyone at the company there were over 100 suggestions. Voting whittled the long list to ten. When I was visiting I was surprised by the true care and interest people had in these core values–both inside the company and while at home in real life. People I interviewed really believed in the values and took them to heart. Not unlike people working on AA’s “12 steps” people would tell me they were focusing on a certain value. “Trying to ‘Be humble,’ is really hard for me,” said one staffer.

The Zappos core values:

1. Deliver WOW through service.

2. Embrace and drive change.

3. Create fun and a little weirdness. [This one reminded me of the Keep Austin Weird campaign.]

4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.

5. Pursue growth and learning.

6. Build open and honest relationships with communication.

7. Build a positive team and family spirit.

8. Do more with less.

9. Be passionate and determined.

10. Be humble.

Fast Company published an article about Zipcar I wrote. The original idea I pitched to the magazine involved me using Zipcars exclusively for a month to see what it would feel like to give up my car and go virtual. Sadly, that story got reduced down to my driving a few Zipcars around San Francisco. There’s a lot just a block away from my house so it was pretty easy and efficient to sign up and use the cars. The web site and telephone reservation system both are excellent–and make you realize how low tech and behind the times traditional rental car companies are.

Here’s the first paragraph of the story:

If there is a phrase that describes the Zipcar car-sharing service–and I don’t think there is yet–it would be some mix of Volkswagen’s Fahrvergnügen (driving pleasure) and Napster “Own Nothing, Have Everything” advertising slogan. The experience is what it is all about: I reserve a Mini Cooper online, walk one block from my house in San Francisco to a car lot, swipe my card across the windshield, get in, adjust the seat and mirrors, and motor off. For $11 an hour, my insurance and gas are covered. By block two, I’m thinking of selling my station wagon. Turns out, I’m far from alone. “Forty percent of our customers either sell their car or halt a purchasing decision of a car,” says Scott Griffith, Zipcar’s CEO.

That’s a picture of me getting air in a Mini shot in composite by the talented Jamie Kripke. Click here to see the composite images he used to make the shot.

Here are some photos of people at work in Japan. The Tskuji market in Tokyo is a hive of activity starting at 4 am, with hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish coming in on plane and boat from all over the world. You have to be on your toes to not get run over by omnipresent carts.

I was recently in Japan for several weeks. One morning I saw these two girls dressed up. They had weights, canes, and blinds around their eyes–all to simulate what it might feel like to be a senior citizen making his or her way around the streets of Tokyo. The idea of simulating a customer experience is an interesting one.

My publisher recently sent along an early version of the cover for the paperback of my book “Punching In.” The paperback should be out by Christmas. I think it is snazzy and captures the spirit of the book well through the illustrations. My editor, Ben Loehnen, and I also tweaked the subtitle to be a bit more explanatory about what the book is all about.

Darren Garnick of the Boston Herald wrote a nice review of my book Punching In. He also posted his own notes about working at UPS on his blog. His recollections reminded me of these seeming real-life views from a UPS driver that I spotted on a posting on CraigsList last year.

Before i started this job I thought I was a pretty normal person and your avg. person in DC had common sense. Damn if I wasn’t wrong on that one. Now mind you the avg home price where i deliver is $750,000+. Here are a few tips to get your shit to you, not get ran the hell over, and not get cursed out by a driver wearing a shit brown uniform.

* Put fucking numbers on your house. How hard is that? I know your college educated. How fucking hard is it to post numbers. Hire someone hell hire me to put em up. And I understand your shit may be getting remodeled. Grab one of those big ass pieces of ply-wood spray some numbers on it and stick it in the front yard. Read the rest of this entry »

Kimberly Palmer of US News interviewed me this week about what it’s like to be an employee. This was for her blog, Alpha Consumer.

Behind the Scenes at Apple, Gap, and Starbucks

As an employee, what customer habits did you find most annoying? Have you changed any of your own behavior as a result?
There were certainly a few customers here and there who were clueless and demanding, but by and large, as a worker on the front lines at a handful of front-line retailers, I found customers to be surprisingly unobtrusive and generally patient. I was impressed by those customers who, when they felt they were right, argued calmly and clearly for what they felt they deserved (as opposed to those few who became angry and loud). The way in which my behavior has largely changed has been that now I understand that each company or store I frequent has a number of systems by which it operates. Read the rest of this entry »

Barbara Rose of the Chicago Tribune wrote a story about companies using personality tests and she wrote about the experiences I had in researching Punching In. Finding out that a large software company called Kronos stood behind many of the tests I took at places like Whole Foods and Best Buy was an interesting part of the research. Here’s her article:

How would you feel if somebody told you they could size up your job potential with a 10-minute personality test?

You might figure it’s a job not worth holding, and you might be right. But a growing number of employers screen candidates using online quizzes with deceptively simple questions such as, “I would rather stay home and read a book than go to a party. Agree or disagree?” Read the rest of this entry »

Last year I did some extended consulting work with a large web design firm and the opportunity gave me a chance to see a large, modern office in action. As the new guy I was keenly aware of the jargon spouted by the crew I worked with. Guys talked a lot about the project we were working on as having “many moving parts.” There was a lot of talk about “high level” this and that. One consultant, when describing his plan to write a report talked about it having a necessary “thud factor,” as in the ability to shock and amaze the client. They talked about “polishing that apple,” “walking down that road,” “bleed ins,” things that were “bolted on,” as well as “value adds.” There were discussions of “nice to haves” as opposed to “must haves.” When I was talking to one colleague he told me he wanted to “reboot our conversation.” There was much talk about who “owned” things, as in whose responsibilities things were. When people had meetings they said, ” I have a 12:30,” or “I have a 4 o’clock.” There was talk about “leveraging” things and “taking it offline,” “eyeballs,” and “real estate.” But my favorite by far was an exchange I had with a colleague, a “teammate,” right before a meeting. After I asked whether we were prepared for the meeting with the client, he told me not to worry, that they were PLUs. “People like us,” he explained.

I’ve heard from more than a few Punching In readers. Here’s a Q+A with Dave, an anonymous bookstore staff member who I emailed with.

Alex: So, you work at a large chain bookstore in Texas. What’s that like?

Dave: I feel blessed to have such a fantastic job. I am exposed to wonderful stories, provoking true tales, stimulating opinions, and feel like a courier to one of the basic principles of the USA: freedom of the written word. I have met myriad incredible authors along the way, and some nifty customers as well. I am touched when I see a parent reading to their child in our sequestered kids’ area. The requirements of my job are basically know the English alphabet, arrive with my shoes tied and zipper up, and the ability to make correct register change. It’s not that hard. Our pay scale isn’t terribly grand, mind you, but it sure beats putting tar on roofs, and I don’t inhale auto exhaust fumes at any time. Read the rest of this entry »

The folks at Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel did a recent Q+A with me about what I learned from renting cars that might help customers and I realized that I actually learned a few things…

Alex Frankel recently did some undercover journalism by taking a job at Enterprise-Rent-A-Car. He reports on his stint as a counter clerk there—along with his brief gigs at a Gap clothing store, a Starbucks shop, and an Apple store—in his new book Punching In.

In the following Q&A, Alex talks about Enterprise—plus his tips for booking a rental car with any company:
Q: Alex, Congrats on your new book. Why did you choose to work at Enterprise instead of one of the other rental car companies?
A: Enterprise is the biggest car rental company most people have never heard of, or don’t know much about. The company is the largest recruiter of college graduates and an expanding behemoth of car rental. The way in which the company recruits and trains its employees is fascinating and well thought out. Read the rest of this entry »