Go on vacation, see if I care
Top Gun Maverick is a perfect movie.
Vacation is very nice. Vacation is also slightly inconvenient for your business partner. It’s not that inconvenient for the TPF Partner Left Behind: the sad sack who isn’t on a beach just replies to emails and keeps a running list of things the tanned-and-relaxed person has to handle upon their return.
When I talk to friends who run shops ranging from a half dozen to, let’s say, 60+ employees they’re consistently amazed that we keep the trains running on time.* I’d never want to have just two, they say. It’s just you guys—what if you go on vacation? What if you want to take some extended time off? I was on vacation last week and everything was fine. When my dad was sick and I routinely and regularly took time off in what some consider “the middle of the workday,” everything was fine. Whenever Noah goes on vacation? Everything is fine!
We have a really simple and [businessman voice] organic division of labor here at TPF. Projects, and who will handle what, typically sort themselves out quickly. If someone needs an assist, they ask. We get things done when they need to get done. You’d be amazed at how “competence” and “hitting deadlines” and “replying to emails” could be considered a service these days.
I hope that whoever has made it this far in your favorite small biz newsletter has a nice reprieve from work this summer. Call it a vacation. PTO. Time off. A sabbatical! Whatever it is, work will survive without you.
*it’s worth mentioning here we also work a four-day-ish work week.
A Movie
No notes. A perfect movie. We went in the middle of a crushing heat wave and it was the exact movie you want to see in the middle of a crushing heat wave. Big ass bucket of popcorn and an ice cold seltzer. Fighter jets. Classic rock. What more can you ask for? Don’t care if it’s military propaganda.
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An Article
The Number Ones: Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week”
I’ve really enjoyed Tom Breihan’s Stereogum column The Numbers Ones, in which he reviews “every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958.” Up this week? Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week.” You know the tune—and it sucks.
Breihan brings the heat, but it’s also an enlightening crash course in what he calls the “bowling-shirt bands” (Smashmouth, Barenaked Ladies, etc.) and late 90s rock bands that were on TRL. What a weird time in pop music.
Those rappy bits on “One Week” are catchy, but they’re the wrong type of catchy — the kind that a couple of guys I know call “sticky.” They get stuck in your head, and then they slowly drive you insane. For decades, I have been unable to order orange chicken without some terrible part of my brain repeating “chickety-China, the Chinese chicken,” and I resent that enormously.
We have a pretty strict “no apologies via email” policy here at TPF, but I’m sorry that this song is now stuck in your head.
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A Book
I’m about a decade late, but I’m absolutely loving Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. Almost finished with the second and very excited to read the final two. Highly recommend.
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A Run
I really enjoy running on vacation. It’s a great way to see a city and explore parks you might not get to via subway or walking. When I was researching “where to run in Florence” before we went to Italy for a wedding there was a lot of negativity about Florence’s running routes. They lie! Parco delle Cascine is a lovely park, just west of the city center. It was a five-minute run from our hotel. Lots of flat and fast hard packed gravel trails winding along the Arno River. A true escape.
Anyway, Strava is the only good social network.