Only in New Orleans...

...are people thrilled to hear that City Hall corruption has been 'found' and that people have been arrested.

Seems our new mayor has uncovered more corruption in his first two months in office than his predecessor found in his eight years in office.

WIth a tip o' the hat to...

Allen's been reading my mind.

There are no jobs in this town and yet the city leaders beg people not to leave for other cities. In May, I attended a party given by one of my Tulane classmates and one of our city council persons was there. Attending the party were people currently in the Tulane EMBA program and those who were about to graduate. In her comments at the party, the council person mentioned she'd heard that many of the graduates were planning to leave New Orleans because there are no jobs here (many in my class have indicated they'll have to leave to advance in their careers). She begged them to stay and pointed to all the wonderful bills the state legislature had passed to promote economic development.

Well, bills to pay the Saints to stay in New Orleans and to steal the Hornets from Charlotte, NC do not equate to economic development in my mind. I can't even imagine the thought process that believes keeping or stealing a bunch of overpaid athletes will lead to an economic boom.

The one job interview I've had in New Orleans was for a technology strategy position at a bank. The pay was subpar (way subpar), the hiring manager wanted a committment that I would not leave New Orleans within two years, and it was made clear that the pay would remain subpar. Can you imagine my enthusiasm for this job?

I think a key problem here is that people want economic growth, but aren't willing to pay for it. The attitude in Louisiana seems to be "give me everything you have for nothing." I'm bidding on a consulting job that in any other economically rational city would cost $65,000, but the folks here think that $5,000 is good enough. I've seen jobs posted here that require an MBA or a PhD or a Masters in X yet pay less than $40,000. Are they crazy? And they act surprised when people leave this town and state.

There ain't no such thing as a free oyster po'boy lunch, but the folks here haven't figured that out yet.

Innovation According to Bill Gates

I'm working on my Managerial Accounting and Operations Management finals right now, both of which are Excel-intensive. Hence, I find this Microsoft Excel 2000 "feature" incredibly annoying:

"Check Autosave settings each time you run Excel. Your settings in the AutoSave dialog box aren't retained between Excel sessions. Each (ed note: fucking) time you run Excel, the dialog box is reset so that automatic saves are every 10 minutes, only the active workbook is saved, and you're prompted for each save. If you don't use these default settings, you'll want to set the options each (ed note: fucking) time you run Excel."

You ain't the Law

Reading this reminded me of what a friend once said, "He no play-a the game no make-a the rules".