Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Author: fish1964

  • Bodega Strike

    In NYC today many bodegas shut down from 12-8 today to protest Trump’s immigration ban.

    If you aren’t from New York, this may take some explaining. Bodega is a Spanish term (I think it means warehouse) and it refers to the small deli/grocery on many corners in NYC. If I need milk, I could go to the grocery store, but there’s a bodega across the street that has it. You pay a little more, the selection is limited but the convenience rocks. Most have limited deli service so you can get a bagel or an egg sandwich in the morning. Bodegas are a critical part of the NYC experience. But these days they aren’t predominantly Spanish.

    We recently had our favorite deli across the street close due to crazy Brooklyn rents (their rent was tripled). This was a Middle Eastern deli and a total local establishment. They knew my daughters, threw in candy for free from time to time, all the things you’d expect from a local joint. There was one older guy who was a strict Muslim and he couldn’t ring me up if I bought beer (they had pretty good beer) because he was devout. To this day my daughters bemoan this place closing.

    In NYC this is all totally normal.

    So today there was a “Bodega Strike” in NYC. There is a large number of these delis run by immigrants from Yemen. Yemen is a part of the immigration ban so this affects family. They shut down for the day and came to protest at Brooklyn’s Borough Hall. A block from my office:

    https://twitter.com/benpiven/status/827250318081740800

    The flags other than US flags are Yemen flags. There were some other good pictures:

    https://twitter.com/timdonnelly/status/827288675453173760

    This one amuses me, but also needs explanation if you aren’t from NYC. Google “nyc coffee cup”. For reasons I honestly do not know, there is a common Greek style paper coffee cup used all over the place and the text in the middle is “we are happy to serve you”.

    Of course, the picture of Muslims praying is not going over well everywhere:

    https://twitter.com/TEN_GOP/status/827270815640981504

    Democracy in action…

  • Mucho Sad

  • Let’s Go Rangers

    I’m not even a hockey guy, but this is awesome…

  • Go Pack Go

  • Citi Bike + Blaze

    This is an interesting bike safety approach. Apparently this already exists for the bike share program in London. NYC is following suit and adding a laser light image of a bicycle on the ground about 20 feet ahead of the bike rider.

    Watch the video…

  • Amazon the Goliath

    Via Visual Capitalist, click to make bigger:

  • Best and Brightest – Origami Risk

    The National Association for Business Resources (NABR) runs an Education and Recognition Program called Best and Brightest, designed to improve businesses:

    By making a company better, we make the lives of their employees richer and positively impact the community as a whole. This is what makes us different, we make you better.

    Every year they do a Best and Brightest survey of companies. It’s an anonymous survey of all the employees in the company. First they do it regionally. Origami Risk has large offices in Chicago and Atlanta and we were happy to receive the Best and Brightest award for both of those offices.

    The national awards just came out. The NABR named 101 companies across the country as Best and Brightest. Origami Risk is one of them. On top of being named one of the best places to work by Business Insurance, this caps off a great year.

    At Origami our employees are empowered to make decisions and changes that help our clients directly. It’s not complicated really. When it’s obvious your work makes a difference, you are happier at work.

  • Millennials in the Workplace

    This is a portion of a one hour episode from Inside Quest. I had never heard of Inside Quest before, their motto is “This is what would happen if TED Talks, Tony Robbins and Oprah had a baby that read a lot”.

    This excerpt is 15 minutes and is a fascinating discussion of the struggles of Millennials now that they are in the corporate world. I’ll probably check out the full hour…

  • Hail Rodgers

    https://twitter.com/_MarcusD2_/status/818233772281921540

  • Iceland

    I’ve never been to Iceland, but I’ve known people who have and said it was fascinating. It’s definitely one of those places I’d like to see. This site made it even more enticing. Please click the link. The pictures are amazing, but professional so I can’t embed them.