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A Forgotten Birthday Cake and the Pursuit of Excellence
After starting down the office hall to my desk at work, I noticed laughter and noise filtering through the stairwell doors. I turned and headed for the stairs instead. Walking down a floor, I opened the lunch room door and found an office party and remembered: I was supposed to have brought a triple chocolate birthday cake and some Sprite. I had committed to do a job and failed to do it. I hate to fail. During my teen years, there was a popular, but questionable Christian song that exhorted me that when I was weak, God would always make me strong. So I spent many years operating on the…
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The Happiest Place on Earth?
Disneyland has long positioned itself as “The Happiest Place on Earth.” And Disney goes to great lengths to maintain that illusion. Their parks are as close to spotless as you can get; you never see wrappers, gum or spilled popcorn on the ground, since they get swept up within a minute of hitting the pavement by an army of “cast members,” from custodians to ride workers, who are devoted to maintaining the fantasy. Every Disney park cast member is trained to be assertively friendly in making things right and keeping people happy. When a friend’s child lost the ice cream scoop from his cone, within moments a Disney person replaced…
