Letters to the Editor
Malusinka
Published Letters: 350 Editor's Choice: 49
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Leave
[Read the article: Maternity leave ... from math class?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A decent policy shouldn't focus on punishing recent mothers. When I returned home from the hospital with my first child (47.9 hours after birth) I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without being exhausted. I didn't catch up on the sleep I missed during labor (30 hours) for about a week.
Further, while I had babysat as a teen and prepared and planned for my baby, the reality of a tiny, helpless infant and sleepless nights was hard to adjust to. It took me about a month.
All that is acheived by making girls go back to school is to interrupt their bonding with their baby, prevent the establishment of breastfeeding, and tire the girl. No leaning will happen and any test the girl is given will be a disaster.
Add to that the fact that the most motivated and successful teens are not as likely to get pregnant, and you get a recipe for dropping out. Try earning a living without a high school diploma.
Pregnancy, birth, and newborn care place a lot of demands on a woman and her body (even if Mom is doing most of the work). A month off is just acknowledging biology.
Anything else is mean-spirited punishment at the expense of the future of a vulnerable mother and child.
Had you sat me in a chair in a high school, I would have absorbed nothing.
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Let's not forget the kids
[Read the article: Women need johns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You see small boys in women's rooms often. You rarely see Dads taking their daughters into the men's room and strolling past the guys using urinals.
I'd guess that 90% of the under-5 crowd use the women's room. And they take extra time.
Plus, women's bladders are smaller, hence we go more often. Our sexual organs are internal and men use their extra space to hold more pee.
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We need the Sun!
[Read the article: I'm a suburban husband in my 40s and I think I'm getting depressed]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Since this is the third letter in a short time about depression, I'm thinking everyone needs to fly to Florida or the Canaries and soak up some rays.
I'm sitting in a dreary Northern city where the sun hasn't shone in a week and when it does, it rises after breakfast and sets before dinner.
It wears on you. I'd recommend sun lamps or Florida for everyone who writes in with depression in January. It might not cure all your problems, but it's sure going to help
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Great Idea!
[Read the article: Boobs to cure cancer?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This will capture the attention of millions of men and teach them to do breast self exams! Where's the doo-dad wall so we women can ogle guys' parts and learn how to do self-exams for testicular cancer?
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Discouraging
[Read the article: What Hillary would do tomorrow, if she could]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To think this is one of our leading candidates. I liked Hillary a lot better before I read this. Price freezes never work. So suggesting one shows a poor knowledge of economics.
Second, currently the top 1 and 5% of income earners pay a HIGHER percentage of taxes relative to the percentage of income earned than they did in the 90s. So a return to those rates is likely to reduce the precentage that the rich pay of total taxes paid. In short, it is the really tiresome pit the middle class against the rich rhetoric that ignores the fact that the problem is Gov't spending and the amount of tax the Gov't has to levy to pay for the war in Iraq and Gov't pork.
In short, her populist speech shows ignores economics. I want a candidate who is willing to talk about the hard choices we face with an incipient recession and a huge budget deficit in a country with no universal health care.
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He's failing
[Read the article: My husband and I are fighting bitterly over our failing restaurant]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You've got a lot of personal issues that I can't address. This is my business advice:
The restaurant is failing. You need to sit down with Hubby and deal with that. You two need a plan.
When I worked in the restaurant business (financial side), the executive chef designed the menu. And figuring out how to sell meals at a profit was the important criteria. It's an alchemy of how to make something that looks fancy and can command a high price without using too many or too much of expensive ingredients or too much staff time. The menu ends up a mix with some higher profit items.
There are other things to check:
Restaurant not full? (get more lunch traffic?)
Prices too low? (Raise them)
Prices too high? (Design cheaper meals)
Ingredients too expensive? (New suppliers, different meal mix)
Can you cram more tables in?
Can you reduce staff? (Easier to make meals, more pre-work)
Cheating going on? (as an accountant, you should be able to figure that out)
Can you train wait staff to cross sell? (as in always ask if they want dessert, appetizers, drinks, etc).
Waste too high? (I'm assuming you have a system that tells you the theoretical cost of a meal)Control those portions.
Look at the checks. Hundreds of them. You have a mix of stuff on your menu. What do people actually buy? It's tedious, but that sort of raw data is invaluable. It will tell you all sorts of marketing, pricing and profit information.
Check out, with hubby, one or two successful local restaurants and sit there and analyze/estimate their financials. You can download all sorts of menus on the internet. Compare.
You're an accountant. You don't need to hire an accountant to tell you when to close up shop. If you hire anyone, look at a restaurant consultant. I bet there are books on the business that can be ordered from Amazon.
The question is: Can you make a decent business plan to rescue your business? If yes, you might do a lot for your husband's mood, stress, marriage. If no, he's failed and you can't rescue him from that. Your plan would be how to minimize the repercussions of failure.
As for the threat: In my view there are men who make idle threats and would never dream of hurting anyone. And there are men who can be violent under a lot of stress. You have to figure out to whom you're married. And the costs of staying the course or quitting.