so i bought a new management book — Becoming a Successful Manager: How to Make a Smooth Transition from Managing Yourself to Managing Others — off amazon today, and after checking out, they offered me the chance to Upgrade! and read the electronic version of it now! for only $1.59! and i am a sheep and am also in the market for speedy advice, so i did. boy, is the interface bad. but what’s really bad is some of the advice in the book:

Criticisms are gifts that I don’t want to withhold from people about whom I genuinely care. It’s my responsibility as a manager to provide them with gifts of criticism.

what the hell kind of a gift is criticism? jeez, put down the incense burner and find a better analogy, Hippy McPatchouli-Pants.

also, now i have this mental image of someone holding out a bright red box wrapped in ribbons with a big bow on top, beaming the smile that just says “i come bearing the gift of criticism to show you that i care! and also that i am very, very stoned!”