Growing up in Detroit’s western suburbs meant you learned the rules before anyone explained them. The Big Three—Ford, GM, Chrysler—weren’t just employers. They were ecosystems with their own gravitational pull and unwritten codes. If you worked at an agency servicing one of them, you didn’t show up in a competitor’s…
Category: Business
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The Service Department Trust Problem: A Mercedes Tech, a Stolen Car, and a Dealership’s Spectacular Implosion
Kimberly Porter dropped her Mercedes C300 at the dealership for service — routine stuff, the kind of transaction that’s supposed to be boring and forgettable. What she got instead: a phone alert at 1 a.m. showing her car was on the move. She tracked it to a sports bar using…
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WRTV Fired Its Newsroom Mid-Broadcast. The New Owner Promised “More Local News.”
At 3 p.m. on March 31, the staff at Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV was prepping for the 5, 6, and 7 p.m. broadcasts. By the end of the night, most of them were unemployed. Circle City Broadcasting — which already owned two other Indianapolis stations — completed its $83 million…
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Before Chatbots, Customer Service Followed These Eleven Unwritten Rules
Before apps, chatbots, and self-checkout lanes, American customer service followed a quiet code. These unwritten rules shaped how stores, diners, hotels, and service counters operated for decades — and most of them weren’t posted on walls or included in training manuals. Customers expected them anyway. The principles that made old-school…
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UK Chocolate Shoplifting Costs £408M — So Now You Need Permission to Buy a Creme Egg
British Supermarkets Lock Up Chocolate — Because Crime Gangs Love Ferrero Rocher The chocolate shoplifting situation in the UK has escalated to the point where Tesco and Sainsbury’s are installing anti-theft barriers on candy bars. Not razors. Not baby formula. Chocolate. Sainsbury’s confirmed it’s using security boxes on “regularly targeted”…
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Bathroom Demon and All: What Happens When Realtors Skip Quality Control
A rental listing in Fort Totten, just north of Washington, DC, briefly featured something no prospective tenant expects to see: a disfigured figure emerging from — and somehow also behind — a bathroom mirror. The listing has since been scrubbed from Apartments.com. Other versions remain on Redfin, minus the nightmare…
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Hershey Swapped Real Chocolate for “Chocolate Candy” — The Reese Family Noticed
Brad Reese — grandson of H.B. Reese, the guy who invented Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in his basement in 1928 — posted an open letter to Hershey last week, accusing the company of “quietly replacing” the milk chocolate and peanut butter that made the candy iconic. The changes to Reese’s…
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AI Job Displacement Fears — When Panic Beats Logic
Wall Street’s latest panic cycle is eating through white-collar sectors like a brushfire through dry timber. This time, it’s AI job-displacement fears — and the casualties are piling up fast. Insurance brokers got hammered. Wealth managers took a beating. Freight logistics companies cratered 19% in a single session. The proximate…
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Big Food Panics as GLP-1 Drugs Vaporize $12 Billion in Snack Sales
The snack aisle is having an identity crisis. According to a Reuters article about the effects of GLP-1 drugs on snacks, PepsiCo just launched a reformulated Lay’s line with shorter ingredient lists and smaller bags. Coca-Cola ramped up production of protein-infused Fairlife milk. General Mills released higher-protein Cheerios. Kraft Heinz…
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Stanford’s Dating Experiment Worked Too Well — And That’s Telling
The Stanford dating experiment happened last month. Four thousand students filled out questionnaires. An algorithm matched them. They got 48 hours to meet face-to-face — no endless texting, no three-month situationship that ends with “I’m just not ready for something serious right now.” Just: here’s a person, go talk to…