Gen X advice to Boomer

Daughter thinks her father should expand his social network…
Jessica: If you joined a club or went to church?
Clint: I could. Friends come and go. As you get older, you lose many of them. 
Jessica: There are plenty of good people who would love to spend time with you. What about Mario?
Clint: Ah, the plumber. Has a lot of energy. 
Jessica: You deserve to be around people who care about you and bring out the best in you.
Clint: I appreciate your concern. Sometimes I just think it’s enough to keep in contact with those who go way back. Lots to talk about.
Jessica: As you say, friends disappear, though.
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Voice-over
The daughter can see her father’s social circle shrinking and thinks he should get out more often. He’s fine with that. He’s reached a stage where he is happy with either praise or criticism.  

Call Center Skills

Operator: I can certainly help you with your request, before we go any further, I need to verify a few details from you for account security. Could you please confirm your full name, email and mailing address? … Thank you so much for the details. Please allow me a moment to pull up the account and make the changes for you. Meanwhile, how's your day going so far?

Customer: Well, it's a heatwave here in Tokyo. Hottest June ever. Where are you? I have the aircon blasting and a damp towel around my neck.

Operator: I'm currently in India right now, and we are going through the Monsoons. The rains help with c
ooling it down, but once it's done the humidity skyrockets. 

Customer: We are seeing up to 37 degrees C daytime here. No rainy season. It petered out. 

Operator: So hot! Do you end up spending most of your day indoors? 

Customer: Indoors. I try not to sit too long. Go out on the electric bicycle. It has no aircon. 

Operator: I have no aircon here in India, but the breeze helps I guess and from the images I've seen of Tokyo the roads must be lovely for cyclists.

Customer: Yes, the roads are nice if you choose cycle tracks under the trees in this season. 

Operator: OK, I changed your address. Look OK?

Customer: Fine. Thanks.

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Voice-over

A satisfying chat session combining business matter with social chit chat. Communication skills, computer skills and customer-service skills of an operator were on display.

Repurposing a Gentlemen's Club

Change of management…

Reflecting society of 1904

René: You’re still a member of the club?
Guy: Yes. You know how it came about. My father pushed me into it, at the time I felt a bit pressured but I thought I can resign anytime. After a few years of paying annual fees and never using it, I decided to resign. I mean what relevance is a “gentlemen’s club” in the 21st century? So I went into the manager’s office and there was a glamorous woman behind the desk. “Hi, I’m the new manager,” she says and talked about changes. Well, I paid the fee.
René: And has she wrought changes?
Guy: Oh yes, very wrought for some old-timers. There are women members now, more bathrooms, a coffee shop, meeting rooms, events. Progress. Oh, and staying a night is half the rate of a hotel. Savings covers the annual fee.
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Voice-over

Old chaps going in for a drink before going home for dinner seemed an inefficient way to run an old heritage building with high maintenance costs. A new business plan turned it around. Took a woman to reimagine its role, reweave the social fabric, refuel the flame.

Koreeda’s Shoplifters: A Cannes triumph

After seeing Shoplifters …

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Jona: Clever narrative. Like peeling an onion, layer by layer, until all was revealed. I thought the boy, Shota, was a girl at first.

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Emiko: Violence lurked. Killings, burials.

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Jona: But no victims or violence ever seen.

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Emiko: Just alluded to. Subtle.

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Jona: And, poor as they were, they laughed a lot.

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Emiko: All were positive about solving their problems. Didn’t sit around at home.

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Jona: Diligent about going off to their jobs when they could get work.

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Voice-over

Brilliant. Part Kurosawa, part Ozu, part Mizoguchi, synthesizing many great Japanese directors.

Ten years in the making, and it shows in the care Koreeda takes in telling the story. Gradually revealing that almost no one in this “family” is even related to one another. The sympathy in his portrayal of people coping with poverty and what happens to them. Very LIKE!

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Contrasting Two Economists

Test question…

Yusuke: What kind of question is this? "Identify the men in the photograph and explain their ideas." Do you recognize them?

Masa: No idea. But we could google images of economists and see what comes up.

Yusuke: Some keywords might also help.

Masa: Like solving clues in a detective story.

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Voice-over

The question...

Identify the two men in the photograph. Explain their different approaches to economics. Leave responses as comments below.

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