Compliment sandwiches give me indigestion

Last month, NOI published a tip of the day called “Give a compliment sandwich.”

Gross.

I think that’s bad advice, and wrote the following reply (which has since been removed from their site, along with the other comments).

I hate compliment sandwiches. They give me indigestion. As soon as I receive an email (or a phone call) that begins with an unsolicited, unrelated compliment, it immediately sets my bullshit detector to high. I know I’m about to get his with a compliment sandwich.

if you need to tell me something, have enough respect for me that you won’t waste my time by forcing me to read a bunch of nonsense designed to make you feel better about yourself.

Mark Suster wrote a great piece called “Why I’d Rather Err on the Side of Direct Feedback Than Pleasantries.”

Read his other posts:

  1. Don’t be a Grin Fucker.
  2. Don’t Sweep Feedback Under the Rug.

Lastly, read Kelly Williams Brown’s “Say what is on your mind without eight layers of filter.”

The case against MBAs

Have friends who wants to go to business school? Please save their souls (and their livers):

Iraq vet takes down robber

I enjoy a good story about a foiled robbery as much as anyone, and Zach Thome’s takedown is no exception:

A 38-year-old who attempted to rob a Grand Rapids party good store was grabbed with lightning speed and floored by a heroic Iraq vet who happened to be the in store, a local Fox affiliate reports.

Zach Thome, a mixed martial arts-trained former soldier, put gunman Brandon Slanger, 38, in a rear naked choke hold and held him until police arrived.

iMessage and T-Mobile Monthly4G prepaid

I have a factory unlocked iPhone 4. It was running iOS 5.0.1 and has a T-Mobile SIM in it. Voice, text, data and MMS all work as expected.

This morning, I was unable to activate iMessage. Several times, it got stuck “waiting for activation.” Eventually, it displayed an “Activation Failed” message.

I tried removing my Apple ID; sending messages to other iMessage users; turning WiFi off; changing the SMS service center and rebooting. None of these had any effect.

After reading some posts about enabling international text messages, I added $10 to my account. (Previously, I had a balance of 3¢, having already paid for the month.)

Once that was done, I was able to activate and use iMessage successfully. I re-enabled my AppleID and iMessage continued to work.