Business Casual

Rough day at the office? Well, that happens. So go home and take a nice relaxing bath, or stop by the gym for a workout or call up a friend and meet for a drink. Those are good, time-honored antidotes…

If you overlook two trips to the emergency room, one hospital admission, a night of tornadoes and a fire at the motel where we were staying, it was an uneventful trip. Just a quiet weekend in a small town in…

It’s always a pleasure to sit in a roomful of smart people and listen, especially when those people are focusing on solving a serious problem to which they bring an arsenal of resources, information and determination – and the confidence…

Be respectful of cultural differences, use two hands to accept a business card, and watch out for the local wine – it’s 50 proof. There were other points, large and small, made at a briefing for media and members of…

Former Atlantans Nancy Tao and her husband Sean O’Keeffe had spent the previous few weeks settling into their new home in Beijing, where Sean has a manufacturing business and Nancy has a communications company. But they took the day off…

When my daughter was 4, I traded a freelance career – flexible schedule, no dress code, easy commute to the back bedroom where I worked – for a “real” job that required dressing like a grownup and driving across town…

Perhaps you’ve noticed that way too many things don’t work, no matter how many elaborate systems and procedures are in place to assure that they do and no matter how many people are employed to troubleshoot them. I’m talking about…

It always takes me by surprise to realize that there are people who go out of their way to avoid talking politics. Among my friends and colleagues, political talk is one of life’s great pleasures, on a par with homegrown…

On my way to an afternoon meeting one hot and hazy day last summer, I was feeling pretty good – virtuous even. Traffic had been light on I-85 and the downtown connector, and I had just a few blocks left…

On a family vacation to Florida when I was a kid, I struck up a conversation with a girl about my age from south Georgia. We got along pretty well until she called me a Yankee, which took me completely…