Kat and I had a great experience at 90 Miles Cuban Cafe this afternoon that I think is the perfect example of what a great work environment can do for a business.

We both recently went vegan so whenever we are eating somewhere new we always have a plethora of questions and today was no different. “Is there any dairy or honey in the creole sauce?”, “can we have our roll without any butter?”, “are the beans cooked with chicken stock?”, and so on.

He quickly picked up on the fact that we were vegan, genuinely offered some recommendations and then, believe it or not, came up with a dish for us on the fly. It was delicious!

How hard was that for him to do? Not very hard at all, but we rarely have such experiences. He just as easily could have mentioned the tofu sandwich and been done with it. But instead, since there were no instilled guidelines handed down from management, and he clearly loved working there, he actually got excited in coming up with a dish he knew we would love.

They now have two repeat cusomters for life simply by removing any guidelines and allowing their employees to treat the place as if it were their own.

Fantastic clip from Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares where chef Gordon Ramsay visits failing Indian restaurant, The Curry Lounge.

Why is it failing?

With 100+ pick-n-mix items on the menu, the owner is afraid he’ll not be able to please everyone. By offering something for everyone, even chips at an Indian restaurant, they end up with something mediocre.

They compromise their authenticity.

Just an FYI if you ever find yourself in Brighton, UK, my favorite Indian restaurant: Memories of India.

Seth Godin’s post, George Clooney is not normal, hits on the idea of expectations in relation to the people we chose to surrounds ourselves with.

You can’t hire that guy because he’s not as good looking as George. And you can’t believe that speaker because he doesn’t present as well as George. And that guy? He’s short. Short? Well, shorter than George. And you can’t trust him to make good decisions because his skin is much darker than George’s.

This extends to most everything we come into contact with, from where we chose to eat, the music we listen to, to what clothes we wear. We let the wrong sense commandeer our decision process.

Mr. Godin continues:

I was talking to someone at the Federal Reserve this week. He explained that in our electronic age, his relationships often start on the phone or by email. And they usually go extremely well, moving things quickly toward a happy conclusion.

The “electronic age” lets us lose our literal sight to focus on what is important.

I truly believe this. I cannot think of a single good reason not to. And the CEO’s obsession with Microsoft Outlook does not count!

I have helped a few business move to Apple’s Mac OS X and I repeatedly receive praise for the encouragement.

So it was fantastic to hear the IBM is testing such a migration: IBM launches internal pilot program to test migration to Macs

…at least to see where they could lead.

Sure ads suck, but I think marketers will eventually come around and realize what a good ad can be and do for every party.

It is not about doing the same thing that has been done for 75+ years. Twitter offers some really unique advertisement opportunities that could benefit both the users and advertiser. Simple contextual ads would be boring and pointless, other than driving a bit of revenue for Twitter.

(Thought spawned by Twitter Testing Advertising In Twitter Streams)

When you really enjoy what you work, overtime is a non issue. The word does not exist. It is not even a consideration. You just do until you are done - Which can last years.

Jobs have set hours. 9-5. Any action you take outside of these hours that contributes to your job would be considered overtime. You are constrained.

I never want that feeling.

If I ever say to someone that I cannot hang out or meet up because I need to work overtime I’ve failed.

Overtime may also imply that you are pushing harder, getting ahead, beating out the competition or just showing off.

Nonsense. A poor excuse. Overtime implies the need to complete tasks, not goals.

Do what you enjoy and there will be no such thing as overtime.