Once again, Happy Jewish New Year!

Last night marked the end of Yom Kippur, the holiest of all Jewish holidays. Confession and atonement, which we covered extensively last week, took up most of yesterday.

From Arrogance to Zeal for bad causes, our Alphabet of Woe was the focus of the day. Yesterday’s other area of focus was on not thinking about eating.

Meditatively putting together the Sunday Paper on a holy day was a first. Balancing Wi-Fi needs with an examination of the soul yielded a delightful message in the Sunday Paper Mailbox from a friend. This friend happens to have a really cool and powerful job. She wrote to me to tell me a story.

This friend decided to sign up to receive the Harvard Business Review. As in subscribe. As in pay money. Ostensibly she sought to do so because, as the description on Amazon says:

“for over 80 years, Harvard Business Review magazine has been an indispensable and unrivaled source of ideas, insight, and inspiration for business leaders worldwide. Each issue contains breakthrough ideas on strategy, leadership, innovation and management.”

Or perhaps because she wanted to:

“become a more effective leader by subscribing to Harvard Business Review.”

Don’t we all!? In fact we do, which is why I frequently link to excellent articles and case studies and references right here in the Sunday Paper. Truly interesting and insightful. Like this incredible piece about how women actually negotiate very well for themselves, but only if they are explicitly told that it is okay to do so.

The good folks at The Harvard Business Review had made the sign-upvery easy by not asking for much data from the subscriber, such as what type of job she might have, or even for a box to be checked denoting gender.

I think pretty much everyone knows about Harvard — of course it is the big college in Boston, Massachusetts which is very prestigious. Fun fact: it happens to be “the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States,” according to their website, which I somehow didn’t know. That research helped me pass the time for about 50 seconds while I was trying to think about not thinking about eating.

Anyhow, The Harvard Business Review sent a very nice “thank you!” to my friend Leslie, for the subscription!

Addressed to Mr. Koch.

Not Ms. Koch or Dr. Koch or Mrs. Koch or Miss Koch or “no salutation chosen” Koch. Any of which could have been a good guess. But guess they did—because remember they never asked for any identification by gender—and even though they had a 50/50 chance on this one, they guessed wrong.

Maybe they have an algorithm that assigns “male” to the name Leslie (who authorized me to use her name, fyi, in case you ever send me something and are worried that I would use your name without permission).

Since Harvard is the oldest institution of higher earning in the United States, perhaps the Harvard Business Review Algorithm-maker was invented in 1902, which was the year that the name’s usage as a boy’s name peaked, with 0.189% of baby boys being given the name Leslie, according to the trusty BabyNamespedia.

Since it’s the first day of the new year for me, I am going to confess that some sins are already piling up. At minimum, the sin of Scoffing. Though I am very far from the sin of Running To Do Evil. Very. But I’m going to ask for forgiveness right now for the Scoffing. And also, let’s forgive the poor marketing manager whose name is at the bottom of the thank you note to my friend and whose Twitter address is easily found, and let’s vow to not make him the target of any personal vitriol.

Let us hope that someone on this subscriber list, so very many of whom attended the undergraduate or graduate school(s) of The Oldest Institution Of Higher Learning In The United States, will take note and perhaps inform their alma mater of their insulting gender assumption.

I am also going to confess that I am grateful that my time-wasting food-avoidance Saturday led me to the conclusion that there is apparently a “-pedia” for everything, and I am partaking of them freely. But none of them is a proper substitute for food, certainly not this Food-e-pedia.

Every week, the Ladypedia known as the LZ Sunday Paper brings the virtues, sins, and sometimes the confessions of women in business to you. The list of weekly entries lays out roughly moving from general business, through digital, tech, media, fashion, sports, and culture.

We have tons of Mr’s and Ms’s, Miss’s, and Mrs’s on our list and want each of you to laugh— pretty hard— at least once, so you can start the New Year right.

Also, don’t forget to confess to us any interesting stuff you think we may have missed, and do tell us what you think OR tell people you think will enjoy it to sign up at LZSundayPaper@gmail.com.

Many of the articles we don’t have room to include in the weekend edition are tweeted out all during the week. You should sign up for Twitter so can follow us @LZSundayPaper and read/see/laugh/scoff daily.

Enjoy!

LZ

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