What’s the true cost of all the excess fees airlines are charging passengers nowadays? Right now we pay $25 for one checked bag; $50 for the next; more fees for anything weighing over 50 pounds; $2 per bag for curbside check-in; $3 for a bag of stale peanuts; $3 to access last year’s movie or reruns of the Match Game; yet more fees for an aisle or window seat. What’s next? An in-flight pay toilet? All that makes you want to buy the lousy in-flight $10 cocktail! When I fly and deal with the growing numbers of gnarly or newbie airline employees it’s no surprise. Airline attrition must be outrageous. All these cranky passengers being gouged by the airlines surely must be exacting an even costlier toll on the airlines themselves.

Now, maybe, that’s not so bad if you’re in the business of placing airline workers. Me, I prefer to solve the problem; not just thumb the dike. I think Robert Fulghum, in All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, had it right: ”Anything not worth doing is worth not-doing well.” He was talking about a cobbler who thought twice about resoling a favorite, worn-out pair of cheap shoes because the shoes weren’t worth the repair cost to the customer. So instead the cobbler returned the unrepaired shoes in a brown paper bag with a handwritten note of the aforementioned quote, and a small box of warm, homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Think about it for a minute. The airlines won’t carry your heavy bag for free, but what if they won’t do it better? How disarmed would you be in handing your credit card to that airline worker for a $75 baggage fee if she handed you back a few warm cookies?

Maybe we can all adopt a “Warm Cookie Principle” somewhere in our respective businesses. What’s the true value of making someone’s day? I'll start by handing out some warm cookies here...

We've opened up our Recruiter Network for free beginning this month. What you once paid $85/month for - access to split placements, networking with peers, cross-posting your job out to a network of job sites, etc., - is now free. We hope you find a few warm cookies of your own there. (www.talenttrader.net)

Happy Summer!