TEXT OF INTERVIEW

Bob Moon: As we wrap things up on this Friday, let’s take a moment to review. Not the major news of the week, but the items that didn’t quite make the headlines. Courtesy of Brendan Newnam, Rico Gagliano and select members of the Marketplace staff.

Brendan Newnam:Rod Abid, senior producer for Marketplace Morning Report, what’s your story this week?

Rod Abid: It’s a lovely Valentine’s Day story. A plane arrives in Amsterdam full of Valentine’s flowers. Now, it arrives from Bogota, Colombia, so I think you can see where this is going.

Newnam: Uh oh.

Abid: Yeah. So of course, they check the boxes and what do you know? They found tons and tons of cocaine along with the Valentine’s flowers.

Newnam: So that’s what those little powder packets are in there.

Abid: Never thought of it that way. That’s it.

Rico Gagliano: George Judson, managing editor at Marketplace, what story are going to be talking about this weekend?

George Judson: McDonald’s deciding it’s time for a new hamburger called the “McItaly.” They’re selling in Italy, made out of Italian hamburg, asiago cheese, artichoke paste, smoked pancetta…

Gagliano: All right, I get it. And a side of McDiamonds. But what is their problem with this?

Judson: Well, the Italians think it’s crap. They say it doesn’t actually honor Italian cuisine.

Gagliano: McDonald’s doesn’t even honor American cuisine.

Newnam: Stacey Vanek-Smith, senior reporter at Marketplace, what’s your story?

Stacey Vanek-Smith: Well, Opinium research has come out with the results of a survey of what annoys people most about work.

Newnam: Let me guess. Number one was having to be at work?

Vanek-Smith: Number one was grumpy colleagues, Brendan. Then, slow computers and management speak.

Newnam: Like “touching base.”

Vanek-Smith: Like “touching base,” “thinking outside the box,” “blue sky-ing it.”

Newnam: So what you’re saying is, Stacey, is that bottom line, office jargon was on the radar.

Vanek-Smith: Apparently, it’s not a value add and it just messes with synergy.

Newnam: There’s no “I” in synergy, Stacey.

Vanek-Smith: No, there’s not.