Intro to columns

Welcome to Funny Business – a blog about business culture-- in the USA and the Universe!

This blog delights in telling tales out of school. It’s about what really goes on in corporate America, corporate England,corporate Israel, corporate Australia, corporate Argentina...well you get it.

I couldn’t make this stuff up. Not the shenanigans, not the showstopping, not the hidden agendas, and definitely not the policy statements.

When this blog began, I thought I would primarily be writing about office tales. That isn't exactly what happened. Turns out that people who have an office story to share often share it in their own blog. Many write under a pseudonym. Many get outted. Many get fired.  Some get book deals.

So over the past few years, this blog has evolved into what it is today - everything about business except the bottom line.  It's more about  trying to understand corporate anthropology.

I couldn’t make this stuff up. Not the shenanigans, not the show-stopping, not the hidden agendas, and definitely not the policy statements.

Take the vice president who invited her team for a holiday dinner even though her boss had sent a memo saying all holiday parties were canceled as part of the company’s aggressive cost-cutting measures. (The company had just announced 6,000 layoffs.) How did she pull off her holiday party? She had her administrative assistant charge the dinner and then she, the VP approved the charge. And where did she learn such devious behavior? From her boss of course, who had the VP charge their holiday get-together the week earlier.

That’s right. The guy who put a kibosh on everyone else’s holiday celebrating used the system to break his own rule. Is that what the HR department means when they talk about modeling behavior? Corporate America is my playground and I invite you to come into the sandbox to see what kind of fun people have been up to. There’s no end to the mischief making!

I do try to be honest. However, I'm not sure if I'm always fair.Can you be fair when you are writing from a point of view? Can you be fair if you're telling one person's perspective of a story?  I'm not trying to tell you the whole story here, just a story.

Here's my promise: I will do the best job I can to be honest, to adhere to the basic principles of blogging ethics. I will include a note at the bottom of all posts when I've changed some one's name, job, location or sex.

I will also include a note when the post has been edited beyond spelling and basic grammar errors which, if you read my blog on a regular basis, know that I have a definite love-hate relationship with commas.

No chance of getting dooced here. I work for myself. I don't write about my clients. ( Okay, I may write about them after we haven't worked together for around three years).

Have a story? I want to hear it! The success of this blog depends on people sharing their stories-- so whether its a boss, co-worker, corporate policy or just general corporate nonsense, let me hear from you --your identity and the identity of your place of employment will be protected. The goal is to tell the story, not get anyone dooced.

NOTE: This introduction was updated on August 4, 2007.

Comments

[David Peterson]

This is a way cool blog! that I just found. I'm looking forward to working back through all the entries. You have a healthy, happy attitude Elana and it makes this blog fun to read and enables the reader to understand business culture and perhaps gain helpful insights.

Great work Elana.

[Jk]

Speaking of office culture, I'm sure there's plenty people in plenty offices around the world that can relate to this:

www.corporatehack.com

[Levy Rivers]

Thanks, the purple and yellow is a little bright, but the content is right on. I'm a worker, writer, thinker about organizational culture and I'm glad to you are bringing such an entertaining focus on what some go a little blurry-eyed hearing about. I've only read one article - about extreme workers. There my special interest. I focus on them because, I have an online counseling practice and I see them as prime suspects. I'll be back to read more because I like your flair, despite the colors.