FunnyBusiness: Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line

Ode To This American Life

It is part of the algebraic equation we call work. Give someone your time, expertise, brawn, mind,or soul, and in exchange they give you money.

Recently, This American Life devoted a program to Getting And Spending Money. 
 

If you don't have the time to listen to the entire program, take the seven minutes to listen to Marti Nixon's experience at a product placement company.

 

 

Prologue. Marti Noxon used to work for a company that did "product placement" for the movie industry. And when some auditors came to check that clients were being correctly billed, the company's bosses took unusual steps. Namely, they hired actors to play the employees who were supposedly on the payroll. (7 minutes)

If you listen to the entire program, you will hear from an artist who was scammed out of  $40,000 -$50,000 from his first "show" in NYC, as well as from a suburban dad who decided the best way to make money was to rob banks.

My favorite story from this particular episode is called That Guy. Here is how This American Life describes the piece.

Cook investigates that moment when you realize you've become "that guy" you've always hated, and how the simple act of purchasing deodorant can lead to that moment. (9 minutes)

It is a story about individualism and the power that advertising messages have on our choices and loyalties.

 

You have a couple of choices when it comes to listening to the program. You can listen on the website. This requires some navigational skill. First, go to their home page .Look at the left navigation bar  for a link to the Complete Archive. It instructs you to START HERE.

 

When you get to that page  look for the 9/8 episode for 2006.Just click and listen.

 

If you subscribe to Audible.com you can download episodes on your iPod. That's my preferred listening method. It has become part of my weekend ritual. I walk Uma Thurman along the Mississippi, across the Stone Arch Bridge and listen to This American Life. It  doesn't get better than that.

 

In the spirit of full disclosure.

Some people dream of careers writing for The New York Times, or becoming a network correspondent. Not me. My goal is to become a contributor for This American Life.

That's my confession.  It's my time of year for confessions.
I have This American Life envy.

 

Where did you say that buck stops?.

  Given all the salacious details that are now coming out almost daily about the HP Pretexting Scandal, it's easy to ignore one of its victims...HP's Corporate Culture.

There used to be a thing called THE HP WAY.  When THE HP WAY was alive and well, the pretexting scandel would have been unheard of.

In 2002, Jocelyn Dong, writing for the Palo Alto Weekly reported on the "Rise and Fall of The HP Way". It's a wonderful read . It reminds us that corporate values matter. That  when integrity and ethics are indelibly linked to a corporation good things can happen for employees and for shareholders.

When Packard and Hewlett passed away in 1996 and 2001, respectively, obituary writers noted their enduring legacy was not the multi-billion dollar tech giant -- it was the HP Way.


Dong started her piece by writing,

"For some workers, the HP Way bordered on religion. They considered it inviolable. A management philosophy emphasizing integrity, respect for individuals, teamwork, innovation, and contribution to customers and the community, it earned the abiding loyalty of thousands upon thousands of employees"

Over the next couple of days and weeks, as more stuff about the spying on board members and journalists is revealed, the media will focus on the dirty deeds and the people who did them.

While what was done was heinous and despicable, it is also heartbreaking. How did a company that had such wonderful values, lose its way?

Now that's its lost, can it find its way home again.    The blog Freds House, doesn't think the company can return. But he does believe it can recreate.

You know, sometimes it takes a crisis to precipitate a catharsis -- and maybe our current board crisis can be turned into a vehicle for purposeful renewal of the HP culture and our presence in the world. It would be hard and painful thing to do, and it would take incredible leadership from Mark Hurd and his team and from every person in HP, but I could see it, I really could.

Am I crazy? Inspired? Deluded? Maybe, but I think it's a great question: What would a truly great HP look like, that would be deserving of the term HP Way 2.0?

Did Donald Trump Go Too Far?

There are bloggers who have talked about their bosses. There are bloggers who have been fired for talking about their bosses. But, Donald Trump may be the first CEO to use his blog to share with the world his reasons for firing an employee.

In a post called Carolyn on the Trump Blog, Trump shares the details that led to his decision to tell Carolyn Kepcher"You're Fired!".

The fact is, I like Carolyn very much but she loved her fame and she loved her celebrity on "The Apprentice" and it was affecting her work. She wasn't doing her job like she used to or was capable of doing. So I felt that after 11 years together it was time for a rest.

I told Carolyn in the nicest way possible, "Go out and enjoy your family. Get a new job."

There are some things that deserve to be confidential. Reasons for dismissal, as long as their are no legal violations, deserve silence -not blogging.Most CEOs have more respect for themselves and for their employees and the potential of a defamation of character lawsuit. I have a feeling The Donald could care less.

But what if The Donald is actually starting a trend---The revenge of the CEO. Or as my friend Nancy White calls it " The Firing Blog". Imagine if this trend continues and Firing Blogs  take their rightful place along  with the mommy bloggers, the food bloggers, and the political bloggers.

Firing Blogs are for  all those business executives who have had to sit back in silence as their employees,and former employees gleefully blog their brains out telling stories out of school about the horror of their leadership style.

So far, most agree its unethical and a fireable offense to publicly blog about  your boss or  your place of employment.  So,if that's the case,  could Firing Blogs take off ,or is this just a one-blogger with  The   Donald being able to do it because after all, he's The Donald?

The Word of the Day: Pretexting. Brought to you by Hewlett-Packard

Like a rock star who becomes an overnight success, pretexting is word that seems to have come out of nowhere,and now, within a 24-hour newscycle, is permanently emblazoned in our collective minds.  Like disingeneous and gravitas before it, pretexting is a word for the times. According to Federal Trade Commission :

Pretexting is the practice of getting your personal information under false pretenses. Pretexters sell your information to people who may use it to get credit in your name, steal your assets, or to investigate or sue you. Pretexting is against the law.

Just 36 hours ago many would have called this fraud.But in an era of specialization, pretexting is a subset of fraud. A particular type of fraud. One report went on to explain  pretexting is a forerunner of identity theft,which to some, is also fraud. For the foreseeable future, expect to hear the media talking about  pretexting ad nauseam. Just eleven days ago,   Forbes named Patricia Dunn  as the 17th most powerful woman in the world. Note: She is on the 2005 list which seems to have been published September 1, 2006.

How fast they fall. Today, Patricia Dunn-Nonexecutive chairman, Hewlett-Packard; Global chief executive, Barclays Global Investors faces her board  about "pretextgate",a scandel that is gaining momentum even as the country pauses and remembers that it is 9/11. Speaking in her own defense, reported by the Associated Press Dunn  is reported to have said,

"..she had no clue investigators would resort to pretexting, saying she didn't even know what the word meant until June or July - a few months after she authorized the investigation. She said she still doesn't know the identity of the firm behind the pretexting."

Cross-posted at Blogher

You've Got Mail, Radio Shack's Electronic Pink Slip

The email read "  "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately, your position is one that has been eliminated."

Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

In trying to explain the company's unconscionable behavior of firing 400 people via email, a RadioShack a company spokesperson  Kay Jackson  said, " Company officials had told employees in a series of meetings that layoff notices would be delivered electronically" She said employees were invited to ask questions before Tuesday's notification on a company intranet site.

So there you have it. The "we warned you excuse". Which  makes about as much sense as " it's part of youth culture " excuse ,and "I was gobsmacked" excuse.

There  is precedent for RadioShack's behavior.

Earlier this month, TheTimes in England reported that a shop keeper defended his decision to fire an employee via a txt message because " it's part of youth culture."

Katy Tanner, 21, learnt that she had lost her job as a sales assistant at the Blue Banana store in Cardiff only when she received the text message. She had been working at the shop for eight weeks.

The text message, sent by Alex Bartlett, the shop manager, said: “We’ve reviewed your sales figures and they’re not up to the level we need. As a result we will not require your services any more. Thank you for your time with us.”

Miss Tanner was at home because of a migraine when she received the message. She said: “I don’t think it’s right to just text someone. At least they should have talked to me face to face. It’s very impersonal and not at all professional.

The trend to "sack text"evidently began in 2003 on the recommendation of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Again in England, the business consulting firm advised their client The Accident, an insurance firm to send text messages to more than 3000 employees announcing the company was shutting down and that they were being laid off. Their rationale was that since the company had run out of money, txting would be the most cost-efficient thing to do.

At the time, the owner of the company said he was "too devastated" about the loss of the company. However, after he was spotted sunning himself in a villa in Spain, 21 employees sued and as was reported by The Register

"The tribunal ruled in their favour adding that staff had been "cynically manipulated".

But since the company has no cash, the compensation claim will be covered by the Government using taxpayers' money, the Telegraph reports.

Following yesterday's decision, other former workers are now expected to seek compensation."

At the time of the original text message  The BBC  reported the police were called to the insurance company.

"it was reported disgruntled workers looted offices of computer equipment before leaving their workplace following news of the redundancies.

Looting was definitely on the mind of HighJive  responding to this post on Make The Logo Bigger 

"Hope one of them was the marketing director who greenlit the recent testimonial ads with 40-year olds playing teens.While this isn’t the first time a company fired someone via email, 400 all at once is pretty ballsy.I’m guessing a few of those ex-employees may come back at a later date to ‘update’ management on their job search. I’ll be looking out for that breaking news on CNN.
(Via Drudge on Breitbart.)"

HighJive's response:
"actually, it was pretty ballsy. most employers disconnect people's computer before firing them to avoid disgruntled types messing with the systems."


You can't make this stuff up.


Image Credit: Flickr Member Jamalulo

 

 

Did AOL's Customer Service Rep deserve to be fired?

Move over Coke Cola. After living with the dubious distinction as the most agrigous example of a company  self-imploding its own brand ( Think NEW COKE), it can now finally hand over the reign to AOL. As one person who commented on an anti-AOL blog said, "It's not 1995 anymore."

Unlike COKE ,whose undoing happened over a short, finite period of time, AOL is more like Al Pacino's character Sonny in the 1975 Classic, Dog Day Afternoon --holding innocent people hostage.

The latest AOL bru-ha-ha is over a former customer, one Vincent Ferrari ,who had the foresight to tape his call with the  unsuspecting John --an AOL customer service representative, as he tried to cancel his account. While the call may not get as many downloads as Connie Chung's "Thanks for the Memories," it is becoming an instant online hit.                                                       

For those of you who don't want to listen to the excruciating five minutes of Vinny pleading to have his account canceled, here is the gist of the conversation by way of Consumers Affairs.com

AOL: Hi, this is John at AOL. How may I help you today? Ferrari: I want to cancel my account.

AOL: OK. I mean, is there a problem with the software itself? Ferrari: No. I don't use it. I don't need it. I don't want it.

AOL: Last year, last month it was 545 hours of usage.

Ferrari: I don't know how to make it any clearer. So I'm just gonna say it one last time. Cancel the account.

AOL: Well, explain to me what is wrong.
Ferrari: I'm not explaining anything to you. Cancel the account. The conversation continued for another 5 minutes, ending with ...

Ferrari: Cancel my account. Cancel the account. Cancel the account.

In a not so surprising move the day after the news of the call hit the blogwaves, AOL announced it had fired our man,JOHN.

"At AOL, we have zero tolerance for customer care incidents like this -- which is deeply regrettable and also absolutely inexcusable," said AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham. "The employee in question violated our customer service guidelines and practices, and everything that AOL believes to be important in customer care," he said.

He then added,that AOL is

"going to learn from this -- and continue to make the necessary, positive changes to our practices. This was an aberration and a mistake, and we have to manage these incidents down to zero as best we can."

An Aberration? Not tolerate this behavior?  I would maintain that JOHN was just following company policy. And, that our man JOHN was simply doing the job he was paid to do. It's not as if AOL didn't just pay $1.25 million in fines for promoting just the behavior that JOHN demonstrated so gallantly in his call.
Firing JOHN is firing the messenger. JOHN didn't deserve to be fired.

It was less than 365 days ago that AOL agreed to the fine and promised the State of New York that it was reforming its bonus policy for customer service representatives.

Under the agreement, AOL will no longer require its customer service representatives to meet a minimum quota for customer retention in order to receive a bonus. Previously, AOL would distribute bonuses in the "tens of thousands of dollars" if representatives were able to retain half the customers who called to cancel their service, according to the attorney general.

While I don't know John personally, I'd love to hear his side of the story. I have a hunch he's singing like a jailbird to his attorneys.

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of thousands of people who still want to cancel their AOL. Last year, Utterly Boring shared a sure fire 3 minute solution to getting your AOL account canceled. The account was reported in the NY Times.

Guy tried for better part of a week to cancel AOL. He talked to six or seven different people on six different days. Each time he was thwarted by what is apparently an AOL plot that make it next-to-impossible to cancel the service, as the representatives pretend to be concerned about you and your reasons for cancellation and give you soothing chat and reasons to continue AOL service.

Finally, weary of the runaround, he went into a "chat room" and  started threatening to kill people in the room.

His AOL account was canceled in under three minutes.

Image credit: Flickr member huberjoshua

Visit the Online Business Confessional -receive absolution for your business sins

Is going to the supply closet and taking stuff home an unethical act? Does it depend on the amount you take? Would one pencil be okay, but a box of pens stealing?

Now, people who are feeling a bit guilty about their business sins can go to  Ethics Confessions . Here's the concept. You share a nasty deed you that you've done and then readers "vote" on just how unethical you've been.

Only thing I can say about the voting is Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling better hope their jury is of the same mindset as the readers of Ethics Confessions.

Some of the confessions so far:

I got a $35 million contract from a company because a VP showed me another vendor's bid and gave me the opportunity to improve on it so I would get the business.

178 people have voted (it's one a 1-10 scale with 10 being never acceptable. This business "sin" is ranking about a "6" with readers.

However, with over 345 votes, the readers gave a ranking of "4" to an employee who stole from the YWCA.

"The YMCA allows people to pay a fee to use the facilities for one-day. Back then I think we charged $8 per person for a full day's pass. We sold around 10 day passes a day, or we could have sold 10 per day. For two years, I took half of them and never put them in the system and pocketed the money."

Either the people doing the voting are confused about the voting scale or they are treating this interactive exercise with as much respect as a vote on American Idol.

So much for integrity in voting on ethical issues. As I read these sins, I would love to also read people's rationales for their votes. Why are so many people "okay" with the employee  who pocketed the money on the free passes?

The Ethics Confession is part of a larger blog
called Ethics Crisisthat bills itself as

A blog about global business ethics, from SRF Global Translations, specialists in nuanced, localized, multilanguage compliance materials for multinational companies.

The creator of the Ethics Confession is also baffled by her reader's acceptance of these unethical business practices. As she shared in a comment on another blog,

No doubt about it, ethics is hot and getting hotter. At Ethics Crisis the blog I recently launched (and write) for SRF Global Translations, people can anonymously confess the most unethical things they've done in business. Others can rate and comment on the confessions.

The feature, meant to bring a fun and possibly viral element to the Ethics Crisis blog, immediately took off.

The scary part is that no matter what people confess, the community seems to think none of it is too bad.

We are surprised at what people confess, but more surprised at the way many hundreds of people are reacting to the confessions.

There seems to be public ethics, or what one says about ethics, and a darker, more private type of ethics.

Our goal is to generate conversation about ethics, and judging from the response so far, people are hungering to talk about the subject.

Posted by: B.L. Ochman | May 17, 2006 at 04:34 PM

For more reading on business ethics, check out Andrea Weckerle's post Corporate Responsibility,Ethics and Good Business. at New Millennium PR.