Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line: FunnyBusiness

Hidden In Plain Sight

Gold Shower Curtains. $24,000 a month apartments in Manhattan. Sweet contracts for relatives. Additional condos in Vail. $50,000 a month consulting contracts for former CEOs. This is the stuff that corporations don't  necessarily want their investors to learn about.

However, this is the stuff corporations have to disclose to the SEC. In other words, if you know what to look for and have the patience to dig around, you can find all sorts of potentially explosive, embarrassing ,and hard to explain expenditures that corporate executives and board of directors would rather stay hidden in plain sight.

SEC filings are the  business version of Where's Waldo.

The Rules:

In their SEC filings,publicly traded corporations --and some privately traded companies-- must disclose information like:

Executive salaries, benefits and other compensations.
Crazy Perks ( homes, use of private jets, membership in clubs)
"Related Parties" transactions ( contracts and deals with relatives and associates of executives and board of directors)

While corporations are required to disclose this info, they are not required to disclose the info in 12 point type. Given that these reports are cumbersome its not that difficult to hide it in plain sight.

HOW TO PLAY

Review the numbers. Read the footnotes. Connect the dots.
Know what is considered appropriate use of business funds
Know who are the related parties.
Analyze and compare how the numbers you're seeing compare to the baseline

HOW TO WIN

That depends on whose team you're on.

If you are representing the corporation:

You want to disclose everything you are legally expected to disclose in a way that escapes the attention of snoopy journalists and investors.

If you can get through your filing without any negative publicity or any pesky questions from journalists and investors, You've won!

If you are a journalist or investor:

You win by outing the information. It may be legal, but it may not be fair. Letting the public decide is the ultimate goal If someone were keeping a scorecard,corporations would definitely be ahead in this game. That could be changing all because of business journalist Michelle Leder and her blog Footnoted.org

Michelle spends a good part of every day doing what many corporations wished she wouldn't do...she scours SEC filings and shares the gems she's uncovered on her blog. Some of her recent finds:

Minneapolis based Regis Corporation ( they proudly proclaim on their website that they are 8 times larger than their closest competitor in the beauty industry) likes to keep things "all in the family."

In their latest proxy filing,Leder uncovered that Regis Corporation purchases the magazines for their salons from a company owned by the son of the Chairman. Regis is currently paying around $675,000 in magazine subscriptions.

"Another company run by another son, David, who also sits on Regis’ board, sold more than $400K worth of products to the company. Meanwhile, the son of CEO and President Paul Finkelstein collected $556K in commissions for selling life insurance policies. That’s on top of the $231K the younger Finkelstein collected in fiscal 2004 and another $251K in fiscal 2003."

Speaking in Minneapolis to a group of business journalists at "The Craft of Business Writing" Workshop sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds  National Center for Business Journalism,Leder was sharing how any journalist or investor can find this stuff.

If you want to learn how to read these SEC filings, Michelle provides a HOW TO section on her blog .

Corporations are hoping you'll find it too hard to play.

Thoughts on Tyler

After reading one of the entries about Tyler's transition from corporate America to the classroom, Tess sent me this email. Tess has been in the education system of a major school district for over 15 years. She is an assistant principal.

I asked if I could share this on the blog. I have edited certain parts that could identify where Tess works. Like Tyler, Tess is not her real name. We are using a pseudonym so she won't lose her job.

Tess's thoughts:.

It is so difficult to read about Tyler and not think "you only THINK you know what is coming." Systems are wonderful and do work and make life a lot easier ... but ... (you knew one was coming) wait until they go change the curriculum and all of your plans are now trash. The systems, however, (I do admit) will mostly endure if they are solid. I so wish Tyler luck and I so envy him as the new teacher who can easily look at our world and see what is wrong and how it should be better. After a while it the only way I can see the problems is through the eyes of our new staff. They bring an outlook and an energy that is unmatched and when the older staff allow it to penetrate it is a wonderful thing to behold. (I specify "new" instead of young because anyone new to teaching brings that kind of energy (unless they were looking for an "easy"job).)

This year's innovations/ennervations by new staff: a revitalization of the library with contests designed to get kids reading more, an upsurge in email use among the "older" staff, new classes designed around where the kids interests bisect the staff's interest (History of our city , History through Film and Latin American Studies -- very relevant for a school that has 65% of it's population hailing from Latin America).

-- TESS

[Types of problems that seem "normal" to me(now) ... the light in my office that just periodically turns off -- and then turns on again 10 minutes later and cannot be fixed ... too many staff who need offices and not enough offices for those who need them ... too many waterbugs and mice ... and those are ones that I can admit to!]

Lesson Plans

"My goal is to do two lesson plans a day, every day on Christmas,Saturdays, and Sundays. I have 540 lesson plans to do this year. If I do two every day, I should finish by the end of May."

Tyler, the former corporate executive has been on the job for about three weeks. He's exhausted. He's working 10-11 hours a day and for a Triple A personality he says he's trying to get used to the fact that " every day that there is something more to do that I can’t get to."

Not only is Tyler doing lesson plans with a vengeance, he's using PowerPoint to teach his Geometry classes.

Being that I haven't been in a geometry class since 1967, I asked if most teachers now used Power Points.

"Let's put it this way, I brought in my own computer and LCD screen to do this," explained Tyler.

Tyler also has a web site where parents can check assignments and grades.  And, with more than 20 days under his belt, he has  graded and returned every test and quiz the very next day.

It's been two weeks since my daughter Berit took her first Calculus test and she's still waiting for her teacher to grade the test.He's been teaching math for many years.

Each of Tyler's  540 lesson plans  is time-consuming. "Today I did two lessons plans in about two hours," said Tyler, " But the more complex ones can take up to two hours."

Changing the subject I asked how the food was.

"It's okay but I don't have time to go to the lunch room. It takes me 10 minutes to get to the cafeteria and then if I start talking to someone that's another 15-20 minutes. I just don't have the time,"

Tyler, who has figured out how to get inside the building prior to 6:00 AM wants to leave school by 4:00 pm. His schedule doesn't include the 15 minute lunch break.

Tyler is a very disciplined guy. For those teachers who are smiling to themselves thinking give him a few months and he'll slow down, don't count on it.

If Tyler says he's going to do 2 lesson plans a day, every day until May, he will do it.

I couldn't help but ask if he had any regrets about his decision. In true Tyler style he said,

"I never look back.I never pine for a different way. Never. Never. Never."

NOTE: Tyler is not the teacher's real name. It's been changed to protect his job. Throughout the year I'll be checking in with Tyler on the transition from corporate executive to math teacher. Coming soon: isolationism, being a union member and saying good-bye to the "f" bomb.

You've just won a grant for $25,000

The voice on the phone introduced himself as Sam Smith. Sam, with a heavy New Delhi accent, was calling to inform me that I was eligible to receive a $25,000 grant from the United States Government.

"Really," I said,thinking the call was so outlandish that I'd have some fun with it," the United States government is just going to randomly send me $25,000?"

"That's right,Elana," explained Sam."Do you want the money?"

"Hey Sam," I said, " as long as you don't ask for my checking account number I'll listen to what you have to say, simultaneously opening up a document to take notes.

"That's right, Elana," Sam continued, " Now how will you be using the money, for school, for business or to pay bills?"

"Why do you need to know how I'm going to use the money?"

Sam continued,  " If you don't want the money you can select a trip to Canada, a new car and a 29 inch TV."

"So," I asked, " I can either take the cash or the trip, the car, and the 29 inch TV?

"That's right."

"I thought you said I had been selected for a grant?"

"You've also won a lottery."

"I've won a grant and a lottery?" I knew that my fortune cookie on Thursday said my luck had changed but I didn't take the message  that seriously.

At this point I asked for Sam to let me speak to his supervisor.

Brad Hunter came on the phone.

"Is that Brad or Tab?" I asked.

Brad explained it was Brad. He,of course, was too young to know who Tab Hunter was .

"So what was your name before it was Brad?" I asked

To my surprise he told me.

Brad assured me I had really been selected for this grant and that his company, The United States Grant Program was regulated by the FTC.

Then he said, " we are prepared to transfer the money to your checking account."

"Brad," I said, " I prefer a check."

"We need to transfer the money," Perhaps I was reading something into his voice but I thought I heard a hint of desperation.

"Here's the deal. You will get my bank account number  over my dead body."

Call it a cultural chasm. From Brad Hunter's reaction, mentioning my dead body was something people in Brad's hometown avoid doing.

He reprimanded me. I had offended and insulted him.

I apologized. He was very upset.

He wanted to tell me about my lottery wins. The trip was to Toronto, the car was a Rolls Royce and I just assumed I had won a Plasma TV.

He asked who I would be taking to Toronto.

"Why do you want to know that?"

"I want you to take me," said Brad.

"Brad,do you have any idea how old I am."

Brad of course did know. He knew a lot about me.

"I do not want to go as your boyfriend or lover but as your son. You seem like a nice person."

At this point, I was completely baffled so I said what I was feeling.

"Brad, you seem like a very nice guy. Please quit this job immediately. What you are doing is trying to steal from innocent people. This is a very bad job. You need to walk out and get a new job."

Brad asked me to hold for a minute and then asked me to repeat what I had just said. I was assuming he was asking Sam Smith, Chip Martin and Paul Jones to listen to my message.

I repeated my warning.Then I hung up.

I would love to think that my impassioned plea convinced Brad Hunter to quit. Somehow I doubt it.

My American Office- the vlog

Welcome to the first edition of My American Office. It's the video log companion to FunnyBusiness. Each week I plan to visit and tour someone's office. I'll visit corporate, executive,middle manager, home offices, cal centers, clean offices, messy offices, mobile offices and cubicles.

To kick things off take a peek at the space I call My temporary office.

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CCD CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

According to Consumer Reports, in 2003 there were more than 5000 product recalls   involving 60 million products.

Surprisingly the Canon CCD Chip is not among them.

To read what consumers are saying about the Chip off the old block, you'd think Canon would issue a recall. They haven't.

About six weeks ago, in my commitment to begin video logging, I bought a used Canon ZR 70 camcorder on eBay.  The owner said he had only used it once to film his son's birth.

Snicker you may, but I  still believe the guy and the equipment seemed to support what he said.

It was only after I made the purchase that I decided to check what people were saying about the camcorder.

Oops! Note to self. When checking consumer reviews the  process is  supposed to be read the review BEFORE you make the purchase...not buy the product and then find out whether you've made a good purchase.

Consumers were not happy with Canon.  Seems like the camcorder has a bad CCD chip which prevents the camcorder from recording anything but pitch blackness.

While there were a lot of "don't waste your money" and "I'll never buy Canon again," this is the one that caught my attention :

" I was willing to overlook the grainy pictures and other performance quality issues this camera seems to have, however, my camera also went "black" after just 15 months of ownership. Canon did tell me if it was the CCD chip, it would be repaired for free — if it's not, I have to pay for it out of pocket and they would not provide an estimate until I sent the camera in to their factory."

Canon knows they have a problem but they haven't issued a recall. They aren't warning people on their website. They're just trying to keep it under the radar.

Now, maybe that strategy  worked in 1982, but today you only have to type in Canon ZR 70 and you go right to the angry consumer page.

Is it really worth the bad publicity ? Evidently Canon thinks so.They must think that most consumers will be satisfied by calling the company and hearing that the repair will be free.

But what about the young family that didn't get to capture their son's first birthday on tape? And what about the soccer mom who didn't capture her daughter's winning goal?

Not to mention the new video logger who was forced to stop taping in the middle of a story because of the problem?

That's right. I had just used the camcorder 5 times when  in the middle of an interview it went to black.

.I called Canon, they were lovely and said that there was a bad CCD CHIP and they would repair it  for free.

It is now in the shop. My friend Myrna is letting me borrow her Sony and if I can figure out how to get the Sony and my computer to talk to each other, I may have  a  Vlog entry later this week.

Back to the Canon. Maybe they are saving a boat load of money by not issuing the recall. While its great they are fixing the problem for free, it still shows a total disregard for their customer base.

Fixing the video camera after the fact can't make up for the loss of capturing the event on tape.

First birthdays never happen again.

On the day I took my camcorder to the UPS store for shipping to Canon's repair center in New Jersey, the clerk looked at the address and said,

"Hey this is the second one I've sent to that address today."

Checking in with Tyler

It's been two weeks since Tyler, the former corporate executive, started teaching school. I sent Tyler an email asking when we could chat about the new job.

Tyler's response:

Hey there...the only real free time I have is on weekends.  I am truly working longer and harder than I ever did in the corporate world.  Mainly because I am trying to create a "system"/"process" (you can take the geek out of the corporation, but you can't take the corporation out of the geek) that I can reuse every year...to make my future years easier...

I'll be setting up a time to chat next weekend. In the meantime, Tyler did find time to send his friends a "chain" email.  It was rather nostalgic. At one time...maybe 10 years ago, Tyler was King of the Joke Emails.

He stopped sending them many years ago, but yesterday Tyler sent his pals "FW:Sunday's Chuckle".  In case one of your buddies didn't send it to you...here it is. It is nice way to start the week.

YOU KNOW YOU LIVE IN 2005 WHEN................

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no ..9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a ..9 on this list. AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself. Go on, forward this to your friends ....you know you want to!

Day Late, Dollar Short

Under the category of " You Can't Make This Stuff Up", The  Family Dollar Store in a small Tennessee town who fired an employee who went to Mississippi to rescue her siblings after the hurricane, is now offering her job back.

Yesterday, The Tennessean.com,  reported on the story of 20- year- old Kolonie Simms  who was fired from her job for taking time off to rescue her siblings from flood ravaged Mississippi. She had asked and received permission to take the trip to return to Mississippi.

"Her bosses didn't necessarily object to her trip, she said, but objected to her leaving work four hours early on Thursday and not leaving for Mississippi until late Friday.

Family Dollar officials declined to comment yesterday, citing a policy against talking about individual employee situations.

The company is helping employees affected by the hurricane, a spokeswoman said."

Several hours after the story appeared in the Tennessean and after the company was pummeled by the media, officials decided to offer Kolonie her job back.

"Reached yesterday afternoon shortly before heading to a live national TV appearance, Sims said she hadn't expected her story to generate so much attention or emotional outpouring from around the country.

"I'm a bit overwhelmed," she said.

The company offered to reinstate her as an assistant to the assistant manager and to compensate her for the work she missed. It did not offer her a raise or the management position she had been striving for, Sims said.

"We are waiting to hear back from Ms. Sims as to whether she will accept our offer of re-employment," a statement issued by the company said."

If Ms. Sims does decide to take the job, someone might one to give her a copy of the book I wrote about yesterday: How to Work for an Idiot: Survive & Thrive--Without Killing Your Boss.

She's going to need it.

The I-Boss

The headline on the Forbes.com article got my attention: HOW TO WORK FOR AN IDIOT.

The article featured excerpts from the book,  How to Work for an Idiot: Survive & Thrive Without Killing Your Boss and an interview with the book's author. Dr. John Hoover.

Bottom line: I felt like an idiot for taking the five minutes out of my morning to read this dribble.

A sample from the article:

"Some workers, fed up by the knuckle-dragging incompetence of the idiot boss, spend a good part of the day making the twit look bad. The shrewd employee works around the idiot boss by becoming a boost to the ninny's career--not an impediment.

"You want to diminish the power of the boss's cluelessness to harm you," says Hoover, a corporate psychologist who holds a Ph.D. in organizational behavior. "You do that by becoming an enhancement to the boss."

Say what? . I would never follow that advice. Not in a million years. And I absolutely wouldn't advise anyone else to follow it either.

Can you say Abu Graib?

It's not just the advice which I find pathetic, spineless and overwhelmingly depressing--the tone of the advice is insulting.

"Start by paying attention to what interests the bumbler and listen carefully when the schmo grunts. This will provide vital information in planning your winning assault on idiocy.

If your boss has a hockey stick in the corner, uses a puck for a paperweight and has the jersey of his favorite player mounted on the wall, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that he's a hockey nut.

Rather than laying out your proposal in detailed and complex language peppered with chatter about the "leading edge" and "getting the lion's share of resources," try this:

"Wasn't it Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky who said you shouldn't skate to where the puck is but to where the puck will be?"

I don't want to publicly refer to people as idiots, twits , bumblers,or schmos. In fact I don't want to name call at all. The boss may be incompetent, unreasonable, unethical,and ineffective. But name calling--feels too much like 7th grade to me. Or worse yet, the Russ Limbaugh Show.

So I went to Amazon.com to read some of the reviews.  They were very mixed. Nevertheless the book ranks around 15,000 on Amazon's best selling book list. Much higher than I would have ever guessed.

That wasn't my only surprise. The book was published in 2003.

Which raises another question, why would Forbes feature a book that's been on the market for two years?

Call me an Idiot but it feels like there's more to the story.

A Dangling Conversation

A lifelong eavesdropper--- for years I've wanted to put together a book of the best conversations people have overheard (my personal favorite involves Elvis, a showgirl ,and payphone conversation to her mom) --  I make a big distinction between eavesdropping and having employees engage in a private conversation in front of customers.

Eavesdropping is a sport. Having a private conversation in front of customers is rude.

When you  are eavesdropping the people having the conversation are often unaware that you have tuned into their private conversation.

In 1973, the showgirl in the lobby of the hotel in Richmond, Virginia had no idea I was a cub reporter pretending to be on a pay phone next to her ( it was my idea of being an investigative reporter)

Fast forward to 2005. Yesterday to be specific. I had an 8:30 appointment at the dermatologist's office. I signed in. The receptionist informed me that the doctor was going to be late. I settled into uncomfortable chair in the lobby.

There were two receptionists. One was quiet. One had a lot on her mind.

"I'm so sick of her I'm going to puke. I'm not going to get in the middle of it," said angry receptionist.

Calm receptionist held a client file over her mouth so I couldn't hear her response. This didn't stop angry receptionist.

"It's all about her. You don't do what she did and  not feel bad. She's the one who should be crawling back with her tail in between her legs."

That was it. A dangling conversation.

It made me very agitated. I wanted, and yes, needed the back story. Who was 'she' and what had she 'done'?

I'll never know.

I don't like being left out of the conversations. A couple of years ago in a cost saving measure I started getting manicures at one of the many Asian run discount nail salons.

The price is right. The hours are fabulous. You don't need an appointment. They're open seven days a week and they have evening hours. It's great. Except for one thing.

They don't talk to the customers. They talk to each other. In a language I don't understand. They often laugh.

It is very unsettling. Are they sharing stories about their three year olds? Or, are they actually having a commentary about their customers?

I'll never know. I do know that it makes me feel very uncomfortable.

After a while I stopped enjoying my manicures. I missed the conversation. I resented the private conversation that the nail technicians were having right in front of me.

"...I cannot feel your hand,
You’re a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives."   
                                               Simon and Garfunkel