Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line: FunnyBusiness

What Me Worry? Why Corporate Execs Aren't Singing The Real Estate Blues

You'd be smiling too if your latest employee benefits package protected you from  potential losses of the housing bubble. In an article in Slate, Michele Leder---who shares what corporations try to hide in the footnotes of their SEC filings in her blog, Footnoted.org writes:

"the executives who were first in line with jets, sweetheart loans, stock options, and repriced stock options have now devised the first post-real-estate bubble compensation trick. They've figured out how to shelter their own houses from the declining real estate market—by getting their corporations to guarantee their sale price. You may be sweating that you have to sell at a loss, but your CEO isn't. Since the beginning of this summer, at least a half-dozen companies, including eBay and Nike, have disclosed in their routine Securities and Exchange Commission filings that they're now protecting their executives from real estate market forces. The terms in the filings vary—"protection against loss"; "loss protection"; and "price protection"—but the meaning is the same: They are essentially guaranteeing that executives' homes will sell for a good price."

  Image Credit Flickr member Emyduck

Northwest Airlines encourages employees to "Dumpster Dive"

I kid you not.  Northwest  Airlines hired an outside firm to create a booklet "Preparing for a Financial Setback" to help financially strapped employees who have endured massive pay cuts. Northwest is also planning on cutting more jobs.

One of the sections of the booklet included "101 ways to save money". For a time, the advice was posted on their website and about 50 employees received the booklet with the incredibly offensive advice.

'Northwest spokesman Roman Blahoski said some employees who received the handbook had taken issue with a couple of the items. "We agree that some of these suggestions and tips ... were a bit insensitive," Blahoski told Reuters.

     

The four-page booklet, "Preparing for a Financial Setback" contained suggestions such as shopping in thrift stores, taking "a date for a walk along the beach or in the woods" and not being "shy about pulling something you like out of the trash."

While this was reported on FoxNews.com on Tuesday, neither the StarTribune or the St.Paul Pioneer Press had any coverage of this bizarre story.

A couple of thoughts. If someone in Northwest's communication department approved this dribble, shouldn't they be accountable? 

Oh, and its not a " bit insensitive" It's egregiously offensive.

How did such an offensive, outlandish, insensitive and idiotic idea get approved?  Chances are, no one in the Northwest Communications area actually  proofread the copy in the booklet before it was printed or put on their website. ( you won't find it there now) One can only assume that on a list of priorities, a booklet providing financial advice to employees who are facing lay offs just isn't high on a priority list of a communication department dealing with potential strikes, bankruptcy, and general unhappy customers.

Then there's the consultants who came up with the advice in the first place. The Reuters article said it was an outside firm. Just who is this firm and why would they include a recommendation to rummage through the trash?  Is there another side to the story that we are just missing?

The employees of NWA deserve an apology from the Douglas Steenland, president and CEO of NWA.

In fact, he should have to spend a day dumpster diving.

You can't make this stuff up.

Oh, and the tag line for the photo is " So I went dumpster diving and all I got was this lousy lice."

Image Credit: Flickr member Thomask

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

Bus Break

Riders Beware: If the bus route goes past a casino, don't be surprised if your bus "suddenly breaks down"-- at least that was the case for Brent Usry's son . Now, if I hadn't had my own terrible customer service experience with Greyhound, I may have looked at this claim with a bit more skepticism...But as Chris Argyris maintains in the Ladder of Inference, our beliefs often short circuit reality. in this case, nothing that Greyhound does would  surprise me in the least.

Here's what we know. Brent Usry's son took the Greyhound. from Las Vegas to California.

Fourty Five Minutes Later.... My cell phone rings. It is my son he was ranting about the stupid bus driver and air conditioning. I said "What are you saying, it is 107 degrees and he is not running the air conditioning?" He said no "he is running it full blast and we have over heated 3 times." I said "Is it hot in the bus" he said "No it is freezing".

"Why is he running it so cold?"  He said; "We had Just past Whiskey Petes Casino and he called and said the bus was having problems and they sent him back to whiskey petes to wait an hour for a new bus."

He said; "Now he is joking about everyone having some gambling time, and I think he did this on purpose. He said it has happend to him a lot." My son stayed outside while everyone else headed into the casino. (he is only 17 and there is not much for a 17 year old to do in a casino.

According to blogger Usry, in checking with other folks, "stateline casinos give a lot of perks to bus drivers who bring in big loads of people."

As blogger Usry says in his post, he doesn't know what really happened....maybe it was a bad bus --maybe it was a bus driver who wanted to spend the afternoon at the casino.

The reason people suspect that the technical problems could have been human induced is that Greyhound has a culture that invites its customers to think the worst of them. how proud they must be.

So, do Greyhound buses regularly break down at casinos? Or was this just a case of a bus driver joking around and feeling thankful that they broke down at the casino instead of the Barnes and Noble.

Image Credit: Flickr member Ian Fuller

Gray skies are gonna clear up,

You know when John Stewart leads his program with a clip that the intention of this  spot didn't quite hit the mark. Either the people who created this commercial just took a class in Advertising 101 where the professor demanded they figure out their "real benefits OR, actually, there isn't an "Or" that could possibly explain this asinine commercial. What were they thinking? . Click here to watch.

As I am sure the folks at WTWO are learning now that they've become the laughing stock of the country, is that when someone says "real benefits" what they mean is "benefits" that the target audience cares about.

While the folks at WTWO are probably "taking a meeting' today to figure out whether to pull the spot, apologize to their competitors, or just grin and bear the public ridicule,one thing is for sure, this spot will live in Advertising Infamy as one of the the worst commercials ever.

Homage to Countdown's WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD- THE GREYHOUND BUS COMPANY

All I wanted was an explanation. My son Noah is taking the Greyhound Bus home today for a weekend visit from Madison Wisconsin. He had asked for me to purchase the ticket online.

Not a problem. But when I was about to finish the transaction I saw a Gift Service FEE of $15. Now, the cost of a Greyhound Bus ticket from Madison Wisconsin to Minneapolis, MN...a trip of less than 300 miles is $47.00. Add to that a fee of $15 dollars and the cost is now $62.00 an increase about 30% .

So I called Greyhound customer service. To their credit they told me it could be an extremely long wait. 34 minutes later I reached a Mr. Camerillo( not sure of the spelling). I asked for the explanation.

He said if my son had called and the credit card was in his name then there would be a 4% handling fee. But they charge the $15 whenever someone  purchases a ticket for someone else aka "a gift:

"WHY?" I asked, " How could the cost of handling my credit card be any different then handling the credit card of my son?"

That's when he said, " Well how much would it cost you to wire your son money to pay for the ticket."

Okay, I have never wired my son any money. and I have no idea what the fee is. But  I also have no idea what the business practices of Western Union have to do with Greyhound processing my American Express card.

I pressed him on this point. But he kept on going back to what it would cost me to wire him the money for the ticket.

I asked to speak to his supervisor. He gave me a different number. Again, the message that it would take a long time. 1 hour and 1 minute later ( it is now 6 pm central) the call center picks up my call. Guess who answers?  My good buddy Mr. Camerillo.

At this point I was not amused. Forget the fact that Greyhound has one person in their customer call center  When I identified myself in a less than cordial manner, Mr. Camerillo offered to transfer me to his supervisor's line ( why you ask didn't he transfer me the first time? Because the first time, their offices were still open)

When I reached their executive offices I got a voicemail. I left a message. I will follow up.And, no I didn't purchase the ticket. I'll transfer the funds (free of charge) into his bank account and he can use his debit card to make the purchase.

Their policy is hideous. The only explanation I can come up with ( and I welcome a different explanation) is that they are gouging the poor. What other explanation can it be?

A 30% service fee on a bus ticket is unconscionable. If Keith Olbermann heard about this he would definitely name them  today's ' THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD".

You can't make this stuff up.

Name

 

Name

Women with kids Need Not Apply

Name

Every time women point to the fact that their pay is lower then men ,or that maybe there really is a glass ceiling, there is often push back that "it's all in our minds"( Isn't it always?)

So I was particularly taken with Jori Des Jardins post on Blogher ,Why Women Don't Always Share Their Family Photos At Work. In this post she shares the very real experiences and fears of associates who are hesitant to tell their bosses they are pregnant.

Jori's post also  includes an excerpt from the Denver Post about a recent Cornell University Study that indicates women with kids are (a) less likely to get called for interviews and (b) when hired, earn less.

"In the study, The Motherhood Penalty, (Cornell University Professor Shelley) Correll sent 300 pairs of cover letters and resumes to advertised midlevel marketing positions in an undisclosed Northeastern city. Some of the cover letters mentioned a family, while others made no mention of children. Applicants who didn't mention a family were called in for an interview twice as frequently as those who did. The study found proof that not only are women with children less likely to get hired, their starting salaries are significantly less than similarly qualified fathers or women without children--an average of $11,000 less."

The article also has some advice to corporations interviewing applicants: don't bring up the children factor in an interview.

"not only is it bad form to ask about children during job negotiations, it is dangerous for the company. While not illegal, if a comment has been made during an interview and then a problem later arises, that comment could come back to haunt. "

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with  Christine Louise Holbaum, an American mom,and freelance writer, blogger, PR Consultant   living in Germany.  She explained that since there was no daycare in Germany and school children all came home for lunch, it was virtually impossible for women with children to work outside the home.

At the time it seemed so antiquated and repressive.  Now, it seems a bit more honest. While I think the  Germany policy is ridiculous, I'm not sure its any more offensive than the situation we have here.

In your face prejudice -- the kind that women with children in Germany experience --is always easier to combat than the kind veiled in political correctness that allows women to think, " it's all in my mind."

Ryan's Catch 22,000

When  I saw Ryan recently and learned that he was waiting on a $22,000 payment for work completed last November,I was shocked.

Up until then, I thought Ryan had it made. For the past 10 years he had been on his client's Corporate A-List. He was part of a closed, secretive society known as an approved vendor..

He enjoyed direct deposit. He had several projects with different areas of the company going on concurrently.  Budgets never seemed to be an issue.

I wanted to be an approved vendor. I wasn't.

Ryan's world changed when the client spun off from its mother ship and became an independent company.

In  the beginning of January, about the time Ryan thought he would be seeing that $22,000 in his bank account, he learned that the company had no record of him in its system.

"How can that be?" he said.

By the end of January, and quite a few email correspondences later, Ryan saw his future and his future looked grim. Even when the company has his info, he's not guaranteed payment because not only does Ryan have to have a Master Contract , he has to have a project contract for every single project he works on.

Under the old system, as long as Ryan had a Master Contract he was golden. He could hop from project to project, division to division, by just giving his client his Master Contract Secret Code.

If a couple of divisions needed him to work on projects at the same time, as long as Ryan could time manage the situation, he could double dip.

No more. According to procurement, NEWCO does not allow you to have concurrent purchase orders.

"You have to make sure you schedule your projects so one is paid after the other. This involves a tricky coordination process with business units, but this is the only way to avoid incorrect billing."

Tricky Coordination? How about idiotic coordination?

Policies and procedures are wonderful things, unless they are  completely incoherent and ridiculous.

Anyone who knows anything about  corporate culture  knows that projects are not consecutive in nature, they overlap.

Ryan has many clients at this company. I should say he had many clients at this company.

From now on, he is going to have to weigh the risk of accepting an assignment with one division because agreeing to work with that group will now mean he can no longer accept work from another area, unless, of course, the first project is completely  finished.

Ryan's projects are not tidy. They tend to be of the start, stop, and rush nature. Being able to have concurrent projects meant that Ryan could support himself because while one project was in hiatus, he could devote time to another project.

No more. if the project is on hiatus, so is Ryan. At least for the time being.

If there is one thing you can count on it's this:there is someone in that corporation diligently reading in between the lines and figuring out  a way to beat the policy at its own game.

There will be a workaround for this no concurrent purchase orders policy, its just a matter of time.

At this point, Ryan doesn't care about concurrent, consecutive or workaround purchase orders.  He has a bigger issue. 22,000 bigger issues.

NOTE: RYAN AND NEWCO are pseudonyms.