Business 2.0 presents the 2004 edition of its annual Dumbest Moments in Business Awards. Herewith, a few favorites I hadn't heard of:
50 Translation: Stock images look OK, and photo shoots are really, really expensive. In February, the Bermuda Department of Tourism struggles to explain how it managed to use a photograph of a Hawaiian beach for a new marketing campaign. The answer: It hired a New York ad agency. Tourism minister Renee Webb explains that the photo selection allowed for "maximum creative impact with superior fiscal responsibility."Boy, their flacks must be busy.60 At Goldman, every employee (except the 80 to 85 percent of you slackers who don't do a damn thing) is special.
At an investment conference in January, Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson explains his company's recent layoffs: "There are 15 to 20 percent of the people that really add 80 percent of the value. Although we have a lot of good people, you can cut a fair amount ... and still be well positioned for the upturn." Paulson later apologizes in a voice-mail message sent to every Goldman employee.72 Gov. Schwarzenegger quickly unveils a new plan to fix the state's budget woes by selling herbal supplements and prepaid phone cards.
Animal-rights group PETA sues the California Milk Advisory Board for false advertising in a campaign that claims that "happy cows come from California," contending that California's cows actually live on dung- and urine-soaked lots. A judge dismisses the case on a technicality, ruling, in essence, that as a state entity, the CMAB is free to deceive customers as much as it likes.97 Should you find that your boss is a complete and total jerkwad, use one of his machines to post his memo on the Web.
"I expect my computers to be used for work only. I expect my phones to be used for work only. Should you receive a personal call, keep it short. Should you receive a personal e-mail, I expect the e-mail either not answered, or a brief note telling whoever is sending you e-mails at work to stop immediately. Should I go through machines, which I assure you, I will be doing, and I find anything to the contrary, you will be terminated immediately. For those who think I am kidding, and do not get with this program, I will promise you that by Christmas eve 8:00 you will be gone."—From a memo sent to employees in November by Doug Monahan, founder and chairman of technology marketing firm Sunset Direct. It was promptly posted on InternalMemos.com.
| California | Advertising | Bermuda | Cows | PETA | Bad Culture |
What's up with PETA? Have they ever been to a farm? Any farm? All cows live in dung and urine soaked lots. And they poop and piss all over themselves.
Comment #1 :: link :: January 30, 2004 08:50 AMWell, there’s a difference between living in a field where your dung (or flop, or road apple, or manure, or mushroom bed) is in places and living in a pen that is barely longer than your body and barely wider than your body and that creates a methane-radiating soup of your waste underneath you. I’m not saying who’s right, and I think PETA probably didn’t say it well, but I’m guessing that PETA members have in fact been to many farms.
Anyway, my point was more of wondering why the Goldman guy apologized. If it’s the truth (or if it’s what he really thinks), there’s no need to apologize. Wouldn’t surprise me if it were true, as every company I’ve worked at has had many freeloaders. Heck, I’ve been a freeloader once or twice. But only for a day or so.
Comment #2 :: link :: January 30, 2004 10:51 AMGoldman sounds rather unpleasant. Perhaps its Goldman execs who live and dung and urine-soaked stalls. Or should, Glad I'm not there!
I think PETA imagines cows wandering happily through meadows. Cows are filthy. Even on the model farms I've been to they spent at least part of their time wallowing in their own crap. And except for veal calves (which is a whole other story), I don't think beef and dairy cattle spend their entire lives in cramped pens. Pigs might. Chickens certainly.
Comment #3 :: link :: January 30, 2004 02:48 PMYeah, but just because they're fecally immersed doesn't mean they're not happy about it! As one recently transplanted to California, I can vouch that the sunshine and warmth have an eerily blissful effect on one's state of mind.
Comment #4 :: link :: January 30, 2004 03:52 PMUntil they create free-range veal, though....
Comment #5 :: link :: January 30, 2004 04:16 PMMS wrote:
Goldman sounds rather unpleasant.
It's definitely the Type-A, sink-or-swim, get-back-to-work-or-you-re-not-a-genius-like-us archetype on Wall Street. Patrick set me up at an interview there back in the mid-'90s, and the HR woman actually chewed me out for showing up a couple of minutes late. (Extenuating circumstances: I was sneaking away from my job at one of their competitors, and this was not the era of cell phones.) Patrick says I did quite well despite my tardiness, but they didn't offer me the job. And that was that.
So in 2000, when Goldman finally did offer me a job – they solicited me this time – at somewhere around twice my compensation (no shit, I woulda been swimming in bonus), I turned them down. I finally decided that there were certain things one wouldn't do for money. Getting an ulcer at 29 was not one of them.
Paulson's comment is so beautifully representative of his firm. I read an article on Goldman a few years back that suggested that Jon Corzine, the then-co-Chairman of Goldman with Paulson and a rare Democrat on Wall Street, left to run for the Senate (after setting himself up for life when Goldman went public) because Paulson and the other senior managers were such humorless assholes and didn't care for the affable Corzine. I admit my Democrat leanings make me biased, but boy did that confirm my suspicions: Have a soul? Want to keep it? Don't work for Goldman.
Comment #6 :: link :: January 31, 2004 09:07 AM
