corporations
The Case for Working With Your Hands
Props to Resynthesize for finding this…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?_r=1&em
a FANTASTIC article in the New York Times about the intrinsic (and often overlooked) value of working with your hands. Authored by Matthew B Crawford, whose new book, Shop Class as Soulcraft sounds equally impressive.
“In the boardrooms of Wall Street and the corridors of Pennsylvania Avenue, I don’t think you’ll see a yellow sign that says “Think Safety!” as you do on job sites and in many repair shops, no doubt because those who sit on the swivel chairs tend to live remote from the consequences of the decisions they make. Why not encourage gifted students to learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their fingers will be crushed once or twice before they go on to run the country?
On a related note, I recently read a piece suggesting that art students are subject to a similar style of “life-training.” For example: when you set out to draw a portrait, there are no set rules for where to begin or what style it should be rendered in. When you are moving the pencil, you are making hundreds of tiny decisions per second without any detailed instructions. Only you can decide what strokes are “right” or “wrong” or when you are “done.” In this respect, art teaches us confidence… how to make your own decisions and stand behind them… and just like in a repair shop, if you screw something up, the feedback is instantaneous, tactile and measurable. You can’t fudge numbers or lay people off at the end of the quarter to cover up the fact that your kerning sucks.
For this reason, it’s a shame that the art programs are usually the first to get cut when the budget is looking lean. But I digress… if you have time, read this article.
Having a Purpose
Historically, I have had the hardest time justifying my life to myself at previous jobs. How can you stay aligned to your morals and spiritual values when you are part of an sick and twisted corporate machine? It’s hard to keep your head up when you are marketing for a company that expects it’s manpower to take the hit whenever their numbers need padding… or when you watch them make a conscious decision to do wrong because paying the fine is cheaper than doing what is right.
Today, i feel much better about my day-job. Many of our clients are purpose-oriented individuals or organizations who are really trying to make a positive difference in the world. Just now somebody passed around photos of Al Gore on Capitol Hill yesterday, testifying in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the latest information on climate change… and in the photos you can see him projecting our slides.
Warm fuzzies abound.
Also I am very very excited this week to have been given full creative freedom on a presentation I’m designing for a speaker at the upcoming TED conference. (www.ted.com) And lo-and-behold… the subject matter is one that i am DEEPLY committed to; restoring a sense of morals to corporations… the need for people to do what is RIGHT instead of what is profitable.
when i am personally committed to something, it ceases to be “work”
Good times. =)
The Riots in Greece
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/2008_greek_riots.html
I am pretty blown away by all this insanity. I’m also pretty (continuously) amazed at how poorly news travels over our seas. When i was in Peru after 9-11, we were hearing all kinds of crazy stories like the golden gate bridge had been destroyed. We take it for granted how information seems so easy to come by in our country…
Anyway this isn’t nearly as bad as the great firewall of censorship that the Chinese government has erected to prevent the flow of free information in and out of that place… but the american media isn’t really telling is the whole truth about these riots in Greece either. They’re focusing on the death of this 15 year old boy as the reason for all the violence but the truth (if you dig just a little to find it) is that this is a pent-up reaction to globalization… and it’s failure.
There is genuine reason to worry that this mayhem will spread across europe… These global corporate “entities” are impacting lives everywhere… and the story is awfully familiar to what we experience here in the states. I wonder how long it will be before we, here at home, will finally have had enough.
It is amazing to me that the police officer is actually being tried for this murder… They are clearly less militarized in Greece than they are here.
On a side note… i am constantly impressed with the photography on that website. This one (below) make me emotional… history may be doomed to repeat itself, but it’s good to know the agents of good will be repeating their actions as well.
Corporations
So it looks like i don’t have food poisoning after all. It’s a belly-flu of some kind… made clear by the chills and sweats and aches and pains that kicked in yesterday, mid-morning. So now i’m sitting here eating a delicate breakfast (7up and toast… no butter) and reading the financial news. Looks like the economy is sicker than me.
The first headline that caught my attention said, “Sickly Citigroup slashing 20 percent of it’s workforce.”
My first reaction was pure unadulterated JOY. I have been a loooong-time hater of Citigroup who is, to me, the epitome of greedy immoral corporations… the perfect symbol of everything that is wrong with the world todat. It all started for me when one of my best friends got snared into a Citigroup-owned pyramid scam named Primerica*. The cult-like mentality of Primerica employees made them frightening to talk to. Just like amway or cutco or aquatech, you were recruited and shown pictures of yachts and mansions that former employees supposedly bought with their earnings… and the first thing you’re asked to do is fork over a list of all your friends and family members’ phone numbers. The average primerica employee only makes an around $600 a year and give up. But in the time it took them to get wise, they’ve already scammed their families and friends into overpriced loans… overpriced insurance. My mission was simply to save my friend from being suckered. By the time i was done educating him, i pretty much lost him as a friend until he “sobered up” a few years later.
So anyway I was stoked beyond stoked to read that Citi (as a whole) was fucking up… but then Emily reminded me that the people who are really at fault here are going to walk away from this no worse off than they were before. The 53,000 employees they’re about to lay off will shoulder that weight, unfortunately. Just like how Yahoo is about to drop the hammer on 1200 of their employees in less than a month… The problem lies in their greedy impatient shareholders who want to see short-term growth NOW… and in near-impossible amounts… It’s always up to the employees to make these fucked up expectations happen and those bastards never feel the recourse of their greed. The little guy loses.
If you have never seen the movie “Corporation” i highly recommend that you do. It’s one of the best documentaries i’ve ever seen. It makes me a bit furious at where we have arrived here as a global economy… but i think it’s important that everybody has some perspective. We NEED to do something about these coporate entities. Shareholders should NOT be able to put impossible growth demands on businesses and then slash the employees to make their numbers work. There is NOTHING RIGHT ABOUT WHAT CORPORATIONS HAVE BECOME. PUBLIC ENTITIES NEED TO BE STOPPED. AND BOARDS OF SHAREHOLDERS NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS.
More info on…
Primerica
Citgroup Scandals
Layoffs
Holy crap they just laid off 3 of my friends.
We had a surprise meeting at 8:30 this morning and they announced that they were going to lay off 9 people from the sales dept and from product support.
1 of them was a very close friend of mine and has been here almost as long as me (8 years)… on top of which he is one of the top sales people in his department… knows all of our quirky software products inside and out… and has, hands down, the MOST knowledge and understanding about how things are done here… whenever i needed to create some kind of document that dealt with nuances in our software, sales tactics, or in the workings of our company.. HE was my liason.
He kept his boss in that conference room for 20 minutes and asked him a dozen times WHY him…. and he ahhed and ooohed and eeed and never answered the question.
The real truth is that his bosses didn’t like him because he knew better than them. He was a top performer… not a top conformist… he was always proposing new procedures and protocols because he’s on the front line and knows what works… and a lot of times that went against the grain of what these fucksticks need done in order to make their numbers look good… particularly the numbers that would make their bonuses.
7.5 years of service…. 7.5 weeks of severance.
Take it from me… 7.5 weeks is not enough time to find a good job these days….
See this is really going to fuck with my current plan to breathe new life into our culture here at this company… how can I pump up morale with “employee appreciation” stuff when shit like this just went down?
Self Checkout Lane
Are these stores really saving money by PISSING OFF ALL THE CUSTOMERS?
as usual, I found some image online to support my blog entry (above) and I think it’s ironic that this was a picture from home depot… in my opinion the WORST OF THE WORST when it comes to self checkout.
I mean why have 10 registers? Just to impress me during the grand opening and maybe around Xmas time? The rest of the year I have to find some way to ring myself up for a bag of nails… rebar… and pieces of lumbar too big to fit in the staging area?
This morning it was the save-mart or what-not… up the road here… All I wanted was 2 bags of ice. Do you know how long 2 bags of ice takes to buy when there is nobody in line? Should be fucking effortless… but no… the whole process took me 5 minutes before the machine was ready to take my monies… the All-Seeing-Attendant tried to ring me up but pushed a few wrong buttons and then had to scan some badge of his at my self-checkout-terminal twice just to get the thing to unlock.
After all is said and done and precious minutes of my life have been wasted, the attendant says “Have nice day… don’t forget your ice.”
Someday… mark my words… the Self Checkout Lane will be looked back upon as one of the signs of the impending end of civilized life on this planet…
Help Save Internet Radio!!!
Don’t know if you guys have heard about what’s going on with internet radio TODAY… but click on the links below to learn how everything’s about to fully suck… and maybe we can help. ~S
Today is the internet radio day of silence to protest the fucked up increase in royalty fees.
SoMaFM alone will owe $1.1 million if this goes thru, bkz it’s retroactive. What BS.
Anyway, check it out, if you like
More information:
Lockheed Martin Profits From Your Red Light Violations?
I knew Lockheed was financially connected to most of congress but shit this just gets worse and worse doesn’t it? I post this because i think it’s important that we realize it is big business (and the elite fuckers behind them) that run this planet. NOT our government so your voting is a completely symbolic act… a charade… the same pieces of shit run things no matter who is elected…
anyway enough out of me…
The State Legislature Triples the Red Light Fine For Honest Drivers
from http://www.ticketassassin.com/autohonest.html
In 1996, California’s first automated red light cameras were installed in San Francisco. At the time, the fine for running a red light was $104. The corporation that leased these cameras to the city got to keep $17.50 for every person cited. This would be enough to keep the system profitable if every photographed motorist paid up.
Unfortunately for the city and its corporate partners, only about a third of the motorists photographed could be identified and cited due to blurry photos, missing front plates and obscured faces. As a result, they were only collecting a third of the expected revenue needed to keep this system profitable.
One of the two contractors involved in San Francisco’s pilot program, Electronic Data Systems, withdrew from the program after six months citing the financial shortfall. The city’s other corporate partner, U. S. Public Technologies (now owned by Lockheed Martin) hung tough, helping the city lobby the state legislature to deliver them from this revenue deficit. San Francisco had paid $30,000 per intersection to have the initial cameras installed. They did not intend on surrendering this investment without a fight. Led by San Francisco representatives, the state legislature rode to the rescue.
“California’s pre-existing fine structure was not adequate to make red light photo enforcement self-financing. This is important to local governments who support the program in principle, but are not willing to sacrifice funding for other programs to fund photo enforcement. The legislature addressed this by passing Assembly Bill (AB) 1191 (Shelley), in 1997, raising the fine from $104 to $346 for running red lights. This bill also changed the formula for distributing the fine revenues so local agencies now receive about $148 from each fully paid citation. This was essential for the survival of red light photo enforcement in California.”
- “How Can We Make Red Light Runners Stop?” by Jack Lucero and Bridget Smith, Westernite, November-December 1998, Vol. 52 No. 6
In 1998, the fine for running a red light was tripled to $346. This “enhanced” fine would net $70 per ticket for Lockheed Martin, and $78 for the city hosting the system. Automated enforcement was no more efficient but it was now profitable. This increased fine and bonus payment of $78 for the city has led to the rapid expansion of automated enforcement across our state.
Since only one in three drivers photographed are eventually cited under automated enforcement, this one honest motorist is, in essence, being forced to pay for all three. Guilty or not, it is unfair that the one honest driver must pay $346 while the two dishonest ones, lacking front plates or willing to perjure themselves, laugh and pay nothing.
Big Brother’s Tactics Are Not Subject To Public Scrutiny
Lockheed Martin was careful to avoid the most unsafe intersections in its San Diego installation (nearly all in low-income areas) in favor of intersections in higher income neighborhoods where profits could be assured. Since the city government did not object to these marketing tactics, we can assume they might concur with other possible profit-enhancing measures by Lockheed Martin, such as decreasing the length of the yellow lights at monitored intersections in order to increase violations. With no public scrutiny, Lockheed Martin may already be manipulating the timing of the intersections they control to maximize profits. This would not come as a surprise since the city has already given Lockheed Martin free reign to find you guilty, which is the only verdict that profits both the city and its corporate partner.
The corporations and cities that sponsor automated enforcement programs expect and need drivers to continue running red lights to keep the program profitable. It seems perverse that a system marketed to improve traffic safety, can only survive if it does not succeed.
If automated enforcement were truly capable of stopping drivers from running red lights, it would soon do so and become unprofitable. Does anyone honestly believe that private corporations are investing millions of dollars in a system whose success will soon render it obsolete?
On Marketing: Design or Psychology?
Many people in my life come to me for advice on becoming a graphic designer… Most of them are the creative type who love to be artistic… love to express themselves… love to feel unique… cuz let’s face it… the MAJORITY of graphic designers are megalomaniacs (myself included) and want to write a novel, compose an album, direct a movie and build their own car all by themselves… because we have certain talents and we feel that we’re unique… we want to prove to ourselves that WE are talented enough to do what other people do… it pains us when someone else comes up with an idea more brilliant than ours because we lose faith in ourselves… especially when we stake our entire career and reputation on our abilities…
Anyway I always have to remind people that even though the job title may say “designer” the chances of you being an artist for a living is pretty much slim-to-none… illustrators have that glory but we do not. Our sense of good taste, balance and style are going to be beaten into submission over and over as our clients throw all our good concepts and hard work in the trash in favor of “the safe option”
I have been bitching for years that my job here is less “graphic designer” and more “production designer” because I design only what they tell me (since I’ve vitually given up on selling these people on edgy ideas) and i spend more time layout out content and not “being creative”
After a while my mood began to suffer. I NEEDED to be more creative in my position or I would have to leave. I searched for ways to push the envelope and put more of myself into my work…. I slowly began to try to affect the direction of branding here and before long I came to a startling realization….
Marketing = Problem Solving
The real creative side of your job is going to take place in the 3 hour mind-numbing meetings you will find yourselves in…. in the shower in the morning… in your car on the way to work… while watching tv at night.
It’s called “Marketing/Communications” for a reason. The constant challenge is to wrap your head around HOW you are going to communicate a given message to a customer…. HOW you are going track market response and effectiveness…. HOW you are going to change people’s general opinion about a dying brand?
Two examples of brilliance that pop to mind are Jack In The Box and Target. In the late 80s Jack In The Box nearly went under when several customers died from ecoli poisoning due to shitty food-handling practices. How does a company regain the public trust? A daunting task, yet they pulled it off by bringing back “Jack”, their old mascot, and airing a commercial in which he blows up a board room of executives and supposedly “takes back control of his restaurant business”… Somehow they pulled it off and sales are better than ever.
Target was struggling and decided to be the leader instead of the follower… they used crazy tactics like starting word-of-mouth rumors that Target was really pronounced “Tar-Jey” overseas…. creating a buzz that Target was somehow fancy… shortly after that they acquired Mossimo and other dying brands… picked up a few aspiring designer product lines and not only put them on their shelves… but they integrated the design into their entire store. Countertops suddenly matched the products that lined the shelves… they implemented a lighting standard of no less than X lumens-per-square-foot. The days of temp employees being able to bring any old red shirt to work are gone. I used to go into Target around Xmas time and I couldn’t tell who was an employee and who was a customer but now there is a rigid standard… a pantone color for “Target Red” and no leeway on pants color….
How is this marketing? It’s marketing because Marketing = Psychology. People are JOCKING Target these days and it’s exactly because of these changes. Their marketing department spends way less time thinking about creative artsy imagery for ads and more time brainstorming on their next psychological assult on the public.
It’s shady and it’s underhanded but it’s what we do. We control people’s minds. You think you know what is “cool” and “hip” in the world? No… we gave that to you. We decided what is cool and we told you what to think. Jack In The Box and Target both spent YEARS on “guerilla-marketing” to change your opinion of them… We are the REASON you are addicted to buying things. We are the bad guys. Yes it’s true. Anyone actually IN marketing will attest to this. Our job is to be sneaky and influence entire generations… To make you feel inadequate without our product… To make you afraid… To make our name the first word you think of in the right situations…
Where Do You Draw the Line?
The more creative i get to be here at my job, the more evil i seem to become. Today we discussed CAIS certification. it’s something we made up. If you go online and pass a very simple test that demonstrates your ability to use our software, we will send you a silly printed certificate… a sticker for your shop window and a patch for your sleeve. We made that shit up. We made up a status symbol that seperates the average automotive technician from this supposedly new-school higher-tech automotive technician. Then we invaded public schools. We started working with high-school auto shops and now they can train their students on our software under the premise that they will be high-tech and industy-ready when they enter the job market. We say that they will be more valuable and quicker to find a job because they will we be CAIS certified when they leave.
Today, during our 3 hour meeting, I heard someone say “If only we’d gotten in there 5 years ago! The new generation of mechanics out there would all prefer our software and we could leverage that!”
And I began to feel kinda shitty. Because we’re not that different from the companies I flame regularly (like apple)… we are talking about weaseling our way into their schools under the guise of “education” when, in truth, we’re really just promoting the shit out of our product and even trying to “shape” the next generation of our potential customers… That’s what this is all about but do we really have to do it in schools? And is it “bad”? I feel bad about it because I (falsely) still consider schools to be “places of learning” when they are not. They are businesses and they are the brainwashers of our youth. Apple donates a bunch of computers to schools and what happens? The next generation of graduates comes out of school trained on Mac. You know why Mac has become THE standard for graphics and sound? NOT because they are “better for graphics and sound” as most Mac enthusiasts will tell you… (hell the monitor has a few more colors…. less than 20… so what you’re getting 16 million colors on a pc and 16 million and twenty on a Mac? whoop-de-doo) But simply because Apple shaped the market. Somehow apple has become synonymous with education and as dumb as i think it is, it was a brilliant move.
I dunno… what is right? what is wrong? where do you draw the line? I guarantee you you won’t be hearing complaints in the paper about Macs or our software being used in schools…. but you WILL hear about Pepsi or Coca Cola monopolizing the concessions at our public schools and making themselves “The Choice of a New Generation.” Why because you were BETTER? Or because you trained us from a young age?
And I’m not even gonna get into the ROTC programs out there… that’s just the evillest of all evil. My grade-school friend was put into ROTC by his mother because she hoped it would make him more responsible…. the old “military school” fantasy… the truth is she stuck him in a propoganda engine that sold him on being a fucking marine. Is that really what she wanted? I doubt it.
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