Corporate BS
The company I work for (which for Dooce-like reasons will of course remain anonymous) has only been in existence for a couple of months, having been formed by the merger of several smaller companies. Not uncommon in the present economic climate and in the industry in which I toil. What this means in reality is that a bunch of speccy tw@ts have been paid a small fortune to ‘re-brand’ us. The results of this are beginning to filter down to those of us on the coalface. That’s an analogy, I’m not a miner. I get dreadful claustrophobia and on the rare occasions I have been to underground tourist attractions (there are several in Yorkshire, go visit) I’ve always found it a terribly unpleasant business.
“Look at the stalactites Phyl”
“No. Look at the thousand, million tons of limestone above my head that could crush me to a puree.”
I don’t have the spirit of adventure. I’ll sit on the sofa and smoke a phatty, you go exploring. I’ll read a book, thank you very much. Sorry.
But I digress.
So now, instead of our old orangey letterhead, we have a new ‘spectrum coloured’ one that has been specifically designed for us to reflect our corporate culture and push forward our new, all encompassing identity. It’s utter shite of course. We’ve also had our PCs rebranded. Now, instead of my beautiful old desktop of Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Socrates, I have a plain blue one with the corporate logo in the bottom right hand corner. My Star Wars screensaver has been replaced by – the corporate logo scrolling contemptuously across my new flat screen. It makes me weep.
The latest, laughable dictum came this afternoon when we received an email from the Marketing Director no less, stating that henceforth all communications whether letter, email, fax or carrier pigeon are to be written in 12 point Times New Roman. The email was of course written in 10 point Arial as if that comes as a surprise to anyone. The director who sent the communiqué has no more idea of how to change the font in his emails than I have an idea of how to change the battery in his pacemaker but he feels no shame in telling me how I should do things. Leading by example? Pfffffttt. I’m an old fashioned chap though so will stick with my Book Antiqua thank you very much, though I am tempted to reply to his email in Copperplate Gothic. What can they do? Fire me for ‘failure to follow the corporate font policy?’ I’m in the union you know. And I'm busting for a spat.
Directors though will always try to direct. The best simile for the corporate structure that I’ve ever heard is that it is like a tree full of monkeys. The monkeys on the top branches look down and see row upon row of smiling faces. The monkeys further down look up and see a load of arseholes. Isn't that perfect?
Re-brands also give various executives and directors the chance to leave London and visit us in the provinces (Surrey) in order to ‘roll out’ the ‘exciting new corporate culture’ and of course give us motivating talks along the lines of ‘forward together’; ‘the future is limitless’; etc etc… I die a little every time. Is their anything less motivating than a motivational talk from some faceless stuffed shirt earning six figures for poncing about in his Merc without any sense of reality? No there isn’t. The problem is that they are always desperately unoriginal, generally have zero relevance to one’s job and are all based on Stephen Covey’s "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". Have you ever been forced to read that dirge? Please don’t, life is too short. Go and sit in the sun, learn Latin and read Catullus in the original, have a w@nk, I don’t care, do anything instead. For you though, dear reader, I have the antidote. Courtesy of my hombre beelers, who understands that it is better to be creative than effective, I can bring you D.A. Blyler’s “The 7 vices of highly creative people”. You won’t have time to read it so in brief:
Vice 1: Be a drinker
Vice 2: Begin the day with a smoke
Vice 3: Put gambling first
Vice 4: Think oysters
Vice 5: Seek fashion first, then seek to be understood
Vice 6: Sex
Vice 7: Abuse the card
So, valpolicella in hand I implore you, follow the new rules. Don’t let them win.
“Look at the stalactites Phyl”
“No. Look at the thousand, million tons of limestone above my head that could crush me to a puree.”
I don’t have the spirit of adventure. I’ll sit on the sofa and smoke a phatty, you go exploring. I’ll read a book, thank you very much. Sorry.
But I digress.
So now, instead of our old orangey letterhead, we have a new ‘spectrum coloured’ one that has been specifically designed for us to reflect our corporate culture and push forward our new, all encompassing identity. It’s utter shite of course. We’ve also had our PCs rebranded. Now, instead of my beautiful old desktop of Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Socrates, I have a plain blue one with the corporate logo in the bottom right hand corner. My Star Wars screensaver has been replaced by – the corporate logo scrolling contemptuously across my new flat screen. It makes me weep.
The latest, laughable dictum came this afternoon when we received an email from the Marketing Director no less, stating that henceforth all communications whether letter, email, fax or carrier pigeon are to be written in 12 point Times New Roman. The email was of course written in 10 point Arial as if that comes as a surprise to anyone. The director who sent the communiqué has no more idea of how to change the font in his emails than I have an idea of how to change the battery in his pacemaker but he feels no shame in telling me how I should do things. Leading by example? Pfffffttt. I’m an old fashioned chap though so will stick with my Book Antiqua thank you very much, though I am tempted to reply to his email in Copperplate Gothic. What can they do? Fire me for ‘failure to follow the corporate font policy?’ I’m in the union you know. And I'm busting for a spat.
Directors though will always try to direct. The best simile for the corporate structure that I’ve ever heard is that it is like a tree full of monkeys. The monkeys on the top branches look down and see row upon row of smiling faces. The monkeys further down look up and see a load of arseholes. Isn't that perfect?
Re-brands also give various executives and directors the chance to leave London and visit us in the provinces (Surrey) in order to ‘roll out’ the ‘exciting new corporate culture’ and of course give us motivating talks along the lines of ‘forward together’; ‘the future is limitless’; etc etc… I die a little every time. Is their anything less motivating than a motivational talk from some faceless stuffed shirt earning six figures for poncing about in his Merc without any sense of reality? No there isn’t. The problem is that they are always desperately unoriginal, generally have zero relevance to one’s job and are all based on Stephen Covey’s "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". Have you ever been forced to read that dirge? Please don’t, life is too short. Go and sit in the sun, learn Latin and read Catullus in the original, have a w@nk, I don’t care, do anything instead. For you though, dear reader, I have the antidote. Courtesy of my hombre beelers, who understands that it is better to be creative than effective, I can bring you D.A. Blyler’s “The 7 vices of highly creative people”. You won’t have time to read it so in brief:
Vice 1: Be a drinker
Vice 2: Begin the day with a smoke
Vice 3: Put gambling first
Vice 4: Think oysters
Vice 5: Seek fashion first, then seek to be understood
Vice 6: Sex
Vice 7: Abuse the card
So, valpolicella in hand I implore you, follow the new rules. Don’t let them win.
posted by phylos @ 18:40
3 Comments:
This sounds like a nightmare!!
Actually there are some good bits in Covey, but its directed at the leaders themselves and them being self aware of their purtpose and mission. Clearly these guys have not got the message. They need to look at the first habit before they try and shoppinglist the rest to save their gigs. The bad news is it will take time for them to grow up enough and the crazy stuff they are doing is not helping their cause. They need a slap!
When they feel they are mature enough as leaders to look at 7 habits again, they should sit down together and start from the beginning. The second habit is to create mission statements - all very w@nky, but it states this should be done with not just the input, but the ownership of everyone.. I bet none of this is being done with you guys, they are just dictating.
Leadership is tough, but someone needs to get in there and stop them from using their lack of skill to do their job to screw up everyone elses day, and probably the company, in the name of leadership culture change.
If you can stand it look at the circle of influence stuff... find someone who has the influence to tell these guys they are off the rails, and them get them to do it.
good luck, this is a hard gig.
The best description I heard was,
"Those who can, do.
Those that can't, Teach.
those that can't Do and can't teach, Manage"
word up bro
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