esrosedotblog

I have been watching this guy cavort across the internet.

Drug C.E.O. Martin Shkreli Arrested on Fraud Charges

He is a real weasel.

Fun to watch run around in its pen but bad to tangle with.

You can see the weasel-ness in his eyes. The smirk on his nasty little face.

What is a mystery to me is why and how anyone would have bought into his schemes.

It is amusing that they call him a "Drug CEO".

That means that he bought the rights to a drug that a lot of people need and immediately jacked the price up to an exorbitant amount.

I am sure he didn't mean to hurt anyone. Just the government perhaps who had to pay the co-pay on the drug.

In any case, guys like this come and go.

In my time as a public management trainer I occasionally saw this type. Cutting the corners, smirking in the back row. Looking for a few confederates to enjoy his shit.

The bad boy in the classroom.

I enjoyed taking them down but usually they turned at some point. They ran out of steam. And, it was my job to let them see and hear from others that they were not winning friends with their antics.

But some of them missed my class. Some of them didn't get kicked around by their mates.

I was good with these guys because I was one of them. Perhaps I still am. The inner weasel is still there.

I remember, in a very early job, a manager telling me that I would go far unless someone kicked the shit out of me first.

I believed that person and amended my behavior enough not to get caught.

The thing about weasels is that it takes one to know one. Apparently there are enough Feds around who get what these guys are like to catch them in the act.

One more thing. See that drawing? Weasels are cute. But they will be mean little bastards if you let them.

Labels: business, weasels

I had a succession of business partners until there was only one left.

Then, we sold out our interests, in serial, and the company is now run by someone else.

This is a pretty fair picture of what such a relationship is like.

Anger Management: Why the Genius Founders Turned to Couples Therapy

It is a truth and a cliché. Business partnerships are like marriage.

Yeh, with some key differences. One, no sex to vent the pressure. Two, no kids or dog or other neutral outlets. No home to project together, no 100% personal access. Well, maybe a lot of couples do not have the last one either.

The funny thing about my experience is that when the business was over and we both retired, we sort of went our separate ways. For awhile we would visit on an annual trip to the warm places but when we moved west that was the end of that.

Now, it is pretty quiet. The fact is that without the enterprise there is not a lot of common ground. Certainly none to talk about or be together on.

It is a little sad but it is a bit like children growing up. A lot of contact, then a little and finally not much.

My partner stayed with the business as a guiding hand for awhile. I just stopped cold. There is that difference.

I find myself wondering if he is reading this. Still reading the blog.

If so, or if not, I can say that the business partnership was one of the great loves of my life. It had a time and place and it endures in my heart. A little tear, stinging eye. Good stinging.

Labels: business, partnership

I normally do not watch commercials.

I let them slide by and work on cleaning my desk or checking the DVD of the day. Anything else.

But these really catch me. Hilarious.

I used to work a lot with marketing people. They would kill to have the impact that these do.

For one thing, they mock the shallowness of marketing science. Doomed.

I worked with focus groups and charged big clients a lot of money to have consumers work on their problems. Big money.

And, in the end, I don't think that this work made a piddle of difference.

I do not feel guilty about this. Most companies deserve to be fleeced. I was there to do it.

Here is another one of these.

This one is pretty good too.

An ethnically ambiguous mascot!!

Hah.

Dumb bastards.

I knew guys like that.

And that was 1965 or so. They are still out there. Still in position with their heads up their asses.

Labels: business, marketing

This guy was one of my star trainees in a public group that I ran many years ago.

Hamish Maxwell, Philip Morris Empire Builder, Dies at 87

An old client had become manager of training at Philip Morris. This was a little before this guy became President but he was a power to be reckoned with and he wanted to see the program before they bought it.

This is the kind of guy he was. He was his own guinea pig.

My friend and client nearly chewed his nails off with concern.

Hamish came to a public program so that people from his company would not be distracted. He had a great time. He was a wonderful participant. No nonsense. And he got a lot out of it apparently because they bought a whole lot of training from us.

The only drawback was that he had the idea that I was the only one who could train it so, as a result, I became their trainer. They never adopted a trainer training program as we wanted them to.This was an old problem for us. A lot of people wanted the authors or the principals. We were trying to grow and spread it out.

Eventually, Hamish forgot his original condition and we put other trainers into the mix.

I would not say that we had a thing to do with his ascension to the top but I certainly had to do with his affection for the program. I liked him a lot. I don't remember many participants, even the bigwigs, but I remember him.

Hamish put together the Philip Morris empire which now is being dismantled a piece at a time. But in its heyday it included a lot of companies. He started with General Foods for gods' sake. Another former client. But I always worked with the tobacco division.

Did I have moral qualms about the company? No. I didn't have moral qualms for the most part. I was a smoker at the time. It would have been hypocrisy to be choosy.

Labels: business, history, training

MERCHANTS

The mattress experience also presented a new world of department store buying.

Macy's.

It is a peerless service machine. Nice people. Good prices. Extreme followup, emails, guarantees. Even the delivery men were handsome! And we had the mattress less than 24 hours after we bought it.

I used to work for the Federated and Allied chains of big name stores. They did not own the stores per se but had an interest and provided services.

It was a place of desperate politics and backward management. A lot were family owned or the equivalent with second and third generation management.

The work was not difficult, the people were nice, but they were a slow motion train wreck and not getting any better.

I quit on them as a customer.

But this is a new thing. It is no wonder that Macy's came out on top.

In this case, at least, big is better. Obviously it is well managed.

But more, they are true merchants. When I worked for the stores, the merchants were king and then they were not.

The numbers guys came in. The big box guys came in. The first in first out inventory came in. The just on time delivery.

The link between the people who bought the stuff and the customer was lost.

Sure, there were some dumb parts to the old merchant system. The liberal returns policy and so on.

But you go to the boxes or any of the other new retail places and there is no merchandising at the consumer level. It is all take it or leave it. Not Macy's.

I will go back.

Labels: business, culture, management, shopping

GAY POWER

Well, not really. But, since the new CEO of Apple is an out gay man, we can say that there was just a power shift in the gay straight balance.

Or something.

Tim Cook: Apple’s New CEO and the Most Powerful Gay Man in America

It is worth a headline here but, actually, is a mere step in a progression of outings.

The funny thing is that business is the most out segment of our culture. Cook is, by no means, the only out business executive. We are everywhere. And, today, you can see most of us.

The second, my guess, would be government. Not politics necessarily but the whole ball of wax. After all, it is illegal to discriminate anywhere but more so in the bureaucracy than anywhere else. Federal law trumps everything else in the federal government.

It is interesting. I can remember, easily, when to be an out gay man in any corporation would be the kiss of death.

I can also remember when it was the kiss of death to be a Jew in most companies.

Black? No way.

Women? Not even now. A gay black jewish man has a better chance in corporate America than a woman.

Labels: business, macintosh

HAND PUPPETS

Labels: business, republican whack jobs

HOW NICE OF THEM

Labels: business

ALL REVVED UP AND NO PLACE TO GO

My "new" glasses started to scratch last week. Just like that.

The coating was wearing through. Or something.

My last pair of glasses lasted three or four years before the coating began to wear.

So I went to the optician I got these from. It was my first time with them.

I was ready for bear.

I had the date I bought them, I took the rag I use to clean them--a special Scotch cloth that does not scratch anything--and a story.

I also had their story and a rebuttal.

In short, I had a full rehearsal of outcomes.

Except for the one that happened.

I went in, gave my name, they found my file (they are still all paper), took me to a little chair and table to wait to be seen and here comes the optician.

She took a look and said "oh the coating has failed". We will have to replace it. Under the warranty.

Duh.

OK. No argument, no rebuttal. I am glad I took my old glasses along to wear as I left the place. They aren't too far off.

The new recoated glasses or new glasses, whatever, will be ready in a week.

I sure wish I had a chance to use all my ammunition though. But I will retire from the field. I have met the enemy and he is almost me.

Labels: business, eye, health

BAILOUT?

No one has asked me yet but when they do, I will have an opinion.

It is dissimilar to Kevin Drum's.

Bailing Out GM

I think it is probably moot because the Republicans (they have regained their upper case "R" since they lost the election) will not support it.

So weird. The Republicans used to be the pro-business guys.

I think the answer is CH. 11 with the government doing the DIP (Debtor in Posession) financing.

Chapter 7 requires total liquidation. Not good.

It is a tough question.

If we bailed them out, I am first in line to tell you that they are totally fucked up.

I used to train in GM and it was the worst. Sinecures. Entitlement. Resistance to change of any kind.

They are the people who brought you global warming. The ones who paid to rip up the trolley tracks in LA and so on.

Right bastards, GM.

And the unions. My loved one tells me that the reason they have to build big cars is that the cost of labor is so high it is the only way that they can get the incremental value up to ask a high price. High enough to pay the unions.

The list is endless.

Now I have to admit that I have never, ever been a GM man.

I have had one Ford (a 1952 sedan) and, today, we have all Chrysler products.

But mostly I have bought German (Volkswagen and Audi) and Swedish (SAAB).

When we moved here there was no SAAB dealer (I write it the old way) and so we got a Jeep. And then a 1984 LeBaron which we still have. Both. And finally a Sebring because we like Chrysler service here and we always rented the car. It looks and feels as close to the SAAB convertible as we could get.

I am wandering.

Well, not really.

I don't want to bail out Ford or Chrysler either.

They are bloated and over the hill.

I think a Chapter 11 would be cleansing. Purifying.

It would give the government a chance to help out and make some demands. Obama's economic plan for building new 100 mpg cars. And so on.

So let 'em go.

No one is going to be buying a car in the next few years anyway.

And take all the unbought Hummers and put them in a gigantic pile at GM headquarters as a monument to stupidity and greed. A symbol of the total mismanagement of the auto industry if there ever was one.

Labels: Administration Obama, auto accidents, automobiles, business

7 SECRETS OF SUCCESS

I never did any training in the airlines business but I did 'audition' with American.

Believe me. They were totally fucked up in the 80s too.

Too many people with too little to do and a whole lot of bureaucratic avoidance. "Not my job, yours" or, conversely, "not your job, mine"!

I never made it past the first flight. The idea of taking personal responsibility, using personal influence skills and working on your own barriers to effectiveness instead of blaming others were not airworthy.

They managed, as did many of the companies, to get by then because they had very strong leaders. Dictators.

The other day the old American's Bob Crandall was on CNN still carrying on about what the airlines should be doing.

Through all this, Southwest Airlines still manages to ride over the turbulence and even make a profit.

They also had a 'fearless leader' but he was smart enough to build a good management infrastructure.

Here is a good article that shows that a lot of what is going on is their own fault. The airlines.

As most of life's business and personal problems are. This is a good thing, incidentally. If something is my own fault then I have a chance to correct it.

If I have the willingness.

Southwest Airlines Seven Secrets of Success

Labels: business, management