Thursday, February 09, 2006

Entire Institutions Unclear On The Concept 

Usually I try to respect brands wherever possible, but two egregious examples today seem entirely deserving of public ridicule.


1. Yet another proud "dear community" email from the ex-employer, this time asking me to acknowledge and celebrate a changing of the guard on the same trustees chairship which made the call to consolidate -- and cost me my job. Slightly better than the email which invited me to pay for the priviledge of celebrating that selfsame consolidation just after it happened, but still far beyond the bounds of good taste and good judgment.

Hint to those who would survive in the cutthroat world of the prep school: if you fire rightsize someone, it's generally considered polite to leave them the hell alone, not add their names to your alumni mailings. Keep asking them to celebrate the company that treated them so poorly, on the other hand, and you're liable to end up facing bad blood, bad sportsmanship, and a bad reputation.


2. If I Had 1,000,000 on the instore speakers at the Ocean State Job Lot tonight, a sorry coincidence of parodic commercialist dream and pre-dented reality which lent just the right tough of despair to a meander through the pasteboard dregs of the offbrand world. Still unclear myself on how two otherwise entirely familiar three-letter words combine to mean "cheap stuff other stores couldn't sell."

posted by boyhowdy | 7:26 PM |

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