“Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell?”                                                                                                   – Snow White

Have you ever worked for a moron? Thief? Leech? Welcome to the club. If your company is dead there was a stinker somewhere, maybe even a full-blown level 5 toxic environment. Here’s the Seven Dwarfs Standard, developed when I had the misfortune of working for all of them at once. See which fairy tale character you worked for.

Happy: Optimistic beyond reason, only pays attention to good news. Blissfully unaware.

Nosy: Wants to know all the gossip. Calls meetings to brainstorm what other gossip-worthy things might be happening.

Stinky: Always kissing ass, will follow any order no matter how destructive it is.

Sleazy: Sells anything to anyone whether the customer needs it or not. Dodges phone calls from irate clients.

Bossy: Arrogant and derogatory. Doesn’t want anyone else’s opinion. Is often wrong.

Snoozy: Oblivious but pleasant. Employees envy him because they want to be like him.

Piggy: Power hungry, fills up at the expense of co-workers. Sucks the corporate teat until it’s dry.

How it works

The Seven Dwarfs dynamic is predictable. It goes like this.

1. Bossy: “The economy isn’t soft. That’s a bunch of crap. We’re going to build a huge office complex and Snoozy, you find out how to finance it.”

2. Nosy corners Bossy and asks who will be in charge. He then spends speeds through the office telling everyone and talking about why Bossy is an idiot for making his choice.

3. Sleazy goes to Salesforce.com and figures out who he can sucker into renting space in the new complex at a ridiculous rate.

4. Happy emails everyone the news, complete with smiley emoticons. Ignores the absurdity of the idea.

5. Piggy takes credit for the idea and schedules a boondoggle to Costa Rica and Riyad to check out similar complexes.

6. Stinky comes to Bossy’s office and tells him repeatedly what a great idea this is.

7. Nothing ever happens because Snoozy goes back to watching YouTube.

Repeat.

OK, which ones did you work for?

Post from: The Dead Company Club The Dead Company Club is a hobby of the writers at Sundance Research. Sometimes they just need to write about their own stuff.

Fairy Tale Bosses

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“Life’s not fair, is it.” James Earl Jones in The Lion King

2008 was a bad year for Lehman Brothers. It was also the last year for them. Their bankruptcy has been blamed for causing the entire recession and/or depression (your choice), making them the first domino of the worldwide financial crisis.

Who Pushed The Domino?

If Lehman was so central to the US financial system, why was the firm left to die? In the triage of bailout they were tagged as “too small and sound to save,” according to The Spoof, a news site specializing in satire and parody. It’s fiction but my enemies tell me that many a true word has been said in jest.

Overall Business Practices Were Too Sound

“Negotiations broke down between Lehman Brother representatives and that of the feds for a federal bailout when the accounting books disclosed that Lehman Bothers did not qualify under the Bush’s “Too Big to Fail” economic doctrine because their capital to debt ratio was too small and their overall business practices to sound.”

“It’s a race to the bottom”

It goes on to say:

“Rogers [CEO of a multinational bank] advises other CEO not to let on that they are in the market for bad loans, or worse yet, financially sound. As now days, it is considered a sign of weakness.

“Tell me how a financially sound institution is supposed to compete with unsound business practices that get rewarded with bailouts from the federal government,” rhetorically asked Rogers. “It’s a race to the bottom and it’s on.”

Work until You’re 90

While I don’t believe Lehman was singularly responsible for starting the financial crisis, should they have been bailed out? Should any of the other financial services bailouts have happened? Did these bailouts actually save any jobs? Or did they just guarantee that we’ll be working into our 90’s in order to pay back the national debt?

Would a bailout have let your company recover or should management have been forced to make tough business decisions to adapt to the economic conditions?

Laurie Phillips never really applied her degree in economics until this past year and now she wishes she had majored in art history. She writes for Sundance Research when she’s not pondering the economy’s effect on people.

Post from: The Dead Company Club The Dead Company Club is a hobby of the writers at Sundance Research. Sometimes they just need to write about their own stuff.

Was Lehman too small to save?

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Dear Sirs:

Thank you for your recent job offer. You’ll enjoy my direct, no-nonsense approach to my work beginning right now. My experience with my previous employer’s collapse compels me to ask a few quick questions about your business to qualify your offer.

1. Is your accounting department encouraged to be “creative?”

2. Have you stolen company or client funds in the last 24 months? How about the last 48 months?

3. Are you shorting your own stock? This is similar to short-sheeting your employees.

If your company folds – highly unlikely I’m sure – or is acquired on the cheap by a hostile competitor with a bad attitude toward redundant employees, I’ll need some assurances.  I’d like to have a prenuptial agreement of sorts to cover the situations I’ve experienced when my former employer failed. The agreement should include:

1. Health Insurance: You will pay all health insurance premiums and out of pocket costs if you leave me stranded. Let’s face it: COBRA is a little silly. If I took the job for the benefits, how am I going to pay for the benefits if I lose the job?

2. College Expenses: College costs are covered for all children conceived during my employment, as well as future children where I fantasized about the conception process while I was employed.

3. Ex-Employee Assistance Program: Therapy – for me, the family and pets – is provided for life.

4. Standard of Living Clause: I will have unlimited, paid use of the corporate credit card for 12 months after I lose my job. Studies prove its unproductive to buy groceries using Monopoly money.

5. Sociopath Prevention: Through the corporate travel agency, you will guarantee an all-expense-paid vacation as part of the severance package.  It’ll help keep me from planning retaliation.

It’s risky to take a corporate job right now. Since I’m a little gun-shy, a little more salary might sweeten the pot. Another 25% should do it.

I look forward to your reply and updated offer.

Sincerely,

Impish O’Flannagan

P.S. Please CC: my attorneys, Ketchum, Guttim and Eatem, on your response.

Post from: The Dead Company Club The Dead Company Club is a hobby of the writers at Sundance Research. Sometimes they just need to write about their own stuff.

Job counteroffer? Why not?

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“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”     Oscar Wilde

In case you weren’t sure, the neighbors are buzzing about you. Your company is gone and they know it. While you’d like to pretend nothing happened to you, face it. Your job is gone. The neighbors want to know what happened to you so they can gossip with authority. So go ahead – give them something to talk about.

Tell them you are:

And your company:

Or you are part of a corporate study on:

Finally, if you want to be perfectly clear, you can tell them the traditional answers. You were:

Ultimately your neighbors want to know enough to gossip about how much your self-esteem has been crushed. And the answer to that, my friend, is up to you.

Laurie Phillips is a business writer who has found the term “freelancing” very effective in deflecting nosy acquaintances. Read more about her “freelancing” here.

Post from: The Dead Company Club The Dead Company Club is a hobby of the writers at Sundance Research. Sometimes they just need to write about their own stuff.

Gossip Zappers

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• Watch birds while everyone else is at work. Helicopters and falling leaves count as birds in a pinch. If you’re still on your pot, here’s an alternative Bird Watching 101.
• Visit the local tourist attractions. Ask for the senior citizen price.
• Apply for social security stating that you were a dependent of a deceased company.
• Have lunch at an outdoor cafe. Order a house salad and water. Eat all the crackers and sugar. Leave an IOU for a tip.
• Take up kick boxing. Offer to teach the class in order to get in for free. Look for fitness instructor attire in the lost-and-found. Mutter about your irresponsible kids, real or imaginary, while you’re doing it.
• Plant a garden (spring), shoot the rabbits eating the garden (summer), eat the pumpkins and zucchini that rabbits don’t like for good reason (fall), shoot the birds once you tire of watching them (winter).
• Go to the golf course on demo days and hit balls at the range while testing clubs. When it becomes obvious what you’re doing, tell the sales rep that you have to go get your wallet and bolt.
• Wear a short-sleeved shirt to the mall. Sit on the edge of the fountain and fish out coins when no one is looking. Buy a Cinnabun when you’re flush.

Your source of part-time income

Post from: The Dead Company Club The Dead Company Club is a hobby of the writers at Sundance Research. Sometimes they just need to write about their own stuff.

Instructions For The Newly Unemployed

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• Use only exclamations or questions. If you’re writing, repeat punctuation marks. It’s OK to switch back and forth or just focus on one mode at a time. For instance:

OK: “WTF! How did this happen? Dammit! What am I supposed to do now? Pisser!”

ALSO OK: “What???? You want what for Valentines Day? Do you know what just happened to my job? Do I look like Daddy Warbucks???

• Curse. Profanity is expected and doesn’t count as cursing if you were just laid off. Once you’re re-employed, follow the rules for interview grammar (How to Talk, Part Two). Exception: Do not add extra words after “God” while in church. However, you’ll probably be in the All-Question mode there anyway.

In case you haven’t littered your professional conversations before, there are very versatile curse words available. Here is an excellent tutorial on the many ways you can use the F-bomb in everyday speech.

• Jam your sentences with repetitive adjectives and adverbs, ignoring William Zinsser’s otherwise excellent advice in On Writing Well. For example:

OK WITH ZINSSER BUT NOT OK WITH US: The company fired everyone.

OK: The moronic idiots running that confederacy of dunces murdered, dissected and dined on their own. (No offense meant to John Kennedy Toole.)

I can’t overemphasize this last rule. You must apply adjectives and adverbs liberally right now. If you repress, you regress.

• Talk like a pirate on occasion. You might be able to add another language to your resume if you keep at it. Some examples of how to make the transformation:

  THE OLD AND BORING WAY:  “I’ll go apply for that [insert undesirable job here] job as soon as I’ve finished my coffee.”

  THE PIRATE WAY: “Aye aye! (low growl)”

  I was very well prepared for National Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19th each year). Since I’m not a very convincing pirate, I’ll leave it to the experts to share their advice.

  Call your friends, sorta-friends from work, or mere former business associates and practice your new lingo. This is not only normal: it’s also proof that only the company died: you didn’t. Now go say three “shits” and two F-bombs and you’ll be well.

  Post from: The Dead Company Club The Dead Company Club is a hobby of the writers at Sundance Research. Sometimes they just need to write about their own stuff.
  
  How To Talk, Part One

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  ]]> http://www.deadcompanyclub.com/2009/02/20/how-to-talk-part-one/feed/ 1 http://www.deadcompanyclub.com/2009/02/19/repeated-failure-lands-a-job/ http://www.deadcompanyclub.com/2009/02/19/repeated-failure-lands-a-job/#comments Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:47:22 +0000 Impish http://www.deadcompanyclub.com/?p=29 Post from: The Dead Company Club The Dead Company Club is a hobby of the writers at Sundance Research. Sometimes they just need to write about their own stuff.
  
  Repeated Failure Lands A Job
  ]]> To the Editors
  The Dead Company Club

  Dear Sirs:

  Please consider me to be a writer for your blog. I am perfect for the job. Here’s why.

  1. I was a corporate chameleon at a company that was the icon of its industry when it was suddenly shut down by the SEC and Department of Injustice. Almost 90,000 people lost their jobs. The media’s flamethrowers quickly wiped out any dignity that remained. Many people, both within and outside the company, suffered crushing financial losses. My primary responsibility was to develop enough flexibility to kiss my ass goodbye without muscle strain. I also developed a great rapport with the IRS.

  2. My rebound job was with a hedge fund that did very well for its clients by timing the market. When Eliot “I Don’t Have To Be Ethical But You Do” Spitzer got out of bed and decided market timing was wrong, my primary responsibility became making copies of records for the SEC before the company vanished.

  3. After my career bounced along the bottom for a few years, I finally got a respectable position with a major financial institution who should’ve known better than to hire me. Within a year their stock price went from $60 to $0.94 before being swallowed by a healthier financial giant.

  At that point I had a moment of clarity and realized I should be focused on what I’m really good at, which is sharing my experience with others whose companies have died. I’ve found out it’s not all that bad, really.

  I hope you will consider me for a position there. Companies are dying everywhere, my experience is becoming commonplace, and I can’t get work anywhere else.

  Sincerely,
  Impish O’Flannagan

  ———

  Dear Impish,

  You have the job. You can start on Monday.

  The Editors
  The Dead Company Club

  Post from: The Dead Company Club The Dead Company Club is a hobby of the writers at Sundance Research. Sometimes they just need to write about their own stuff.
  
  Repeated Failure Lands A Job

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  ]]> http://www.deadcompanyclub.com/2009/02/19/repeated-failure-lands-a-job/feed/ 0 http://www.deadcompanyclub.com/2009/02/17/eulogy-to-a-dead-company/ http://www.deadcompanyclub.com/2009/02/17/eulogy-to-a-dead-company/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:19:02 +0000 Laurie Phillips http://www.deadcompanyclub.com/?p=14 Post from: The Dead Company Club The Dead Company Club is a hobby of the writers at Sundance Research. Sometimes they just need to write about their own stuff.
  
  Eulogy to A Dead Company
  ]]> ODE TO THAT WHICH IS NO MO’

  The winds of change have mustered strength and slammed us from high above,
  They’ve swept the land of all we knew, life changed with a mighty shove.

  A top company gone, best of the best, we scratch our heads – much puzzled,
  Wanting to rant, blame and curse and yet we still feel muzzled.

  Where have you gone, you days of yore, when money flowed like water?
  When anything was possible, competitors were simply fodder.

  Expense accounts? Hell, no one cared, we’d simply charge the client.
  No task too hard, we had the staff, no need for self-reliance.

  Travel, oh travel, the horrors it brought, time wasted on the ramp.
  The only solace was First Class, Grey Goose making dry mouths damp.

  Wall Street called, we’d answer them telling stories of glory coming.
  The analysts loved us. Markets marched to our hollow drumming.

  The balance sheet, the P & L, no finer works of fiction.
  But all was well, we’d make it right. Next quarter would beat predictions.

  Accounting, Sales, Executives, Production, yes, and Legal,
  All were doing rather well. Net worth soared like the eagle.

  But now the wind has flattened us, swept away our golden glow.
  We’re lost , adrift, left pining for that which is no mo’.

  Post from: The Dead Company Club The Dead Company Club is a hobby of the writers at Sundance Research. Sometimes they just need to write about their own stuff.
  
  Eulogy to A Dead Company

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