Fraussen Glassen Pickles!
For the second time in my life I attended "First Saturday", in Dallas, Tx
this weekend. "First Saturday" is a kind of techno flea market. Lots of
second hand, over-stocked, but _never_ illegally obtained or illegaly sold
software and hardware piled on tables at nearly a hundred booths. The trick
to getting a good deal at FS is to get there when everyone is setting up
their booths...between Midnight and 6 am. It also helps to show up without
any particular purchases or prices in mind -- the odds are even that you
will or won't find what you want.
I walked away with two blank CDs and stavros@eden.com (who very oddly
doesn't have a single article in this week's issue) walked away empty
handed. We did enjoy two of the finest cups of hot cocoa I've ever
tried, though.
**************************************************************************
In the way of fast food, vending machine consumibles, and general not-real
food stuffs:
I tried the Jimmy Dean version of "Lunchables", last week. The French's
mustard and Fig Newton made it a worth-while purchase, but the sandwiches
was lacking.
If you're a Tabasco(c) lover like myself, then you must try the new Tabsco
Flavored Fritos -- and bring a CCCB (Cold Carbonated Caffeinated Beverage)
along 'cause it gets truly hot!
Despite the fact that I'm in a Spice Holy War with the man, I'd like to ask
my readers for contributions towards a new column called "the KMc Pantry
Review" -- named after the first food reviewer in any WU, Kelly.McCollum@
chronicle.com (see http://www.eden.com/~etrigan/back_issues/wu_6_19_95.html).
Review any new or innovative food stuff you come across and you'll see your
name in lights (very tiny cathode lights) here in the WU.
And since the Spice Holy War is now in the open, what's your thoughts on
which is the better spice Tabasco or Tony Chachere's?
**************************************************************************
[ From our journalist-in-virtual-residence, KMc ]
[ ( Kelly.McCollum@chronicle.com), comes a news ]
[ release from HotWired - the web site for the ]
[ techno-tainment magazine Wired. ]
San Francisco, 27 October 1995 HotWired - the first editorially
independent, ad-supported site on the World Wide Web - announces the
launching of Adrenaline, a new channel dedicated to alternative sports.
Adrenaline boasts the first comprehensive coverage of rock climbing, river
rafting, mountain biking, surfing, and Ultimate Frisbee on the Web.
(Snowboarding and urban sports will be covered in the near future.)
At the heart of Adrenaline is its revolutionary interactive database,
called Core, which delivers up-to-the-minute information on changing trail,
river, surf and weather conditions. Core is updated by its users, offering
the alternative sports community a place to pool its wisdom, and share
tips, tales, advice, and safety information from the field.
To provide true multimedia reportage, Adrenaline has tapped award winning
photographers and videographers to supplement the text with still and
moving images alive with the excitement of these decidedly nonspectator
sports.
With news, first-person features, a Media Watch column, selected links to
other sites and resources on the Web, and Core, Adrenaline is the the most
exciting, engaging, and informative alternative sports coverage available
in any medium.
HotWired is the preeminent news and entertainment cyberstation on the Web
(http://www.hotwired.com/), offering original multimedia content, and
providing an interactive community space for its members. Since its launch
in October 1994, HotWired has attracted approximately 1,000 new members per
day, and recently welcomed its 280,000th member.
For more information, please contact:
Joshua Grossnickle, HotWired Marketing Assistant
+1 (415) 222 6334, or joshua@hotwired.com
**************************************************************************
[ From James "Son'o-Fuschia" (jhathorn@shreveport.promus.com) ]
[ is this review of the movie "To Die For" ]
I gotta tell ya -- Tom Cruise is a lucky guy because just like the title,
Nicole Kidman is "To Die For". If you like black comedies, this is for you.
Nicole is TV-wanna-be Suszane Stone who will use, abuse, and toss anyone and
everyone. The story is seen from several peoples' perspectives and the
editing makes Natural Born Killers look like the MTV piece of crap I thought
is was in the first place. It's not a high profile film, but definitely a
Full Price. Nicole is definitely Oscar material. And the way she says
"James" throughout the movie - OUCH!
**************************************************************************
[ KMc sent this URL to point out a particularly funny but utterly ]
[ tasteless (this means tankboy@eden.com should check it out) NEW ]
[ Dysfunctional Family Circus cartoon. If you've not checked out ]
[ the SpinnWebe home page at http://www.thoughtport.com/spinnwebe ]
[ then you're missing out on one of the coolest web sites around. ]
http://www.thoughtport.com/spinnwebe-cgi-bin/dfc.cgi?cartoon=55&caption=4
**************************************************************************
[ Apparently tankboy@eden.com is trying to shed his "tasteless" ]
[ image from the days when he'd dance around in the night clubs ]
[ showing off his manly hirsute chest dressed in khakis and a ]
[ Tank Girl(c) tank top, so he's only submitting family fare. ]
[ We'll always remember the old tankboy, though we're greatful ]
[ for this stress relieving article. ]
25 Ways to Reduce Stress:
1. Jam miniature marshmallows up your nose and sneeze them out.
See how many you can do at once.
2. Use your Mastercard to pay your Visa and vice-versa.
3. Pop some popcorn without putting the lid on.
4. When someone says "Have a nice day", tell them you have other plans.
5. Make a list of things to do that you've already done.
6. Dance naked in front of your pets.
7. Put your toddler's clothes on backwards and send them off to pre-school
as if nothing is wrong.
8. Fill out your tax forms using Roman Numerals.
9. Tape pictures of your boss on watermelons and launch them from high places.
10. Leaf through "National Geographic" and draw underwear on the natives.
11. Tattoo "out to lunch" on your forehead.
12. Go shopping. Buy everything. Sweat in it. Return it the next day.
13. Buy a subscription of "Sleazoid Weekend" and send it to your boss's wife.
14. Pay your electric bill in pennies.
15. Drive to work in reverse.
16. Find out what a frog in a blender really looks like.
17. Tell your boss to "Blow it out your mule" and let them figure it out.
18. Sit naked on a hard boiled egg.
19. Polish your car with ear wax.
20. Read the dictionary upside down and look for secret messages.
21. Start a nasty rumor and see if you recognize it when it comes back to you.
22. Braid the hairs in each nostril.
23. Write a short story using alphabet soup.
24. Stare at people through the tines of a fork and pretend they're in jail.
25. Make up a language and ask people for directions.
**************************************************************************
[ From the KMc (Kelly.McCollum@chronicle.com) comes a piece that ]
[ was sent to me exactly 2.6 days later by tankboy@eden.com, so ]
[ it must be true. ]
True Story? I have no idea.
True confessions
When Apollo Mission Astronaut Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, he
not only gave his famous "One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for
Mankind" statement, but followed it by several remarks - usual com traffic
between him, the other astronauts and Mission Control. Before he
re-entered the lander, he made the enigmatic remark "Good luck, Mr.
Gorsky."
Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival
Soviet Cosmonaut; however, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the
Russian nor American space programs.
Over the years, many people have questioned him as to what the "Good luck,
Mr. Gorsky" statement meant but Armstrong never provided a clue. On July
5, in Tampa Bay, FL, while answering questions following a speech, a
reporter brought up the 26 year old question to Armstrong. He finally
responded. It seems that Mr. Gorsky had died and so Armstrong felt he
could finally answer the question without harm to anyone. When he was a
kid, Neil was playing baseball with his brother in the backyard. His
brother hit a fly ball which landed in front of his neighbors' bedroom
window. The neighbors were Mr and Mrs. Gorksy. As he leaned down to pick
up the ball, he heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky, "Oral sex? Oral
sex you want? You'll get oral sex when the kid next door walks on the
moon!"
**************************************************************************
[ An excerpt of "weekend ramblings" from the good doctor ]
[ (mjankows@beta.centenary.edu), we still haven't heard ]
[ from his brother, the recently married future Papa ]
[ Hemingway, but we are sure it's due to marital bliss, ]
[ and not the ball and chain. (Missy's gonna kill me ]
[ for that one. -- Hi Missy! :) ) ]
Man, i have never realized it before, but any beer is a good one when it
shared in the company of great friends. This was another weekend of
bliss. One of the highlights had to be watching Clerks for the first
time. The damn theatre isn't showing Mallrats at night any more. I'll
see you at T-giving if not before. If any of you haven't seen Clerks, I
highly recommend it. If you have and totally fell in love with Jay and
Silent Bob (Hey Silent Bob, we're going to go out and smoke up some weed,
drink some beer and get some women. YEAH) as did I, go see Mallrats. It
is just as entertaining and has that cool Shannen Dougherty chick in it.
"I'm not gonna lie I'm just leeching off my bitch,
I mean you can get a pot to piss in and a roof over your head,
Sometime that's better than money in the bank,"
the doctor
**************************************************************************
[ And in the "How-To / Helpful Hints" department, columnist KMc ]
[ (Kelly.McCollum@chronicle.com) sends a great "How To" for you ]
[ folks without true network access. ]
It just occurred to me that some of your readers may be
trapped in the semi-wired hell of a dial-up shell account.
(Imagine being blind and deaf to the delightful images and
sounds that fill the WU home page!). Somebody at GW has a
great guide to using Slip emulators, including Twinsock, which
I've been using for a while quite successfully.
It's basically two programs - one that runs on your Unix shell
account and one that runs in Windows on your home PC - that
work together and simulate a real Internet connection. It's
not quite as reliable as a true connection though, so it's
likely to crash if you keep interrupting page loads by pushing
stop or back buttons. But I've never had a problem as long as
I let pages finish loading.
This page:
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~phreak/twinsock.html
has step by step instructions for getting the program,
compiling the Unix code and running it. I managed to do it
having never compiled a program in my life.
Netscape works fine with it and I assume other Windows
Internet apps (other than mail and news programs) should work
too.
Guaranteed to make a blind man see.
**************************************************************************
[ I thought I had run this article before, but since I can't ]
[ find it anyhwere else, I'll give the still un-wired "Coquette" ]
[ credit for "You might be a High Tech Redneck If..." ]
How to tell if you might be a "high tech redneck"
(source unknown)
If your e-mail address ends in ".over.yonder.com".
If you connect to the World Wide Web via a "Down Home Page".
If the bumper sticker on your truck says "My other computer is a laptop".
If your laptop has a sticker that says "Protected by Smith and Wesson".
If you've ever doubled the value of your truck by installing a cellular phone.
If your baseball cap read "DEC" instead of "CAT".
If your computer is worth more than all your cars combined.
If your wife said "either she or the computer had to go"
...and you still don't miss her.
If you've ever used a CD-ROM as a coaster to set your beer on.
If you ever refer to your computer as "Ole Bessy".
If your screen saver is a bitmap image of your favorite truck, tractor, or
farm animal.
If you start all your e-mails with the words "Howdy y'all".
**************************************************************************
[ And while we're dealing with "Coquette", here's another of ]
[ her obligitory jokes for this week. ]
Public Broadcasting...
A TYPICAL DAILY PBS SCHEDULE IF THE PUBLIC BROADCASTING
LEADERS CAVE IN TO REPUBLICAN PRESSURE
8:00 am Morning Stretch: Arnold Schwarzenegger does squats while
reciting passages of "Atlas Shrugged."
9:00 am Mr. Rogers' Segregated Neighborhood: King Friday sings
"Elitism is neat." The House Un-American Activities investigation of
Mr. McFeely continues. Mr. Rogers explains why certain kids can't be
his neighbor.
10:00 am Sesame Street: Jerry Falwell teaches Big Bird to be more
judgemental. Oscar the Grouch plays substitute for Rush Limbaugh.
Bert and Ernie are kicked out of the military. Jesse Helms bleaches all
he Muppets white.
11:00 am Square One: A MathNet episode "Ernest Does Trickle-Down."
Jim Varney explains how cutting taxes for the rich and spending more on
defense will balance the budget.
Noon Washington Week in Review: Special guest Senator Bob Dole,
explaining why the current pension crisis, budget deficit, bank
closings, farm foreclosures, S & L bailouts, inflation, recession, job
loss, and trade deficit can all be blamed on someone else.
1:00 pm Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? Guest detective Pat
Buchanan helps kids build a wall around the U.S.
2:00 pm William F. Buckley's Firing Line: Guests George Will, Rush
Limbaugh, John Sununu, Pat Buchanan, James Kilpatrick, Mona Charen, G.
Gordon Liddy, Robert Novak, Bay Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Joseph Sobran,
Paul Harvey, Phyllis Schafly, Maureen Reagan, and John McLaughlin
bemoan the need for more conservative media voices.
3:00 pm Nature: Join James Watt and Charlton Heston as they use
machine guns to bag endangered species.
4:00 pm NOVA: "Creationism: Discredited, but what the hell?"
5:00 pm Newt Gingrich News Hour: Clarence Thomas and Bob Packwood
present in-depth personal reports on sexual harassment. Pat Buchanan
says he is being shut out from national exposure.
6:00 pm Mystery Theater: Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, and Sherlock
Holmes team up to investigate Whitewater.
7:00 pm Great Performances: Pat Buchanan is a guest conductor of
Wagner's "Prelude to a Cultural War."
8:00 pm Masterpiece Theater: Ibsen's "A Doll's House." Phyllis
Schafly adds to this classic with an added scene where Nora gladly
gives up her independence while her husband chains her to the stove.
9:30 pm Washington Week in Review: Guests George Will, Rush Limbaugh,
John Sununu, Pat Buchanan, James Kilpatrick, Mona Charen, G. Gordon
Liddy, Robert Novak, Bay Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Joseph Sobran, Paul
Harvey, Phyllis Schafly, Maureen Reagan, and John McLaughlin discuss
liberal media bias.
10:00 pm Adam Smith's Money World: How to Profit from Ozone Depletion
10:30 pm Nightly Business Report: Wall Street celebrates the end of
all laws regarding antitrust, consumer protection, work-place safety,
environmental protection, minimum wage and child labor.
11:00 pm Insights of Dan Quayle
11:01 pm Sign-Off
**************************************************************************
[ Another hilarious, but uncharecteristically tasteful ]
[ piece from tankboy@eden.com. ]
An MIT student spent an entire summer going to the Harvard
football field every day wearing a black and white striped shirt,
walking up and down the field for ten or fifteen minutes throwing birdseed
all over the field, blowing a whistle and then walking off the field. At
the end of the summer, it came time for the first Harvard home football
game, the referee walked onto the field and blew the whistle, and the game had
to be delayed for a half hour to wait for the birds to get off of the
field. The guy wrote his thesis on this, and graduated.
**************************************************************************
As usual I've left the long articles for the end of the WU. If you're
not man enough to finish these insightful pieces sent in by the "just
missed him" Alex (arosen@seas.gwu.edu) and the Mickster (milky@rt66.com),
respectively, then you must be a woman who's curious to know the truth
about "Genreation X" and "(In)Sincerity".
**************************************************************************
Johnny,
I think this article is the single most accurate essay on me and mine
that I have ever read. I thought it (possibly edited) shuold end up on
the WU if it hasen't shone up there already.
Alex
Don't call me "Generation X,"
call me a child of the eighties
by Bryant Adkins
published in The Reflector
January 20, 1995
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a child of the eighties. That is what I prefer to be called. The
nineties can do without me. Grunge isn't here to stay, fashion is
fickle and "Generation X" is a myth created by some over-40 writer
trying to figure out why people wear flannel in the summer. When I got
home from school, I played with my Atari 2600. I spent hours playing
Pitfall or Combat or Breakout or Dodge'em Cars or Frogger. I never did
beat Asteroids. Then I watched "Scooby Doo." Daphne was a Goddess, and I
thought Shaggy was smoking something synthetic in the back of their
psychedelic van. I hated Scrappy.
I would sleep over at friends' houses on the weekends. We played army
with G.I. Joe figures, and I set up galactic wars between Autobots and
Decepticons. We stayed up half the night throwing marshmallows and
Velveeta at one another. We never beat the Rubik's Cube.
I got up on Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. to watch bad Hanna-Barbera
cartoons like "The Snorks," "Jabberjaw," "Captain Caveman," and "Space
Ghost." In between I would watch "School House Rock." ("Conjunction
junction, what's your function?")
On weeknights Daisy Duke was my future wife. I was going to own the
General Lee and shoot dynamite arrows out the back. Why did they weld
the doors shut? At the movies the Nerds got Revenge on the Alpha Betas
by teaming up with the Omega Mus. I watched Indiana Jones save the Ark
of the Covenant, and wondered what Yoda meant when he said, "No, there
is another."
Ronald Reagan was cool. Gorbachev was the guy who built a McDonalds in
Moscow. My family took summer vacations to the Gulf of Mexico and
collected "Muppet Movie" glasses along the way. (We had the whole set.)
My brother and I fought in the back seat. At the hotel we found creative
uses for Connect Four pieces like throwing them in that big air
conditioning unit.
I listened to John COUGAR Mellencamp sing about Little Pink Houses for
Jack and Diane. I was bewildered by Boy George and the colors of his
dreams, red, gold, and green. MTV played videos. Nickelodeon played "You
Can't Do That on Television" and "Dangermouse." Cor! HBO showed Mike
Tyson pummel everybody except Robin Givens, the bad actress from "Head
of the Class" who took all Mike's cashflow.
I drank Dr. Pepper. "I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper, wouldn't you like
to be a Pepper, too?" Shasta was for losers. TAB was a laboratory
accident. Capri Sun was a social statement. Orange juice wasn't just for
breakfast anymore, and bacon had to move over for something meatier.
My mom put a thousand Little Debbie Snack Cakes in my Charlie Brown
lunch box, and filled my Snoopy Thermos with grape Kool-Aid. I would
never eat the snack cakes, though. Did anyone? I got two thousand cheese
and cracker snack packs, and I ate those.
I went to school and had recess. I went to the same classes everyday.
Some weird guy from the eighth grade always won the science fair with
the working hydro-electric plant that leaked on my project about music
and plants. They just loved Beethoven.
Field day was bigger than Christmas, but it always managed to rain
just enough to make everybody miserable before they fell over in the
three-legged race. Where did all those panty hose come from? "Deck the
Halls with Gasoline, fa la la la la la la la la," was just a song.
Burping was cool. Rubber band fights were cooler. A substitute teacher
was a baby sitter/marked woman. Nobody deserved that.
I went to Cub Scouts. I got my arrow-of-light, but never managed to
win the Pinewood Derby. I got almost every skill award but don't
remember ever doing anything.
The world stopped when the Challenger exploded.
Did a teacher come in and tell your class?
Half of your friends' parents got divorced.
People did not just say no to drugs.
AIDS started, but you knew more people who had a grandparent die from cancer.
Somebody in your school died before they graduated.
When you put all this stuff together, you have my childhood. If this
stuff sounds familiar, then I bet you are one, too.
We are children of the eighties. That is what I prefer "they" call it.
**************************************************************************
I found the following article rather amusing, and thought that you might
enjoy it. Please feel free to take excerpts and insert them into a WU. It
can be found at the groovy cool FORTUNE magazine site at
http://pathfinder.com/@@KmQeA2HtUgMAQMBK/fortune/magazine/1995/951113/whileyouwereout.html.
I have no idea why the URL is so ugly. From what I can tell, FORTUNE is
offering up-to-the-minute issues of their entire magazine free at their Web
site. I assume, being the greedy capitalists they are, that the editors will
offer free issues of the mag only until the time they believe they can get a
sufficient number of people to actually pay for it.
See ya,
Mickey "Warrior of the wild, Western Wasteland" Ray
ARE YOU A MASTER OF (IN)SINCERITY?
If not, get with the program. Only losers show their true feelings in
business. Test your bogus-sincerity quotient. Take our quiz.
STANLEY BING
Oh, Lord. Zukofsky's going to tell us what he really thinks again. Problem
is, he's not lying. "Honestly," he says, and I know we're in for it. We
need a lot less truth around here. And a lot more rock & roll. I'm going to
arrange my face and think about a couple of things. The arranging of face
is all important. There. It's on. Let's continue.
The complete business person must have at his or her disposal a panoply of
talents, among them a solid handshake, a good grounding in mathematics, a
mammoth capacity to assimilate and retain information, the ability to get
by on less than six hours of sleep, a stomach capable of handling food and
drink of uncertain quantity and quality, an even temper, and the
willingness to lead when called upon to do so, to follow cheerfully when
appropriate, and to get out of the way when necessary.
And yet these characteristics, if properly employed, are merely enough to
land you in the middle-lower regions of subsenior management. For those who
wish to leave hardtack and water behind, a still more important gift is
called for--one that truly separates the men and women from the boys and
girls. It is, quite simply, the ability to appear sincere in situations
that require but do not merit it.
This capacity for feigned sincerity--which might be squinted at in any
occupation but business--is absolutely essential for those who need to
control the situations in which daily activity puts them. Control, that's
it. The heavy hitters have it. Losers don't. They're the ones you see with
their true feelings dripping down their faces. Do you want to be one of
them? Of course not.
To test your bogus-sincerity quotient, I've devised a little
multiple-choice quiz. Each correct reply will qualify you to move to the
next and more important level.
Compulsory acquiescence. You have been invited to "grab a bite" with Mr.
Burgess at his favorite lunch spot, the one where they know his name and
keep a jar of his favorite mustard on hand. (If you are in L.A., replace
"mustard" with "octopus roe.") As you chomp down on your sandwich, you
realize that the liverwurst, which he promised was the "best in the city,"
is, in fact, fetid. You cannot eat it. Instead you: (a) eat it; (b) push it
around on your plate until it is a molecularly disassociated mass, doing
your best to disregard the look of hurt disappointment on Burgess's
sensitive face; (c) call the waiter over and curtly exchange it for
something better; (d) wait for Burgess to go to the restroom, and then roll
the gelatinous luncheon meat into your napkin, which you then thrust into
the bottom of your briefcase. When he comes back you say nothing about the
meal, but on the way out you make sure he sees you picking up one of the
establishment's business cards.
The answer? Well, if you're stupid, you chose (a). Less adroit sincerity
managers will opt for (b) and (c). But if you selected (d), good show. You
have neither debased yourself nor wounded your valued companion, and may
move on to...
Noble weaseling. Immediately following a screening of the new corporate
videotape--which rots--you find yourself sitting in the boardroom with
Vreeland, its producer, several vicious members of the highly competitive
marketing squad, none of whom know which way to go on it, and Walt, who, as
CEO, starred in much of it. Somebody asks you what you think of it. You:
(a) blurt, "It was great!" like Tony the Tiger; (b) chirp, "That's the best
actualization of a great concept since Euro Disney!" and get a tremendous,
eye-watering laugh at Vreeland's expense; (c) say, "Honestly? I hated it.
It stunk. I think we can do much better. I think if we can't, we'd all
pretty much better hang it up"; (d) scratch your chin thoughtfully, put
your feet up on the table, and say, "It had some good moments, but I'm not
sure Walt's vision is coming through as loud and clear as we need it to
every second. Should we take a look at it a little before we send it out?"
after which you are given the assignment of tweaking just a few minor
points, a position from which you can indefinitely delay the whole thing
until everybody forgets about it.
The answer, of course, is (d), which leaves the project mortally wounded
without hurting anyone's pride or reputation in a public forum. Very nice
work. You're now promoted to...
Bogus frankness (a.k.a. superficial candor). You are in Dallas at a large
hotel, enjoying your company's annual gathering of yowling bozos. There are
lots of meetings and overhead presentations, but the true purpose of the
thing was best expressed the evening before, when the president of the ball
bearing division got loose and danced around playing air guitar with his
tie around his forehead. The next day at the indoor pool, you run into
Spano, a line manager somewhere in the Great Northwest, who, you happen to
know, is slated for extinction in the next round of excellence-mongering.
There is nothing he can do to save his hide. Whatever mustard was expected
of him he just has not cut to date, and he's had ample chance. "Dude!" he
says, with that false jollity that only the doomed can summon. "I have a
meeting with Walt next week, and I'd like your thoughts on how I should
handle it." You: (a) compliment him on his new, slicked-back hair, which
you tell him looks "real Gordon Gecko," and get away from him as fast as
you can; (b) tell him to "bring a suit of armor and a flame thrower," then
laugh hysterically, slap him on the back like a tire salesman, and get away
from him as fast as you can; (c) level with him about his situation, tell
him about several outplacement firms that may be able to help him, then get
away from him as fast as you can; (d) draw him into a quiet corner
and--while denying any specific knowledge of his situation--talk a little
strategy. After 15 minutes of this hooey, you claim you've got a tee-off
with a couple of guys that you really can't miss and get away from the guy
as fast as you can. After all, he's dead meat.
You chose (d), naturally. It's not particularly truthful, but it's skillful
and you like it. That's because you're ready for...
Lying right into people's faces. You're the top guy in your corner of the
organization. Once a month, you must attend a staff meeting with your
peers, each of whom is a bloated egomaniac whose power is as great as yours
and who has no responsibility to listen to anything you say. You are
sitting at the conference table waiting for the chairman to arrive, and
suddenly you realize that every single guy there hates the other guys'
guts.
You are startled by this revelation, which you find somewhat shocking and
unpleasant. You: (a) go around the room squeezing people's shoulders and
yelling, "How the hell are ya?"; (b) retreat into a shell and try to deal
with your feelings of animus and self-revulsion, sinking ever deeper into
yourself until you are little more than a metaphysical grease spot on your
chair; (c) get a little snarky with Fahringer, who's always gotten under
your skin, needling him about an idiotic profile that recently appeared
about him in Vegetable Week, a key industry trade journal; (d) smile, drink
coffee, and talk about golf.
Do I have to tell you? Of course I don't. And congratulations. With this
enormous bolt of pure false sincerity, you've proven that you're ready to
party hearty at the big table. May you never change! Because the only
alternative is the ultimate form of executive sincerity:
Cruelty. You're the head cheese. Your team has just played its heart out
but lost to the Seattle Mariners in the fifth exciting game. You're
disappointed, of course, but you visit the locker room anyhow. Most upset
is the team manager, a young man who has worked very hard and who later
says his grief at the loss of the series is surpassed only by his sorrow at
his father's death. To deal with this fellow, you: (a) talk to everyone in
the clubhouse but him; (b) pat him on the back as you walk by him out of
the room and mutter something like "Pull yourself together"; (c) publicly
state your admiration of the manager of the opposing team while expressing
the opinion to one and all that your team should have done better, given
how highly you pay them; (d) refuse to clarify the future of your guy, who
has been with the organization for 14 years.
The answer, if you're the Boss, is (e) all of the above. I know I didn't
offer it. It was a trick question.
Who needs such honesty! Do you want your peers saying what they actually
think of your performance at a budget review? Do you want your
subordinate's real opinion of your new haircut? And do I really want to
hear another unvarnished word from Zukofsky at this time?
No, I do not. I've heard enough. Real unmodulated thoughts and feelings
have no place in business. They're exhausting and take up way too much
personal space. The effort to produce false sincerity among a group of
people is a binding covenant, a commitment to keep things civilized. Beyond
its pale lies gratuitous truth, which quite often cannot be managed.
But do I stand up and wave my yellow pad around, honk and bleat and share
my deep and abiding conviction that I'd rather take a sharp stick in the
eye than stay in this room one minute longer? Not at all. I believe I'll
just tell this friendly group that it's been a great meeting but I
unfortunately have a conference call I just can't miss. They won't believe
my lie, but they'll appreciate the effort it took to make it. And that's
how I like it.
I don't want anybody around here saying I don't give 110%.
By day, Stanley Bing is a real executive at a real FORTUNE 500 company he'd
rather not name.