Bull Kaka!
Bullshit is rampant in the United States. Nothing is untainted. It's called marketing. We used to call it propaganda and spin-doctoring. No matter what perfume is sprayed on the practice, it’s still bullshit! Bullshit is a lie with just enough grease on it to make it slippery and hard to grasp. I would call it obfuscation, but that’s too grand a word for common bull.
Nine out of ten doctors recommend EasyFart for patients suffering from gas, the ad goes. Even the Hubble telescope can’t see the fine print on the screen that says, “9 out of 10 doctors in Beavercrotch, Alaska,” recommend EasyFart for patients suffering from gas. How about those “runaway” television hits that are canceled midway through the season? It’s called selective editing. The quote taken from the Ticklebush Times actually said, “ . . . the story line in the new reality show, Turds of the Rich and Famous, is a runaway train wreck looking for a place to happen.”
In sports, the marketing mavens call it hyperbole, but don’t believe the hype. It's really bullshit slathered with ballpark mustard. Even the nightly news is supect. Bullshit is why television news is classified as entertainment. That’s right, entertainment! Check it yourself.
This taste for male bovine feces fills vocabularies with euphemisms developed specifically to mislead. For instance, three times in my life I’ve been “laid-off” from work. I now find that only once did that happen to me.
Once, I was “down-sized” and the next time I was “right-sized.” “Downsized” sounds like I got trapped in the ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” movie. The same goes for being “right-sized.” I always thought, I’d look nice at 6’ 3”, but apparently that wasn’t the size they had in mind for me. I never did find out what size they wanted me.
During the Vietnam Conflict soldiers weren’t officially listed as wounded in combat. The diagnosis was “injured as a result of hostile activity.” No bull! I call getting shot in the ass extremely hostile. In fact, I’d probably call it combat, but the United States wasn’t at war during that time. The US presence in Vietnam was officially known as a “police action.” I thought a "police action" is what happened to Rodney King.
Even our doctors get in on the bull. How many times has a doctor told you that “You are going to feel some mild discomfort,” when he should have said, “This is going to hurt like hell.” I was going to take this to its logical conclusion in Washington, D.C., but no sense in beating a dead bull.
I went to the First Annual Black Suicide Bombers meeting in Miami this week. I was shocked to get the invitation, but I was even more surprised to know that such an organization existed. Being a journalist, I packed my bag and headed to Florida. When I got there I discovered the whole thing was a hoax. What really pissed me off is that I should have known better. Black men don’t become suicide bombers, it’s too fatal. That’s why the drive-by was invented. I also knew 47 virgins in heaven would never be enough to recruit any serious candidates, two or three good hoes--maybe. My friend Nate said he wouldn't do it for any less than 100 and he wanted eight delivered immediately.
Franchise Closes Last Store
Henry’s Hot Ham Sandwiches closed its 6th and final store in Israel Tuesday after recording losses of more than a half million dollars. The troubled franchise stumbled from the start, but made a brief comeback when owner/financier Weldon Goodfoot introduced “cracklin’ cornbread and navy beans.” The soulful dish almost saved the franchise until the local residents found out where cracklin' comes from.
Close Shaves
Everyday in the American workplace, there is someone who doesn’t know they are just an arm’s length from a good ass-whipping. I am not a great appreciator of behind the back communication and have a habit of going directly to the people implementing secondary networking without my knowledge. I grew up during racially tense times and confrontation came as natural as walking, and it carried over into everyday living. If I have an issue with you or something that you’re doing, I have no problem bringing my concern to your attention. Similarly, I am used to people coming to me when they take exception to something I do or say. I don’t even mind gathering several people to make sure everyone is informed and hear everything each other has to say. Some people label me “confrontational” and see it as a bad trait. Instead, I prefer to think of it as “truth seeking behavior,” and when seeking the truth it is always best to go to the source or sources to make sure the facts are straight. Otherwise, someone might be inches away from a knockout without being aware of it.
Katrina, Katrina
Wasn’t that a song in the late 70’s? I just bring it up because I was talking to a Katrina victim last week about being displaced. I talked with the man almost an hour before I went home feeling lighter for having assisted someone. Imagine my surprise when I undressed that evening and found that I felt lighter because someone stole my drawers. In my neighborhood, crime has jumped through the roof since Katrina came to visit and now the visitors won’t leave.
Slap-O-Gram
This summer, I will be opening offices across the United States some time in the
summer of 2007. I plan to open Slap-O-Gram offices in Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Chicago and Philadelphia. The premise behind establishing these offices is that some people need to be slapped silly for the stupid things they do and say, like the time Marion Barry, got caught smoking crack. He should have received a Slap-O-Gram. A courier in the bright red Slap-O-Gram uniform should have showed up at his cell the next day and delivered the message. When Marion stepped to the bars, the courier would have leaned back to Mississippi and slapped the shit out of him for being so stupid. So, far my test cases in Dallas have not been able to keep up with the demand. So, be looking for a Slap-O-Gram office near you. Remember, when someone absolutely, positively needs the shit slapped out of them, call Slap-O-Gram.
Where Do You Want Me to Put It?
One of my favorite songs by a group called Solo may now be an anthem for drug side-effects. One side-effect of taking erectile dysfunction drugs like Levitra, Viagra or Cialis might be blindness! The condition, described as a "stroke of the eye," can cause vision loss in one or both eyes. It is caused by insufficient blood flow to the optic nerve head, damaging the nerve and leading to permanent vision loss. It confirms that blood flow to the brain is interrupted during erections. On the hand, it could be fun. Think about it as the adult version of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”Effective E-mail Handling
The following is a public service opinion. Have you ever sent out an e-mail seeking some important information or a signature for an important contract and didn’t receive it with out making multiple telephone calls? In the corporate world, it happens all the time because many decision makers avoid their e-mail because they take time to read.E-Mail Management
A manager’s or director’s e-mail can easily exceed 100 a day. E-mail not acted upon within 36 hours is history and reflects poor management skills. To avoid this, manage your e-mail; don’t let it manage you. For e-mail to be effective, handle it in a timely, accurate and consistent method.
Managers receiving high volume e-mail don’t have time for rambling extended prose or "guess what I found surfing the Internet" pieces. If possible, answer every e-mail within 24 hours. The hardest part of managing e-mail is making the commitment to do it. How others view you as a manager or employee may conform to your e-mail habits.
Employees will categorize you as non-responsive, undependable, lazy, unorganized and even incompetent if they constantly wait for meaningful and timely responses from you. On the other hand, those who respond in a timely and accurate businesslike manner, employees see as competent, helpful and valuable.
How do you know if you are falling behind on your e-mail? If your e-mail inbox contains unopened e-mail after 24 hours, you are an offender. If you have e-mail requiring action and you have not acted upon them in a timely fashion, you are an offender. As an employee or manager, until you finish the paperwork the job is incomplete.
Here are a few simple tips for taming your e-mail. First, e-mail that falls into another person’s expertise--forward it to the correct person. Do not attempt to handle it yourself or you could make the problem worse. Categorize your e-mail as it arrives or when you open it. Just like planning your day, there are A, B and C priority e-mails. “A” priority e-mails demand an immediate response. “B” e-mails usually requires a response or action within a 24-hour period “C” category e-mails, tend to be informational and require no action other than filing. Usually, “A” and “B” category e-mails demand some type of action.
Failure to respond to A and B category e-mails in a timely and accurate fashion reflects poorly upon the manager’s organizational skills and ability to handle more than one task at a time. In addition, these are “gotcha” e-mails that will come back to haunt you if you missed a contract signing date, an employee’s company anniversary or a meeting you needed to attend.
Also, be aware that e-mail seldom dies with the sender or receiver. More than likely copies float to your manager and others. In addition, remember blind copies also go out as verification. Corporate e-mail trails are traceable through the mail server, including date sent, contents, time sent and more.
Writing an e-mail: Take notice of newspaper articles. Newspapers generally put the most important points of a story within the first three sentences. It’s called the inverted pyramid. E-mail should be the same. Put what is important first. Say what you need to say. Don’t dress it up with “corporatese” language. Indicate if action is required and get out. Don’t put the plans for a fighter jet in the e-mail body; make it an attachment. Finally, avoid sending files larger than 1 MB. Large files are network hogs and slow down the retrieval of e-mail for everyone.
Advice for managers: Open your e-mail as soon as possible, prioritize it and then respond. This is not an option. Find time to do it or be perceived as lazy and incompetent. If your e-mail regularly exceeds more than 100 pieces a day, you might want to see if you can get help with that specific portion of your job.
Advice for e-mail senders: Be brief, be exact and be gone. Save your jokes and multi-megabyte vacation files for personal e-mail addresses. By the way, when you have time to send these files, it says you have a lot of time on your hands and need something to do or maybe that the corporation has too many people and could do with one less.
Doctor Bodacious
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