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Archive for the 'How Stupid Can You Get' Category

United Airlines: Unbelievably Stupid

Thursday, June 25th, 2015

It’s amazing to me how just plain stupid some companies are and, worse, maintain that stupidity for years.

United Airlines is a good example.

In 2009 it damaged the Dave Carroll’s guitar. Carroll spent 9 months trying to get United to fix it, which they refused to do.

So Carroll, whose band is Sons of Maxwell, posted “United Breaks Guitars,” a musical video on YouTube.

The video went viral and UAL’s stock dropped 5%.

Six years later the video has garnered 15 million views, 83 thousand Likes, 21 thousand comments and is still being passed around.

You would think they would learn something from that experience.

You would be wrong.

Last month, United personnel once again stuck their foot in it when they first refused to provide hot food to an autistic teen, although they finally relented.

The girl was fine, but the idiot pilot called for an emergency landing, called the paramedics and the cops.

When the officers started to leave, the captain stepped out of the cockpit and said something to them, Beegle said. They then asked her family to leave, she said.

“He said, ‘The captain has asked us to ask you to step off the plane.'” Beegle said. “I said, ‘She didn’t do anything’ … But the captain said he’s not comfortable flying on to Portland with [Juliette] on the plane.”

All of this with the full support of management.

United said its “crew made the best decision for the safety and comfort of all of our customers and elected to divert to Salt Lake City after the situation became disruptive.”

Passengers who witnessed the whole thing and posted videos said it was total bunk.

Of course, what UAL did to this child was far worse than breaking a guitar, but it goes to show their motto is still “the customer is always wrong, no matter what.”

Ducks in a Row: To Die For…

Tuesday, August 19th, 2014

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gidzy/3000682242

Last year I suggested creating the SMIA (Social Media Idiot Award) as a way to honor all those who assist in their own arrests via social media.

But that was then…

Smart phones have enabled great leaps to previously unreached levels of stupidity.

Last month I shared the selfie stupidity exhibited by spectators at the Tour de France.

I now believe the SMIAs have achieved Darwin Award status.

For the innocents among you, Darwins are given posthumously to people for removing themselves from the gene pool, i.e., their death is the result of their own overwhelming stupidity, such as the couple that went past a barrier set up to keep people off the cliff edge at Cabo de Roca and slipped while trying to take a selfie—and did it in front of their kids.

Here are other recent entrants.

Last week a man in Mexico was taking a selfie when he accidentally shot himself in the head. Others have sustained injuries while taking selfies: A man was trampled by a bull in France while trying to take a photo in front of it, and a reporter was nearly hit in the head by a stray baseball while snapping a photo of herself.

Culture and societal norms change.

Starting in the Elizabethan era people longed to be a “nine days’ wonder.”

Since the Sixties people hoped for “15 minutes of fame.”

These days they are willing to die for 15 seconds of social media fame.

Who said “change equals progress?”

Flickr image credit: Gidzy

Can You Explain this Stupidity?

Wednesday, July 16th, 2014

Would you jump in front of an object moving at 30 mph or better to take a selfie?

Would you do it knowing that not only you, but others could be seriously injured or even killed?

That’ what was happening at this year’s Tour de France.

tour-de-france-selfie

What drives people to play this kind of Russian roulette and then brag about it?

I doubt they have a death wish or even consider that they might maim or kill someone else.

Do they have any understanding of cause and effect; action and consequences?

Is it “but me” syndrome?

Is it that they just don’t think?

Can they think?

I honestly don’t understand and would appreciate any insights you might have.

Image credit: Jose Been via Business Insider

Ducks in a Row: Stupidity Kills

Tuesday, March 11th, 2014

In 2012 we looked at how a bad judgment and a toxic, dysfunctional culture killed off the 113-year-old premier law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf.

But having read the latest I have to revise what I said.

In addition to bad judgment, think gross stupidity.

I suppose I should say “alleged,” but the evidence leaves little doubt regarding just how stupid these bosses were.

Consider the smoking emails between Steven Davis, Dewey’s former chairman; Stephen DiCarmine, the firm’s former executive director; Joel Sanders, the former chief financial officer; and Zachary Warren, a former client relations manager.

Four men, who were charged by New York prosecutors on Thursday with orchestrating a nearly four-year scheme to manipulate the firm’s books to keep it afloat during the financial crisis, talked openly in emails about “fake income,” “accounting tricks” and their ability to fool the firm’s “clueless auditor,” the prosecutors said.  (…) One of the men even used the phrase “cooking the books” to describe what they were doing to mislead the firm’s lenders and creditors in setting the stage for a $150 million debt offering…  

And ignorance isn’t a viable excuse for lawyers by any stretch of the imagination.

The global number one rule in our post-Enron world is that you do not write anything in emails that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of your newspaper.

In case you aren’t familiar with them, the Darwin Awards “are cautionary tales about people who kill themselves in really stupid ways, and in doing so, significantly improve the gene pool by eliminating themselves from the human race.”

Perhaps there should be a special award for people who kill companies through acts of excessive stupidity.

stupidity-kills

Image credit: Tombstone Generator

Being Stupid

Monday, February 17th, 2014

stupid-stuff

People who find stupid actions a source of amusement usually focus on celebrities, real or faux, and politicians.

Not me; I focus on the business world.

The first of two standouts this week is AOL, which decided to change the 401K matching plan to save money.

Moreover, CEO Tim Armstrong moved his foot from his mouth to deep in his throat by blaming the needed cost savings on Obamacare and supporting unusual cases like two women with complicated pregnancies.

When the employees screamed and the poop hit the media fan Armstrong and AOL swiftly backpedaled and reinstated the old policy.

A few years ago occasional contributor Matt Weeks wrote about the “startup social contract” and the repercussions when it’s broken.

If the workers and/or the exec team come to disrespect, disbelieve or ignore this social contract, the company is lost.

Although Matt wrote about the contract in terms of startups, it applies to enterprises of all sizes and ages.

While AOL’s actions were ill-advised, Goldman Sachs was just plain stupid, although they were encouraged by the sponsoring student group.

The conference, Women Engineers Code, or WECode, which was organized by an undergraduate student group at Harvard, featured stacks of cosmetic mirrors with the Goldman Sachs logo, a photograph posted to Instagram shows. The Instagram user also said that the bank brought nail files to the event.

One of the attendees wondered if the swag represented “sexyfeminism or gender stereotyping”

I can assure her it didn’t.

To quote a senior manager I’ve known for years, “given the choice between stupidity and malice aforethought the cause is almost always stupidity.”

Flickr image credit: The Columbian

New Award for the Socially Stupid

Wednesday, September 4th, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globalx/3888598346/Are you familiar with the Darwin Awards?

They are given posthumously to people who die as a result of their own overwhelming stupidity for removing themselves from the gene pool. (They are well deserved; if you don’t believe me then read through a few of them.)

However, in these brave new days of social media we need a new award; one that honors stupidity, sans death.

We need an award for all those who through their bragging on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube draw the attention of law enforcement before they can do yet more damage.

The postings document illegal acts that go from mundane to murder.

Social media paved the way for one undercover cop to buy 250 weapons, including guns that could pierce body armor and multiple walls.

The actions are prevalent enough that they warrant a new award.

Call it the IYPITWC (If You Post It They Will Come).

Or maybe DITRA (DIY Rat Out).

Perhaps it could be a Get Into Jail Free Pass.

Wait! I have the perfect name.

The SMIA (Social Media Idiot Award).

Flickr image credit: Global X

Then and Now

Monday, July 15th, 2013

Have you ever noticed how the strangest law suites keep recurring, but updated for the times and technology?

Here’s a great example.

San Francisco 1964

“…a woman who had been involved in a minor cable car mishap sued the City. The only injury she suffered was a purely psychological one: She claimed that the accident had turned her into a nymphomaniac, for which she wanted half a million dollars in compensation. (…) The jury heard the case, kept a straight face, and awarded the nymphomaniac $50,000.”

Fast forward to Nashville, Tennessee 2013, specifically Chris Sevier, a lawyer (naturally) who, through a typo, logged onto f***kbook.com, instead of Facebook.

Poor Chris was so affected by the images that dire consequences followed.

“His failed marriage caused the Plaintiff to experience emotional distress to the point of hospitalization. The Plaintiff could no longer tell the difference between Internet pornography and tangible intercourse due to the content he accessed through the Apple products, which failed to provide him with warnings of the dangers of online pornography whatsoever.”

Seems to me that he must have spent considerable time viewing those images, but, as he explains in his law suite against Apple, it’s not his fault.

“Apple employees know that a man is born full of harmonies and attacked to by women engaging in sexual acts with the intent to cause vicarious arousal.”

He believes that it’s Apple’s responsibility to “sell all its devices in ‘safe mode,’ with software preset to filter out pornographic content,” as well as warn people regarding “the damage pornography causes.”

Ain’t it grand to live in a world where there’s always someone else (with deep pockets) to hold responsible and, best of all, sue?

I just wish Steve was still around; his response would have moved this to a whole new level.

Image credit: Chris Sevier Apple Complaint by Joe Patrice

If the Shoe Fits: Cashing Out

Friday, June 28th, 2013

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_mWho should make money when you finally cash out?

Most commentary I see talks about what investors and founders walk away with, but what about the rest of the team?

In an interview, Steve Blank addresses this in terms of the impact on valuation and cashing out after a large investment and how it affects what founders receive, but not its effect on the team.

If the founders walk away with a few million each after the investors take their 3-5X return, what will be left for your people?

Those are the people who made the company successful enough to be bought in the first place.

Most of you will agree that the great majority of startups will not have exits similar to Facebook or Google.

Knowing that, it is your responsibility to honor the social contract you made with your employees, when they traded their compensation for equity in your startup.

Therefore, it is of paramount importance for founders to never lose sight of the numbers; the more investment you take the lower your team’s return when the company is acquired.

Image credit: HikingArtist

The Lowdown on Voices

Wednesday, May 1st, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aasg/1398431198/If you’re a guy how do you get more promotions and more compensation?

Pitch your voice lower.

Sheesh.

What matters to people never fails to amaze me.

I remember when John Kerry was running for president and there were more comments about his hair than his policies.

It’s bad enough that humans are predisposed to gravitate to attractiveness, but now voice tone is in the same class.

They wanted to find out whether deep voices correlated with success, since prior research has shown that Barry White-like bass is often preferable when it comes to selecting a mate.
A separate Duke study last year also found that voters favor political candidates with deeper voices.

Does a deep voice just open doors or is it more than that?

That benefit proved true even when controlling for a leader’s experience, education, dominant facial features and other variables that might sway decisions of recruiters and compensation committees.

Well, that’s depressing.

Just how big a deal is this?

BIG.

The median CEO, with a  125.5 Hz vocal frequency, earned $3.7 million, ran a $2.4 billion company and was 56 years old.

Not bad, but researchers found that executives with voices on the deeper (that is, lower-frequency) end of the scale earned, on average, $187,000 more in pay and led companies with $440 million more in assets.

(For a reference point, James Earl Ray’s voice is around 85Hz.)

Another question is whether what’s sauce for the gander applies equally to the goose, but there’s no way to answer that one.

Mayew says he would like to assess the voices of women executives as well, but he says there aren’t enough for a statistically meaningful study quite yet. At last count, there were just 21 women CEOs in the Fortune 500.

Welcome to the modern Stone Age world of corporate America.

Flickr image credit: MyAngelG

Irrational Rational Animals

Monday, March 18th, 2013

We human beings are taught that it is rational thought that separates us from other animals—what we aren’t taught is that the ability to think rationally doesn’t necessarily translate to acting rationally.

While irrationality and outright stupidity isn’t new to the modern scene (think PT Barnum’s sucker) social media has certainly opened up new vistas on it.

One expects a certain level of irrational actions from teens, expressed these days by sending nude photos, but if you think adults have more sense think again; a new survey shows one in four adults stores intimate pictures on a mobile (easily hacked) device—which, as an adult, ranks as just plain stupid.

For both irrational and stupid you can’t beat those who turn to Twitter, etc., for investing advice accepting both poster and information at face value.

Startups often cater to irrationality, but they wouldn’t be in business without irrational customers—like the women willing to pay $18 for a box of tampons delivered regularly because they can’t remember to buy them.

Companies aren’t immune, either.

Online stores are trumpeting a service that only 9% of their customers want, paying celebrities for social media endorsements only to have their brand branded with the celebs bad behavior or irrationally deciding the only thing needed to foster an innovation renaissance is mandatory face-time.

However, my all-time favorite (that I’ve found so far) is Dennis Hope, who has earned a legal living since 1980 selling plots on the moon.

(Monday probably isn’t the best day to offer you distracting links, but these were burning a hole in my pocket; shades of Sundays past)

YouTube credit: TheeOscar2013

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