Company Phasing Out Raises in Lieu of Tawdry Motivational Trinkets

Riverside, CA – Allegiant Holdings CEO Maxwell Gustafsen announced today that the company is eschewing raises, bonuses, and other monetary compensation in favor of “personalized motivational awards” which, he states, would “resonate” with the employees on a deeper level.

“Driven by ever increasing competition and mounting operational expenses, we feel that these measures are imperative to remaining solvent and viable”, Gustafsen stated in a message on the company’s intranet.

“Oh, look”, Account Professional Lydia Gleeson stated sarcastically pointing to a mouse pad bearing the inscription: “You Rock!” in glitter.  “It’s my four year anniversary, and this is what I get.  Last year it was a paltry two percent raise, but still”.

“There goes my gym membership I guess”, she said, shaking her head.

Other awards included a coffee mug bearing the epigrammatic dictum “You’re the cream of the company!” and an embroidered key-shaped desk sign with the kitschy adage “Our employees are the key to our success!”

“Eleven years”, lamented Senior Account Manager Bill Ogden, “and they have the nerve to give me a tee shirt with the company logo and my name in stenciled block letters.  That’s it.  Eleven years.”

“It’s not even my size.”

Gustafsen was unavailable for comment at press time, as he and his pithy but voluptuous “personal assistant” Cassandra Milagro were headed to the airport where his private jet waited to whisk them to a “business meeting” in Cabo San Lucas.

Business Buzzword Translator

Although not as pervasive as in years past, business buzzwords are still with us. I want to believe that there has been a leveling-off of the practice because people are starting to actually think about what they say before they say it, but that’s probably just wishful thinking on my part. Be that as it may, for the uninitiated, here is a list of business buzzwords and their alleged and actual meanings:

Action (as a verb): Supposedly means: To do something with, as in a problem or issue that must be dealt with. Actually means: Absolutely nothing. The word action is a noun.

Action items: Supposedly means: A list of things which must be done or dealt with. Actually means: A list of things which one will get a third of the way through before the business focus changes, and the list is forgotten.

Bandwidth: Supposedly means: The amount of work a person or group can accomplish. Actually means: A convenient excuse to not have time to help you.

Best practice: Supposedly means: A technique, method, or process which can be utilized across a range of applications and organizations. Actually means: This is how they do it over in Accounting, and no one’s been fired yet.

Big picture: Supposedly means: A comprehensive perspective of a situation or issue. Actually means: What we’ve been doing isn’t working, so everyone take one giant step backwards.

Core competencies: Supposedly means: Things that are critical to the way a specific business works. Actually means: One or two things a business can say unequivocally they know how to do.

Customer-centric or customer-focused: Supposedly means: To conduct business in such a manner that the customer’s needs and desires are always in the forefront. Actually means: Knocking 15% off the top to get the sale.

Drill down: Supposedly means: To investigate, or analyze the specifics of an issue. Actually means: To dwell on one item because it’s the only one you even slightly comprehend.

Globalization: Supposedly means: An integration of multi-national economies. Actually means: Your job is going eleven time zones away.

Leverage: Supposedly means: To take advantage of a resource without fully financing that resource. Actually means: To take advantage of a resource so you can blame that resource when the project ultimately fails.

Mission-critical: Supposedly means: A component of a project or organization which is crucial to its success. Actually means: It’s behind schedule and the boss is fuming.

Onboarding: Supposedly means: The process of acquiring, accommodating, assimilating and accelerating new team members. Actually means: Hiring people.

Outside the box: Supposedly means: To think or behave in a non-conventional manner. Actually means: To pretend to think or behave in a non-conventional manner.

Ownership: Supposedly means: To take responsibility for a thing or process. Actually means: The last person to touch it gets the blame.

Results-driven: Supposedly means: A style of working which focuses more on results than the actual work. Actually means: If it doesn’t blow up in our face, we’ll continue to do it that way.

Robust: Supposedly means: Strong; able to withstand and overcome difficulties. Actually means: It’s the boss’ pet project, so we had to invest twice the resources required.

Synergy: Supposedly means: A dynamic state in which combined action is favored over the sum of individual component actions. Actually means: It’s harder to blame any specific person if a group is responsible for it.

Value-added: Supposedly means: The value which is added to a product by a manufacturer or distributor. Actually means: Cost added.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs

I’d like to preface my remarks here with the following disclaimer: If you still believe in Santa Claus, stop reading - now.

Okay, then. To get to the issue at hand: I have come to believe that the way we elect our government officials is a lot like how we lie to our kids about Santa. At first, when they’re way young, we want them to believe. We tell them to believe in this jolly old man in a red suit that comes down the chimney (even if we don’t have a chimney), and brings us toys and stuff. Hell, we want to believe it ourselves. We want to reclaim a tattered remnant of our innocent youth. And, that‘s completely understandable.

As the kids get older, however, it becomes more difficult to sell the lie, to get them to swallow the whole jolly old man from the North Pole routine. They start asking questions. They hear things from other kids. They wonder how elves make smart phones and High School Musical DVD’s in a workshop with a hammer and nails. Eventually, you fess up: “Yes it was your Father and I all along. Don’t look at me like that - we spent enough on you to buy a new BMW 535i“.

We weren’t just lying to the kids all those years; we lied to ourselves. We wanted to believe we still lived in a world where a person’s word meant something, where character still counted, where the good guys win in the end. Where everything could be cured with gingerbread men and tree trimmings.

And every couple of years, we engage in that same fantasy, as we march out of the polling place, head held high, proudly displaying our “I Voted” sticker, believing we have made a difference. Confident we have made the “right choice” because our party, or our movement, or our platform is the best for us and our fellow Americans.

You can almost hear the sleigh bells, and smell those chestnuts roasting on that open fire.

I submit that regardless of the person or party you vote for, it is not the right choice. And, I submit that deep, down inside - you already knew that. You choose what you perceive to be the lesser of however many evils, although in your heart of hearts, you know none of them would spit on you if you were to burst out in flames in front of them.

For the majority of my adult life, regardless of the political affiliation of those in the white house (and state house, and house of delegates, and senate), several things have happened:

Millions of American jobs have been lost to other countries.
The personal wealth of the average working-class American has steadily dropped.
Housing, fuel, and heath care costs have sky-rocketed.
Our infrastructure has slowly crumbled.
Many of our streets have become increasingly unsafe to walk after dark.
Our national debt has increased.
Our quality of life has suffered, and
We can no longer seriously consider ourselves to be an economic superpower.

Yet we persist in not only tolerating, but engaging in these semi-annual dog-and-pony shows foolishly believing that the ship will be righted if only “our guy” wins. Our entire political process is about two shampoo and auto insurance commercials away from becoming a really bad reality TV show, because nothing any candidate says during the campaign has any relevance whatsoever once the polls close.

I submit that all we’re doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We know the ship’s going down, but it is the ship we’re on, and, well - we want it to look nice. We see others rearranging deck chairs, and there’s a certain comfort in being part of a group - any group. Even if that group is about to plunge into icy, shark-infested waters. At least we won’t go alone.

And the band plays on.