Random Acts of Writing: Getting back to the basics
By Craig Carter
Friday, November 28, 2008 10:40 AM PST
I hate to admit this, but I’m in election withdrawal. For months there, I could just head on down to the writing dungeon and hammer out something about how silly the McCain people were being or how sanctimonious the Obama people were being, but the election’s all over now, and I’m left to return to my life of quiet desperation.
Which leaves me sitting here in the writing dungeon wondering what the heck I’m going to write about.
One thing I would like to comment about is the recent news the executives at strapped humongo insurance company AIG went on a fancy-schmancy retreat at some big country club, and they spent a ton of money on luxury things.
Said executives then tried to justify the retreat by claiming it was planned long before they came begging to we taxpayers to bail them out, and they further contended these retreats were essential for business because they helped motivate the insurance folks to sell more insurance.
Well, I propose we tie all those AIG executives to a massage table, then we get large men named Brutus and Bubba to beat them thoroughly about the groinal area with a 2-by-4. I think that should motivate them real good to sell lots and lots of insurance.
I wish my boss would send us out to some fancy country club to be pampered and massaged and wined and dined to get us to sell more stuff. Alas, my boss at my day job is a pragmatist. He believes we should be happy to get paid for what we do, and if we don’t do our job well, he thinks he should hire someone that will. (The fiend!)
Still, I considered floating the AIG massage at the country club idea to him, but I fear he would have responded with the aforementioned assault to my groinal area, and that’s just not good for anyone. (Especially me.)
I also considered calling my editor and saying, “You know, Pat, I think I could write some pretty awesome stuff if you’d just send me to some country club and get me massaged and wined and dined for a while.” But I have the feeling he’d respond by telling me to just shut up and write some stuff before he hires a monkey with a manual typewriter to write the Sunday and Thursday columns.
Seriously, though, I think all these executives at all these businesses that are going belly up should have to take a massive pay cut and do the work their entry-level people do for at least two months. I seriously believe one of the critical problems with American business is the people in the executive suites of most corporations have no idea what goes on at the entry level, and if the man in charge doesn’t know what the guy on the line has to do, there’s little hope for prolonged profit.
In fact, I don’t know if it’s still this way now, but it used to be at Nordstrom, everyone, from the CEO to the newly-hired clerk shared something in common. Entry level for Nordstrom executives or the new employee off the street was a job in the shoe department in a store. It teaches humility. It teaches you how to sell. (If you can sell shoes, you can sell anything.) And it gives you a great idea of how the business is run.
So that’s my solution. Give these executives a simple choice. If they want bonuses or golden parachutes, they can either get beaten about the groinal area by Bubba and Brutus or they can do entry-level work for at least a year. I think that idea has real merit, don’t you?
Craig Carter, an Ontario resident, writes a bi-weekly column for the Argus Observer. Comments or questions for Mr. Carter can be directed to: Craig Carter, Argus Observer Newsroom; 1160 S.W. Fourth St., Ontario, OR 97914
