--- And your fearless leader

--- And your fearless leader bestows upon her readers a new feature called Literature in Advertising.
The Cake Eater Mother will tell you that once upon a time, I was the
kid who talked through TV shows and shut the heck up when the ads came
on. She generally does this to remind me of what an idiot I was back
then. She was right. I was an idiot…back then.
If I had channeled my love of advertising, I would have gotten a
marketing degree in college and I could have parlayed that into a
career as a media commentator and could be making much bigger bucks
than I am now. I didn’t though, so you have to suffer through this,
rather than a paying audience. I’m flipping through Forbes and there’s this fold-out IBM ad and it piques my interest. What Bartlebly the Scrivener can teach you about Bob the sales guy. Can you see it?
They’ve hooked me: I know who Bartleby the Scrivener is. He’s the
protagonist of a short story by Herman Melville that was published in
the mid-19th century. The official title is: Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.
This was one of the few stapes of my American Lit class in high school
that I actually enjoyed, other than James Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel
Hawthorne and I remember it well. So, the ad piques my interest and
I’m not really doing anything at the moment, other than sitting in
the bathroom, catching up on my reading, so I’ll flip the page and
read further. (Hint to the husband and Chief Technology Purchaser for
the Cake Eater Office: if I had a scanner, I wouldn’t have to keep
typing this shit out when I find an interesting ad I want to chat
about.)
You may remember the 1853 Herman Melville story about a clerk named
Bartleby. One day he simply refused to do what was asked of him. “I
would prefer not to,” he replied, to that request and all the
subsequent ones. This stance confounded his boss, alienated his
coworkers and, needless to say, was bad for business.

Ok, so that much they’ve got correct. I’ll give them that. It’s the next bit I find hysterically funny.

It’s what we call the human factor. And it’s critical to your
success. All the mission statements and whiz-bang new processes in the
world ain’t gonna fly if you don’t get Bob the regional sales V.P.,
Doris in Accounting and everyone else to buy in. On demand business is
about new thinking. It’s about honing your company’s ability to
sense things faster---when pink raincoats are selling like hotcakes for
instance---and respond faster. More raincoats, now. (A month from now
is too late.) It’s about flattening your organization so decisions
can be made on the spot. That means getting the right information to
the people who can act on it---whether it’s Bob on the front lines,
Doris in the back office, a vendor across town or a partner across the
country.
Most critically, though, it’s about those people. How do you get them
to work in new ways, embrace new practices, align themselves with new
goals? What kind of carrot do you offer Bob to get him to work as part
of a cross-regional team? How do you get Doris to input data in a new
way? What’s the best way to train partners and vendors to work more
like in-house employees?
A brilliant strategy is a brilliant beginning. Making sure your Bobs
don’t become Bartleby’s is where the rubber meets the road.
On demand business starts with on demand thinking.We have over
3,500 specialists dedicated solely to change management. Surprised?
IBM’s capabilities are unique: we provide real insight into corporate
transformation, coupled with deep experience in every industry and the
ability to implement change on the ground. (Hey, we know this
stuff---we’ve done it in-house.) Making sure your people work
together---that’s on demand business. Get there with on demand
people….”

You can check out their website here.
Not coincidentally, Bartleby.com is named after the Bartleby of the
story, who was an astute, intelligent, and diligent young scribe,
punctilious to a fault---good characteristics for a scribe---or for a
research project that wanted to start up the on-line reference library
Bartleby.com has become. So, it shouldn’t be ironic that Bartleby.com
is precisely the first place I would go to find a copy of the story,
but it is…a tad, anyway. You can find the story here.
Now, this service IBM is shilling with this ad is also the same line of
work that the husband does. He’s an IT strategy guy: he also tells
people how to change the way they do business from a top-down approach,
rather than just from a here’s
what this massively overpriced, top-heavy, poorly programmed software,
that, not coincidentally I’m receiving a kickback for every company I
sell this junk to, can do for your company approach. The
husband’s hook, generally, is that his client companies don’t need
all of this software: they can make do with cheaper variants that will
not only do the job, they will do it better than the overpriced, poorly
programmed variants software companies sell. Nor does he ever receive
kickbacks from any software company he recommends: he thinks it’s an
unethical practice.
The only difference between IBM and the husband: the size of his
company is not exactly the same size as IBM, and he’s not likely to
quote Bartleby the Scrivener in an effort to bring in new customers. The Art of War
perhaps, but not anything written by Herman Melville. And he’s
not—obviously---going to recommend only IBM endorsed software
solutions. So, the point I’m laboring to make is that I know
something about this area of IT expertise. Not as much as the husband,
mind you, but as I listen to what he has to say, I have picked a few
things up. (If you’re interested, go and check out the husband’s
company’s site here. )
Now, why do I find this hysterically funny? It’s fairly obvious that
whomever was behind this ad remembered only the part of the story about
how Bartleby refused to do any work by using the overly polite refusal,
“I prefer not to,” and forgot the rest of the story. Now, Bartleby
was a stickler for not doing anything he didn’t want to---and after
his employer got tired of his piquancy, his ass was fired. His
employer, however, could never seem to get rid of him. When he told
Bartleby to clear out, Bartleby refused. He moved his offices; Bartleby
followed him. And on and on until Bartleby was thrown into jail for
vagrancy and died there, alone and afraid to move. As Mrs. Lehnhoff, my
American Lit teacher from so long ago would tell you that the key to
understanding the underlying meaning of the story is right there in the
title line: A Story of Wall-street.
Bartleby did not like change, so he built walls. He did all of his work
behind a screen---one sort of wall. He would not tell anyone who he
was, where he was from or any of the relative information that gives
people a clue to who we are as human beings: he built a wall to protect
himself. The story takes place on Wall Street. He dies in a prison,
curled up next to a wall. Bartleby had closed himself off; he had built
walls. His inertia was so great, not even death could change his habit
of building walls, it seemed. So, I find it funny that IBM, of all
companies, would use Bartleby as a prod for hiring them. You don’t want your employees turning into Bartleby, do you?
Nevermind the fact that IBM, with all of their middle managers in
yellow oxford cloth button downs, was the corporate embodiment of
Bartleby for so long. But hey, that’s ok, they say---we’ve already learned that lesson, we can help you to learn it as well.
Bwahahahahaha. Ok, so IBM has made strides in this area. I’m not
going to deny that, but it’s still funny, given the fact it’s IBM
offering this up as a reason why companies should come to them for
their strategy. Don’t kid yourselves: IBM hasn’t changed all that
much. They’re still one of the largest corporations around and
they’re a dominant force in the industry. And they’ve earned
serious brownie points from the techie community by plugging Linux as
the OS of choice, rather than continuing to be raped by Microsquash.
But if you believe this ad, well, they’ve learned their lesson,
haven’t they? They’ve learned that it’s a bad thing to be a
Bartleby. Nope. They’re just continuing their hegemony in a
different, more acceptable arena, where you, as a client, will still be
offered their software---and their software only---as the acceptable
solution to your corporate problems. I don’t know if that made any
sense whatsoever. But who cares right? It’s my blog.
--- Another interesting article from Forbes.

The husband is eagerly awaiting November 24th. Forbes
bills it as a “day of revenge for cell phone users.” In case you
hadn’t heard, this is the day your cell phone number becomes yours to
do with as you will. As the result of much congressional and legal
wrangling, this is the day when you will, legally, be able to take your
cell phone number and go to another company for service. There won’t
be any more of this greedy holding of numbers that leaves you stuck
with a crappy cell service provider if you want to keep your cell phone
number. They’ve finally figured it out and come November 24th, you
can have your cake and eat it, too, if you’re a cell phone user. Now,
personally, I detest cell phones. They’re the bane of my existence.
They make my life a hellish experience when I’m driving because
people are too freaking busy blathering on endlessly on them rather
than doing what they’re supposed to be doing---driving their freaking
cars. The Cake Eater community, as you might have guessed, is rather
full of people with cell phones. They can’t live without them; I
daresay they can’t imagine a day when they weren’t connected at all
times and my
God, why wouldn’t you want people to be able to find you anywhere, at
anytime? Jesus, that’s what makes my life worth living! I must be
available to everyone, all the time, or I would just drop dead for lack
of activity in my life! So what if I forget to use my turn signal or
slide halfway over into your lane while I’m doing so, I must be able
to chat and it’s not that distracting. I get where I’m going, don’t I? It can’t possibly be as bad as you’re making it out to be,
says the overpriced Cake Eater Trophy Wife as she slurps down her Vente
skinny, sugar-free vanilla, no froth, latte, her big blue eyes wide and
as innocent as a baby’s. Now, I know a lot of people have cell phones
for emergencies. Parents give them to their kids so they can keep track
of them (there’s a whole different rant, for a different
day---teenagers with cell phones! Ugh!). The husband has one and uses
it as his work phone, so I’m not completely unaware that there are
good uses for cell phones, but sheesh. Most people don’t need them. I
manage to get along just fine without one. I have had them in the past,
I will admit, when I was working. And I will also admit it made my life
easier, but that was for work, you know, when I had
to spend a goodly amount of time on the phone. Why the hell would I
need one now? There’s no need. So I really have a hard time listening
to Cake Eater Wives, who don’t work, and have no conceivable need for
a mobile phone, blather on about how integral their phone is to
keeping their life on track. Ugh.
I don’t want people to be able to get a hold of me at all times.
There are times when I leave the house to do just that: to leave the
house and in particular, the telephone, behind me. To not be bothered
by other people; to go out and be anonymous and it’s rather hard to
achieve anonymity when you’re blabbering on about your life in the
middle of the grocery store. I like the carefree quality of this act:
it means I’m not chained to home other than when I want to lock
myself in. Why don’t people get this? Am I just that much of an
oddity? I don’t know, but none of my issues would keep me from making
money on the people who are all about cell phones. If I had a broker,
I’d probably, on the basis of this article, call them up and say hey,
get me some of that Telcordia stock: it sounds like a good bet. I’d
also buy up some Verizon and T-Mobile stock as well, since they seem to
actually be working under the assumption that number portability is a good thing.

After all, there’s no law against taking advantage of fools, is there?

--- Office Muzak for today.

Now, much to the disgust of Mr. H., who believes that the Dave Matthews Band should be called Dave Matthews: Banned,
I remain a big fan of Dave’s. I like Dave. I like his music: it’s
good. And I particularly like this two CD set. The only time I’ve
ever been able to score tickets to see Dave was on the tour that this
CD was recorded. This was in 1996, in Ames, Iowa. He played Ames right
after this set at Luther College, which is located in Decorah,
Iowa---about a three hour drive from Ames. This concert was where I
heard one of the best replies to a crowd---ever. As was to be expected,
the place was packed with teenage girls who latched onto Dave as their
crush of the month. They kept screaming, Dave, I love you! After many catcalls, he finally replied:

“That exit sign up there just told me it loved me. Now, if only I can find a way in.”
It’s a great CD set. Good music, a receptive crowd (which was not the
case in Ames the next night, I’m sad to say---the teenagers were more
than a tad rude and it rubbed Dave the wrong way), and a phenomenal
accompanist: Tim Reynolds. This guy is good, and if you’re a fan of
acoustic guitar and all of the wonderful, amazing things that can be
done with one, you will more than appreciate his performance, you will
laud it. He’s as good as any top name guitarist, in fact, he’s
better than most of them. I thought so then, and now that I have the
CD, I’m even more appreciative. --- Office Smell of the Day.
Pure autumnal contentment can be attained by purchasing one of these
candles and firing it up on a rainy, cold day like today. It will make
you less crabby and more appreciative of the quiet autumn can provide.
The smell is simply divine.