For Your Amusement

High Speed Camera + Tomato + Samurai Sword

Hubris

I know I am full of myself. It's one of the symptoms of the human condition. Buzzing around as worker bees while we live out fantasies of a better life in our heads. A false sense of entitlement is dangerous. Don't fall into the trap of thinking anyone owes you anything. You don't deserve anything. You have to work for it. You have to earn it. Don't be a victim of yourself.

I don't shit in your conference room

Dear Guy in the bathroom stall next to mine,

What alternate reality do you live in that it is acceptible to answer your cell phone while you're dropping the Cosby kids off at the pool? It is bad enough when I hear your thumbs feverishly pecking away at your Blackberry keypad. It was worse when I heard your cell phone ringing. It was the worst when you actually answered it. Even if the balance of the world rested on you taking that call (which I'm pretty sure it didn't) I don't want you talking while I'm trying not to blow an O ring. Seriously, the next time someone decides that the bathroom is the appropriate place for a phone call I'm going to put my palms up to my mouth and blow the loudest raspberry I can possibly muster. Let's see you explain that one to Bob in accounting.

Sincerely,

Gasface

PS - You're a prick.

Edison Beer and Text Messages

Msg recieved: Hey, headed to an interview for a new beer promo job.

Msg sent: Mmm...beer

Msg recieved: Its a stand alone light beer called edison. not a watered down version of some other like bud light. first of its kind.

Msg sent: Cool. They have a lightbulb on their bottle. Pretty clever. Personally I prefer Tesla.

Msg recieved: Yea thats them. never heard of that other one.

Msg sent: I would not bring them up. There is a lot of bad blood between Edison and Tesla.

Drawing my Ire

I've been thinking about a company I used to work for, which will remain nameless for the time being, mainly because working there reminded me a lot of the Vin Diesel movie, "Boiler Room," and I'm afraid of them coming after me.

It was my first job out of college. The company provides regional business directories online. It's a lot like the YellowPages, with the added the value of "personalized listings." Somehow they managed to partner with a respected business publication to power their business directory listings, which boggles my mind from the perspective I had working on the inside.

To be fair I only worked there for a week. Four days to be precise. I quit during my lunch hour on a Thursday. I left to take a walk and never came back. I'll tell you why I quit. The people working there were unethical.

I consider myself pretty good at sales. So I was struggling with being unable to close a single deal all week. Part of it was I didn't see the value of their service. It's hard to convince someone to give you $1,000 when you don't think it's worth $50. I sat next to a girl that had been working at the company since it started and I asked her how she had so many successful sales.

"I just lie to the clients about the return they can expect on their investment," she said.

That was why I quit. There was a lot of shady dealings going on. Every day clients would call up complaining about the "value" the service provided - lack of value to be more accurate. The company had a brilliant model to deal with these complaining clients, they would extend their service. So now instead of a 12 month listing, they would get 15! Wow, what a deal! What a shitty company. I'm so glad I left.

The only question that remains - should I blow the whistle on them? I see a few reporters have writen about them here or there. They still have clients listing on their Web site. To be fair it's been a few years and they could have reformed, but from the people I met working there, I highly doubt it. What say you readers?

Oh Calvin, What R U IN2 Now?

Prepare to throw up a little bit.

According to the New York Times, Calvin Klein has developed a new fragrance line, which they call as distinct from CK One as "red and yellow." Personally, I think CK One is a great fragrance, but I have my questions about their new line, which has been heinously dubbed CKIN2U.

From the article:

“We have envisioned this as the first fragrance for the technosexual generation,” said Mr. Murry, using a term the company made up to describe its intended audience of thumb-texting young people whose romantic lives are defined in part by the casual hookup.

Last year, the company went so far as to trademark “technosexual,” anticipating it could become a buzzword for marketing to millennials, the roughly 80 million Americans born from 1982 to 1995. A typical line from the press materials for CK in2u goes like this: “She likes how he blogs, her texts turn him on. It’s intense. For right now.”

In the marketing company's infinite wisdom, they have also launched a Web site, appropriately enough, called whatareyouin2.com where you use drop down menus to define yourself. It's one part Myspace one part YouTube. I call it YourSpace, because I don't want to be there.

You can be a himilayan, sci-fi, sparkling water drinking, in-style, socialite. Or you can be a hip-hop, sporty, bare-foot, outdoors coffee-drinker. Or you can just be turned-off by the entire thing.

Seriously marketers, when will you learn? Anyone that is stupid enough to get sucked into your campaign is probably the type of person that doesn't shower, let alone wear cologne or perfume. And don't get me started with the term technosexual, it conjures images of hairy 400 lbs men in sweat stained t-shirts pretending to be lesbians online.