I’m talking, of course, about all these recent commercials that try to sarcastically depict the business world as a bunch of buffoon-ish characters talking in some psuedo-hip industry lingo about whatever nonsense the nut jobs at the ad factory are trying to stuff down our collective throats this week.
I, for one, am sick of it. First of all, nobody talks like that. These people sound like idiots. Not sure what I mean? Take, for example, the recent ad for an overnight carrier (who shall remain anonymous, except to say that their name rhymes with FedSucks) in which two business guys at lunch are discussing the case of a company employee who recently saved their entire company from disaster by shipping everything on this overnight carrier’s website. All the other employees had food poisoning (from a cake? Come on!) but our protagonist is able to keep the company afloat single-handedly with his heroic efforts (point, click, and ship). The ad, obviously, is poorly conceived and executed, but to make things worse, our collective intelligence is insulted when one of the moronic idiots disguised as a businessman continues to obsess (in what is, apparently, a weak attempt at humor) over the lamentable fact that he does not have a PDA. Any company that allows cheesy idiots like this to work for them deserves to have its staff decimated by cholera, or at least, that’s what I got out of this ad. There are many other examples, just turn on the tube: they’re inescapable.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, why is it so hip to portray out nation’s working class as a bunch of boobs? It seems like it has become the observation du jour to re-imagine business to be an evil, heartless enterprise, largely incompetent, and staffed by intellectual midgets. Well, cut it out, you ingrates! This same business has propelled our nation through one of the greatest periods of prosperity known in history. This business is the result of our market economy, which is so successful that most civilized nations (by which I mean nations that don’t spend most of their time trying to figure out how to send weapon-grade Anthrax to public officials or hijack airplanes with boxcutters) have coped it. Business is our legacy, as Americans. This is what we give the world: a blueprint for successful enterprise. Why do you think people all over the world are lined up for a chance to live here? I’ll give you a hint: no matter what you see on the TV, it’s not the cheese.
This trend was probably started by those pansies in the internet start-up companies who mistakenly thought they were creating a “new economy”. Well, where’s that new e-conomy now? Trading for 1/32 a share and heading for the bankruptcy court, that’s where. After watching the ineptness of the “new way” (in which “profit” was considered an unimportant concept), I for one was very happy to see the “old way” rise back up and pop the “new way” right in the kisser.
In fact, I might even go so far as to declare the internet to be the source of many of the nation’s current problems. Sure, it’s nice to bump around and check out free sites (like Uncouth.net) where you may find people with similar interests, but as a vehicle for commerce, the inernet is a spectacular failure. Other than fleecing a few million dollars out of some investment capital brokers (and don’t think that bill isn’t going to come due someday real soon!), no internet company (porn and gambling aside) has shown that it can make money out of nothing. Yet these companies were the first to point the finger at the old economy as a blueprint for inefficiency. And where are they now? In the bread lines, ladies and gentlemen, trying to trade their worthless Webvan stock for some peanut butter and a sturdy cardboard box to sleep in. This would be a nice time to continue on and diagram out for you how this is all the fault of the materialistic, self-centered a-holes in the Northern California Bay Area, but I think I’ll summarize by suggesting that perhaps we can lay off the stereotyping of the working man. That includes you in the back, the tattooed freak with the nose rings and surly attitude working for Tower Records and living in your parent’s basement. After all, who do you think signs your paycheck?