[Coco] OT : Rant on Corp Execs (was) Re: Opening and cleaning an FD-501 controller.

[James Hrubik]

OS9> rantmode -on

You've got it, Ward.  People in power with a conscience seem to be  
rarer than Unobtainium.  But -- people who tell the truth usually  
make far less money.  Note : usually.  Most times, even if you tell  
the truth, people won't listen if they are seeing sugar-plums dancing  
in their heads.

When you are paid based on the percentage of sales you close, it is  
the best incentive in the world to sell the most of whatever it is  
that an idiot will pay for, with not a care in the world whether it  
is a benefit to the idiot.  It places the real power in the hands of  
the people who control advertising and marketing, and they are the  
Robber Barons.  There is no sense of responsibility in upper  
management; no "noblesse oblige" in government.  As a culture, we  
have destroyed aristocracy without retaining the sense that those of  
lesser rank (read: "they are stupider") need protection.  Much as it  
may rankle the Libertarians on this list, people left to themselves  
will sell themselves into slavery.

The Ordinary Idiot falls victim to marketers who loot, rape, and  
pillage across the TV screens -- "Just call this number and give me  
your credit card information and you can have this $100 junk shipped  
to your home tomorrow for just 60 easy payments of $4.99 a month!".   
Or, "Buy this $100,000 house with no money down and no payments for  
three years [Annual interest at 8% will compound monthly and accrue  
from date of purchase]."  "Can't afford this handy gadget now?  Put  
it on your credit card!" The plantations are in New York and  
Brussels; the slave-buyers are at your friendly neighborhood retail  
store and on your TV screen.  When was the last time a clerk told you  
not to buy something unless you could pay cash?  When was the last  
time the salesperson didn't try to get you interested in the gadget  
that cost just a little bit more, even if the basic model was all you  
really needed?  We teach little kids to do this (Girl Scout  
Cookies??); why should we expect them to be different when they are  
dealing with bigger things?

The emphasis at the Shack was for salespeople to sell the payment  
plan, not the item.  The bigger the tag, the better your chance for  
promotion (not to say, retention).  CoCos were small potatoes and you  
could pay cash; Tandy 1000/2000s could get you on the easy payment  
plan for a long time.

Don't forget; the people who were in charge at Radio Shack in the  
late '70's ad '80's were the same kind of people who marketed the  
Lava Lamp and the Pet Rock.  They were the first generation of the  
Great Society, and the post-Hippie reformation.  (Wasn't there a  
President who picked up his dogs by the ears, and hailed from  
somewhere around Fort Worth?  Is this a conspiracy?)  Maybe at the  
bottom of the whole thing you will find that this is nothing less  
than Dr. Leary's Revenge; we have failed the Acid Test -- %^D.  Naw,  
it was around before Abe Lincoln's time.

The scum also rises.  You could write a book.  Or build soapboxes.

OS9> rantmode -off

--Jim

On Jan 26, 2008, at Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 1:56 AM,  
wdg3rd at comcast.net wrote:

> It's a bummer that our marketing people had so much control over  
> our products, their construction and their packaging.  I was  
> usually in software tech support at an RSCC, so of course I had no  
> input and it wouldn't have been accepted anyway.  Had I been in a  
> position of power in Fort Worth, decisions might have gone  
> differently.  Knowing what I know now, things would have big-time  
> gone differently.  But any idiot can play what-if.
>
> ..., and nobody younger than corporate executive at Radio Shack  
> even remembers there ever were Radio Shack Computer Centers.  And  
> we knew 20 years ago what corporate executives thought of those  
> mutant offshoots.  (Corp execs who cheerfully bought crap like  
> Video Concepts and that forgettable furniture company and expected  
> the stock to split -- it didn't).
> --
> Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net
>
> Well, if you're gonna buy a ticket on the Titanic, you might as  
> well go First Class.
>
> Captain Audie Murphy, Texas Ranger, in _Roswell, Texas_ by L. Neil  
> Smith, Rex May and Scott Bieser.
> http://www.bigheadpress.com/roswell/
>

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