Why do you say “fuck” so often?

January 23, 2008

I was asked, "Why do you say 'fuck' so often?"
I have many reasons. Here are three.

Business is upside-down
Business leaders devalued the process of creation and innovation and the people who do it. "Work" is now a dirty word (apparently it rhymes with "labor"). Ever heard the term "individual contributor"? It's the [...]

I was asked, "Why do you say 'fuck' so often?"

I have many reasons. Here are three.

  1. Business is upside-down
    Business leaders devalued the process of creation and innovation and the people who do it. "Work" is now a dirty word (apparently it rhymes with "labor"). Ever heard the term "individual contributor"? It's the pejorative phrase used by managers to describe the people who actually get work done—while the "manager" collects his/her bonus for making sure everyone gets it done. Blow me... (And if you've never heard the term don't feel bad—a good manager knows he/she should save it for conversation with other managers.)
  2. Business has lost its soul
    Milton (Friedman) you're a smart guy, but you are wrong on at least one point. When you said "the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits" an entire generation-plus of business leaders adopted 'maximizing shareholder value' as their mantra and went on to screw over every other stakeholder involved. Your argumentation is elegant—inspired by your background and experience in mathematics and economics, no doubt—but it's wrong. It's wrong because we are humans, not robots. You can argue your way around it all you want, but 'shareholder value' has been used to justify a lot of inhumanity. We need our soul back, please.
  3. The excuses
    Holy bat-shit Batman, I hate the excuses! Things need to change and our business leaders sit there making excuses. Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, summed it up masterfully: It's as if a requirement for entering the ranks of senior management today is the ability to make excuses for why it's impossible to do things that most people agree are important.

People are too important and the social benefit of business and commerce is too important for me to sit quietly and let things coast along to the benefit of the status quo.

I express myself using the vernacular of my generation—the application of "fuck" will continue until I see improvement.

- Bandit

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