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| Tuesday, June 13, 2000 |
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Vulturization
Richard Thieme sweetly observes dot.coms falling from the sky like a plague of frogs. Chris Macrae just started a mailing list on efailures where conversation feeds on the fresh corpses of Boo.com, Drkoop.com, Surfbuzz.com and Reel.com (the only one I'll miss). And now there's FuCKED CoMPANY, "the dot-com deadpool." Here's how it works:
Your classic deadpool is a game of picking on celebrity deaths. Points are generally earned based on odds (which are usually based on the age of the celebrity). FuckedCompany.com is a game based on the classic deadpool, but instead of betting for (or against) people, you're betting on companies. The lines are a little blurred when dealing with companies because there is rarely a clean-cut death. To make up for this, FuckedCompany.com rates different levels of a company's demise and awards points based on the level of severity.
A name for the disease that kills all these companies is dyscluesia, or the inability to absorb clues, which is characterized by gradiosity and other psychotic manias, and always fatal. A good example of symptoms at work is provided by FuckedCompany in the form of an email to his employees by Brendan Barnicle, the self-titled Chair Lackey at MyLackey.com of Seattle. He writes:
It is now 6:45 pm and there are only 12 people in our office. We have 65 people that work here in Seattle. This is totally
unacceptable. This company has far too much very important work to do to have virtually empty offices at 6:45 pm. If anyone thinks that everything we need to do as a company can be accomplished within an 8 hour day, then I think they fail to understand the scope and complexity of our venture.
Which is fine. A little butt-kicking by the boss. But you can already see the vultures start to circle. Here's where they drop down for a close look:
Given the severity of the situation, I am putting strict
office hours into effect immediately. Until further notice,
all employees are required to be at their desk from 8am until
7pm, with 30 minutes for lunch. There are no exceptions. If you need to leave early, then you must be at your desk earlier. I am very sorry that we need to instill such strict guidelines. This is not
usually necessary at a start-up and when the work ethic here begins to reflect that of a start-up, we can consider more flexibility in our work hours.
I think Mr. Barnicle kinda just laid his ass off.
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