Bozo、Clueless or plain stupid

mediocracy


n. (名詞 noun)


平庸主義;庸才階層

不管什麼情況，mediocracy在一般商業公司應該都是不可置信的。有個很罩的人叫 Guy Kawasaki (就是那種寫很多書的傢伙)，他前幾天在他的blog上面寫了一篇很罩的文章： How to Prevent a Bozo EXplosion (如何避免公司充斥一堆笨蛋)。他列了十+四點提要，讓讀者來檢驗你的公司是不是笨蛋橫行，但我認為其中不少是比較跟米國的商業文化 (還有文化吧)有比較深的關係，不太適合拿來我們用，但仍很有參考價值…

1. The two most popular words in your company are "partner" and "strategic." In addition, "partner" has become a verb, and "strategic" is used to describe decisions and activities that don't make sense.

公司最常被掛在嘴上的二個詞就是『策略性』跟『合作伙伴』。而且『合作伙伴』已經動詞化，『策略性』則通常拿來形容那些很鳥的決策跟行為 (這邊我不太會翻partner，就亂翻了)

2. Management has two-day offsites at places like the Ritz Carlton to foster communication and to craft a company mission statement.

管理階層會辦個offsite meeting，而且通常是辦在像Ritz Carlton這種五星級酒店。目的就是為了畫一個大餅。

3. The aforementioned company mission statement contains more than twenty words--two of which are "partner" and "strategic."

前面說到那個大餅 (好吧，人家是說公司的使命) ，通常都包含二個字『合作伙伴』跟『策略性』

4. Your CEO's admin has an admin.

呃…這我不會翻

5. Your parking lot's "biorhythm" looks like this:

• 8:00 am - 10:00 am--Japanese cars exceed German cars


• 10:00 am - 5:00 pm--German cars exceed Japanese cars


• 5:00 pm - 10:00 pm--Japanese cars exceed German cars

公司的停車場有個週期性，就像：

• 8:00 am - 10:00 am--日本車比德國車多


• 10:00 am - 5:00 pm--德國車比日本車多


• 5:00 pm - 10:00 pm--日本車比德國車多

6. Your HR department requires an MBA degree for any position; it also requires five to ten years work experience in an industry that is only four years old.

公司的HR部門徵人只找MBA(企管碩士)，而且通常會要附加條件是要有在該產業五到十年的工作經驗---鳥的是那個產業才剛發展四年而已。


7. Time is now considered more important than money so you have a company cafeteria, health club, and pet grooming service. Moreover, the first thing that employees show visitors is the company cafeteria, health club, and pet grooming service.

很多人現在認為時間的重要性比金錢大，所以公司裡面有咖啡廰、健康俱樂部跟寵物照料服務。而且通常員工作對訪客第一個介紹的就是公司裡面有咖啡廰、健康俱樂部跟寵物照料服務。


8. Someone whose music sells in the iTunes music store performs at the company Christmas party.

你在itunes 上買得到你們家員工的音樂，而且還會在公司的X'mas party上播…

9. An employee is paid to do nothing but write a blog.

有人上班除了拿薪水寫blog之外沒其他事情要做。

10. The success of a competitor upsets you more than the loss of a customer.

(If you've seen other signs of the slide to bozosity, leave them as a comment, and I'll append to this list.)

競爭對手的成功比顧客的損失(還是要翻作損失一個顧客比較好？)更容易讓你不爽。


Addendumbs (sic) to the list from readers:


底下是根據讀者回應追加的項目：


11. You have a layer of middle management who worked at big-name companies (usually consumer goods) who like to call meetings and designate "project leads." (I experienced this first hand.)

你有一堆中階主管以前是在知名企業上班(而且還剛好都是那些民生消費品牌)，而且他們老是喜歡找開會，而且一直指定誰誰誰要當專業的負責人。

12. Your hire a big name consulting firm who brings in MBAs with one year of experience to re-think your corporate strategies.

你會找顧問公司帶一堆只有一年經驗的MBA們來幫你重訂『企業策略』

13. The front-desk staff gets better looking and less competent.

第一線的員工長得越來越好看，但是越來越沒有工作能力。


14. Your CEO or CFO spends more time on CNBC than in the office.

你們公司的CEO還是CFO什麼的，花在電視上的時間比待辦公室的時間還要久…

我對上面幾個問題有些看法，但我想以我工作不到一年，對我現在的工作環境也還沒有個把握說個八成準(工作越久，越覺得有些東西還真的讓人不解)，所以就不要一個一個比對我現在的公司了…不過美國Yahoo的一個知名工程師Jeremy倒是對Guy這篇文章有寫了回應：Yahoo's Bozo Score: 4

1. The two most popular words in your company are "partner" and "strategic."

No. The two most popular words at Yahoo seem to be "so" and "google." I think "value" is likely the runner up.

2. Management has two-day offsites at places like the Ritz Carlton to foster communication and to craft a company mission statement.

Yes. I'm almost tempted to take a bonus point because we've used the Half Moon Bay Ritz in the past.

3. The aforementioned company mission statement contains more than twenty words--two of which are "partner" and "strategic."

No.

4. Your CEO's admin has an admin.

Yes. But I suspect he'd be less useful without one.

5. Your parking lot's "biorhythm" looks like this...

No. I see the German cars there pretty early too. But they're never outnumbered by the Japanese cars.

6. Your HR department requires an MBA degree for any position; it also requires five to ten years work experience in an industry that is only four years old.

No. Our HR department is rather clueful most of the time.

7. Time is now considered more important than money so you have a company cafeteria, health club, and pet grooming service.

We have a cafeteria and a gym. No pet grooming service. I'll take a point on this even though I disagree that it has anything to do with a company being "bozo."

8. Someone whose music sells in the iTunes music store performs at the company Christmas party.

Yes. We had Earth, Wind & Fire last time.

9. An employee is paid to do nothing but write a blog.

No. We have several who blog as part of their jobs. For at least one it's even their primary function. But that's not the sole job.

10. The success of a competitor upsets you more than the loss of a customer.

It depends on the competitor and the customer, so I can't really score this one. And this one is pretty difficult to generalize to "the company" as a whole.

Blog好像也要講點誠信 (我在這家公司的台灣品牌上班)，我寫這篇並不是因為要說從Guy的文章加上Jeremy的文章，就得出Yahoo現在還是個好公司這種結論。至少我認為這是個有趣的記錄，看看我再多待一陣子，也來用這個list看看自己公司好了:P