How To Succeed In Business

By Knowing Where The Body's Buried

Yesteryon I mentioned about observing a general principle called "Covering Your Bottom", meaning that one takes care of oneself before implementing anything visibly stupid imposed by higher management.  The second, vitally important, piece of organisational knowledge one requires is in the title here: knowing where the body (or bodies) is buried.  In essence, knowing all the dirty secrets that ought never to see daylight.  This, Conrad avers, is why Kathleen Kennedy still has a job, after losing Disney at least $150 billion last year.  Art!

The first of the trilogy.  FOUR AND FIVE DO NOT EXIST!

     I believe her film production qualifications were being able to make a cup of coffee exactly as Steven Speilberg liked it.

     ANYWAY, as an example of what I speak about, take the first episode of "Foyle's War", which I watched last night: "The German Woman".  A bit of a misnomer, as she was Czechoslovakian, though as she hailed from the Sudetenland, an understandable mistake.  Art!

     This is the pub landlord Judd, who is an underhanded cad of epic proportions.  He sits at the centre of a web of deceit and fraud, and is able to get away with it because he Knows Things.  More specifically he knows who was having a dalliance with whom - I shan't spoil it for you by naming names - and is able to extort money accordingly.

     Inevitably, he comes to a sticky end, which is one of the drawbacks about Knowing Things, as it may impel those being blackmailed into desperate measures.
     ANYWAY onto this sorry tale of Manglement.  Original Poster was a manager at a South Canadian motor dealership when it was acquired by a new owner.  This is always a difficult and stressful time for established employees, as New Owner Syndrome comes into play, where they want to make their mark, mark their territory and - if they were a Teuton employer a couple of decades ago, cut marks.  Art!

Okay, I'll admit it, a strained analogy

     New Bottomhole Owner, clearly unfamiliar with what OP did in the business, imperiously told him to "Shut up, sit down and do as I say, or leave."

     OP left and was gone within thirty minutes.

     This is where things began to escalate, because OP was the unpaid and unofficial IT expert within the dealership.  He essentially walked into the same job position with a rival dealership the same day he left, and a couple of weeks later got a frantic call from NBO's controller, panicking because their server had crashed.  Not only had it crashed, nobody within NBO's  business knew the admin password to access it.

     Except OP.  This is a pretty important body to have lurking in the background.  He was able to extort $5,000 as a 'hiring fee' from his old dealership, his new dealership boss laughing himself sick at the process, for all of a few minute's work in typing in the master password and allowing the controller to change it.  Art!

     It got worse for NBO.  That unofficial IT role for OP also came with the responsibility of making a back-up tape each morning.  Being aware, he'd also trained their two receptionists to do the job, so they could cover if he was away for any reason.  An example of Cover Your Bottom in action.

     Alas, hubris.  NBO had fired the full-time receptionist.  The part-time one resigned immediately, as she was expected to work 7-day weeks until another receptionist could be hired.

     I'm sure you can see where this is going.  Art!

So simple.  So costly.

     The business then had to work off manual records for two weeks, and use paper invoices and service orders until the system caught up, which totalled $20,000 in overtime for NBO thanks to all that manual input.  This is less knowing where a body is buried and more knowing where a minefield is buries.

     NBO's business acumen cannot have risen above this level of manglement, as within three years the franchise was withdrawn by the car manufacturer, since  they had an interest in their marque looking good, and the dealership closed, also for good.  Proof that even CYB and KWTBB can be foiled by idiotic management.

O Noes!

You know that bit in "Nosferatu", where the vampire realises that he's spent too long sipping at the virgin's blood, and disintegrates in the light of dawn?  Art!

It seems to hurt.  Good.

     Yeah.  That's how I feel.  Yes yes yes, I am being a drama-farmer.  Sue me.  Art!

     These are more Mysterious MacGuffins from the pages of "The Daily Beast", and I waited too long to go back and discover what they are, since the webpage no longer lists them.  I shall have to keep checking back, they tend to work in cycles, so maybe we'll discover what they are.  In the meantime, be careful of direct sunlight.  Art!

Proof that discovering where the body's buried can be harmful to health

More Lego Mania

Conrad confesses that he's not displayed all the 20 constructs that SpitBrix listed, as some are repetitive and resemble earlier entries.  Art!

I remember this one

     This monster contains 5 million bricks and took two weeks to assemble, with a literal assembly line creating modular blocks to stack together.  You'll notice that it only approximates a ball.  Art!

     Ten seconds later.  We may come back to this, it has an interesting backstory.

"City In The Sky"

We are currently dealing with the evacuation of New Eucla, in preparation for the anticipated attack from the alien 'squatters' lurking in the Australian outback.

     ‘I believe you mentioned a fire-engine?’ came a voice at his elbow, making the new mayor jump in shock.  Doctor Smith, of course, a man with the ability to make less noise than a mouse in felt slippers.

     ‘The fire-engine?  Yes, we have one.  Oh – you want to put out fires these slinking lizards start?’

     The little man made a rude, dismissive noise.

     ‘Hardly!  Their principal weapon appears to be a focussed thermal beam of extremly high intensity.  If you spray water on a beam like that it breaks down into hydrogen and oxygen and merely fuels the fire.  No, no, I had a rather less – ah, genteel – use for it.’

     This puzzled Mike again.  Their fire-engine constituted a half-ton water tank on a custom-built chassis, the power for pumping provided by mutually-opposed longitudinal handles on either side of the tank.  Simple and reliable, it worked for the low-rise buildings of New Eucla,.

     ‘Also, I’m looking for metal foil of any description.’

     At first Mike imagined he’d misheard.

     ‘Oil?’

     ‘No, “foil”.  The kind of stuff you wrap the turkey in for Christmas dinner!  And a wok,’ and the little man beamed a smile that made Mike wonder who between the two of them was dafter.

     Hmmm I suspect that cooking is not on the menu.

83 Million Reasons To Keep The Trap Door Shut

You will have heard by now that Pumpkinhead - actually no, I can't keep using that nickname, as there is a horror film that goes by that title.  Art!

Donald J Trump

Pumpkinhead

     Aha!  Got it - "Pimpkinhead".  Yeah, killer satire there Conrad.

     ANYWAY for the first time in weeks, Pimpkinhead has not dared to defame E Jean Carroll in speech or print, meaning that he FINALLY realises being stung to the tune of $83 million is because he couldn't keep his flapping piehole shut.  What he'll do now, as he did with the $5 million - O for the days when it was 'merely' $5 million, hmmm Donald? - is deposit a bond for some of the money and make an appeal.  However, both appeals are going to fail, because he's not been truly soaked for liability, which shows a fair degree of cunning on the jury's part.  It will delay the payout, which is what he's all about; kicking the can down the road and praying that aliens invade or the sun goes out or Sauron makes a comeback, that sort of thing.

Wouldn't hold out for that last one, matey

Finally -

Better get going, I have a drier full of laundry to sort out, and a constitutional stroll into Lesser Sodom whilst the rains hold off.  Rock and roll lifestyle, wouldn't you say?