Dave Barry's Money Secrets

by Dave Barry

  MASTER OF CEREMONIES: Our winner this year is Wanda Zuckmiller of Visa, who achieved what many experts in our industry said was impossible: She mailed out the first Visa statement ever with a balance of—and this is a direct quote—“one jillion dollars.” Not only did the credit card holder, a Mrs. Shirley Hemplerigger of Plano, Texas, unquestioningly accept this amount—her exact words were “I have GOT to stop buying collectible wax fruit on eBay”—but Wanda also got Mrs. Hemplerigger to sign a statement agreeing to pay off her balance by sending Visa $50 a month for—and again I am quoting—“87 bazillion months.”

  (WILD APPLAUSE)

  Does this mean you should cut up your credit cards and throw them away? No. It just means that you should use them wisely. Suppose, for example, that you see an item in a store that you really need, but you don’t have enough cash on hand to buy it. This is the logical time to use a credit card. Wait until the store closes, then slide the card into the door crack and use it to jimmy open the lock.

  Ha ha! Suze and I are just pulling your leg again. It’s against the law to break into stores, and a credit card is the wrong tool for the job.* 5

  Our point is that there are many simple and effective techniques that you can use to reduce your unnecessary spending, and just because we haven’t been able to think of any in this chapter, that is no excuse for you not to employ them. Suze and I are sick of your excuses.

  4

  HOW THE CORPORATE WORLD WORKS

  The Critical Role of Office Furniture

  THE BEST WAY TO UNDERSTAND the corporate world is to open up any newspaper to the business section and read a story at random. Chances are it will say something like this:

  TROUBLED AIRLINE ANNOUNCES GIGANTIC LOSSES

  Troubled Unideltican Airways today announced third-quarter losses amounting to $7.1 billion. This comes on top of second-quarter losses of $6.6 billion and first-quarter losses of $6.8 billion, meaning that so far in this year alone, the troubled airline has lost more money than the gross national product of Central America.

  “Sweet Lord Jesus, this is troubling,” commented Unideltican’s chief executive officer, E. Harmon Swackette III. “Every time I come back from a golf tournament, there’s another billion gone! I’ve never seen anything like it, except at the last six companies I was CEO of.

  “Clearly we need to find more ways to cut costs,” continued Swackette, a former executive in the troubled Internet-poultry industry who currently makes $17.3 million per year, including performance bonuses. “We saved some money by laying off nonessential personnel such as the whaddycallem, copilots. And of course we no longer feed the passengers, who now, on our longer routes, get so hungry that they eat the in-flight magazines. But we need to look in other areas, such as those big loud things on the wing, the whaddycallits, engines. My people tell me those things use a LOT of costly fuel. I’m thinking maybe they don’t all have to be turned on all the time.”

  Swackette said the troubled airline would also be looking for new sources of revenue. “For example,” he said, “after takeoff, we could make an announcement like, ‘Once we reach a comfortable cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, you will be free to move about the cabin, although this may be difficult for our non-Sherpa passengers, because Unideltican Airways no longer offers cabin pressurization in coach. So those of you who plan to breathe during the flight might want to rent an oxygen canister for $138.75 from one of the flight attendants now passing down the aisle. As always, exact change is greatly appreciated! We’re also selling a selection of condiments to put on your magazine.’ ”

  Swackette added that if the troubled airline’s losses continue, he would have “no choice but to seriously consider jacking up executive bonuses.”

  These stories aren’t always about the airline industry. Every day there’s news about large companies in other industries that, to judge from their losses, are setting fire to bales of cash in the parking lot. These stories teach us three important facts:

  Fact 1: Large corporations are really rich, so rich that they can piss away ridiculous amounts of money and still remain large.

  Fact 2: These companies pay excellent salaries to top executives, who, to judge from Fact 1 . . .

  Fact 3: . . . do not necessarily know any more about how to run a business than you, or, for that matter, a reasonably bright Labrador retriever.

  Ask virtually any employee of virtually any large corporation about the competence of the people in charge, and you will be assured that they are complete morons whose apparent goal is to destroy the company. High-level-executive moronity is a universally observed phenomenon, although nobody really knows what causes it. The most plausible theory is executive office furniture. This theory holds that, in small quantities, there is nothing harmful about your quality hardwoods such as walnut, oak, mahogany, Formica, etc. But apparently when you have a very large mass of this type of wood—as you would find in the office of your typical high-level corporate executive, who, to indicate his executive stature, has a desk with the same surface area as Vermont—the wood emits some kind of invisible Stupid Rays that penetrate and ravage the brain of any human who remains too long within range, as depicted in the following scientific diagram:

  How Executive Office Furniture Shrinks the Human Brain

  SOURCE: The Mayo Clinic

  Photography Credits

  Furniture Induced Brain Shrinkage (FIBS) is the only possible explanation for certain unbelievably bad decisions made by theoretically intelligent executives in charge of huge corporations with access to vast amounts of data:

  (THE SCENE: THE EXECUTIVE CONFERENCE ROOM OF THE COCA-COLA CORP., 1984. THE CEO RISES TO SPEAK.)

  CEO: Gentlemen, our primary product, Coca-Cola, is the number one soft drink in the world. The question is: What are we, as highly paid executives, going to do about this? Anybody have any suggestions?

  (THERE IS A LENGTHY PAUSE, WHILE EVERYBODY THINKS HARD, STARING AT THE TABLE. FINALLY, A HAND GOES UP.)

  CEO: Yes, Bob?

  BOB: I have one.

  CEO (puzzled): One what?

  BOB: Suggestion.

  CEO: Oh! Right! What is it?

  BOB (puzzled): What is what?

  CEO: What’s your suggestion?

  BOB: Oh! Right! I was thinking maybe we could change it.

  (DEEP FROWNS OF PUZZLEMENT ALL AROUND THE TABLE.)

  CEO: Change what, Bob?

  BOB: Change the product.

  (EVEN DEEPER FROWNS AROUND THE TABLE.)

  BOB: Coca-Cola.

  (SMILES, NODS OF RECOGNITION AROUND THE TABLE.)

  CEO (thoughtfully): So, Bob, if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that we should take Coca-Cola—which is not only the most successful soft drink in history, but also the single most successful product of any kind in history; a product whose formula has remained the same for nearly 100 years; a product whose consumers are fiercely loyal—and you’re saying we should change it?

  BOB: Yes.

  CEO: I like it!

  (NODS AROUND THE TABLE; MURMURS OF “I LIKE IT, TOO!” AND “ME TOO!” AND “WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT, AGAIN?” AND “I WET MYSELF!”)

  CEO: Then it’s settled! We’ll change the formula! I’ll call Research and Development!

  (PAUSE)

  CEO: Does anybody remember how to operate the phone?

  Another example of a major corporation doing something that appeared to be clinically insane was the decision by General Motors—which must have an enormous executive conference table—to manufacture the Pontiac Aztek, a car so ugly that it routinely causes following motorists to go blind. I mean, OK, imagine you’re a high-ranking GM executive, and the New Car Design Group comes to you with a proposal for a new car, and they show you this hideous image:

  Photography Credits

  No! Sorry! Wrong image! They show you this:

  Photography Credits

  Now, if your IQ is a positive number, you’re going to look at this image, and you’re g
oing to have some questions. Such as:

  • Who, exactly, is the target market for this vehicle? Does research show that there are a lot of potential car buyers out there saying, “I want a squat little car with a really big ass”?

  • What are we going to call this vehicle? The ButtMobile? The HunchCar of Notre Dame?

  But apparently no GM executives asked these questions. Instead, they chose to spend millions and millions of corporate dollars and actually make this car, which they called the “Aztek,” which isn’t even spelled right,* 6 and if that isn’t scientific proof that executive furniture destroys brain cells, I don’t know what the hell is.

  Or take my business, the newspaper business. I know many high-level newspaper executives, and individually they are all smart and wonderful people, especially the ones who have, for whatever reason, given me money. But when they get together to decide things, newspaper executives display the intelligence of soybeans.

  Why do I say this? Consider:

  For decades now, newspaper readership has been steadily going down. A major reason is that young people don’t read newspapers. Young people either don’t care about news, or prefer to get their news from alternative sources, such as the Internet, TV, cell phones, cereal boxes, skywriting, and other people’s tattoos. But whatever the cause, these young people do not read newspapers.

  As I say, the readership decline has been going on for decades. And over those decades, newspaper executives have tried many, many times to solve the problem. Unfortunately—and this is what convinces me that exposure to office furniture must be involved—they always come up with exactly the same solution, at newspaper after newspaper, despite the fact that it has never once, not a single time, actually worked.

  The solution they always come up with—after hiring consultants, doing extensive surveys, and holding many meetings—is to appeal to younger people. They always try to do this via a two-pronged approach:

  • Prong One: Do fewer stories about heavy boring topics such as the world, and more stories about topics that, in the view of middle-aged newspaper executives, are of interest to young people who do not read newspapers. These youth-oriented topics include extreme sports, video games, hip-hop music, skateboarding, celebrities, tattoos, celebrity tattoos, and extreme-skateboarding hip-hop video-game celebrities with tattoos.

  • Prong Two: Give the paper a jazzier, more youthful look by publishing more graphics, more bold colors, and more pictures of interest to young people who would not pick up a newspaper if their lives depended on it. Make stories shorter, so that they do not contain so many pesky words. Make paragraphs shorter. Make sentences shorter. Use shorter words. Like this. If you must write about the world, write about countries with short names, such as Chad.

  This two-pronged strategy always produces two results, both entirely predictable:

  • Result One: Older people, the ones who actually read the newspaper, notice that their newspaper is starting to look and read like a cross between The National Enquirer and a comic book, and that it contains an inordinate number of stories about topics they have no interest in, such as hip-hop video skateboarding in Chad. Some of these older readers become disgusted and cancel their subscriptions.

  • Result Two: Younger people pay no attention whatsoever, because, as we have noted, they do not read newspapers.

  So, with some older readers canceling their subscriptions, and no young people signing up, the newspaper’s readership, instead of going up, declines still more. This causes great consternation among newspaper executives, who hire more consultants, conduct more surveys, and, above all, hold many lengthy “brainstorming” sessions around large hardwood conference tables.

  It is there that the newspaper executives, their brains shriveled to the size of quarks by Furniture Induced Brain Shrinkage, come up with what they sincerely believe to be a radical new plan for saving the newspaper: They’ll appeal to younger readers! Do more stories on youthful topics! Redesign the paper so it has more graphics, shorter stories! Rub mayonnaise in their hair and sing “I Feel Pretty!”

  Actually, I made that last one up, although it would probably do less harm to the newspaper industry than the other “fixes.” Anyway, the newspaper executives barge mindlessly ahead with yet another Youth-Oriented Makeover. Like the seventeen previous Youth-Oriented Makeovers, it’s a disaster, leaving the executives no choice but to hire more consultants, conduct more surveys, and once again gather ’round the old conference table, where they come up with a radical new plan. . . .

  OK, you get the point (unless you’re sitting next to office furniture, in which case you’re thinking, “I don’t get it! What’s the point??”). And I don’t mean to pick on the newspaper industry; it just happens to be the one I’m most familiar with. I’m sure you can cite plenty of examples of high-level corporate stupidity in your own industry. Virtually all modern businesses are run this way, which is why the primary activity of your modern corporation—far more important than actually making anything—is buying other corporations.

  Here’s how it works: Your typical corporation, as we have established, is run by a group of morons sitting around a conference table and making bad decisions. Eventually these decisions cause the corporation to suffer declining profits, or even outright losses. So the executives, instead of reaching the obvious conclusion—namely, that they are incompetent—conclude that there must be something wrong with their entire industry.

  So they decide to buy a corporation in some other industry, generally one they know absolutely nothing about. Like, if their company makes brassieres, they might decide they want to own a chain of plumbing-supply stores. Or maybe even—why not?—an auto manufacturer. (“Let’s make an offer on General Motors! I really love that Pontiac Aztek!”)

  So Company A buys Company B, only to discover that Company B, which of course is also run by functional morons, is not doing so hot either. So the combined managements of both companies gather together—they need a really big conference table for this—and decide that what they need to do, as executives making huge salaries, is fire some workers.

  This strikes everybody at the conference table as a fine idea, because (a) workers cost money, and (b) none of them are sitting at the conference table. So they fire some workers and outsource their jobs to Asia. They keep doing this until eventually all the actual work is being done by people in some Third World village who are so happy not to be shoveling yak dung that they will work for an entire month in exchange for a roll of Certs.

  Am I exaggerating? Of course I am. Many overseas workers receive only half a roll of Certs. But my essential point is true: If you want to make money in a modern corporation, you do not want to be a worker. You do not want to know anything useful or practical, such as how to make an actual brassiere. You want to be an executive, so you can sit around the conference table and make important, high-level, far-reaching strategic decisions with the other morons. In the next chapter, we’ll talk about how you can achieve that goal.

  5

  HOW TO GET A JOB

  The Amazing Power of Oral Sex

  AS WE LEARNED IN THE LAST CHAPTER, your goal is to get a high-paying executive job in a big corporation. Unfortunately, this is not easy: For every good job opening you find, chances are there will be hundreds—even thousands—of people competing against you for it. There is simply no practical way you can kill them all.

  But that is no reason to give up hope. Oh, sure, you and I both know, deep down inside, that the other job candidates are smarter and more competent than you. But competence and intelligence aren’t everything. Look at the past ten or eleven presidents of the United States.

  No, you can get the job, if you take certain steps. Step one is to:

  1. Research Your Prospective Employer

  When you apply for a job at a corporation, it’s good to have some idea of what the corporation does. Sometimes you can tell by the corporation’s name. For example, General Foods makes foods, General Motors m
akes motors, General Mills makes mills, General Electric makes electricity, General Dynamics makes dynamics, and so on.

  Note: If the corporation has a mutant name like “Amerisource” or “Accenture,” chances are nobody knows what it does, including the people who work there.

  There are other important things you should find out about a corporation you are thinking of working for, such as:

  • Where, exactly, will you, as an executive, park?

  • Will you get to use the corporation’s skybox seats? For which games?

  • What about the play-offs?

  • Will you have Internet access? This is very important: You’ll be spending a lot of time at work, and you will need something to do.

  • When you call in sick because you need to do something else that day, can you just say you’re sick, or do you have to really sound sick and provide explicit details of your pretend illness, such as, “I have never seen diarrhea spurt that far.”

  • How is the corporate cafeteria? Does it have a variety of entrées and a well-maintained salad bar, with the ingredients carefully separated? Or are there always some rogue chickpeas in the low-fat ranch dressing?

  • What about eating out? Is the corporation located near decent restaurants? Or is it in some rural hellhole where the only off-site cuisine option is a Big Boy?

  • Are there chickpeas in the Big Boy’s low-fat ranch?

  • What the hell are chickpeas, anyway?