WTF Sh*t's F*cked Up and Bullsh*t - a "Who Cares" thread for news

[Innula Zenovka]

What in the actual

What's the provenance of this email/memo/whatever it is?

I ask because the tone doesn't ring true to me, particularly the bit about "We will follow up this email with a personal meeting but wanted to document the discussion beforehand," which seems back-to-front.

The more natural way to do it, I would have thought, would be to hold the discussion first and then, if necessary, follow that up by putting in writing the relevant points that emerged from the meeting, particularly since the issues raised are potentially so sensitive. However, it's noteworthy that, despite the reference to following up with a personal meeting, the memo ends not with any proposals about a date or time for this meeting but with an offer to advise on car dealerships.

Without more information, I can't dismiss my suspicion that this is, in fact, a hoax written in order to "go viral," for whatever reason.

 

[Beebo Brink]

This sure looks like a snub to me, but I'm wondering if that's just wishful thinking on my part. Innula Zenovka - Can you shed any insight into this interaction?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm hardly an expert in royal etiquette, but Charles' office is denying it was a deliberate snub, for what that may be worth.

They say he'd just finished a friendly meeting with Pence shortly before the incident, which is why he didn't greet him again, and point to the fact the two men appear to have had a friendly conversation later on during the proceedings.

Prince Charles denies snubbing Mike Pence by avoiding handshake

Prince Charles has denied claims he snubbed US Vice President Mike Pence by avoiding a handshake with him.

www.standard.co.uk

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Those of us who watch Gwyneth Paltrow and her Goop cult with horrified fascination might enjoy this:

Do not adjust your set: Gwyneth Paltrow is spreading Goop all over TV

Everyone’s favourite turbocharged wellness capitalist has laid out her stall in the trailer for her new Netflix show. But what does any of it mean?

www.theguardian.com

The Goop Lab review – so Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t know what a vagina is

Like the star’s wellness brand, this whole show is a demented paean to self-indulgence. And for someone peddling health treatments, she seems alarmingly ignorant about anatomy

www.theguardian.com

She suggests you steam it, put jade eggs up it and recently launched a candle that smells like it, but Gwyneth Paltrow seems not to know what a vagina is.

That’s the takeaway from The Goop Lab, the Netflix series launched to bring Paltrow’s lifestyle brand to a wider audience. The moment the high priestess of the pudenda’s ignorance is revealed comes in the third of six episodes, entitled The Pleasure Is Hers, courtesy of Betty Dodson. Dodson is a 90-year-old New Yorker and old-school feminist who has been teaching female masturbation workshops for half a century. She lets Gwyneth speak about the holy of holies for a bit. Then she leans forward and tells her: “The vagina is the birth canal only. Ya wanna talk about the vulva – that’s the clitoris, the inner lips and all that good shit around it.” The high priestess of the pudenda is shook. “I thought the vagina was the whole thing?” It’s almost as though she never had any idea what she was talking about.

 

[Rose Karuna]

suspicion that this is, in fact, a hoax written

I'm voting hoax. Companies (particularly those with government contracts) do check your credit rating and if there are problems they may ask about them but I've been through a couple of employee background checks and have never heard of anything like this. It's stupid, the employee could just be frugal (like me) and drive the car because it still runs and there is no incentive to buy another. As an employer I'd see that as a good thing.

In a background check, I'd wonder more about someone driving a car that was way above their means.

 

[Fionalein]

In a background check, I'd wonder more about someone driving a car that was way above their means.

Depends a lot, a snake oil salesman would need a representative car of course...

 

[Rose Karuna]

Depends a lot, a snake oil salesman would need a representative car of course...

You mean like this one?

snake-car hosted at ImgBB

Image snake-car hosted in ImgBB

ibb.co

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Depends a lot, a snake oil salesman would need a representative car of course...

I know the comment isn't meant seriously, but it does raise the point that, at least in the UK, in general people's employers will, if the job is one that requires the use of a car, normally either provide one as part of the remuneration package or provide the employee with some kind of essential user car allowance (both of which, I think, are more tax-efficient than simply paying someone enough to buy a decent car and hoping that's what they do with the money).

In fact, now I come to think of it, were I employing someone I expected to drive a decent car on company business, if I chose not to provide the vehicle myself but, instead, to pay them generously enough (in my opinion) that they could afford to run something that met my expectations, I'd have made my expectations very clear, in writing, when I hired them, so that I could refer to that document should they simply pocket the extra and continue to run an old banger.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Even in Houston most people aren't in SUVs.

Come to California.

 

[Fionalein]

I know the comment isn't meant seriously, ...

It was meant semi-seriously, I just can't take insurance salesmen, pharmaceutical sales representatives and their ilk serious. I'm an silvicultural engineer, my job requires a car - in my job if you turn up with a new car you will be frowned upon as you obviously have too much money - almost every sane person in my business takes a reliable but cheap used car to work. A car where an occasional dint won't matter.

Don't get me wrong - I understand the need to have a tidy appearance in those jobs, but here in Germany traveling salesmen ride company provided cars way above their salary allowance because their superiours think those are needed to impress customers. To me they have the opposite effect - I get quite reluctant to hand my money to those "style over substance" merchants. They could use that money to give me a better product - or to pay their salesmen better ... when we equal happier salesman with better customer support that also leaves me with some kind of better product.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

It was meant semi-seriously, I just can't take insurance salesmen, pharmaceutical sales representatives and their ilk serious. I'm an silvicultural engineer, my job requires a car - in my job if you turn up with a new car you will be frowned upon as you obviously have too much money - almost every sane person in my business takes a reliable but cheap used car to work. A car where an occasional dint won't matter.

Don't get me wrong - I understand the need to have a tidy appearance in those jobs, but here in Germany traveling salesmen ride company provided cars way above their salary allowance because their superiours think those are needed to impress customers. To me they have the opposite effect - I get quite reluctant to hand my money to those "style over substance" merchants. They could use that money to give me a better product - or to pay their salesmen better ... when we equal happier salesman with better customer support that also leaves me with some kind of better product.

Years ago I used to know a guy who had a very senior position in the London office of a major US company -- so senior, in fact, that he could afford an apartment in a block just off Tottenham Court Road, only a mile or so from the office.

As part of his remuneration package, they provided him with a very nice company car -- Alfa Romeo, from memory -- along with a reserved space in the company car park.

Later they threatened to take both off him because he wasn't using his car to drive to work.

They wanted him to drive to work in an Alfa Romeo. For a mile or two. In central London during the rush hour.

ETA

You mean like this one?

snake-car hosted at ImgBB

Image snake-car hosted in ImgBB

ibb.co

Apparently Gwyneth Paltrow drives both a Toyota Prius and a BMW X5, if that's any help.

Gwyneth Paltrow Net Worth - Salary, House, Car

Gwyneth Paltrow net worth is $60 million. Date of Birth: 27 September, 1972 Nationality: American Religion: Jewish She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth as her parents were quite rich. Both of them were celebrities and that’s why Gwyneth had everything she wanted from the very childhood...

networthcelebrities.com

 

[Free]

Come to California.

Where they're delivered to your door by Carvana?

 

[Zaida Gearbox]

Cody did someone send you that email??????????

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Cody did someone send you that email??????????

Oh no! It was being shared online. So like has been pointed out above, its provenance isn't that great. But unlike some, I'm not willing to call it a likely hoax; it matches present-day corporate attitudes well and doesn't really exaggerate anything that I can see.

 

[danielravennest]

In my family we always drove cars til they were unfixable or needed frequent repair. I liked driving a reliable old car because the insurance was lower and so what if it got accepted free dings.
Maybe these guys feel the same way.
The car I was driving was 20 years old when I sold it on. It's still on the road.

My daily-driver small car is 20 years old, and I bought it when it was 2. It's long-since paid off, nobody wants to steal it or thinks I have something valuable inside, and I know it has been well taken care of.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Oh no! It was being shared online. So like has been pointed out above, its provenance isn't that great. But unlike some, I'm not willing to call it a likely hoax; it matches present-day corporate attitudes well and doesn't really exaggerate anything that I can see.

While it may, and probably does, match the attitude of any number of actual corporations, I'm just wondering to what extent it matches their practice, because it seems to me all arse-backwards (a technical term) and not the way I'd expect many corporations actually to behave as a result of their holding such attitudes.

It just seems to me unlikely that anyone so keen to document things that they go into completely unnecessary detail about the company's policies and the reasons for the meeting before it takes place would, at the same time, be so lax that they apparently failed to document the fact that they'd made the employee aware of the policy at the time she or he was hired, at the same time they confirmed other terms and conditions of the appointment (salary, annual leave, medical insurance and so on), or even to mention it in the company handbook, or that they don't do background credit checks before hiring, despite their concerns as they explain them here.

I mean, if the sort of car someone in this position drives is so important, aren't you going to ask at the interview what sort of car the candidate has? Did they hire this person, knowing what her car was like, and not bother to tell her that now they're paying her so generous a salary, they expect her to buy a better ride?

 

[Fionalein]

While it may, and probably does, match the attitude of any number of actual corporations, I'm just wondering to what extent it matches their practice, because it seems to me all arse-backwards (a technical term) and not the way I'd expect many corporations actually to behave as a result of their holding such attitudes.

In many countries investigating a future employee's car choice would be illegal unless there are very good reasons and those are declared in the job ad (and in some countries it would be illegal even then). At least here in Germany a company would run the very danger of sponsoring that job applicant compensation funds worth around one year of wages by sending out such a reply. But I assume we are talking about the neolib infested US here...

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Every job I've had to dive, I was offered either use of a company car or a milage payment for use of my car.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Where they're delivered to your door by Carvana?

Pretty much.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I mean, if the sort of car someone in this position drives is so important, aren't you going to ask at the interview what sort of car the candidate has? Did they hire this person, knowing what her car was like, and not bother to tell her that now they're paying her so generous a salary, they expect her to buy a better ride?

Policies change. Good companies can turn into nightmares.