I write about a lot of stupid things in this space; in a very real sense, it’s my job. I’m a management scholar, and one of the areas I study is Institutional Failure – the reasons why businesses fail, and the amazing ways the people who own/run then manage to accomplish these failures. Over the years I have come to believe that the single greatest cause of business failure, and certainly a major fact in the disturbing statistic that 90% of all new business ventures end in failure, is simple stupidity. Consequently, I spend a certain amount of time each week looking for outrageously stupid things to write about, rant about, or look into in greater detail. If you click on the “stupidity” tab at the bottom of this post, you’ll be treated to a few dozen examples that I’ve documented for the entertainment and edification of my readers (assuming I have readers) over the past three years. None of it quite prepared me for having two of the dumbest stories ever hit my desk in the same week, however…
First, we have this item from the New York Times online site. According to the story, one of the top executives at AIG has resigned because the CEO has imposed limits on the company’s compensation programs. Now, to some extent, this is not unreasonable; if your boss told you that you were never getting another raise (and you had some expectation of being able to get higher pay somewhere else) you might make the same choice. What makes this story so exceptional is that the company in question is AIG, whose highly-paid executives managed to run their organization so firmly into the ground that it took $50 billion of your tax dollars to pull it out again – and that the salary cap that so offended the departing individual was $500,000…
Given that over the past year AIG has managed to replace Haliburton as the most hated corporate entity in America (a feat that I would have sworn was impossible just a few years ago), this has to be one of the most tone-deaf moves I’ve seen since their President was publically quoted demanding a private jet for personal use, and threatening to resign over government-imposed compensation limits last August. If I was the employee in question, I’d make sure everyone knew I was resigning to spend more time with my family, pursue a new career direction (grad school, maybe?) or move to Hawaii (where the banking jobs don’t pay as well but the weather is really nice) before I’d let a story like this get loose about me. And if I were AIG, I’d make up some story about our “vice chairwoman for legal, human resources, corporate affairs and corporate communications” being fired, defecting to State Farm, or being eaten by newts before I’d let this story run in the media…
In fairness, I believe that the other story is actually a bit stupider. Law enforcement officials in San Diego, California are reporting that a new record for blood alcohol level was set earlier this month by a woman found passed out at the wheel of a stolen delivery truck. In general, a BAC of .40 is lethal to about 50% of the population, and .70 should kill any human being – or any other air-breathing mammal of similar size, for that matter. This individual recorded a BAC of .708, a possible new record for the State, although not for the country. A few weeks earlier a man in New Jersey managed to top .80 and live to tell the tale. Although I don’t believe he managed to commit DUI or GTA while doing so…
Happy New Year, everybody! Drive safe tonight; there may be other world record holders still at large…
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
The Ethics of Forgetting
We all know that remembering the important things is an important character virtue; it shows that you take those things seriously, and in the case of birthdays, anniversaries and such, that you take the relationship seriously and value the person in question. Certainly, anybody who has ever had their family fail to remember their birthday, or their significant other fail to remember the anniversary they share, knows that it’s a completely wretched feeling. You’d almost rather believe that they ARE doing it on purpose, since it’s easier to believe that somebody is angry at you than it is to believe that they think so little of you that they can’t even remember what day you started going out. And we all know that having a bad memory really won’t excuse such a mistake; this is why we have automatic reminders in our computer calendars, alarms on our PDAs and post-it notes stuck to the monitor of our computer. But what happens when, despite all of your best efforts, YOU are the poor schmuck who has forgotten the big day?
Depending on the nature of the event forgotten and the relationship you’re in, you might be able to use the Power of the Internet to pull yourself out of the pit you’ve constructed. Almost any conceivable gift item is available online, and with overnight shipping you can probably get it into your partner’s hands in 24 hours or less. If you don’t have that much time, you might be able to blame your Internet vendor, saying that you DID place your order well in advance of the event, only to have the shipment delayed by a backorder situation. If you are truly desperate, you can probably dig up something from around the house that might serve, although given the inherent problems with re-gifts (and unintentional re-gifts) this is generally not a good option. Some people will always try to keep a few potential gift items in “inventory” (somewhere around the house) against just such a failure of the memory, while others will resort to quickly creating a card that promises a vacation, tickets to a future event, or some product that isn’t yet available (but soon will be) to cover up the gap. Unfortunately, none of these concepts really addresses the inherent dishonesty of the situation…
The real question is whether you should be attempting to cover up the mistake in the first place. On the one hand, one of the best ways to resolve any situation is to make things right, and if you’ve injured someone by failing to get them a present then the logical thing to do is make good the lack. And certainly, telling someone that you were so overwhelmed by other events that you forgot the event (birthday, anniversary, holiday, whatever) is not likely to have any good outcome; you’re just likely to hurt their feelings to no good purpose. But on the other hand, failing to acknowledge your mistakes and taking furtive actions to cover up your failure is likely to cause trouble in the long run, especially if your counterpart finds out about your actions. In that event, you’re likely to be adding distrust onto whatever other problems you might be having…
All of which becomes much worse, of course, when the situation you are dealing with isn’t just forgetting the anniversary of your first Deeply Meaningful Telephone Conversation, but rather a major error of omission that has brought Federal auditors, customer lawsuits or tax liens down on your company. Which brings us to the point of this post: we all know that lying to Federal authorities (especially while under oath) is a felony, whereas maintaining a brutal degree of truth with your significant other will probably leave you alone even sooner than forgetting your anniversary. But where do you draw that line? At what point should you stop trying to just quietly fix your mistakes before anyone notices, and start holding press conferences announcing that errors have been made and you’re going to clean them up before they can have any negative impact on the American people. Or, to state it more plainly, when is honesty REALLY the best policy, and when would it be better to just try to make the situation go away?
It’s worth thinking about…
Depending on the nature of the event forgotten and the relationship you’re in, you might be able to use the Power of the Internet to pull yourself out of the pit you’ve constructed. Almost any conceivable gift item is available online, and with overnight shipping you can probably get it into your partner’s hands in 24 hours or less. If you don’t have that much time, you might be able to blame your Internet vendor, saying that you DID place your order well in advance of the event, only to have the shipment delayed by a backorder situation. If you are truly desperate, you can probably dig up something from around the house that might serve, although given the inherent problems with re-gifts (and unintentional re-gifts) this is generally not a good option. Some people will always try to keep a few potential gift items in “inventory” (somewhere around the house) against just such a failure of the memory, while others will resort to quickly creating a card that promises a vacation, tickets to a future event, or some product that isn’t yet available (but soon will be) to cover up the gap. Unfortunately, none of these concepts really addresses the inherent dishonesty of the situation…
The real question is whether you should be attempting to cover up the mistake in the first place. On the one hand, one of the best ways to resolve any situation is to make things right, and if you’ve injured someone by failing to get them a present then the logical thing to do is make good the lack. And certainly, telling someone that you were so overwhelmed by other events that you forgot the event (birthday, anniversary, holiday, whatever) is not likely to have any good outcome; you’re just likely to hurt their feelings to no good purpose. But on the other hand, failing to acknowledge your mistakes and taking furtive actions to cover up your failure is likely to cause trouble in the long run, especially if your counterpart finds out about your actions. In that event, you’re likely to be adding distrust onto whatever other problems you might be having…
All of which becomes much worse, of course, when the situation you are dealing with isn’t just forgetting the anniversary of your first Deeply Meaningful Telephone Conversation, but rather a major error of omission that has brought Federal auditors, customer lawsuits or tax liens down on your company. Which brings us to the point of this post: we all know that lying to Federal authorities (especially while under oath) is a felony, whereas maintaining a brutal degree of truth with your significant other will probably leave you alone even sooner than forgetting your anniversary. But where do you draw that line? At what point should you stop trying to just quietly fix your mistakes before anyone notices, and start holding press conferences announcing that errors have been made and you’re going to clean them up before they can have any negative impact on the American people. Or, to state it more plainly, when is honesty REALLY the best policy, and when would it be better to just try to make the situation go away?
It’s worth thinking about…
Saturday, December 26, 2009
The Grad School Diaries: Barry’s Cross-Time Paradox
In East Lansing, as in most college towns, I suppose, the first sign of spring isn’t a groundhog failing to see his shadow, or a handsome brown-and-red bird looking for food, or even a small purple flower sprouting bravely through the snow; it’s the arrival of applicants looking for admission the following fall. In the Business School each department has its own procedures (and traditions); in Management we start seeing and hearing from applicants in person during the early months of the winter/spring semester. This was news to me, of course, since my admission appears to have been up in the air until the last moment – I was still having telephone interviews the week before I had to commit to a graduate program. But then I’m definitely what you’d call a “non-traditional” student; unlike most of the people who have gone through the doctoral program I’ve already spent two decades in corporate America, lived and died through an endless series of mergers and acquisitions, and hustled just to stay alive. There have been older Ph.D. students in the Management department; there’s at least one of them now. But as my beloved wife is fond of observing, “It’s not the age, it’s the mileage…” And I’ve been down more miles of bad road than most…
This has never been more clear to me than it is now, meeting a half-dozen shiny new candidate for admission to the doctoral program. A few of them have some years of their own, but most of them look and sound as young as they actually are, and they seem very earnest as they listen to what the current corps of students has to tell them about life at MSU. It was while I was listening to the various grad students in our department talking about their own experiences that I was first struck by how much those present and the process we are all navigating resembles a river. On any given day there will be students ranging from first to fifth years in the program, and while those individuals flow through like individual drops of water, the course of the river itself changes only very slowly over time…
One day soon, if all goes well, I will be in the second or third year; five years from now I should be gone altogether. And perhaps next year the students we are meeting with will be in the First Year, filling in behind us as we move on. Somewhere out there in America the students who came before us are reaching the end of their careers and preparing for retirement, and elsewhere there are children being born who may – twenty-five or thirty years hence – be sitting where we are sitting now. Collectively, we will (hopefully!) advance the discipline we have come here to study, before we pass into history and are remembered only in a series of peer-reviewed articles and by our own students, assuming we ever have any. Becoming part of a great continuity of students and teachers, never ending or beginning, as we voyage slowly toward a greater understanding of the quirky science that dominates our lives…
As previously noted, several authors have made reference to a metaphorical River of Time that carries us from the headwaters of our birth to our eventual end in the ocean – the great equalizer, the one true democracy that awaits us all. American Humorist Dave Barry, in particular, also notes that with the right equipment, the right decision made at the right time – in his case, an electric guitar that he bought instead of something much more sensible – it’s possible to paddle against the current in the River of Time. Or, at least, to hold your position for a while…
It’s certainly not the ONLY reason I’m doing this, of course. It’s also about finding a new way, since my old ones aren’t working anymore; about finally standing up to my shortcomings and finding out if I’m really all of the things they tell me I am, or if that was just an illusion, too. It’s about character, and courage, and all of the intangibles that a man my age has usually worked out. But part of it, beyond question, is my last, best chance to swim against the current and see where I end up. It’s just a rare event when you can see the whole course of the River reaching out before you – and in this case, behind as well. I’ve come a long way since last summer – and I’m just getting warmed up…
This has never been more clear to me than it is now, meeting a half-dozen shiny new candidate for admission to the doctoral program. A few of them have some years of their own, but most of them look and sound as young as they actually are, and they seem very earnest as they listen to what the current corps of students has to tell them about life at MSU. It was while I was listening to the various grad students in our department talking about their own experiences that I was first struck by how much those present and the process we are all navigating resembles a river. On any given day there will be students ranging from first to fifth years in the program, and while those individuals flow through like individual drops of water, the course of the river itself changes only very slowly over time…
One day soon, if all goes well, I will be in the second or third year; five years from now I should be gone altogether. And perhaps next year the students we are meeting with will be in the First Year, filling in behind us as we move on. Somewhere out there in America the students who came before us are reaching the end of their careers and preparing for retirement, and elsewhere there are children being born who may – twenty-five or thirty years hence – be sitting where we are sitting now. Collectively, we will (hopefully!) advance the discipline we have come here to study, before we pass into history and are remembered only in a series of peer-reviewed articles and by our own students, assuming we ever have any. Becoming part of a great continuity of students and teachers, never ending or beginning, as we voyage slowly toward a greater understanding of the quirky science that dominates our lives…
As previously noted, several authors have made reference to a metaphorical River of Time that carries us from the headwaters of our birth to our eventual end in the ocean – the great equalizer, the one true democracy that awaits us all. American Humorist Dave Barry, in particular, also notes that with the right equipment, the right decision made at the right time – in his case, an electric guitar that he bought instead of something much more sensible – it’s possible to paddle against the current in the River of Time. Or, at least, to hold your position for a while…
It’s certainly not the ONLY reason I’m doing this, of course. It’s also about finding a new way, since my old ones aren’t working anymore; about finally standing up to my shortcomings and finding out if I’m really all of the things they tell me I am, or if that was just an illusion, too. It’s about character, and courage, and all of the intangibles that a man my age has usually worked out. But part of it, beyond question, is my last, best chance to swim against the current and see where I end up. It’s just a rare event when you can see the whole course of the River reaching out before you – and in this case, behind as well. I’ve come a long way since last summer – and I’m just getting warmed up…
Friday, December 25, 2009
Out of Luck Part 2
So what does one do when the obscure gift item one had intended to purchase is not available through the web site, and will not be available before spring of next year? In years past one might have been forced to simply wait for the thing to become available; perhaps giving the recipient a nice card and a picture of the gift that they will almost certainly get before Easter, assuming that your mail delivery person doesn’t freak out and just throw an entire of truckload of mail under the foundation of their (the mail carrier’s) house (which apparently happens from time to time). Alternately, you might find some other mail-order product that would do, or perhaps even break down and venture into the violent chaos that any large shopping complex will have degenerated into during this joyous season. In the age of the Internet, however, you’ll probably just feed the name of the product into whatever you use as a browser program and go find another vendor for the same thing…
Needless to say, perhaps, a single search turned up literally dozens of other sources for the gift I was looking for. The first five sites were also out of stock, but the sixth one, Kult of Athena.com not only had the item I was looking for, they were offering it a better price than the original vendor was. Which was remarkably odd, in fact, because the original vendor is the parent company of the manufacturer that actually makes the item in question. That’s right, folks, the new vendor I found online not only had a better selection than the company that makes my merchandise, they also sell it for a better price. I suppose I can see how one of your customers might have more ready inventory of your product available than you do, particularly if you business is primarily wholesale, rather than retail, based. I just can’t fathom how they would also be able to undercut your price…
In the long run, however, this little foul-up is going to end up costing my original vendor a lot more than whatever the difference between the wholesale price was and what their retail price could have been, because the new vendor carries merchandise from at least a dozen other manufacturers, including a much greater range of product categories. Since I can get all of the original vendor’s products off the Kult of Athena site, as well as the offerings from a dozen other companies, all at better prices, the original vendor is not likely to ever get my business back, but the real selling point is the “in-stock” indicator on the KofA web pages. Not only do they indicate what’s in or out of stock, they’ve actually got three categories: in stock, on backorder (available within a week or so) and out of stock (30 or more days wait). They’ve also got product ratings that cover how heavy-duty specific items are, what the proper uses for them might be, and so on, but frankly, just not having to wonder if I can get what I want now (as opposed to having to wait for a month) would be enough to keep me coming back…
It struck me this week that there’s a lesson here, not just for people in the mail-order industry, but for all of us in management. We’ve all known that the Internet has changed the way we do business for ever; sales, marketing, customer service, point-of-purchase, even operational management will never be the same. Now it turns out that even your inventory control system (or lack of one) has become another place where the rubber meets the road, where you can move with the times or become as obsolete as the paper ledger you’re using to keep track of your stock. It doesn’t matter how you feel about these newfangled contraptions; you can either keep up with the industry standard – or get left behind…
Needless to say, perhaps, a single search turned up literally dozens of other sources for the gift I was looking for. The first five sites were also out of stock, but the sixth one, Kult of Athena.com not only had the item I was looking for, they were offering it a better price than the original vendor was. Which was remarkably odd, in fact, because the original vendor is the parent company of the manufacturer that actually makes the item in question. That’s right, folks, the new vendor I found online not only had a better selection than the company that makes my merchandise, they also sell it for a better price. I suppose I can see how one of your customers might have more ready inventory of your product available than you do, particularly if you business is primarily wholesale, rather than retail, based. I just can’t fathom how they would also be able to undercut your price…
In the long run, however, this little foul-up is going to end up costing my original vendor a lot more than whatever the difference between the wholesale price was and what their retail price could have been, because the new vendor carries merchandise from at least a dozen other manufacturers, including a much greater range of product categories. Since I can get all of the original vendor’s products off the Kult of Athena site, as well as the offerings from a dozen other companies, all at better prices, the original vendor is not likely to ever get my business back, but the real selling point is the “in-stock” indicator on the KofA web pages. Not only do they indicate what’s in or out of stock, they’ve actually got three categories: in stock, on backorder (available within a week or so) and out of stock (30 or more days wait). They’ve also got product ratings that cover how heavy-duty specific items are, what the proper uses for them might be, and so on, but frankly, just not having to wonder if I can get what I want now (as opposed to having to wait for a month) would be enough to keep me coming back…
It struck me this week that there’s a lesson here, not just for people in the mail-order industry, but for all of us in management. We’ve all known that the Internet has changed the way we do business for ever; sales, marketing, customer service, point-of-purchase, even operational management will never be the same. Now it turns out that even your inventory control system (or lack of one) has become another place where the rubber meets the road, where you can move with the times or become as obsolete as the paper ledger you’re using to keep track of your stock. It doesn’t matter how you feel about these newfangled contraptions; you can either keep up with the industry standard – or get left behind…
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Three Hour Rule
By now you’ve probably already seen the news about the new rules for airline tarmac delays on some less obscure channel than this, but in case you missed it, Congress has ruled that airlines can no longer delay passengers by having their aircraft sit on the tarmac for more than three hours, and must provide food, water and restroom facilities in the event of such a delay. If this sounds completely absurd to you, or more to the point, if the idea of companies that depend on repeat business in order to stay in business violating not only the Rules of Business and Common Sense but in fact the Geneva Conventions and several Federal laws by effectively falsely imprisoning their passengers under such conditions for longer than six hours seems completely ridiculous to you, don’t worry. This merely indicates that you are still sane…
A much better question, at least from where I’m sitting, is why one airline or another hasn’t already jumped on this issue in order to gain a competitive advantage, the way Southwest did with the baggage fees issue. When the other major carriers started charging extra for checked baggage ($15 to $25 for the first bag, and often $25 to $125 for the second), Southwest immediately started advertising the fact that they were not going to institute any such fee, and have since developed television commercials (complete with jingles and choreography) that capitalize on the fact that their competition has rather stupidly decided to annoy the public. It seems obvious that someone could launch the same sort of campaign regarding tarmac delays and the three hour rule; either pledging not to do this sort of thing (unless necessary for safety or security reasons, of course) or bragging that anyone subjected to this delay will be given food, drink, free toys, frequent-flyer miles, or indeed anything else you can obtain for cheap…
The really beautiful part of such a campaign, you see, is that the airline doesn’t actually have to take any action; they just have to convince the public they are going to. If you use fast turn-around times as a key part of your business model the way Southwest does (it’s how they manage to provide so many flights each day with relatively few airplanes; their aircraft spend the smallest possible amount of time on the ground) you can already advertise having the shortest flight delays and the fewest of these day-long tarmac delays of anyone in the business. All you have to do now is convince the customer that the potential cost of the “free” services you’re promising in the event of a tarmac delay are so high that you couldn’t possibly afford to pay them out with any frequency, and the rest is just writing ad copy…
Now, I don’t want to suggest that misleading the public into thinking that you’re going to take care of them when you have no intention of doing so is an acceptable way of doing business. If you advertise added services in the event of a tarmac delay you must be ready to provide them; and if you promise to do everything possible to eliminate such events, you should be prepared to do exactly that. And if it really isn’t possible for you to do anything about such events under your present business model, well, then I’d have to recommend you start making changes as soon as possible. Because the few dollars that extra services will cost, or even the few thousand dollars that de-boarding the passengers and starting over when you can get the flight on its way successfully would cost, are going to be small potatoes compared to the millions of dollars in fines that the FAA is going to charge you for leaving even a single large plane filled with passengers waiting on the side of the runway...
A much better question, at least from where I’m sitting, is why one airline or another hasn’t already jumped on this issue in order to gain a competitive advantage, the way Southwest did with the baggage fees issue. When the other major carriers started charging extra for checked baggage ($15 to $25 for the first bag, and often $25 to $125 for the second), Southwest immediately started advertising the fact that they were not going to institute any such fee, and have since developed television commercials (complete with jingles and choreography) that capitalize on the fact that their competition has rather stupidly decided to annoy the public. It seems obvious that someone could launch the same sort of campaign regarding tarmac delays and the three hour rule; either pledging not to do this sort of thing (unless necessary for safety or security reasons, of course) or bragging that anyone subjected to this delay will be given food, drink, free toys, frequent-flyer miles, or indeed anything else you can obtain for cheap…
The really beautiful part of such a campaign, you see, is that the airline doesn’t actually have to take any action; they just have to convince the public they are going to. If you use fast turn-around times as a key part of your business model the way Southwest does (it’s how they manage to provide so many flights each day with relatively few airplanes; their aircraft spend the smallest possible amount of time on the ground) you can already advertise having the shortest flight delays and the fewest of these day-long tarmac delays of anyone in the business. All you have to do now is convince the customer that the potential cost of the “free” services you’re promising in the event of a tarmac delay are so high that you couldn’t possibly afford to pay them out with any frequency, and the rest is just writing ad copy…
Now, I don’t want to suggest that misleading the public into thinking that you’re going to take care of them when you have no intention of doing so is an acceptable way of doing business. If you advertise added services in the event of a tarmac delay you must be ready to provide them; and if you promise to do everything possible to eliminate such events, you should be prepared to do exactly that. And if it really isn’t possible for you to do anything about such events under your present business model, well, then I’d have to recommend you start making changes as soon as possible. Because the few dollars that extra services will cost, or even the few thousand dollars that de-boarding the passengers and starting over when you can get the flight on its way successfully would cost, are going to be small potatoes compared to the millions of dollars in fines that the FAA is going to charge you for leaving even a single large plane filled with passengers waiting on the side of the runway...
Monday, December 21, 2009
Out of Luck
A few nights ago I went online to purchase a Christmas gift for a member of my family. It was still more than a week before the big day, and I’ve never had a problem with paying for 2-day shipping when I need something in a hurry, so I wasn’t expecting any trouble. Unfortunately, the e-commerce site I was dealing with did not have the “in-stock” indicator on its web pages – and items like the one I was buying can take 30 to 40 days to get in from the factory. With deep misgivings, I filled in my card information and clicked on the purchase button. Sure enough, when I got up the next morning there was an email waiting to me that my purchase was out of stock and would arrive by February or so…
I’m not going to provide a link to the site for obvious reasons, and I’m also not going to name it, since I’m not really into litigation. If anyone really wants to know you can drop me a line in the comments and I’ll reply by private email. This is not to downplay my irritation, however. It’s hard to say which part of this is worse; the fact that they’re violating the First Law of Business by not selling me the thing I want, or the way they’re violating the Second Law by annoying me. Regardless of which, I’m now faced with finding a replacement gift before December 25, and with the fact that I’m apparently not nearly as clever as I thought I was…
Now, to be sure, it’s not entirely the seller’s fault. I should probably have placed my order weeks ago, and if I really wanted to be sure of getting mail-order merchandise (which is all e-commerce is, really; except the ordering part is faster) in time for Christmas, August would have been better. And no one is disputing the fact that keeping unusual (and expensive) merchandise in inventory at all times is bad for business. But in this case, the company could easily have avoided the bad feeling (and the Second Law violation) by just having an “in stock/out of stock” indicator on the page…
You might object to this conclusion by noting that no one will “buy” something that is listed as “out of stock,” whereas they might be willing to wait for it rather than going to the trouble of more shopping during the Christmas rush. Which is certainly possible, given that at least half of the population would actually rather chew off their own foot than go to a shopping mall during this time of the year. But even if we accept this logic, it still does not account for the massive amounts of bad public relations (and bad customer relations) created by this sort of management practice. I’m not going to wait until February for a Christmas present; I’m not even going to wait until next week. I’m going to the competition right now, and I will probably tell more than the industry-standard assumption of 26 other potential customers about how this vendor was going to make me wait until Valentine’s Day (or possibly St. Patrick’s Day) to get my merchandise. In fact, I’m probably going to find 26 people in the real world in addition to whoever is reading this post (assuming I have readers)…
All of which leads me to conclude that I’m not the one who is out of luck, here…
I’m not going to provide a link to the site for obvious reasons, and I’m also not going to name it, since I’m not really into litigation. If anyone really wants to know you can drop me a line in the comments and I’ll reply by private email. This is not to downplay my irritation, however. It’s hard to say which part of this is worse; the fact that they’re violating the First Law of Business by not selling me the thing I want, or the way they’re violating the Second Law by annoying me. Regardless of which, I’m now faced with finding a replacement gift before December 25, and with the fact that I’m apparently not nearly as clever as I thought I was…
Now, to be sure, it’s not entirely the seller’s fault. I should probably have placed my order weeks ago, and if I really wanted to be sure of getting mail-order merchandise (which is all e-commerce is, really; except the ordering part is faster) in time for Christmas, August would have been better. And no one is disputing the fact that keeping unusual (and expensive) merchandise in inventory at all times is bad for business. But in this case, the company could easily have avoided the bad feeling (and the Second Law violation) by just having an “in stock/out of stock” indicator on the page…
You might object to this conclusion by noting that no one will “buy” something that is listed as “out of stock,” whereas they might be willing to wait for it rather than going to the trouble of more shopping during the Christmas rush. Which is certainly possible, given that at least half of the population would actually rather chew off their own foot than go to a shopping mall during this time of the year. But even if we accept this logic, it still does not account for the massive amounts of bad public relations (and bad customer relations) created by this sort of management practice. I’m not going to wait until February for a Christmas present; I’m not even going to wait until next week. I’m going to the competition right now, and I will probably tell more than the industry-standard assumption of 26 other potential customers about how this vendor was going to make me wait until Valentine’s Day (or possibly St. Patrick’s Day) to get my merchandise. In fact, I’m probably going to find 26 people in the real world in addition to whoever is reading this post (assuming I have readers)…
All of which leads me to conclude that I’m not the one who is out of luck, here…
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