Discussion:American Business: Gone nuts

Boy, this is a another bright idea, isn't it? You have to figure that employees are wasting at least 5 hours a day now between the internet and the cell phone.

American business NOW determines that the way to achieve world dominiation is to have the employees waste 8 hours a day "communicating"! Way to go guys!

How did we ever make it with just a telephone?

P.S. And, as far as marketing goes, I personally find it offensive when someone pretends to be in "communication" with me, when in fact their true intent is to sell me a product, or to create buzz about a product. When I detect such SPAM attempts, it actually turns me off toward the product.

I think a lot of the younger people are subject-object directed today, instead of being subject-subject directed. Well, come to think of it, some of their older bosses are object directed too, I guess.

So, if challanged, the co. can say: oh,this is business related, and has nothing to do with age discrimination, and get away with it.

I really wonder about this though. I couldn't take an employee seriously that was twittering all day. I wouldn't want my doctor twittering or tweeting to pass the time of day, lol. I'd rather he be reading a medical journal, or even playing golf!

On the other hand, maybe that's what we did on the bar stools in the old days. I've already offended several of my relatives my refusing to participate in Facebook. I'll accept the invitations, but I don't participate. I just can't get excited about reports on the brand of cat food my cousin uses, or the domestic trivia that some find so interesting.

I hope they will go away, myself. In fact, since most of these tech. companies are just a flash in the pan anyway, I can see the public tiring of this drivel.

Heck, I remember the glory days of Yahoo, Netscape, and Aol.com. Now they are seen as soooo uncool!

They used to say sell the sizzle, and not the steak. Now, they have perfected it to the point where all they sell is sizzle because there is no steak.

P.S. Arcade, don't take me personally, some of us old codgers are just rising up from the park benches in protest...it'll be a vain protest, I'm sure.

P.P.S. And look what happened to this poor fellow. One wonders if he was "texting" at the time of the accident. This proves that when you take out the old fashioned pencil and paper and work a math problem, only apples fall on your head. When you are a techno genius, 100lb limbs fall on you!http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/07/30/2009-07-30_horror_in_park_fells_dad_of_2_100lb_limb_crashes_onto_google_engineer.html

I hope the man recovers, but I won't be making this mistake!

The point Crow and I absolutely agree with him and Natalie, is with these social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. is they can be anonymous. Anyone can say or do anything they pretty much want. If one of your clients, potential employers or potential customers see this type of information, it could create problems for you.

No, the Internet is not a fad. It's here to stay. But you have to be careful. Look at Wikipedia; some of those entries on there have been flat out wrong and suspect. I never go there as a first source, trust me.

Also, look at Erin Andrews for crying out loud. She's pretty darn good looking and as a result that poor women had a video plastered of her naked for all the frat house boys to see. Now she is holed up in her home because her privacy has been absolutely violated.

Another case in point: today I signed up for Facebook because I have been looking for a good friend I worked with who was missing. He got married earlier this year. To make a long, difficult story short, someone posted information on his page that he died yesterday. Sadly, it was true (I called his widow), but what if it wasn't? It would have upset a lot of people for nothing.

Natalie makes a great observation. People today on Facebook wanted to be my "friends". I didn't know them at all! What the heck is that about? Go away people I don't know, I will make my own friends and I have plenty. I actually do consider many people here friends because I have spoken to several via my personal e-mail address and on the phone.

Whatever happened to picking up a phone and calling someone as Crow mentions? It isn't that hard.

Just because you got a few clients from it doesn't mean anything. People always want to hear and see their accountant. I call my clients just so they hear my voice. Some I've never physically met, but they know me from the phone. I want to meet them personally because that's who I am.

Tom

You have to work for a living in the South, where we're from. That's what whitey did on the plantations of Maryland and Georgia before the War: he worked! If he didn't, he didn't eat. There was no beer drinking with the President back in those days.

If you work hard, your body finally wears out, and you aren't fit to text.

Here I caught my wife the other day sneaking Viagra into my toothpaste. She's drugging me. I had to accept the fact long ago that I'm just a sexual plaything to her, nothing more.

Acade, you young ones are going to win the battle, but lose the war. We know, we've already been there, and got our T-shirts.

Try em out, you can visit em once a week for 10 minutes to do stuff like this.

Just some thoughts, not being pushy.

It's what Alvin Toffler referred to as Future Shock. We've seen the future, and we're shocked at how sorry it all turned out!

I'll be willing to try some of your suggestions, as long as I don't need any new passwords or registrations.

I've signed up for so many things over the years, I feel like I've been compromised.

As you said, who is going to use your services from MD or North Dakota? I don't expect someone from Hawaii to call me to use my little practice. It would be silly.

But this is my largest problem with the Internet: it's the anonymity factor. Here is another great example: I sit on the board of organization and the organization was given a major contract. I was on a message board and someone had a user name I could not decipher. This individual posted they knew who got the contract when that information was not public knowledge. People on the message board started clamoring for information. I jumped in and asked how this person knew. I universally use the same user name at most message boards. He immediately knew who I was and took back his post. At the next board meeting, he apologized to me and I told him it was okay, just be careful next time.

I joined Linkedin and Twitter, but I barely go to those sites. As I said, I joined Facebook and got the surprise of my life this afternoon. I am still reeling and devastated from the shock. It's no way to find out about a good friend. A phone call would have been better in this case.

Tom

Obviously the Journal of Accountancy agrees with you as well as they have recently created a page and I have become FB friends with one of their senior editors.

And Natalie, we have never met, but through the power of the internet, I believe we have become "internet" friends. The same with a few others here. Taxalmanac is it's own little community as well. We still each decide who we let in.

Also, the Md State society of CPA's has their own FB page and often uses it to marshall support for things when needed. the possibilities are endless.

Acade, you need to forgive some of these dinosaurs, they are lovable and extremely intelligent curmudgeons. They mean well, they just sometimes move a bit slow. lol

FB is here to stay guys, Linked in, or some other similar deal is here to stay. I see a morphing of FB where it creates a similar BizBook.com type site that is FB for business.

Acade, my name is Fred. I'll be sending you a friend request later, hope you accept it. Also in NY and have shuffled off to Buffalo way quite often.

Funny but the same internet is bringing me articles lately about FB being so passe and getting ready to go the way of the dodo. Before you protest, realize that I know that people who write for the 'net' must have something to say, so a piece on the demise of FB will draw viewers. They probably don't believe it themselves, but want their 15 minutes of fame. I watch my wife spend hours on FB gossiping, printing out posts for future 'throw it back in your face' after the poster has deleted the material, and I saw 'Earth to Pam, Earth to Pam, are you there?' But she proves a point Crow and Tom make; often she will stop and pick up the phone and call the person.

Crow, I remember party lines. But I must correct you on your statement about Hollywood doctors to keep me in shape. I use a good old-fashioned bicycle to do that.

Fred, I agree with your comments about TA being a small community. I am concerned, however, about the impact all of this technology has on relationships. Sometimes more credence is given to something that is on the internet than is warranted. I also think that kids today are losing the ability to effectively communicate face to face. We need balance in our lives, and based on what I've seen, it looks like we're tipping toward more and more screen time and less play and social in-person interaction time.

I had to explain to him the facts of life, and that we all die (one benefit being that preachers like me get into heaven first, or that's what it says in my church retirement plan, anyway).

Seriously, it's bad for kids, but we're told it "prepares them for the world".

And Crow, you are incorrect, we all do not have to die. Personally, I plan to have my head removed and placed onto a robot body. It's quite practical really as one cannot achieve true world domination without the ability to live forever and to shoot laser bursts out of one's palms.

Crow, I must correct you. We all do not have to die. I personally plan