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New York, 6:36 PM
Fri Dec 11
55 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/29/09
11/29/09
11/23/09
Which is why Rupert wants to hide his newspaper content, he's preparing to take his errors to print!
11/23/09
So threatening to fire people is not an effective mistake-prevention strategy. People will avoid engaging in intentional behavior that would cause them to be fired, of course (assuming they want to keep their jobs).
But people won't go, "Hey, I was planning to fuck up royally today, but now that I know that I may get fired for that, I've decided to take a different, not-fucking-up approach instead." It doesn't work that way.
What the "make mistakes and you're fired" threat WILL do is totally stress people the fuck out, and stressed-out people are probably likely to make more mistakes. So expect more mistakes on FNC in the near future.
11/23/09
11/27/09
11/27/09
Or, alternatively, the mistakes are the result of incompetence, in which case, threats won't help either. You can't make an incompetent person competent by threatening them.
What you describe may be true of poor work quality born of laziness or indifference - lighting a fire under somebody's butt might help in that case. So too, however, will positive reinforcement, which is a more pleasant choice in my book.
But I'm talking about out and goofs like Fox News putting the "Going Rouge" spoof on the screen instead of the real "Going Rogue" memoir. That's probably not a result of worker indifference or laziness; it's a problem where they don't have good fact checking, and perhaps also people working in positions they aren't bright enough to be in. But threats of being fired won't help prevent mistakes like that.
11/27/09
But in general, in the workplace, mistakes like that Going Rogue thing happen because they don't have the right peopel in the right jobs, and the right process in place to cathc mistakes.
It's pretty clear whomever created that artwork with the book cover didn't know there was a spoof out htere, and couldn't tell the difference. That problem is ignorance, no laziness - you had people who just weren't informed enough to select content going on the air. they should have somebody with that competence checkint the stuff before they put it on screen. So it was a process and competence problem.
The threats of firing people made by that blowhard are NOT the way to correct a problem like that. Anyone who's worked successfully in business management knows this.
11/27/09
11/28/09
11/23/09
I'm only going to excerpt this part: "You can make fun of me, and I will be reassured that all of you are cynics and hopeless." and laugh, and laugh, because... well, for obvious reasons.
11/23/09
The whole memo is ultimately all bark and no bite.
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
" Please know that jobs are on the line here."
The messages seems clear enough to me.
11/24/09
And even dumber, they can already fire anybody they want to without cause except in the rare cases of employees that have for-cause employment contracts (and I guarantee you the people in the editing rooms don't have such contracts). So the memo does nothing but re-state the status quo in language that sounds intimidating but means nothing. Kind of like Fox News itself.
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
If I remember the Falafel Chronicles correctly, that's not what Bill O'Reilly thinks.
11/23/09
11/23/09
11/23/09
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11/23/09