The 5 signs of an Impending Business Apocalypse

KC has spent much of his adult life in business. At large firms, some with 10's of thousands of employees. He has been a consultant, an entrepreneur (Yes, I did build it, and you can't have any of it for your low life friends Mr. President) and a paid slave. Big firms, small firms, national, local and international - KC has seen it all. And he took notes.

So for all of you out there that are just starting in business, let KC give you some pithy obeservations so you too can recognize when your employer is starting the big swirling circle around the porcelain bowl of business.

I present to you - the 5 signs of Impending Business Apocalypse - in their order of occurrence.

1. Everything is the single most important thing we can do.

You know a company has started the journey to Flushville when the management cannot articulate what are the goals of the company. More frighteningly - because they can't articulate the goals, they say EVERYTHING is the goal. Raise revenue, cut costs, expand, contract, focus, broaden, more customers, fire customers, stop projects, start projects. Everything is the single most important thing we can do - and we have to do it all NOW.

2. Enforce the Rules

Now, as I said, these occur in order. Once management sees the non-results of their ill-sown strategy of "Pursue Everything and Nothing At the Same Time" they then reach the conclusion that it isn't leadership, and it isn't the strategy that is failing the company, it is the people. And people are bad. So in order to get the people in line, we're going to enforce the rules. 15 minutes extra for lunch? That's gonna cost ya. Paid vacations? How bout not. Remove benefits, slash compensation, change the rules. KC once had a boss tell him that commissions "irrespective of performance, were discretionary". Huh? You paying me what you bargained for is "discretionary"? The worst part of this impending sign is that the employees haven't done anything wrong. Yet. But enforcing the rules at this time ensures the good ones leave, and the bad ones stay. And oh, do they stay with a vengeance. Which leads us to tenet #3.

3. Employees Get Payback

Without trust, management is worthless. Think of the fragging incidents in Vietman. Ok, Lieutenant Dan, you want to be a wise guy eh? How bout we roll an M67 under your bunk. Problem solved (actually I think they used MKIIs in Nam - but point made) . Now, employees today don't come heavily armed (well, except for the post office) but they can do just as much damage. Extra long lunch hours, moonlighting, half cooked project delivery, re-work, no-work. Best story I ever heard regarding an employee fragging incident came from a friend of mine that was a comptroller at a large convenience store chain. Every Christmas, the chain leaned on it's suppliers and offered their long term, full timers a bottle of liquor for Christmas. One bean counter decided that the 20,000 bottle bonus (most of which was comped by a supplier anyways) cost the company too much, so three weeks before xmas they cancelled it. You guessed it. Total incremental bottle pilferage over the season amount to 50,000 bottles. Hold spoon, pull pin, assess cover, lob weapon. Sorry, Lt. Dan.

4. Cats Sleeping with Dogs

Again - these are situations and generalitites KC has seen over many years of business, but he holds these truths to be self evident. Once the E-ticket swirly ride has begun, people do some strange things. Trapped on a ride they can't get off of, they hold on for dear life - and hold on to each other. And I mean literally. Affairs, trysts, indiscretions and misogyny abound, and not the normal 20 something activity on the weekeds from the mail room staff - I mean full on, scratch your head what were they thinking escapades. CEO doing the Fed Ex delivery guy? Seen it. Head of HR in a lesbian affair with the married head of IT? Yup. Call center supervisors having late night orgies in a break room. Got pictures. The shocking thing about #4 is not that it is happening, because we're all humans, but the depravity of how it happens. The end is near. Read on.

5. Physical or Verbal Violence in the Workplace

By now, all the good people are gone. If you are still there, you aren't one of the good ones - or you are the most masochistic of employees! You are just waiting for the "Andy Barnard" moment. Someone is going to snap, and you know it. This is the culmination - the pinnacle of corporate underachievement, and like a storm brewing, you can feel it coming. You can taste it in the air and your can feel it on your skin. Someone is going to pop someone. This is going to be good.

One note though - the incident is never triggered by what you think (someone getting a bad review, or someone firing someone) it is always petty. Ed takes last of coffee and doesn't make any more. BAM!
Sally calls Louise a whore becuase she used a lot of lipstick. WHACK! You took my favorite parking spot in the otherwise empty parking lot. HYAAH.

This is the end, and the business can never be repaired, these incidents are the symbolic flames that burn up everything and leave nothing but ashes. It's over, and mercifully so. At this point even the worst employees leave, and even the doltish of management throw in the towel.


Requiem.

There you are. Cold in it's reality, stark in it's application. Nobody's fault - employees, management, investors, and suppliers all go down together on the SS Swirly, everybody is a loser. Save yourself. Your only hope is to recognize the signs and get out early.

I'd love to hear your stories to add to mine. Got any more signs of the apocalypse. Please share, for the good of all mankind

Regulated to Death - Literally.

Other than the constant "bring down" about business being bad for America, supported by the Fast and the Spurious in Washington what are the costs brought about by bad legislation, bad bureaucrats with bad intentions (Solyndra) operating in bad faith in order to be bad for business? Let's look at a few:


 Fuel economy and emission standards for passenger cars, light-duty trucks, and medium-duty passenger vehicles imposed jointly by the EPA and NHTSA. Annual cost: $10.8 billion (for model years 2012 to 2016). For automakers to recover these increased outlays, NHTSA estimates the standards will lead to increases in average new vehicle prices ranging from $457 per vehicle in FY 2012 to $985 per vehicle in FY 2016.


Mandated quotas for renewable fuels. Annual cost: $7.8 billion (for 15 years). Utilizing farmland to grow corn and other crops used in renewable fuels will displace food crops, leading food costs to increase by $10 per person per year—or $40 for a family of four, according to the EPA.


Efficiency standards for residential water heaters, heating equipment, and pool heaters. Annual cost: $1.3 billion. The appliance upgrades necessary to comply with the new standards will raise the price of a typical gas storage water heater by $120.


Limits on “effluent” discharges from construction sites imposed by the EPA. Annual cost: $810.8 million. The cost of the requirements will force the closure of 147 construction firms and the loss of 7,257 jobs, according to the EPA. Home-buyers also will bear some of the costs, with an increase in mortgage costs of about $1,953.

Regulatory Reductions - Gone in 60 Seconds

Measures to reduce regulatory burdens, by contrast, were few and far between in 2010. Only five significant rulemakings adopted last year reduced burdens. Of these, cost reductions were quantified for only two, for reported savings of $1.5 billion. This leaves a net increase in the regulatory burden of $26.5 billion.

Moreover, one of the five measures—though technically deregulatory in nature—relates to an unparalleled expansion of EPA powers. Due to its determination last year that greenhouse gases are pollutants, the agency is moving to set emissions limits for such gases. To follow the standards in the Clean Air Act would corral millions of currently unregulated “facilities,” including offices and apartment buildings, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, houses of worship, theaters, and sports arenas into the EPA regulatory regime. In hopes of quieting political outrage over so sweeping a dictate, the EPA’s “Tailoring Rule” set a minimum threshold level for regulation. Therefore, fewer facilities would be subject to permit requirements, making imposition of the emissions limits more feasible. Rather than reduce overall burdens, this action actually facilitated increased burdens.

It should also be noted that reported costs are likely minimized by allowing agencies to make the initial calculations, thereby casting their proposals in the best light. This could have a substantial impact: Overall, there is evidence that agencies systematically understate regulatory costs. In its 2005 report to Congress, the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs conducted ex ante analyses of regulations to test the accuracy of cost-benefit estimates. The study determined that regulators overestimated benefits 40 percent of the time and underestimated costs 34 percent of the time.

Even a finding that costs exceed benefits does not necessarily stop a new rule from going into effect. For instance, in evaluating new regulations for train-control systems, the Department of Transportation identified costs of $477.4 million, and benefits of a mere $22 million. Nevertheless, the regulations were adopted.

The EPA is prohibited by law from considering costs in devising regulations under the Clean Air Act and other major environmental statutes. Thus, the agency recently set new, more stringent standards on emissions of nitrogen dioxide without formally considering the economic or technical feasibility of compliance. 

Many, many more regulations are in the pipeline. According to one estimate, financial regulation legislation recently adopted by Congress, known as the Dodd–Frank bill, will require 243 new formal rule-makings by 11 different federal agencies.So wide-ranging are regulators’ new powers, in fact, that the Department of Health and Human Services has failed to meet one-third of the deadlines mandated by the new federal health care law, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

It looks like unstopped, the Obamanites will either tax you out of business, regulate you out of business or just plain make sure you don't have the will or the resources to continue in business. Taken in context, bureaucrats have found the magic formula to ensure that people are more beholden to the gov't for their financial well-being than the fruits of their own labor and risk-taking. That makes it all un-American and just plain bad. Our prosperity will be more short-lived than a Kardashian divorce.

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