Successories

"Those who preserve their integrity remain unshaken by the storms of daily life. They do not stir like leaves on a tree or follow the herd where it runs. In their mind remains the ideal attitude and conduct of living. This is not something given to them by others. It is their roots... it is a strength that exists deep within them." Anonymous Native American.

They don't tell you if that quote is from before or after the genocide.

Successories is a real company. It produces mind-numbing, vacuous color pictures, plaques, and pointless momentos with mind-numbing, vacuous, and pointless epigrams on burning issues like "Integrity", "Courage", "Determination", "Imagination". These things are supposed to be motivational. You're sitting in your dark cubicle pecking away at your computer, clearing spam out of your e-mail, and trying to find some way to talk a rich client into splurging on some cosmetic enhancement of a product that doesn't do anything useful, and you're supposed to turn to the wall and read

Those who preserve their integrity remain unshaken by the the storms of daily life.

This 16" by 30" framed and double-matted picture cost your boss $209.95.

This company thinks you should "promote a culture which thrives on change, values innovation, and believes in goals". These ugly "lithographs" will help your staff "understand your company's commitment to these principles of success". And make more money. The lithographs, by the way, consist almost entirely of fake images-- photographs of natural beauty that have been touched up, altered, tricked out, super-imposed, or whatever.

"Honesty".

Here's another nugget:

Change: a bend in the road is not the end of the road.... unless you fail to make the turn.

On the same page, with a picture of a football player:

You're either part of the steamroller or part of the pavement.

And, beside a swimmer,

The meek inherit the earth... but they'll never rule the water (11" by 14" framed, $54.95).

I like this one-- I'll bet Bill Gates has it in his office:

"Integrity: We make a living by What we Get; We make a Life by What we Give

I'd like to buy them all and put some of them side by side:

Priorities: A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the Kind of Car I drove... but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.

Rule #1: In Raising your children, spend half as much money and twice as much time. ($109.00)

Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal.

In other words, take courses, work late, ignore your family, and steamroll anybody in your way.

Never, Never Quit.

Sometimes you just have to play hard ball.

Excellence: Many times the difference between Failure and success is doing something nearly right or doing it exactly right.

The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running.

You know what really, really irks me about this crap? They have the gall to copyright it! As it! You take these mediocre thoughts that are worded without the slightest inspiration, intelligence, or originality-- and you copyright them! You put them on beautiful fake pictures, and, surprise, there are enough suckers out there to make you rich!

Bill's Alternative Anti-Motivational Posters

I Have No Potential

Pay your employees $26.75 an hour.

Your phone call is important to us: that's why we're not answering it.

I'd love to get that done for you today but I'm hungry and tired.

Teamwork means sharing the credit. I'd rather foul it up all by myself.

Since 1981, the average pay of top executives has risen about 10 times as fast as the pay of the average worker. That explains why you hang plaques on the wall and write up inane vision statements while I work.

Courage: telling your boss what you really think.

Determination: finding away to be far enough away from your desk that you don't have to answer the phone all day.

November 22, 1998