The Frustrated CFO

The Frustrated CFO'sTalk on International Trade Turns into Gender Equality Q&A

If you took my absence from these pages during the past few months as an indication of my giving up on the blog, you were wrong.  This activity is important to me.  If nothing else, it lets me "talk" without being interrupted.  It's just that the time slot in my overscheduled life, usually allotted to the writing of the blog posts, had to be temporarily relinquished to an extracurricular activity of preparing for a talk I was invited to give to a professional group called Women in International Trade.

Oh, no-no-no!  I'm not talking about OWIT (the Organization of Women in International Trade), the big non-profit with global reach headquartered in Washington, DC.  This group is much smaller - sponsored by a reputable New Jersey CPA firm, it is pretty much localized to the international-commerce entities and banks (like PNC) with offices and operations in that particular state.  It's not like they don't welcome sisters-in-trade from everywhere, it's just how their network happened to develop: commercial clients of the said CPA firm, trade finance clients of the said bank, the local government bureau that deals with exports - all of them work and live in New Jersey.   

And the reality is, there are a lot of big and small international businesses located in New Jersey.  That's where you can have large office buildings that cost a fraction of what they would in Manhattan; there is plenty of open space for manufacturing and storage; there are Hudson ports that can berth oceanic freighters, etc., etc.           

Truth be told, I would never know about these particular Women in International Trade if it weren't for one of the group's member who is also one of my former trade finance bankers and a friend.  She is the one who mentioned me to the sponsoring CPA firm's Chief Growth Strategist - a force behind a lot of women initiatives in the Garden State. 

They've been inviting me to participate in various women's and co-ed business events for some time.  But I have to admit that when you live and work in Manhattan, the hassle of getting to an 8 o'clock breakfast meeting in New Jersey's Essex County makes such invitation very unattractive.  I mean you need to drive or get a limo.  You'll do it for business, of course, but for a semi-social gathering... that's a bit too much. 

Of course, your attitude totally changes when the same professional group invites you to appear for them as a speaker.  Vanity is a terrible sin - it demands constant massaging of one's ego.  That's why some of us write books that bring meager royalty, give lectures without fees, etc.  Plus, unlike the vast majority of people, I actually enjoy sharing my knowledge.  And not for narcissistic, show-off reasons - I get a kick out of recognizing to myself, "I taught her that."  So, naturally, I agreed.

After the initial invitation, I kicked a list of possible topics at the talk's organizer and we settled on two that we both agreed would be the most interesting to international-trade professionals: the position of trade finance in the value chain and KPIs specific to international commerce.  I was advised of the reglament: 1.5 hours talk and 30 min Q&A.

"Well," I thought, "If you are going to talk shop with a group of working women for 90 minutes at 8 o'clock in the morning on a Wednesday, you'd better make it engaging and gratifying," and went to work.  The rule  of thumb is that 90 minutes of talking translates into about 15,000 words.  And that's actually is not very short.

Of course, if you are the one who proposed the topic in the first place, you most likely know the subject at hand through and through; you have already developed original ideas and time-proven recommendations; your thoughts and opinions are well formulated.  And that's great, but if you are not a professional lecturer who does this sort of things all the time, you still need to outline what you want to say; you have to construct your delivery in a coherent and logical way; you must prepare an exciting Power Point presentation that would prevent your audience from getting drowsy, and use cultural references to make your points memorable.  Yeah!  If you want to impress people, it's a lot of work.  As I said, vanity - it costs you.  

The third week of January came, and there I was, in New Jersey, shaking hands with the organizers and the attendees - by all appearances a group of successful and confident women, whose statuses make it okay to be out of the office in the morning hours for the sake of this event.

I proceeded with my presentation and it went well: they paid attention, they were interested, they nodded, they offered sensible and appropriate comments, they loved my visual tricks, and they sincerely laughed at my jokes.  The time ran out.  "Do you have any questions?" I asked.  I was convinced that I've had a pretty good idea about the points of the talk that could've prompted further inquiries.

Imagine my surprise when the first comment/question I've received was, "You are obviously a strong woman.  In your professional capacity, how do you handle male resistance to your authority or any other sorts of gender difficulties?" (Notice how the question was formulated: The woman had no doubt that I've encountered such obstacles ans she wanted to know how I dealt with them.)  

Slightly taken aback by the sharp shift of gears I skipped a bit, but really - just a bit.  I don't need to prepare for a gender equality discussion; I was born ready for it.  So, I briefly described my experience: the unfair treatment; the skewed perception; the idiotic remarks; the preferences given to nitwits because "they have to support their families" (many of us have to do the same); which battles I pick; what I say and how I say it; when I bite my tongue and walk away; how I lie in wait and then find a way to teach them a lesson, etc., etc.

Oh my God!  It was as if that question and my answer triggered a flood.  Apparently these women found my interpretation of the international-trade topics quite clear.  What they were confused about was why in 2015 we are still treated like second-class citizens.

At this point (the time was, obviously, running out), everyone talked fast.  Many things were mentioned: "honeys" and "sweeties," unequal raises, unreasonable promotions, difficulty of holding back the tears, female professional "ceilings," the insulting male disbelief at a good-looking woman who is also smart.  Amazingly, there were not a single person who didn't have something to add.   Nobody said, "I have no idea what you all are talking about."  You know why?  Because there were no men in the room.

One woman in her 30s who was just recently appointed to a Marketing Director position (her warpath has just began), asked me whether I was born "this tough."  Actually, I've thought about it before.  What I told her was that we (i.e. the women who want to succeed) are not born tough.  What we are born with is the ambition, the desire to be rewarded in accordance with our merits, the need to be treated as human beings regardless of our gender.  But, while we claw our ways towards whatever peaks we want to achieve, we have to acquire toughness.  We have to harden or they will eat us alive.

It is possible that I will never see most of the members of this group again, but when we were saying our goodbyes we felt like sisters.  I taught these women a thing or two about trade finance and performance analytics, and, in return, I've learned a lesson of my own:  There are no happy and satisfied women in international trade (and, I dare to extrapolate, in other business activities as well), because their ambitions and efforts are constantly curtailed on account of their gender, which is silly, irrelevant, anti-merit, and (call me an idealist) anti-American. 

Amendment to My Post on Vogue Covers, etc.

Those who have read it may remember that I specifically noted in that post that the possibility of diminishing number of the Confused Liberal Hipsters who misguidedly uphold Lena Dunham in high esteem as their feminist hero can be just my wishful thinking.  Still, I feel obligated to tell my readers that yes, indeed, it was nothing more than a momentary slip into an illusion that people may be getting a little bit less stupid.

I cited New York Magazine's long-time silence about Girls and its creator as a hopeful sign.  Well, I spoke too soon:  In the current issue The Approval Matrix placed that (I mean the image in the picture) on the Brilliant side.  

Then again, they might've been sarcastic...   Like in, "brilliantly exploitive and shockingly repetitive," or something?  You never know nowadays - hipsters don't possess genuine humor.  Thanks, Tina Fey!  And guess what?  See the article below.       

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Executive Gender Equality: The Perversity of Admiration

Ever since this company made into a couple of 2013 national lists of the fastest growing entities, we have been accosted by a slew of various business services offering their assistance and support: insurance brokers, real estate brokers, HR management providers, marketing consultants, etc., and most notably for me - bankers. 

The troubles that befell the banking industry a few years back resulted in its consolidation.  The competition among the diminished number of the key players in the field of institutional finance has stiffened.  They are fighting for clients with proven records of steady profitability, growing equity, and assets with high market liquidity, which, of course, are not that easy to find in our "recovering" economy.  Hence, they are after our business.

All the better for us: We are approaching the expiration date of the credit agreement with our current lender and are looking for a relationship that would be a more suitable match to the fast-growing company.  So, I'm doing what I've done quite a few times throughout my career: I'm meeting with a lot of bankers - explaining the business, answering their drilling questions, providing them with extensive data, spinning the info in the most thrilling way. 

While all this is going on, I cannot help but notice the increased percentage of women in the banking mix.  Well, that shouldn't be surprising, actually: according to many statistical reviews, more than 50% of the corporate middle management in this country are presently females.  I hear from our own sales staff that purchase managers of our customers' (industrial sector, by the way) are predominately highly technical women in their 30s.

Of course, as we climb further up the ladder, the numbers diminish: men dominate upper management to the extend of 70-80%, and only 10% of the C-level executives are women.  Still, I used to be the only "skirt" in a room full of male execs and financiers.  Now, there is a female contingent on the opposite side of the table in 3 out of 4 meetings.  Hell, the founder/CEO of this company is a woman.  Hence, our board of directors is 50% female (her and I) - we are the tough side of the directorship.   

So, here I am in our conference room listening to two representatives from one of the 10 largest banks in the world, who are making a presentation of their proposal (aka a Term Sheet in business dealings).  One of them is a diminutive woman of Korean origin in her late 50s - she is the boss, the North-East Regional Director, a big gun brought on to get the deal closer to the finish line.  With her is one of her many subordinates - a young and ambitious man in his early 30s.  If I end up choosing this bank, I will get him as my Relationship Manager (RM).

The menagerie is balanced by a man at my side - COO/owner/our CEO's whity husband.  He has his full charm on: he cannot help it - he has a soft spot for Pacific-Asian women.  Now he admiringly "complements" the banker-lady for being deceptively tough, i.e. looking pretty and soft, while being steely behind her eyes.  I tense up: here goes seclusive male chauvinism, and you never know how a woman will react to it. 

She handles it beautifully, though:  "Well, you know how it is - brain and beauty combined are lethal."  She turns to me: "Right?"  Well, I wouldn't know - never got a chance to rely on no beauty, just my brain.  But I don't say that.  I just smile. 

I wish my COO would do the same, but he somehow takes it as an invitation for further "admiring."  "Yes, you are absolutely right.  I couldn't put it better myself," and he embarks on telling the bankers how his wife, our CEO, is especially successful in sales because she is a woman who can speak "sweetly on the phone."  He actually uses those words.  "It used to take me," he says, "four phone calls before Dow Chemical would call me back.  But she  sweetly leaves a voice mail and they return her call within 5 minutes!"

He is absolutely overjoyed with pride.  The Korean lady's mouth gets very thin and she looks at me again -we both know: this is how it is.  The men will always find the way to treat us as if we were inferior, whether through insults or with "compliments."

I am disgusted, but I'm willing to dismiss this on the principle "forgive them, for they know not what they do."  And right then he turns his head to me, looks straight into my eyes, and says, "You cannot repeat it outside of this room.  L. always gets very upset when I say this, even though I mean it as a good thing."

Seriously, dude?  You've been warned about it before?  By your wife, who is also your boss?  And what?  You cannot help yourself?  Of course, you cannot, because it's written into your genetic code, like a primal instinct.  And you are too insecure to consciously fight it off!  If it was me...  But she is not me, in many ways she is very different.  And that's why he'd financed this business for her.     

Vogue Covers, Anna Wintour's Executive Decisions, Lena Dunham, Confused Hipsters, and All That Jazz

Goddammit! 

In all honesty, I thought I was done with Ms. Lena Dunham.  I said everything I wanted to say about "her Movie," and "her Show," and her "success"; I analyzed the background, motivations, and the role of the hipster media; I expressed my opinions - negative and otherwise (HBO's Girls Still Play with "Tiny Furniture", 2013 Golden Globe Awards, and the breakthrough 8th episode of season 2).  The topic was important to me as yet another evidence of social and intellectual degradation of the so-called "cultured" bi-coastal populace. But as far as I was concerned, I exhausted the subject -  I threw it into my waste basket, all used-up and crumpled.  I had no future expectations (I still don't) and I simply stopped paying attention.

Unfortunately, one cannot prevent other people from sharing their reactions - if not to her work, then to her public presence.  And you can swat away incidental remarks, but this Vogue-cover affair created a splash of diverse opinions, which were shoved into my face by my personal and public social networks.  

The funny thing is that if it wasn't for the chatter around it, I wouldn't even know that the cover happened in the first place:  I never bought a single copy of Vogue in my life.  Moreover, I never even notice it on the newsstands.  It's not a conscious effort, but, come to think of it, my mind must be blocking it out - after all, this magazine and it's kin are responsible for image crises of millions of women around the world. 

But again, this "controversy" of Ms. Dunham's image gracing the cover of Vogue was brought to my attention.  And, as a life-long student of human psychology, I found the spectrum of reactions to this occurrence in itself to be quite a curious matter, which I'm itching to analyze.  So, fuck it, here is my assessment of various opinion-expressing groups.

1. Lena Dunham's acquaintances from her pre-celebrity life. 

It just so happens that I am separated by a mere one degree from Lena Dunham's former Oberlin College classmates (one of my client's nieces), and I hear that these young women are absolutely scandalized by her success in general and the Vogue cover in particular.  Apparently, Ms. Dunham was an undistinguished student.  Moreover, she was "practically unnoticeable" (mind you, not unconventional, rabble-rousing, or irksome as a lot of real artists are perceived in schools, but simply unnoticeable)  in the classes of her chosen major, Creative Writing. Outraged exclamations such as "She was Nothing, just unremarkable Nothing!" have been quoted to me. 

Well, let me tell you: unremarkable she could've been, but she was never a Nothing.  Obviously these socially popular and academically overachieving children of wealthy businessmen (now, by the way, all in post-graduate programs trying hard to better their job-market chances) didn't bother to learn anything about their awkward-looking classmate.  Lena Dunham has been born and will always remain a person with deep roots and vast connections in the artistic community.  Do I really have to explain that in this world it counts for more than any kind of personal and/or creative substance?

You see that picture at the top of this post? That's Aura Rosenberg's 1997 portrait of Lena, age 11, as her mother's, Laurie Simmons, artistic object - a dummy.  How telling! Ms. Dunahm has been manipulated into the life she has right now since childhood.  She always knew that her creative efforts, such as they are, will get at least some attention from her parents' close-knitted network of artists, gallery owners, museum curators, screenwriters, actors, and, of course, PR professionals. 

So, while the members of this opinion group were chasing top grades, prestigious internships, and references from esteemed literature professors, Lena Dunham didn't need any of that - she was already writing her awful sketches for the "arty" web series, which eventually made her a MOMA (!) darling, as well as scripts for her self-directed and self-starred unwatchable shorts, which, despite their quality, were accepted for showing at indie festivals.               

2. Inexplicably blind fans, who naively think that Lena Dunham is one of them - a college grad struggling through her life in a big city full of dull jobs, bizarro living arrangements, hopeless relationships, and fake friendships.  Not too pretty or interesting, not too hard-working, intelligent just enough by the currently very low standards, and without any relevant life skills, yet feeling entitled to success and happiness.  These pitiful creatures loooooove Tiny Furniture and Girls, they devour Lena's tweets and voyeuristically follow her Instagram.  And they went and shelled out $10 for the damn Vogue, because they mindlessly welcome every instance of public recognition of the person they mistakenly perceive as an "unlikely star."  Her very success provides them with a false sense of hope for their own future.  

They are so self-absorbed and clueless, they didn't even notice the familial loft (presently on sale by Lena's parents for $6.25 million).  They are not sophisticated enough to grasp the priciness of the clothes Ms. Dunham was wearing in the photos taken before she made a single penny.  They already forgot about one of the first-season episodes, in which Hannah Horvath "worries" about her high school classmate who is going to Hollywood without having any connections.  In their blindness these people are not much different from the first group - they have no clue just how privileged Lena Dunham is.  

3. Starving skinny bitches, fashion zealots, and male chauvinists,who are having seizures every time someone who "doesn't fit Vogue's image" is featured on the cover of the magazine: like Jennifer Hudson, or Adele, or Ms. Dunham.  What can I say to these fucking assholes?  Go and eat something - your brain screams for some sugar!  You say, these women (I don't care much for any of them, by the way) don't fit the "beauty" standard, but Sarah Jessica Parker does?  How about Kristen Stewart who looks in all dresses as if she is in drag?  And in whose acid-induced hallucinatory trip Lady Gaga can be considered a "dream girl?"

Vogue covers have nothing to do with beauty, or at least they shouldn't - they are supposed to entice prospective advertisers into buying space inside the mag.  The trend-setting bullshit should be secondary to Anna Wintour - as a CEO of the business that is the periodic publication in her charge, her primary focus should be in increasing revenues.  And it appears that she has been making terrible executive decisions. 

The advertisers are interested in the number of eyes that will see their products and, like nowhere else, this book is judged by its cover: if they believe (whether right or wrong - doesn't matter) that the celebrity featured on the cover will attract more readers, they will be fighting for the commercial space.  Thus, Lady Gaga makes sense, so does Beyonce.  Kristen Stewart while The Twilight was still a work-in-progress was an excellent business choice, now - not so much. 

So, it's a total mystery to me as a revenue-conscious CFO, why would Anna Wintour cancel Miley Cyrus's December cover, while apparently "chasing" Lena Dunham for the January one.  Let see: One is an international mega star who at her "mature" age of 21 is worth $150 million made primarily by her multi-platinum album sales and sold-out concerts (truth be told, I'm getting nauseous writing about it, but money talks).  And the other one?  A tiny auteur of a tiny movie with a tiny furniture that led to a tiny show. 

Oh, don't tell me it's because of the "wrong message!"  A fully clothed girl pretends to be sexual with a man on stage as a joke and that's appalling?  Wait a minute!  Isn't the other one is actually stark naked in most episodes of her show, frequently rubbing her bare vagina against her male co-star (for the sake of the show's "emotional realism," of course)?  Ah, but over 10 million people watched MTV VMA - Miley made a big splash!  An orthodox catholic priest Sinead O'Connor voiced her scorn all the way from her rural Ireland.  So, the editor-in-chief chickened out!  On the other hand, the last episode of Girls was seen by 830 thousand people - that's safe.  Well, the numbers speak for themselves - bad executive decisions all around, Anna Wintour, and skinny or fat makes no difference.       

4. Cool-headed and reasonable, but unfortunately overly optimistic people. They understand very well what Lena Dunham is, how she came about, where her interests lie, and how much value her work has.  Yet, they convinced themselves that the adoring people will eventually come around to their side, shed the blinds, and realize that they've had a temporary brain lock, or, at the very least, will get bored of the emptiness and repetitiveness.  They believe that, just like much lauded by hipster media back in 2007 Diablo Cody (one of the 50 smartest people in Hollywood at the time, no less!), she will disappear into the mass of forgotten washouts. 

Uh-uh, my friends!  Lena is not going anywhere. 

In the nepotism ridden Tinseltown Diablo Cody's momentary success was a rare case of an outsider's rise.  She surprised herself with that ascent as much as she did the entertainment industry.  Standing there with the damn statue in her hand she was speechless - she knew it was all about the hype and that she didn't really deserve the Oscar (Ratatouille, not Juno,  was supposed to win that year). 

Have you watched Lena accepting her big and small awards?  Have you seen her in interviews and in photo ops?  There is an unmistakable sense of entitlement and belonging in her every word and move.  She is gleeful.  It's not about deserving it for her.  She knows she was born for this. 

5. Confused liberal hipsters in a tireless search for social rebels and antiheros.  They looked at Lena's naked body and let themselves to be fooled into thinking, "That girl's got balls; this is a feminist statement."  They truly believe that she is the "voice of her generation;" that she influences people (at least according to 2013 Time's list).  Moreover, they convinced themselves that Lena Dunham's main human and artistic purpose is to fight their holy war for the right to be who they are and how they look. (Never mind that this representative sample is limited strictly to white, urban, college grads.)

These people are very disappointed. They feel like their idol has fallen.  In their ardent fervor of feminist puritanism, they are convinced that the right thing to do for their "spokesperson" should have been to say to the devil-woman Wintour, "Thanks, but no thanks.  You can shove your glamorous magazine and its cover up your skinny ass."  And they write about it at length: "Why Lena Dunham Should Say No to Anna Wintour," and stuff like that.

It may be a wishful thinking on my part, but there are some signs that the size of this group of Dunham missionaries is shrinking.  For examples, New York Magazine, the original (circa Spring 2012) herald of Lena Dunham's coming as "the ballsiest," the funniest, the most genuine, etc., etc., etc., has been absolutely silent for months about their former darling and her creations, making a single exception by placing an off-off-off-Broadway play that spoofs Girls via Little Women on the brilliant side of The Approval Matrix.  Maybe some previously infatuated people start sobering up and finally realize that the only group Lena Dunham represents is herself.  Who knows, of course?  There may be another cover in the works.

6. Me, not surprised whatsoever.  As Tyler Perry's Madea said, "If someone shows you who they are, believe them."  (Thank you, the brilliant people who introduced me to that quote).  So, when in the final scene of Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham's self-admitted movie about her life) she tells her real mother that she just "wants to be famous," I heard it loud and clear.  That's the main focus, the life's purpose.

And for the sake of achieving it, Ms. Dunham will do whatever it takes: Parody the explicitness of the true art revolutionaries by stripping in front of the camera whether it makes sense in the storytelling context or doesn't (it actually did once - in the shower scene of Tiny Furniture); make politically correct statements, so appealing to the liberal media; pledge unyielding admiration and love to anyone who has some sort of pull.  And yes, you only need to ask - she will pose for Vogue.

7. And then there is Kanye West... The poor man is terribly aggravated on account of his "friend" Anna Wintour selecting Lena Dunham for that cover instead of his Kim.  He says that it's not fair; that his Kim is "just as talented as Lena Dunham" (oh, she is, Kanye, she is - just as talented and far more popular).  And by getting hysterical over this bullshit Kanye West unwittingly exposes how incredibly irrelevant the whole thing is.  That's the consideration?  Lena Dunham or Kim Kardashian? That's just funny.

Let's keep it in perspective, people.  In the grand scheme of things literally only a handful of people cares.  Vogue has a circulation of 1.2 million. 1 million people follow Lena Dunham's twitter, and apparently not all of them even watch her show (average 780,000 viewers).  And yes, some of those who are aware of Lena Dunham's existence hold media and entertainment strings in their hands.  And maybe that's all that Lena Dunham needs to be satisfied with herself, but intelligent people should know better: three months from now even the faithful perusers of Vogue will not remember who was on the cover of the January 2014 issue. 

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CFO Folklore: The Illusion of Irreplaceability

This is what always happens with severely responsible and talented people who take pride in the quality of their work and apply themselves hard, regardless of the rewards and recognition, material or otherwise: They do an extraordinary job in every function they are assigned, they show initiative and undertake tasks beyond their scope of responsibility, they set their own lofty goals and high performance standards, they pull off feats of creativity and miracles of ingenuity.  Truly they accomplish things that no one else would in their place. 

More frequently than not they don't run around screaming about their achievements - after all, they simply cannot operate any other way and they don't care that nobody asked them to be like that.  They themselves know that they are the best.  Plus, people around them acknowledge such efforts in one way or another - subordinates show respect, peers get testy, etc.  And the bosses?  They either don't notice anything, because their heads are usually up their asses, or they are too limited to appreciate the ace-level pilotage they are witnessing. 

As someone afflicted by this condition, I can assert that there is nothing healthy about it.  Privately wallowing in the knowledge that you are "simply the best" and that your work ethic is a cut above everyone else's, while not being adequately rewarded for your efforts, is nothing more than an addiction to one's own ego. It's vanity of the worst kind, because it violates the principles of objectivism and merit-based recognition.  And, like any addiction, it is accompanied by a couple of supplemental attributes. 

One of them is the inevitable development of passive-aggressive behavior: no matter how many times a person is going to say that she does it for the sake of her own self-satisfaction, something deep inside wants to be celebrated for the extraordinary abilities, efforts, and results.  This secret desire is in a constant fight with an extreme dislike of boasting.  Thus, the feelings and impulses get mostly suppressed and come out in the form of classic indirect hostility and resentment.

Another attribute is the illusion of irreplaceability.  The tormented crazies convince themselves that without them the company will not be able to survive; that everything will fall apart and go to hell.  They believe that there is no way somebody else could be found to fill their shoes.  And why not?  Nowadays, people like that are quite rare.  It's most likely that, if an employee in question leaves on her own accord or is let go for some reason (because she becomes unaffordable or her attitude becomes unbearable), the employer will never ever have someone that good in the same position.  But does it really mean that losing these truly invaluable workers is an incurable disaster?  Are they really irreplaceable? Let me answer this question by doing what I frequently do - relating the readers to an example from popular culture. 

In case you have not had a chance to check out the Netflix/Lionsgate's co-production Orange Is the New Black, I urge you to do so - trust me, you will not regret it.  The show's creator, Jenji Kohan (widely known for her Showtime offspring, Weeds), is a member of a still rare breed of entertainment developers, who is able to focus on female characters without reducing the finished product to gender-specific genres.  Orange is the New Black takes place in a women's federal prison, and its ratio of male to female characters is about 1:10.  Yet, 47% of IMDb users who rated Orange is the New Black (8.5 stars overall) were males.

One of the primary characters in the first season of the show is an inmate of Russian origin, Galina "Red" Reznikov (Kate Mulgrew).  This formidable woman runs... no, she rules the prison's kitchen and has an influence on pretty much the entire social canvas of the place.  By the show's start she has apparently been there for years and assumed a role of a Godmother for a tight circle of her "daughters."  She can be a real bitch, and a newbie should think twice before contradicting her.  But the truth is she is doing a remarkable job, keeping her fellow convicts and the staff fed and even rewarded with treats under the conditions of ever-shrinking budget, broken fridge, and oppressive hostility from some nasty guards.  As early as the 5th episode, it is impossible for the audience to imagine the kitchen without Red.  Obviously, she herself thinks she is irreplaceable.

Guess what?  Towards the end of the season, the combination of some people's foolishness and others' unsavory scheming gets her kicked off the throne and out of the kitchen.  So, what happens?  Do the lights go out in the mess hall forever?  Do the prisoners get shipped to another facility to be fed?  Nah ah!  Another head cook is found right there in the general population and installed in front of the range; she brings in her own crew; the cooking continues somehow.  True, there are no more yogurt favors, the menu is severely skewed towards Latin-American cuisine, and even the oatmeal comes out spicy.  But the plates are not empty, people are not starving.  Life goes on, while Red is driving herself insane with displacement anger.        

So, the answer to the above question is: No, you are not irreplaceable.  It may take a whole team of less adequate and more expensive people to pick up your tasks.  And collectively they will accomplish less and it will not be brilliant, but it will be just good enough for the business to continue, at least in the short run.  Let me assure you that nothing will fall apart, because doing things half-assed and with little care has become a widespread norm.  Everyone accepts poor quality at a higher cost nowadays, and so will your bosses.  And you, with your talents, skills and unsolicited attempts to jump over the high-standard bars, are just an ego freak.      

Social Networking May Still Redeem Itself as an Instrument of Commercial Quality Control

 Today, our minds automatically go to facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. when someone uses the words "social network." The Rudin/Sorkin/Fincher team made a movie about Mark "I-violate-your-constitutional-rights"  Zuckerberg and used those words as a title!  

And it's absolutely ridiculous, because establishing and maintaining connections with friends and "the right people" have been vital for the human species since, like, forever.  Folks have always built their settlements, villages, towns, and cities with designated places for meetings.  Back in the day (and I don't mean the 1980s), households accepted visitors on certain days of the week; and even on a random day one could come by and leave a calling card with the family's help.  And who can deny that, ever since the first Industrial Revolution, the patterns of commercial and financial developments were determined by the who-knows-who principle.  It's just that the outreach was far more limited.   

Of course, the magnitude of Internet networking is breathtaking.  In the early 1990s, when the Internet has connected all seven continents, the miracle of instant world-wide access to knowledge, culture, entertainment, or people was the most important and alluring aspect of this new technology for me.  I still experience a thrill every time I look at this blog's dashboard and see that during the last 24 hours my posts have been read not just at home, but also in Denmark, Canada, Germany, South Africa, UK, Vietnam, Australia, Portugal, Spain, India, France, and Taiwan.  I love it.

Yet, I hate facebook and Twitter.  Okay, push your eyebrows back down and let me explain. I don't hate social networking per se: It's convenient to receive updates on your favorite artists and it's important for business: I've been on LinkedIn since the times it operated exclusively on the basis of professional invitations.  But I abhor the contemporary "social network" phenomenon and what it represents: the unrestrained hunger for attention, the vile combination of pathological exhibitionism and a sickly kind of voyeurism; the violation of privacy and the desire to be violated.  I cannot stand the stalking by exes, the spying by employers, the snooping by the government agencies - all that shit.

That said, there are some companies with one or another form of social networking at their cores, which I consider not only healthy, but also greatly important due to their positive impact on the commercial environment, especially the consumer sector.  I'm not naive and I don't think that any of the entrepreneurs behind these businesses consciously elected to influence the quality of goods and services.  Most likely they simply shaped their business models utilizing the exploding patterns of collective participation in the Internet experience, but in the process they unwittingly created an influential force that has a power of strengthening and weakening businesses.       

In 1979, Tim and Nina Zagat started imploring their friends into scoring restaurants they visited, eventually turning their social pastime into a ranking business, which was bought by Google in 2011 for a reported $151 million.  Being an old-fashioned medium from the start, however, it remained the same under the new high-tech ownership: It's still unclear how the rankings are formulated.

It was Pierre Omidyar's hobby-project turned international conglomerate with an annual revenue of $14 billion, aka eBay that pioneered the concept of building market-place reputations based on the fully-disclosed opinions of the "community members," i.e. users of the eBay services.  While everyone was screaming (understandably so) that people will cheat, lie and steal, eBay founders stuck to the most fundamental of the commercial principles: in order to succeed you need to keep your ratings high, because one unresolved accusation of unsavory practices may kill your future transactions for good.  It's like what G.W. Bush said, "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me - you can't get fooled again."

Today, thanks to rating algorithms utilized by various online businesses, we came to rely on communal ratings and individual opinions whenever we buy electronics, computers, household appliances, books, or select entertainment on Netflix, or order food delivery on Seamless, or pick a hotel on TripAdvisor, or make decisions about telecommunications providers.  Many of us not only peruse the viewpoints of others, but also actively participate in the polling process by sharing our own thoughts about this or that product, service, establishment, thus affecting a new system of commercial quality control.     

It is safe to say, in my opinion, that Yelp has become a flagship of the communal marketing model.  Again, not because the ideas of commercial quality control and merit-based rewards are so important to them, but for the sake of the advertising income ($138 million in 2012).  Nevertheless, assessing performance and assigning rewards (aka ratings) is exactly what "yelpers" (members expressing their opinions) do.  

A few unique traits place Yelp, Inc. in the avant-garde of this movement.  They encompass a wide spectrum of consumer services.  Right now you can find referrals on businesses in 20 main categories - from restaurants to religious organizations, further subdivided into specialties.  In less than 10 years they have achieved an international magnitude.  The listings are essentially combined efforts: detailed information about the business is provided by the commercial participants themselves (for a fee) and consumers supply their reviews, photos, and ratings.  The search engine is geographically oriented allowing users to find what's around them on the map. 

Also, Yelp, Inc. claims that they use an "aggressive" reviews filter, which rejects posts that are suspected to be biased or false.  As a result, according to their public releases, about 25% of entries are being dismissed.  And I can appreciate that. Like I said, rendering communal judgments on commercial establishments is a serious matter: ultimately it has a power of affecting the livelihood of individual businessmen.  So, the filtering is great as long as Yelp conducts their selections, rejections, and other manipulations fairly and without prejudice. 

Unfortunately, as with everything touched by greed, the communal quality control as executed by Yelp, Inc. may be seriously misused.  While I was writing this piece, TypePad's "related-posts" function has presented me with a few reports (including the one attached below) accusing Yelp of manipulating reviews in exchange for business clients' participation in the site's advertising programs (you can also read about it on Wikipedia).  And that's criminal.  Not only because it's nothing short of blackmail, but also because, by using individual consumers' personal and freely expressed opinions in this unsavory process, Yelp corrupts the participants' intellectual property and constitutional rights.  I sure as hell hope that these accusations are not true.  If they are, yelpers should file a class-action suit to bar Yelp, Inc. from using their reviews as the means of racketeering.    

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Inside Yelp's Wasp Nest: When Social Networking Meets Extortion

Quote of the Week: Fortuna is Blind

"We must believe in luck.  For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?"

Jean Cocteau  (1889 - 1963)

Quote of the Week: Finally, the Truth Out of a "Professional" Critic

"Critics don't like to admit this, because it makes us seem as herdlike [sic] as civilian TV watchers, but sometimes we decide which shows to take seriously based on on where they air.  Track records mean a lot, and certain channels (HBO, AMC, FX,... Showtime) do have a reputation for arty boldness...

Critics and viewers alike tend to assume works that are mainly interested in laughs, excitement, and beauty are inherently less substantive than shows that rip the scabs off life and leave you feeling wrung out or disturbed.  That assumption partly explains why so few comedies have won the Oscar for Best Picture.  It surely explains why Cary Grant, the most altogether enjoyable leading man in film history, never won an Academy Award for acting:  He gave us pleasure no matter what the story and situation and made it look easy."

                                                    Matt Zoller Seitz

                                                    TV Reviewer for New York magazine

The Frustrated CFO Commentary:

Well, thank you, Mr. Seitz for admitting that "professional" critics (as in those who, for one or another reason, get paid for expressing their opinions in various media) are phonies working off of some preconceived standards instead of assessing the actual quality of the creations they are compensated to review.  No wonder, the quality of their work is just as low as that of the majority of people.

And, what a snob: "as herdlike as civilian TV watchers!"  Aren't you writing for those TV watchers?  So, why are you insulting them?  Or you write just for your own ego-massaging purposes?  And what are you, may I ask, a military TV watcher? 

And the funny part is you still got it all confused, Mr. Unintelligent Snob:  The actual "herd" goes altogether for the Kardashians and the Real Housewives.  If the narrow slew of snooty hipsters, unable to appreciate art and entertainment on their merit and, therefore, resort to selecting what they watch and consume based on the hype generated by the hipster-catering PR, is a "herd" for "critics" like you, I have no fucking clue, what you, people, are  doing in popular media.  Definitely not promoting the open-mindedness. 

These, so-called, taste-makers are the reason, why the quality entertainment like (forgive me for the "old" references) My So-Called Life, Firefly, and, more recently, Prime Suspect get cancelled.  These shows fall in the cracks between the preferences of the masses  and the critically acclaimed (most of them, but not all, deservingly so) dramas.

I pride myself on approaching all arts with an open mind and without prejudice.  And that includes the TV series.  I don't care that The Good Wife airs on CBS and Grimm on NBC.  They proved to be quality entertainment with unexpected layers, and I will continue watching them along with Game of Thrones,  American Horror Story, and Homeland.

Hell, I even gave Breaking Bad a fair chance: diligently watched 5 first episodes of it - only to find out that the critics who go nuts about it apparently smoke the very meth that Walter White cooks.            

The American Revival of Failed Soviet Labor Constructs

Let me admit right off the bat that Matthew Shaer's article The Boss Stops Here in the June 24th issue of New York magazine has brought my already high level of agitation to a boiling point.  So, if some of my comments appear to be hostile, don't be surprised - you've been warned. 

The article takes up a subject unusual for a life/politics/culture publication - it ventures into the business discipline of organizational management; specifically, a post-modernist pseudo-innovative spectacle of a "non-hierarchical workplace."  Fancy verbage and incorrectly-used business terminology aside, Shaer focuses on a few companies, whose owners, to put it simply, replaced management leadership with the collective's (as in all employees) show of hands. 

At Menlo Innovations (one of the companies in focus, a software developer), for example, "there are no bosses ... and no middle managers."  Instead, "every morning, the entire staff circles up to discuss" the distribution of assignments." Valve Corporation (a video-game company) operates as a network of self-governing teams, with employees choosing at random which team to join and when to switch to a new one.  In all the companies mentioned in the articles, the projects' progress reviews are the collective exercises as well. Obscenely, personal achievement means nothing, because it's the whole team that gets evaluated: the brilliant guy who comes up with incredible solutions at lightning speed gets no recognition and his mediocre team members, who spend weeks gnawing at their portions of work, get to share in his professional triumphs. 

Now, get ready for it! At Menlo et al, hirings, promotions, layoffs, and firings are handled by a committee.  At W.L. Gore & Associates, once a year all (!!!) "employees gather to rank their colleagues based on their contributions to the overall success of the company.  Those rankings are used by a separate committee of associates to determine pay raises or cuts."  The article omits the exploration of how such committees are elected and/or appointed.     

As far as I am concerned, all of this is nothing if not yet more evidence of the incredible ignorance I bring up so frequently.  Most people learn so little about World History, they are not capable of recognizing that there is nothing new about these "experiments."  It has all been done before: In the Soviet Union and other countries of the former Eastern Bloc everything was decided by various committees, starting with the ones in every single place of work and residence through the different medium levels all the way up to the Central Committee of the Communist Party!

Moreover, all these team-work models have already been tested (and failed) in the Soviet Union.  Such groups were given a very special name - they called them Brigades of Communist Labor.  The main purpose of these constructs was to eradicate any form of individualism - intellectual, political, emotional, spiritual.      

Throughout the article, the author kept making an unfortunately confused mistake by calling these unformed socialistic blobs of companies "flat structures."  That just fucking hurt me!  A flat organizational structure is a typical attribute of a small business.  But instead of eliminating the leadership and reducing everyone to some equalizing average, it actually elevates each employee to the level of a multi-functional manager.  Every person handles a multitude of tasks covering entire sectors of the value chain.  Moreover, they do that with little supervision and only general guidelines from senior and executive management.  This is how they achieve, what I call, "career growth in the same chair," raising themselves from one level of expertise to another.  And I'm not talking about mom-and-pop candy shops here - this is how $50-$750 million companies are ran by 10-20 hard-working people.

I have been working in such environments my entire career.  So, it was laughable to me that the article made a big deal about companies with employees setting up their own schedules.  You must be kidding me! Who in a small, or even a mid-size company has got the time to set up their subordinates' schedules!

The author praises some Fortune 1000 companies for trying to fix their management problems through workplace decentralization.  Look, I don't give a flying fuck whether a Fortune 1000, or any large company, recognizes that there is something wrong with it and takes a stab at fixing itself through decentralization and "flattening."   It's not enough to make them more efficient, because, to paraphrase Woody Allen: You know what's wrong with them?  Everything.  Companies are not supposed to be that big - break them up into small entities and the flat structures will come naturally (see above).                

While reading the article I couldn't help but notice that in these companies only functions related to daily operations, general administration, and HR management (much despised and largely ignored by many entrepreneurs) get "delegated" to the workforce masses.  The labor is not actually involved in the decision-making responsible for the strategic development and the survival of the company: which commercial directions to pursue, which projects to undertake, which clients to accept, where to procure the financial resources, etc.  It is so evident that Matthew Shaer had to acknowledge that "overseeing strategy, the long-term vision of Menlo as a whole, still falls" to the two owners, who "also serve as representatives of Menlo at scads of management and business conferences," both in the US and overseas.  Nobody else gets to go.

What can I say?  This is the precise recipe of building the absolute power used by the Soviet leaders (and still employed by their contemporary successors): You let the hoi polloi pretend that they are the "power," delegate to the "collective" the most unpleasant tasks of dealing with each other, but leave yourself with the rights for the real leadership, for the ultimate decisions.  And guess what?  In that top-of-the-Olympus realm, there is nobody who can challenge you, because you got rid of all qualified personnel aka managerial talents.  In Russia, they first called them the enemies of the people and then "cleanse" them out, if you know what I mean.  

I found it very emblematic that the owners of Menlo Innovations consider Thomas Edison a "patron saint" of the company and keep his bust in the middle of their open-style working space.  That same Thomas Edison who hired a very talented engineer named Nicholai Tesla and stole all of Tesla's ideas, patenting them in his own name.  That Thomas Edison who later staged public electrocutions of puppies and other small animals in his attempt to discredit the viable Westinghouse/Tesla high-voltage system, in order to eliminate the competition. 

And "the lady doth protest too much": Menlo employees' readily provided self-convincing quotes insisting that their "self-management" meetings keep the morale high (What about that guy who donated his outstanding one-of-a-kind solution to his team?) and make them feel that they are working toward a common goal.  Oy! Hurts again!  I have always propagated that creating in employees the sense of being important, of being a part of the bigger picture is a key to the successful management of human assets.  But it's not achieved through making everyone into an unrecognizable little screw in a homogeneous pile.  It's done by raising the awareness of each and everyone's crucial value and singular necessity for the company's survival.  

In reality, just as it happened in the Soviet Union, all these collective decisions and committees' resolutions, usually lead to dilettantism.  These people may be great designers and coders, but what the fuck do they know about business administration and organizational development.  In fact, most of the high tech pros I've ever worked with were incredibly disorganized individuals, intellectually far removed from any administrative skills.

Another false agenda the poor schmucks who work for these "organizational innovators" subconsciously force themselves to accept is what I would define as the "evolution of rewards pretense."  Since pre-historic times to these sad days, only three main factors have been stimulating people to work hard: the adequate merit-based pay, the recognition of achievements through promotion (not just title-assignment, but the real elevation of responsibilities), and the self-realization aka pride in your own professionalism. 

When there is no middle or senior management, the promotions are out as well.  It's not like you are going to take over an Owner's position.  Turns out (here comes the funny part) that material stimuli are "irrelevant" as well.  There is a quote in the article from one of the developers at DreamHost, who explicitly says: "Twenty years ago, it was about higher pay.  Now it's more about finding your work meaningful and interesting."  Well now, is that why you are ogling Mark Zuckerberg's photos in Forbes and invest your 401k pennies into high-risk stocks?  And don't deny it, because I know you do.   But hell, of course money is "not important."  What else are they going to say?  The decent jobs are scarce and the candidates are a plenty.  So many young people went into coding and computer engineering; they are literally a dime a dozen.  Those who get employed consider themselves lucky, and if you tell them to drink that "teamwork" and "money's not important" Kool-Aid, they will.      

But the aspects that make this whole collective/committees bullshit especially inconceivable to me have to do with the very core of the business management, i.e. the behavioral science, the human nature itself.  Did these business owners somehow develop some sort of a new breed of people, the kind that's inherently free of the evolutionary pre-built competitive instincts?  Or maybe they psychoprofile every single employee and keep only those who are uncommonly fair and just, or, more likely, idiotically indifferent?  

Incredibly, like all fanatics, these commy-following bosses manage to fool not only their employees, but themselves as well.  Let me remind my readers that the greatest incentive for all organizational restructurings is profitability.  I have no doubt that the private owners of the businesses highlighted in the article are under the impression that by eliminating the key decision-makers they significantly increase their profits.  Let's face it: even in the current market, high-quality execs still make relatively decent salaries.  Unfortunately, these owners, marred by their own special brand of entrepreneurial ignorance, are unable to see the big picture: while their worker-bees spend unnecessary long hours on trying to inexpertly debate the organizational issues, they are not attending to their primary responsibilities, e.g. ACTUALLY WORKING!!!  Talking about real losses! 

The article's author describes one of these long meetings, which started at 11 am and went until 2 pm (!), "and by the midway mark, the proceedings were moving a little more slowly, with more exasperated sighs, or slight but conspicuous head shakes, and sometimes everyone seemed to be talking simultaneously, in one big warbly squawk."  But don't worry.  There is always the pressure-relieving tool introduced at Menlo a few years ago, "walkies" - ten-minute group walks around the block. 

As my readers know, I am a small-business crusader, who believes that giant corporations structured around towering hierarchies of management are cancerous.  At the same time, people of extremes and ideological fanatics (and don't be fooled: this is exactly what we are dealing with here) always terrify me, regardless of whether their views are "progressive" or "reactionary."  Why does everything always have to be so categorical: either a pyramid of useless bosses, or no bosses at all?  Why can't their be a middle ground: a handful of well-qualified key decision makers whose expertise allows them to make high-priority decisions quickly, without slowing the business down, while all functional decisions are left to the employees? 

I'll tell you why: Because that's a "small business" model.  Unfortunately, these "innovative" owners don't want to remain small and work hard to survive.  Notice that most of them are high-tech.  They want to grow big as fast as possible and sell themselves either to a larger competitor or a private equity firm, or (oh, the sweet dream!) make billions by going public.  Meanwhile, just like the Soviet Commies before them, they pretend to be "just and fair" by "empowering" their "collectives," only to completely abandon and betray them in that bright future.  I fucking hate this phony bullshit!                      

Warning: Unpunishable Plagiarism

Plagiarism - the wrongful appropriation or purloining, and publication as one's own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another.

            OED, Vol. 11: 947

As OED's definitions go, this one is pretty straightforward: you create something, another person passes it as his own - that's wrong.  It is also linguistically polite.  Authors unrestricted by the structural conventions of dictionaries, can be more blunt about it. Late Alexander Lindey, a copyright attorney and author, in his 1951 Plagiarism and Originality wrote: "Plagiarism is literary - or artistic or musical - theft."

Note that OED's definition includes both ideas and their expressions.  Legally, however, only actual products are protected.  The United States Copyright Office clearly states: 

"Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something.  You may express your ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in you description, but be aware that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in written or artistic work."

To simplify: Copying Van Gogh's Sunflowers to a stroke and passing it as your own work is illegal, but producing endless still-lifes of vases with flowers in Van Gogh's style is absolutely OK.  By the same token, reproducing somebody's words verbatim without giving a proper citation is plagiarism, but recasting somebody's original idea with your own words, details, and attributes cannot be legally challenged.

Generally speaking, the intention behind the exclusion of ideas from the copyright protection is founded in the possibility of several people coming up with the same thought at the same time.  This indeed happens from time to time.  However, more frequently than not, the law, as it stands right now, makes what I call an unpunishable plagiarism an okay thing.   

Of course, it is infrequent that someone copies a painting, or steals a score from another musician's computer.  Actions like that can lead to criminal and/or civil law suits.  From time to time, we hear about people being expelled from schools or lose their jobs and professional creditability on account of plagiarism.

Sometimes, such allegations are unfounded and cleverly used to mar the innocent competition.  The fabulous Alan Rickman, whose character in the Broadway production of Theresa Rebeck's Seminar became a victim of such a scam, moaned with all the heart-wrenching pain his ample talent was capable to deliver: "Oh, to be accused of such a thing..."  For him it's the worst possible shame.  A rare man!  

However, when it comes to original ideas, only individual morals stand between one person's precious imaginative jewel and another person's grabby hand.  Unfortunately, morality being what it is in the present time, theft of the original ideas is far more common than pickpocketing and purse snatching.  As originality becomes more and more of a deficit, the stealing of it becomes more and more pervasive.  I personally don't care whether it's legal or not.  To me it's worse than a theft - it's an intellectual rape, a snatching of babies born in a torrent of a creative labor. 

In business environments it happens every day.  Those who watch NBC's popular series Grimm know that the show's core feature is to give a fairy-tale spin to contemporary life.  In a second season's episode Nameless, a video game company celebrates the development of a groundbreaking code.  Everyone involved in the programming of this extraordinary algorithm stands to make millions.  As it turns out, however, none of the people taking credit for it had actually authored the breakthrough idea.  It was appropriated by the team leader from a tech guy who came to reboot her system and offered the brilliant solution in exchange for a date.  Not only that she had no qualms about accepting the praise and the rewards, she wasn't planning to keep the date promise either.  She didn't even remember the guys name.

Whether in business or arts, the worst idea thieves are your peers, especially those who work with you.  Trust me, I know it first-hand.  One such incident occurred during my time as a high-tech CFO.  We were preparing for a teleconference with our venture-capital investors.  My fellow board member, the VP of Marketing, strolled into my office and asked for my opinion about the topics to be discussed.  You know, at the time the Internet companies were marked by a sense of democracy and camaraderie.  So, I let my guard down and laid out my thoughts.  All these years later, I still remember the shock I felt, when this guy took the lead of the meeting and repeated everything I told him verbatim, without giving me any credit, of course.      

It goes without saying that the world of arts and entertainment is a fucking snake pit that lives by the motto "Everybody steals."  It's pretty much an every-day practice. 

No matter how many musicians and fans scorned Vanilla Ice's shameless "re-phrasing" of the Queen/Bowie genius bass riff, "Ice Ice Baby" made millions, was nominated for a Grammy and won the American Music Award.  It only got worse since.  I happened to personally know a human equivalent of a music encyclopedia, and I constantly hear from her: "Wait a minute, I already heard this on..."      

In Woody Allen's Vicky, Christina, Barcelona Penelope Cruz's character Maria Elena bluntly states that Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a commercially successful artist, stole his entire painting style from her.  First, he reluctantly acknowledges that, yes, she was "influential," and later admits that "maybe he took from her more than he likes to admit."  Really?  With a hint of sarcasm Maria Elena says: "It's okay.  We worked side by side for many years, and you adopted my vision of the world as your own." 

Speaking of movies, it's impossible to get an unknown writer's script into a decision-maker's hands.  99% of studios and production companies do not accept unsolicited (i.e. not represented by an agent) material.  And even if you do get someone to read your script or to hear your pitch, the first thing you will need to do is to sign a legal document promising that you will never-ever sue that entity for stealing your idea.  Why?  Because, if they don't like the script but like the idea, they will most definitely steal it.

There is this tiny (in terms of viewership - $342K gross) Craig Lucas's movie called The Dying Gaul (2005).  It is a feeble attempt to expose Hollywood's perversity and corruption.   In spite of the presence of indy VIP's Campbell Scott, Patricia Clarkson, and Peter Sarsgaard, whose pull must be responsible for a $4 million budget, the movie is an unremarkable failure.  (Let's be honest, ever since Robert Altman's The Player (1992), you really need something extraordinary up your sleeve to embark on this theme.)  Yet, the film has one valuable tidbit of a real truth in it: When the main character refuses to change his script from a tragic gay love story into a heterosexual romance, the big-time producer with a $1 million check in his hand warns, "If you refuse, you will walk out of here with nothing, and I will give your story to someone else to rewrite." 

But don't think that only the unknown writers fall victims to Tinseltown's shameless pilfering of ingenuity.  The moment I saw a poster for Night in the Museum, I had a bizarre thought that Ben Stiller somehow managed to convince Gore Vidal to lend the movie a brilliant plot device from his novel The Smithsonian Institution (1998) .  You see, it was Vidal who made the historical characters come to life, most notably Teddy Roosevelt (but not dinosaurs).  Apparently, I was not the only one who noticed the uncanny similarity: the great writer himself openly spoke about it in various media.  Of course, he wasn't going to attempt any legal action - he's been around the block way too many times (his first publication is dated 1946 and his oeuvre includes 14 screenplays).  

Some occurrences of unpunishable plagiarism are simply ridiculous.  In 2007, Joe Swanberg (another semi-known indy writer/director) made a practically unseen ($23K gross) movie called Hannah Takes the Stairs:  Hannah (Greta Gerwig), a recent college graduate, is an intern and an aspiring writer, who is cruising from a relationship to  relationship, trying to find her direction in life.  Hmm... Wait a minute... Doesn't this Hannah live on HBO now? Wasn't she shoved into everyone's face by the hipster media for the past 18 months or so? Wasn't she supposed to be an alter ego of her "oh-so-original" creator, a "genius" on the list of "100 Most Influential People," the one whose name I promised not to mention in my posts anymore? A coincidence?  Nope.  If anyone did see the 2007 movie, it would be this HBO's you-know-who.  After all, she is a friend and a collaborator (Nobody Walks) of Ry Russo-Young, who co-starred in Hannah Takes the Stairs.

Speaking of those Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, it is my firm opinion that the biggest scrounger in fictional writing ever is J.K. Rowling.  Don't get me wrong, I love Harry Potter, but that woman sponged her material off everything she ever read (granted, she is a very well-read person). Let's not drown ourselves in the boundless sea of magical names representing wizardly attributes: Lupin = wolf (Latin); Sirius = dog (Latin via Greek); Severus = serious, strict (Latin); Dumbledore = stream of gold (a combination of "dumble" - a Nottinghamshire local for a forested stream, and French "d'Or"), etc., etc., etc., etc. Instead, I'd like to point out a few very specific items:

• Let me remind you that in 1961 Roald Dahl wrote a very popular book James and the Giant Peach about an orphan boy James Henry Trotter (Harry James Potter, anyone?!), whose loving parents were destroyed by a brutal rhino and who is forced to live with cruel aunts until a magician helps him to get out.

• In Gaudy Night Dorothy Sayers's lead character Harriet Vane describes her alma mater, Oxford's Shrewsbury College, as an incredibly confusing place with seemingly moving stairs. 

• During Victorian times, British citizens started depositing their money in the banks in increasing numbers.  Funny, they developed a slang term for the sovereigns the deposited - they called them "goblins." 

Actually, my list is so long, I can write another book.  How about "Harry Potter Genesis, Or Did J.K. Rowling Come Up With Any Original Ideas?"

Obviously, I am very apprehensive about the usurping tendencies all around us.  I know talented young people bursting with artistic ideas. Extraordinary pearls of originality simply roll off their tongues.  It's painful to admit it, but instead of enjoying their creativity, I behave like a robotic warning machine: "Keep it to yourself! Don't share it with anybody!  Stop dropping your pearls publicly!  Why did you post that brilliant thing on fucking facebook?!"  I know it makes me sound like a paranoid maniac (and it makes me feel real shitty), but what else can I do to protect them?  Their artistic expressions are incredibly unique.  Their verbiage is so catchy, their "friends" not only repeat it, but have the gall to claim it for themselves.   

How can we possibly control this?  How can we safeguard the originality? We can't: There is no legal way and most humans lost any shreds of shame a long time ago.  The only way to protect your ideas is to constantly convert them into products, so that you can stake your ownership via the copyright.  And even then, as examples above show, you are not secured from various brands of scavengers.