Rick's July Tirade
Adventures in Downsizing
Follow me, friends, to Delray Beach, Florida, where palms tickle
the cloudless sky like ornate feather-dusters, and silent golf-carts
ferry their geriatric passengers across long expanses of fuzzy green
turf. There, amid the subtropical flora and mosquitos, the national
headquarters of Sunbeam Corporation stands bereft of its most
illustrious denizen. Albert J. Dunlap is gone.
Albert J. Dunlap, the swashbuckling 60-year-old C.E.O. -- Al
Dunlap the bold, Al Dunlap the brazen, Al Dunlap the ruthless -- the
man known to legions of quivering corporati as "Chainsaw
Al" -- has departed the scene of his most public and
humiliating fiasco. Al Dunlap has been sacked, expunged, terminated,
bounced, given the heave-ho; he's been expelled from Eden with only
a multi-million dollar golden parachute and millions more in stock
options to salvage his broken dreams.
In case his name eludes you, let me tell you all you need to
know. Al Dunlap made his fortune by habitually restoring flabby
corporations to profitability, and he restored them to profitability
by habitually casting thousands of hapless wagemakers into the
communal dumpster of unemployment.
Chainsaw Al, you see, was a professional downsizer -- the most
feared and famous of his breed. A grinning hatchet-man in a business
suit, he'd travel from company to company, invited by disgruntled
stockholders and directors whose shares had been languishing for
months at a time. And everywhere he went, he'd cut deeply... he'd
slash with his chainsaw until the arms and legs went flying. Down
with costs, out with employees, up with profit margins. And the
stockholders rejoiced.
Once a company's share price had soared under his blade-happy
leadership, Chainsaw Al cleverly cashed his stock options and moved
on. Dazzling new adventures awaited the man and his chainsaw. Slash
some more bodies, deposit another hundred million in the bank.
After his triumphant turnarounds of Scott Paper and Crown-Zellerbach,
Dunlap got the call from Sunbeam. The famed appliance maker had seen
sunnier days; its stock price had slipped to 12 and change. Chainsaw
Al promised to deliver.
Once enthroned, Dunlap proceeded to cut his workforce in HALF...
sliced it from 12,000 to 6,000 as easily as a family patriarch
carves a Thanksgiving turkey. Just as unapologetically, too. In the
Gospel according to Dunlap, a corporation exists primarily to enrich
its stockholders; the products themselves are only marginally
relevant, the employees even less so. They're simply the croupiers
at the gaming tables, forced to cater to the surly whims of
inebriated big-shots with stacks of chips.
As predicted, Sunbeam's share price took off like a bottle
rocket, more than quadrupling in value to 53 as of early 1998. Then,
like all bottle rockets, it fell swiftly back to earth.
Industry insiders revealed that Sunbeam's revenues had soared
primarily because Chainsaw Al had hectored retailers into buying far
more merchandise than they could handle. With the stores hopelessly
overstocked, unsold inventory piled up in Sunbeam's warehouses.
Investors grew edgy, then panicky. Within four months, the price of
Sunbeam shares plummeted from 53 to 11 1/4 -- a dollar lower than
when Chainsaw Al took the helm.
It was all over. Dunlap was ousted, his reputation in tatters.
His downfall made headlines in a thousand newspapers from Portland,
Maine, to Portland, Oregon. Mother of mercy, was this the end of
Chainsaw Al?
Don't bet on it. Even now, as he slumbers past dawn, unconscious
but ever-cognizant of opportunities, he surely dreams of turning his
peculiar talents to other venues. An entire world awaits the
cleansing power of his golden chainsaw. He shifts in his bed; he
snores; his sleeping mind takes flight. New opportunities, new
arenas... Albert J. Dunlap, C.E.O. of the WORLD.
"C.E.O. of the world -- now that's more like it," says
Chainsaw Al as he runs a finger over the sleek surface of his new
desk. "Hell, I'll downsize everything in sight. Let's start
right here, with the U.S. of A. All those redundant states -- half
of 'em not earning their keep. What a mess! Two Dakotas, two
Carolinas. Come on, let's get real here! Sell North Dakota to
Canada; consolidate the Carolinas. Spin off all states with high
welfare rolls. New England and the Rust Belt -- way past their
prime. New Mexico? Waste of space! Where's my chainsaw? Vrrmmmmm...
VOOOP! VOOOOOOP! VOOP! There, that's the ticket. A leaner, meaner
United States.
"And it's high time we downsized the English language. Too
many damn words. How are we supposed to remember 'em all and work a
cell phone at the same time? Let's be honest here: does any normal
person use words like 'otiose' and 'rubicund'? And what about all
those synonyms? I mean, do we really need 97 ways to say that one
baseball team whooped another? And so help me, half the space in any
book is taken up by totally unproductive words like 'the' and
'actually'. Nouns and verbs, that's the ticket. Or just nouns if you
can get away with it.
"Look at Shakespeare -- wordiest writer of 'em all. Nobody
knows what he's jabbering about half the time. I'm requesting a 60
percent verbiage reduction in his plays by the end of the fiscal
year. And wait till I get my hands on 'Moby-Dick' -- all those
damnfool technical chapters on whaling. Just get on with the story!
Where's my chainsaw? Vrrmmmmmm... VOOOOP! VVVVVOOOOOP! There we go!
Slashed to 96 pages, courtesy of Chainsaw Al. Book'll probably sell
five times as many copies now.
"And what about the animal kingdom? I remember reading that
there are over 800,000 species of insects. Can you believe it?
800,000 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF BUGS! And probably half of 'em are
beetles. What on earth was the good lord thinking? Let's keep a few,
like ladybugs and lightning bugs and maybe a butterfly or two. As
for the rest... chainsaw city!
"Even the human body could use some downsizing. I could get
by with one ear, couldn't you? One ear, one kidney, no pinkies. And
look at all the space taken up by those intestines! Most godawful
part of the body -- just revolting. And we've got miles of 'em.
Large AND small, yet. Heck, just keep one or the other. VVVVVVVOOOOP!
"Now let's look at the solar system. Nine planets, and only
ONE with life on it. Totally unproductive use of space! And we've
got two of 'em -- Uranus and Neptune -- that are practically
identical. Same size, same color, same gaseous composition -- come
on, what's the deal here? Personally, I'd get rid of Uranus -- the
name always was a problem, no matter which way you pronounce it. So
here we go: Vrrmmmmmm... VOOOOooooOOOOP! One less planet already.
"And why FOUR gospels in the Bible? Same story, right? Same
guy. Same ending. I say we keep Matthew and dump the other three.
VOOP! VOOP! VOOP!
"Yessir! I am enjoying this! Snow White and the Four Dwarfs.
The Six Commandments. Sing a song of three pence. A stitch in time
saves seven. The Kingston Duo. Fellini's '5 3/4'. The Dirty
Half-Dozen. I'll cry 53 tears. 46 trombones. 631 points of light.
The Two Stooges (Adios, Larry!). Ali Baba and the 28 Thieves. The
Five Wonders of the World. I'd walk 3,280 feet for a Camel. Eleven
men on a dead man's chest, yo-ho-ho and a snifter of rum!
"And hey... how about that Periodic Table of Elements we had
to learn about in chemistry class? Why do we need all those inert
gases if they don't DO anything? Out they go. And look at uranium --
come on, 238 protons and neutrons in one nucleus. As if that's not
bad enough, they go and convert it into an isotope of plutonium with
even MORE of the suckers. What a sorry waste of elementary
particles! Where's my chainsaw? Here goes: VOO -- "
The mushroom cloud glowed with the brilliance of a thousand suns,
vaporizing everything within a radius of three miles -- including,
of course, Al Dunlap and his chainsaw.
Al woke up with a start. Wiping the cold sweat from his forehead,
he thought, "Man, that's the fifth time I've had that dream
this week. Totally redundant. But you know, I'd STILL cut 'Moby-Dick'
down to 96 pages."
Here's the complete archive of Rick Bayan's immortal tirades for your reading pleasure:
December 2002 — Hello, I Must Be Going
November 2002 — A Raving Moderate
August 2002 — Is Western Civilization Worth Saving?
July 2002 — To Scam or Be Scammed
June 2002 — I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
May 2002 — Speechophobia
April 2002 — Fanatics on Parade
March 2002 — The Prestige Gap: A Lament
February 2002 — On Becoming a Dullard
January 2002 — Art for Slackers
December 2001 — An Unsolicited Christmas Card
November 2001 — A Tale of Two Tribes
October 2001 — On the Fallen Towers
August 2001 — Why Do We Bother?
June 2001 — Notes from a Doomed Planet
May 2001 — The Museum of Discarded Names
April 2001 — Indecision
March 2001 — A Slight Case of Insanity
February 2001 — Letter to a Conscientious Critic
January 2001 — The Cynic's Inaugural Address
December 2000 — The 50th Tirade
November 2000 — Travel Advisory
October 2000 — Beyond Work
September 2000 — More Work
August 2000 — Work
July 2000 — The Doves' Nest
June 2000 — Great Affectations
May 2000 — Tale of a Virtual Village
April 2000 — The World Is My Obstacle Course
March 2000 — A Living Heck
February 2000 — On the Treachery
of Time
January 2000 — A Letter to the
Future
December 99 — Rare Bird
November 99 — Not Just Another
Obscure Ethnic Group
October 99 — Extinction Reconsidered
September 99 — Good Life, Bad
Life, Better Life
August 99 — Household Relics:
An Elegy
July 99 — A Meditation on Profanity
June 99 — In Praise of Sloth
May 99 — A Bug's Death
April 99 — Obligations!
March 99 — The Courage to Be Ordinary
February 99 — A Grave Story
January 99 — What's Left for
Men?
December 98 — On the Uses of
Friends
November 98 — A Cynic's Thanksgiving
October 98 — Grand Illusions
September 98 — Filth
August 98 — Will the Real God
Please Stand Up?
July 98 — Adventures in Downsizing
June 98 — Lady Longevity
May 98 — Uniquely Human, Uniquely
Clueless
April 98 — The Mathematics of Excess
March 98 — Humbuggery
February 98 — Love and the Single
Cynic
January 98 — By the Sweat of
Your Brow
December 97 — Is Suffering Unfashionable?
November 97 — The Tao of Housekeeping
October 97 — The Sensory Deprivation
Blues
September 97 — Down with Natural
Selection!
August 97 — Noise
July 97 — On Eating Our Fellow Creatures
June 97 — Trouble in Book-Land
May 97 — Interview with an Unemployable
Man
April 97 — The Cynic's Dream
March 97 — Inequalities
February 97 — Flesh and Mortality
January 97 — How to Be a Success
December 96 — Why I Can't Hate
Christmas
November 96 — How I Became a Cynic
