I was originally going to post the Pogues' version of this song but this version from the songwriter presented instead. I wrongly had thought that the song was about Dublin but of course it's about Manchester, England.
I like the juxtaposition of optimistic love and grimy realism:
On that subject: Because of a demand for me to sign an over-bearing and entirely unfair contract, which I won't sign, I may have to tell our biggest customer that we can't do business with them anymore. It's gonna be devastating to us, but after discussing it with my people, we all agreed that we just could sign it. We are fiercely independent and refuse to sign such supplier contracts where larger companies try to get you to take over all the risks of them being in business. We have walked away from big customers a few times because of this, but this one is really gonna hurt us. We let ourselves get way too dependent on them. It will hurt them and their customers pretty badly too, as we are not a common type supplier in the U.S. There are very few if any just like us, so they will probably send all that business overseas, and although it will be tough on them too, they will likely be as hard-headed as we are, but we can't afford to comply, while they seem determined to get what they want.
We've had a very long and very successful relationship, until their founders sold to investors and they hired a bunch of college educated business people who have changed everything to a much more adversarial and bureaucratic style. I've seen it happen over and over, because this market is not big enough to support that crap.
The bottom line is that we will have a very hard couple years ahead until we replace this lost business. We gave them everything, including an endless stream of custom patentable innovations which we just gave them for free unpatented so we could sell them the product. They can now just walk away with all that work.
Oh well, that's life, and back to the fight, although probably a lot poorer for a while, but still free. I hope we can find a way to keep all our people, as that will be job 1 as always.
Now we can stop passing up all that business we have been too busy for. We'll find a way to survive somehow. Business is about these constant setbacks, and we will find a way somehow to weather it We always have.
Yep, millions of dollars, I'm in escrow right now. Forward>>>>! We'll figure it out. We're flexible, and we're fighters, and we'll have fun doing it, because we always insist on that.
who have changed everything to a much more adversarial and bureaucratic style.
I've seen this repeatedly. In the medial realm it is incredibly frustrating especially when you begin to suspect some of the unsteadiness is due to political unsteadiness and political unsteadiness is due to Party. It does affect things when Pharmacies change, bought, the original program recognized a need to service a specific market and staffed accordingly to provide impressive service all seen as unnecessary cost to new owners, and they are right, it is unnecessary from an operations/cost pov, but now your service sucks.
I tell them that. To return the distress, spread it around, mirror it for them. They do affect my relationship with my physician and his staff.
They blame insurance, also changes. Repeatedly. In search of best prices. Entire departments are devoted to finding the best available spread that changes over time to include HMO and all sorts of things like that with letters PPOs and so much crap you must be a specialist just to sort it. When it comes. Every year.
Everyone involved needs new information each year even though absolutely nothing has changed from my location. It's automatic. It's all automatic. I'm convinced at this point the only reason I must provide the same information over and over is to reassure them that I'm still me and alive.
This year I got mail with such forms from a place I never heard that appeared to be official and legit. Perfectly legit. The sort of thing the FRB would do. Advise me of a change in the style that they do along with forms to affect that change. So I tossed them. I figured, you bought the account now run it. And make it right or I'll sue. That was my attitude.
The bank called, not the company they hired to ask what went wrong. I said, "If you sell our accounts to do this work for you and you pick the best most cost effective you find, you should know I am no longer working and unwilling to do their paperwork for them. Take my account, transfer the information appropriately and get it right and stop acting like I was just born."
"They just wanted you to sign it."
"No. They wanted me to fill out the whole thing for them as if I'm their employee, they're mistaken. They bought the account now do it. And stop bothering me."
Such nonsense. They would have put a yellow sticky "sign here" as people do. This is what I see all over the place over time. Buyouts that lead to crap service. Rent seekers occupying desk chairs products of public education unable to extrapolate gross from net one year to the next when clearly nothing has changed.
Benefits program administration is farmed out, changes hands, forms change, reporting changes, all behave as if you are stranger because you are stranger to them, so right back to square 1 with you, fill out new forms with all that over again, a company you never heard of requires the same information that PHISHers ask for. All the way back to square 1, Mother's maiden name, name of first girlfriend.
Last week I was asked the name of my last boss at the FRB and I could not recall and felt bad for that.
Then I realized how long ago that was, how irrelevant a question that is to me now, how much has happened since then, how many houses and apartments was that, and I protested.
"No. come on, think, who was your last supervisor."
*thinks*
I can see them but their names are gone.
"Just give me a name."
"No." ... "It says right there they'll bust me for lying." ... "Leave it blank. It's stupid It's intrusive."
"Just make up a name."
"No. Jesus Christ, that was five transfusions ago."
dropped
Dr. Sigmund, tell me, what do you think of this when I mention those twelve schools. I do recall the teachers, most of them, some of them were quite impressive indeed, but for the life of me I cannot remember their names except the very first, Mrs. Burger because of Burger Bits. There were hundreds of them and that's it.
It's embarrassing.
Then how can I recall anything at all after all that? How can I bring languages with me but not names? Aren't words just names of things? Why do the names of people disappear? All those language teachers and all those words but not the teacher's names. Your name too will be forgotten, Dr. Sigmund, how does that make you feel?
We've had a very long and very successful relationship, until their founders sold to investors and they hired a bunch of college educated business people who have changed everything to a much more adversarial and bureaucratic style.
A great way to ruin a business is to hire people with degrees in management that otherwise have no knowledge of the business in question. Winn Dixie went from a streak of something like 60 years of always having their stock price go up (including many years of the Great Depression) to bankrupt in about four years, and what happened was they replaced all the grocery people at the top with MBAs from expensive schools who didn't actually know the grocery business.
Seriously, folks, if you think you need that kind of management expertise, send one of your own people to a good MBA program, so they'll know what will and what won't work FOR THAT BUSINESS.
The dirty old tenements have all been torn down, The street has been outlawed, And no one hangs around the candy store no more. They're stacked up like cordwood in projects, With ghastly "park space" all round, It's so much better our betters proclaim -- But no one no longer loves town.
"A great way to ruin a business is to hire people with degrees in management that otherwise have no knowledge of the business in question."
I've seen it a lot, and I have never seen a business improved by it. They sometimes get bigger and even more profitable for a while, because that's their entire focus, but it usually fails in the long run as the new fat and bloated bureaucracy can't handle even a slight downturn without a massive slaughter of people and an eventual sale or closing of the whole thing.
Whether they survive or not, the people there never seem as happy, empowered, or creative as they were before, and turnover is continuous. It's joy sucking disease.
Shane MacGowan would be my first choice for the death pool. I just looked him up. The medical authorities believe that he's still alive. Anyway he looks like the kind of guy who knows what Dirty Old Towns are all about. Rod Stewart has a version. No one with a private jet and a series of supermodel wives should be allowed to sing this song.......This is a pretty good version, but it sounds mellow and bluesy--not enough jagged edges. I still go with the Pogues version.
18 comments:
So I guess, my name is the tag for "dirty old" stuff. I like that.
Oh, thank God, no Pogues! Their singer makes Bob Dylan sound like a young Ella Fitzgerald by comparison.
@bagoh20: you are the blog's resident industrialist. Wear the tag proudly.
BTW, GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU LITTLE SOBs, and you there, the one with the beard, I know your parents, and they are gonna get a call.
I was born in the 1960's. At which end, I will not say...
"you are the blog's resident industrialist."
On that subject: Because of a demand for me to sign an over-bearing and entirely unfair contract, which I won't sign, I may have to tell our biggest customer that we can't do business with them anymore. It's gonna be devastating to us, but after discussing it with my people, we all agreed that we just could sign it. We are fiercely independent and refuse to sign such supplier contracts where larger companies try to get you to take over all the risks of them being in business. We have walked away from big customers a few times because of this, but this one is really gonna hurt us. We let ourselves get way too dependent on them. It will hurt them and their customers pretty badly too, as we are not a common type supplier in the U.S. There are very few if any just like us, so they will probably send all that business overseas, and although it will be tough on them too, they will likely be as hard-headed as we are, but we can't afford to comply, while they seem determined to get what they want.
We've had a very long and very successful relationship, until their founders sold to investors and they hired a bunch of college educated business people who have changed everything to a much more adversarial and bureaucratic style. I've seen it happen over and over, because this market is not big enough to support that crap.
The bottom line is that we will have a very hard couple years ahead until we replace this lost business. We gave them everything, including an endless stream of custom patentable innovations which we just gave them for free unpatented so we could sell them the product. They can now just walk away with all that work.
Oh well, that's life, and back to the fight, although probably a lot poorer for a while, but still free. I hope we can find a way to keep all our people, as that will be job 1 as always.
Now we can stop passing up all that business we have been too busy for. We'll find a way to survive somehow. Business is about these constant setbacks, and we will find a way somehow to weather it We always have.
Sorry, had to vent a little.
@bagoh20: Didn't you just take on a lot of corporate debt not too long ago? Something about space expansion? I remember reading about it.
Yep, millions of dollars, I'm in escrow right now. Forward>>>>! We'll figure it out. We're flexible, and we're fighters, and we'll have fun doing it, because we always insist on that.
I'm now totally in hock, and could lose it all, but I won't. I just won't. Besides, I've been broke. People bother you less, so there's that.
Hang in there, bago. Business fortunes change.
There is a typo in my screed: "we all agreed that we just could NOT sign it."
who have changed everything to a much more adversarial and bureaucratic style.
I've seen this repeatedly. In the medial realm it is incredibly frustrating especially when you begin to suspect some of the unsteadiness is due to political unsteadiness and political unsteadiness is due to Party. It does affect things when Pharmacies change, bought, the original program recognized a need to service a specific market and staffed accordingly to provide impressive service all seen as unnecessary cost to new owners, and they are right, it is unnecessary from an operations/cost pov, but now your service sucks.
I tell them that. To return the distress, spread it around, mirror it for them. They do affect my relationship with my physician and his staff.
They blame insurance, also changes. Repeatedly. In search of best prices. Entire departments are devoted to finding the best available spread that changes over time to include HMO and all sorts of things like that with letters PPOs and so much crap you must be a specialist just to sort it. When it comes. Every year.
Everyone involved needs new information each year even though absolutely nothing has changed from my location. It's automatic. It's all automatic. I'm convinced at this point the only reason I must provide the same information over and over is to reassure them that I'm still me and alive.
This year I got mail with such forms from a place I never heard that appeared to be official and legit. Perfectly legit. The sort of thing the FRB would do. Advise me of a change in the style that they do along with forms to affect that change. So I tossed them. I figured, you bought the account now run it. And make it right or I'll sue. That was my attitude.
The bank called, not the company they hired to ask what went wrong. I said, "If you sell our accounts to do this work for you and you pick the best most cost effective you find, you should know I am no longer working and unwilling to do their paperwork for them. Take my account, transfer the information appropriately and get it right and stop acting like I was just born."
"They just wanted you to sign it."
"No. They wanted me to fill out the whole thing for them as if I'm their employee, they're mistaken. They bought the account now do it. And stop bothering me."
Such nonsense. They would have put a yellow sticky "sign here" as people do. This is what I see all over the place over time. Buyouts that lead to crap service. Rent seekers occupying desk chairs products of public education unable to extrapolate gross from net one year to the next when clearly nothing has changed.
Benefits program administration is farmed out, changes hands, forms change, reporting changes, all behave as if you are stranger because you are stranger to them, so right back to square 1 with you, fill out new forms with all that over again, a company you never heard of requires the same information that PHISHers ask for. All the way back to square 1, Mother's maiden name, name of first girlfriend.
Last week I was asked the name of my last boss at the FRB and I could not recall and felt bad for that.
Then I realized how long ago that was, how irrelevant a question that is to me now, how much has happened since then, how many houses and apartments was that, and I protested.
"No. come on, think, who was your last supervisor."
*thinks*
I can see them but their names are gone.
"Just give me a name."
"No." ... "It says right there they'll bust me for lying." ... "Leave it blank. It's stupid It's intrusive."
"Just make up a name."
"No. Jesus Christ, that was five transfusions ago."
dropped
Dr. Sigmund, tell me, what do you think of this when I mention those twelve schools. I do recall the teachers, most of them, some of them were quite impressive indeed, but for the life of me I cannot remember their names except the very first, Mrs. Burger because of Burger Bits. There were hundreds of them and that's it.
It's embarrassing.
Then how can I recall anything at all after all that? How can I bring languages with me but not names? Aren't words just names of things? Why do the names of people disappear? All those language teachers and all those words but not the teacher's names. Your name too will be forgotten, Dr. Sigmund, how does that make you feel?
I meant to say, this got me singing,
I'm an old cow haaaaaaand
From the Rio graaaaaaand.
But muh legs aint booooowed.
And muh cheeks ain't taaaaaaned.
We've had a very long and very successful relationship, until their founders sold to investors and they hired a bunch of college educated business people who have changed everything to a much more adversarial and bureaucratic style.
A great way to ruin a business is to hire people with degrees in management that otherwise have no knowledge of the business in question. Winn Dixie went from a streak of something like 60 years of always having their stock price go up (including many years of the Great Depression) to bankrupt in about four years, and what happened was they replaced all the grocery people at the top with MBAs from expensive schools who didn't actually know the grocery business.
Seriously, folks, if you think you need that kind of management expertise, send one of your own people to a good MBA program, so they'll know what will and what won't work FOR THAT BUSINESS.
The dirty old tenements have all been torn down,
The street has been outlawed,
And no one hangs around the candy store no more.
They're stacked up like cordwood in projects,
With ghastly "park space" all round,
It's so much better our betters proclaim --
But no one no longer loves town.
"A great way to ruin a business is to hire people with degrees in management that otherwise have no knowledge of the business in question."
I've seen it a lot, and I have never seen a business improved by it. They sometimes get bigger and even more profitable for a while, because that's their entire focus, but it usually fails in the long run as the new fat and bloated bureaucracy can't handle even a slight downturn without a massive slaughter of people and an eventual sale or closing of the whole thing.
Whether they survive or not, the people there never seem as happy, empowered, or creative as they were before, and turnover is continuous. It's joy sucking disease.
Shane MacGowan would be my first choice for the death pool. I just looked him up. The medical authorities believe that he's still alive. Anyway he looks like the kind of guy who knows what Dirty Old Towns are all about. Rod Stewart has a version. No one with a private jet and a series of supermodel wives should be allowed to sing this song.......This is a pretty good version, but it sounds mellow and bluesy--not enough jagged edges. I still go with the Pogues version.
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