The World's Dumbest Idea: Maximizing Shareholder Value

[Ideologue]

OK, maybe not all the time.

[Martinus]

Funnily enough, Amazon opened their "fulfilment centres" (whenever I hear that expression, I can't help imagining some sort of hedonistic holodecks) in Poland earlier this year and at the time it was all hyped as great for local economies and whatnot.

Half year on, people are already quitting, saying this is a shittier job than they could imagine. They have pedometers measuring how fast they are moving around the warehouse and if the computer thinks they are too slow, it texts them to work faster. 

[DGuller]

Funnily enough, Amazon opened their "fulfilment centres" (whenever I hear that expression, I can't help imagining some sort of hedonistic holodecks) in Poland earlier this year and at the time it was all hyped as great for local economies and whatnot.

Half year on, people are already quitting, saying this is a shittier job than they could imagine. They have pedometers measuring how fast they are moving around the warehouse and if the computer thinks they are too slow, it texts them to work faster. 

Would you rather have your supervisor tell you to work faster?

[Martinus]

The latest Economist has a very good piece on auditors. I will try to post it here when I get home but it raises most of the points I did earlier in this thread.

[DGuller]

My impression of auditors is that they're like mall security guards.  They're not going to be of much use against a sophisticated heist or a terrorist attack, but they still maintain basic everyday order.

[MadImmortalMan]

They give people a false sense of security and also give corps some cover against investigators/regulators.

[The Minsky Moment]

Auditors are like anyone else - there are good ones and bad ones and lots in between.  The "brand name" isn't always a guarantee of quality because the organization is pretty loose, and you can have individual locations or practices that are weak even in an overall strong outfit.

The audit function initially wasn't really designed to catch fraud; that has changed somewhat but realistically there may be limits to what an auditor can do to catch a skilled and determined fraudster. 

[CountDeMoney]

All of our audits were simply designed to prove--nay, attest!--that we did what we said we'd do to maintain the absolute minimum level of compliance necessary.  Corporate America's good at self-policing that way, nyuk nyuk.

[Berkut]

All of our audits were simply designed to prove--nay, attest!--that we did what we said we'd do to maintain the absolute minimum level of compliance necessary.  Corporate America's good at self-policing that way, nyuk nyuk.

I am very confident that if "all of our audits", which presumably covers every audit ever run in every single company you have ever worked at, ever did more than that, you would say exactly the same thing.

I've never heard a single anecdote from you about any company you've worked for where it wasn't an exact, carbon-copy caricature, of the perfect stereotype of the Evil Capitalist Corporation. It is amazing how totally consistent every single company you have ever worked for has been...

[CountDeMoney]

All of our audits were simply designed to prove--nay, attest!--that we did what we said we'd do to maintain the absolute minimum level of compliance necessary.  Corporate America's good at self-policing that way, nyuk nyuk.

I am very confident that if "all of our audits", which presumably covers every audit ever run in every single company you have ever worked at, ever did more than that, you would say exactly the same thing.

No, "all of our audits" were "all of our audits" at the one place I ever had to deal with regulatory controls.  Your confidence: is low.

I've never heard a single anecdote from you about any company you've worked for where it wasn't an exact, carbon-copy caricature, of the perfect stereotype of the Evil Capitalist Corporation. It is amazing how totally consistent every single company you have ever worked for has been...

I dunno, hospitals seemed to be pretty hardcore about their regulatory and compliance adherence under HIPAA and Joint Commission, unlike some of the optional "the bare minimum will do just fine" aspects of the energy sector. 

But go fuck yourself anyway, Jeff.  Better yet, go fuck yourself sideways, you curmudgeonly cocksucker.   Go ahead and carbon copy that, and staple it to your fucking forehead.

[Berkut]

I don't need to staple it anywhere, you will surely remind us at least another ten times this year how exactly equally terrible all corporations are, and how they all act in the exact same, completely stereotypical manner.

Shareholder value!

[CountDeMoney]

Nah, now my new trope is to tell you to go fuck yourself.  Sideways. 

[Berkut]

I think I hit a nerve. I apologize if anything I've said has offended you Seedy - you know I have nothing but the utmost respect for you and your un-nuanced opinions.

[CountDeMoney]

Nah, now my new trope is to tell you to go fuck yourself.  Sideways.

[Razgovory]

Funnily enough, Amazon opened their "fulfilment centres" (whenever I hear that expression, I can't help imagining some sort of hedonistic holodecks) in Poland earlier this year and at the time it was all hyped as great for local economies and whatnot.

Half year on, people are already quitting, saying this is a shittier job than they could imagine. They have pedometers measuring how fast they are moving around the warehouse and if the computer thinks they are too slow, it texts them to work faster. 

That is an... odd use for people who keep an eye out for child molesters.  Having the Polish equivalent of Chris Hanson stand around with a radar gun and a bullhorn as a warehouse productivity enhancer is something that wouldn't have occurred to me.