novick : experience

We are the Vodka Green Preservation Society...

I’m amused by how this year everything's turning up green. Even hangovers. Green Scene points to Square One

made from organically grown North Dakota rye and spring water from Wyoming’s Grand Teton mountains, in a distillery that gets a quarter of its energy from a wind farm. The leftover rye mash is packaged and sold to dairy farmers as organic feed, the label on the bottle is printed on paper made from sustainably grown bamboo, bagasse and cotton, and the Square One folks even purchase carbon offsets for company travel. Cheers to that!

Let's drink to ways of reaching a meaningful tipping point: leaving the Prius in the garage and riding a bike or walking instead. Unscrewing lightbulbs and turning off all the energy suckers [like cable boxes, etc in “standby”] in addition to relamping with CFLs. [How do we dispose of those mercury laden bulbs anyway]? Making our own household cleaner from vinegar and borax and passing on Clorox' green spray.

Some warn that our society's transition from "signaling" to "being" needs greater attention; that our inaction is analogous to fiddling while Rome burned. Others take solace in the aphorism "every little bit helps." Even if it's as frivolous as a drinky-poo.

Shaken? Stirred? You decide. Just make mine icy cold with a twist!

Costing the Workforce

I've just begun working as a contract employee on a short term project.

The firm i'm working for is paying an agency for my services and selling them to their client. In effect there are four touches [pimp fees] on my salary before it reaches the consumer. Here's how i figure it. Let's say i'm being paid $10/hour. The agency sells me @ 80% and the firm resells me to their client for another 80%. The client too has to make a nickel on my good work and they tack on another 80%. This gets passed onto the retailer who [before discounts] posts a MSRP that includes another 80% mark-up. The poor joe on the street ends up paying  about $105 for my $10 worth of work. Suffice it to say that i'm being paid more than $10/hour and the work that i am currently doing is menial requiring little intellectual capital.

The client corporation in this particular case is a major pharmaceutical manufacturer, however this scenario is playing out across all sectors. The end result is reminiscent of the Pentagon's custom of buying $500 hammers. While the military is exercising more cost effective strategies corporate America has implemented the scheme on a wholesale scale. Workers laid off on Friday are hired back on Monday as “contractors” without benefits. The enterprise’s balance sheet is improved because they no longer have employees. The employment agency’s P+L is improved due to the influx of leased [sic] workers. Compared to the “old” model, the worker loses out.

When there is only one middleman in the pipeline the end market cost remains the same, but the out-of-pocket cost structure to the employee changes for health insurance, vacation allowance, retirement funds et al. In my case there is a 10 fold mark-up and each pimp benefits. Money is made on the cost of money, but the real value to anyone -- especially the root employee and the final end user -- is questionable. 

Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for the job i’ve got and the opportunity to earn some money. But the system is broken and it won't be fixed unless dialogue is encouraged and issues are allowed to be discussed.

Ethical Investing/Ethical Marketing

I attended a conference last night on Ethical Investing, sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. It was held in an incredible room at the Mary Baker Eddy library in Boston. Panel was comprised of managers for “green” aka “socially responsible” fund companies: Templeton, PAX, Domini, etc. and was moderated by an editor from the Monitor. I sat and had a question formulating, which regrettably did not gel until I was driving home.

If those in attendance think that Ethical Investing is difficult, they should try Ethical Marketing. There is no truth in advertising. We live in a culture that has been hijacked by Business. There is “reality” and “image” and marketing organizations are only interested in promoting image. In truth there are no happy meals, no friendly skies. Being surrounded by sexy women is not guaranteed by drinking beer. And life fulfillment – be it mine, or that of the slaves who produce them – will not be attained no matter how many pairs of shoes I have in my closet: trainers, hikers, walkers, winter boots, mud boots, cowboy boots, slip ons, felt clogs, dansko clogs, black dress shoes, loafers, sandals, water sandals, aussie farm boots, and 3 or 4 pairs of casual shoes. Perhaps I need to ski, snowboard, golf, bike ride and play tennis or soccer for me and all of Southeast Asia to reach Nirvana.

There was much discussion on Tuesday night about filters and thresholds for determining what makes an enterprise socially responsible: workers’ rights; safety in the workplace; pollution; diversity in the boardroom; and no sin: armaments, tobacco, alcohol. There was argument too about “Well, paying workers in [fill in your favorite 3rd World Country] $2/day is better than any alternative”. From my perspective I found an absence of talk about corporate messaging, their co-opting of our government and the falseness of an economy based on lifestyle, not product.

If businesses were to tell the truth and revise their advertising strategies, then we may experience a shift from a society suffering from affluenza to one practicing voluntary simplicity.

A dichotomy exists between desiring ROI from a successful company and exerting pressure to encourage responsible marketing. What effects would there be on world markets should the demand for goods as we know them dry up, causing said businesses to Re-Organize [with upper-case seriousness]?