The dumbest business moves of 2009
By Jason Buckland, Sympatico / MSN Finance
It’s said that about 50% of businesses fail within five years of inception. Relax, we said businesses, not Adam Sandler movies. Fifty percent would be a tad generous there.
In any case, as we continue to claw back from the near-depression, what better way to feel better about our own finances than to revel in the misery of others?
So under that thinking – and really, who cares that it’s only July? – Fortune has jumped at the chance to unveil this year’s dumbest moments in business.
It’s pretty astonishing there have already been 17 flubs in 2009 Fortune feels confident casting the Dumb Tag on, a mark they bestow upon the likes of Bernie Madoff, General Motors and AIG.
Many of the list’s entries you could see coming (Really, it’s a bad idea to offer $165 million in executive bonuses when you’ve just been bailed out by taxpayer money? You think so, doctor?), but there are some not-so-obvious choices you can’t help but nod along to.
Like the New York Yankees, for example, who overplayed their hand worse than Terry Benedict in Ocean’s Thirteen by thinking they could fill primo, $2,500-a-ticket seats behind home plate for 162 games this summer in a crappy economy.
Or like British Airways, who did the near-unthinkable last month by asking its 40,000 employees to work for free while the airline tries to ride things out.
The list also makes you wonder what we could possibly see as an encore in the back-half of 2009. Maybe Apple brings back the ‘Shake the Baby’ app for the iPhone. Maybe KFC will run a free chicken promo and run out of food again. Or maybe Toronto’s city workers will strike in the dead of summer, leave no end in sight and inadvertently cause a three streetcar pile-up when one of the fourteen thousand Manchu Wok cups lying around gets lodged in the tracks. Okay, one of those might actually happen.
And if the Fortune list only whets your appetite for momentous business malfunction, be sure to check out BusinessPundit.com’s 25 Worst Business Failures in History.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to hop in my DeLorean to go rent a Betamax, pick up a pack of smokeless cigarettes and drop off my resume at Enron. Have a great day, everyone.
Posted by: cbf | Jul 7, 2021 11:55:00 AM
I think that British Airways move to ask its employees to wrok for free is a very clever move. Certainly not one of the Dumbest. BA gets two things out of the request.
1) it reinforces to the employees that they are in serious times and that all employees need to pull together to make it work. The crisis motivator at work.
2) they create a wonderful shortlist of those employees not dedicated to the survival of the company that they can use during the next round of layoffs to cull those that werent willing to go the extra mile.
Posted by: Drob | Jul 8, 2021 9:25:52 AM
Good thing CEO's and management are paid riches for their brilliant thinking?!?!?! Monkeys could do a better job than most of those overeducated, underexperienced morons! Take an average man off the street, put him in an executives chair and I bet he has just as much chance of winning or losing in the corporate world as the suits that are there now!
Posted by: realist | Jul 9, 2021 7:55:58 AM
cbf...this is possibly the dumbest thing I've ever seen typed on here...I doubt you'd ever work for free.
Posted by: rainbows are not jus a fantasy | Jul 12, 2021 4:02:53 AM
4 british airways to even want to contemplate layoffs ina time where there may not be other jobs 4 ppl to go - wen familes need 2 b cared for an fed, an childern of those employees who wont be fed or clothed, or cared for cuz of the contemplation of layoff jus cu its hard times an they want the employees to work 4 free!! gimme me a break on that factor- its notthe employees fault at all its the mismanagement of money on thie biz side an anybody who deals with them from an inside view aside from employees!! keep apying the workers an get your heds outta ur Bleep! an get rid ofthe top ceo an find a new man 4 the job who wont mismanage money an ask ppl 2 work 4 free, so that familes who are not at fault can contine on survial an not of the fittest! as the ceo lines his own pockets full of money an makes his own family richer ( ya go 4 work 4 free if u want that to happen) but its also all bout the ones an zeros in binary( one number outta place does make a diff) as one govt official stated- why are we even in this dam recession? we all ovr the world use the same money, an buy an sell the same things we have always done. top ceo stop with the money grabbing an lining your own pockets 4 ur own self worth an stop watching terminator 3 movies!! thas not the way of the future...we in america an north america an uk an europe etc... are not in 3 rd world living...those that are in 3rd world countires those are the ones that are in survial for the fittest but thas a sad story that also needs help-maybe thas wat the top ceos can do help out 3 rd world countries that are starving, that need more clothing an care instead of lining ur own dirty pockets 2 get richer!
Posted by: gurt | Jul 20, 2021 7:55:33 PM
giving tony celment a job