Corporate bollocks. The rubbish that businesses use to blatantly lie about their practices. Often to be found in statements issued by the press office when they're caught out.
The "isolated incident" that definitely doesn't happen all the time - often as a result of a "training issue" that definitely isn't company policy.
A "gesture of goodwill" that is offered grudgingly only when a newspaper has intervened on your behalf. They're sticking to their guns and are so adamant they've done nothing wrong that they're going to pay you compensation you don't deserve for something they didn't put you through.
A firm that "rewards our loyal customers" by letting them keep a benefit that they already enjoy, or "continues to deliver value for our customers" by putting the price up and the quantity down.
Everyone who's ever written stuff like this can enjoy a glorious winter sun getaway at the Inferno resort, where they can relax in the Eighth Circle bar.
I worked in corporate communications for a big company, but what else do you expect?
If we were sloppy with our wording you bet everybody would be whining about it and making a scene, that's why we issue these statements, to be so safe and dull and bland that the news probably can't even be bothered reporting on it. Having to comment in response to a negative attack is a minefield because whatever you say, somebody out there will find a problem with it.
It's like when people complain politicians always give vague, noncommittal statements that don't upset anybody, but yet will be the first with the pitchforks when they say something that pleases half of the people and upsets the other half of the people. It's a balancing act and why put yourself in the line of fire for no reason?
Can't comment on reward systems or anything though.
>>25032 >I worked in corporate communications for a big company, but what else do you expect?
Gee, I don't know. How about some fucking honesty? I mean, really, when you've very obviously done something wrong is it too much to ask you put your fucking hand up to it?
>If we were sloppy with our wording you bet everybody would be whining about it and making a scene
This isn't about being sloppy with your wording, it's about being sloppy with your facts. The problem isn't that the language is flowery, it's that it's at best "alternative".
>>25037 No, lad. There's a difference between covering your arse and acting like a child. Picture a six year old boy telling his mother that he hasn't taken a chnocolate biscuit. Only the words are indistinct because his mouth is full of biscuit. And he's got a half-eaten biscuit in his chocolate-stained fingers. That's what companies are doing when they come up with these lies.
We are always honest, but we just choose to put it forward in a way that covers us too.
Is it realistic to expect a company to make a mistake and just throw our hands up and go 'you got us, come fuck us over?'. No, of course not. The same way you wouldn't turn up in court for a parking ticket and tell the judge that actually you were driving faster ten minutes before you got caught.
It's weird though, most big, modern companies these days actually have an honesty policy where it's seen better to come clean, just because we don't self-flagellate at how shit we are doesn't mean we are trying to absolve ourselves completely.
It's like you have only just entered the real world. I can't fathom why somebody would think a company would want to give itself a bad reputation.
>>25039 >We are always honest, but we just choose to put it forward in a way that covers us too.
No, you're not. Taking the situation and framing it differently so as to absolve yourself of responsibility is probably stretching the definition of "honest". Issuing a statement loaded with "alternative facts" can't even remotely be called honest.
>Is it realistic to expect a company to make a mistake and just throw our hands up and go 'you got us, come fuck us over?'.
I don't think it's entirely unrealistic to expect you to throw your hands up and at the very least say "yes, we made a mistake, our bad".
>The same way you wouldn't turn up in court for a parking ticket and tell the judge that actually you were driving faster ten minutes before you got caught.
No, that's an entirely different situation. Let me correct your analogy for you:
>The same way you wouldn't turn up in court for a parking ticket and tell the judge that actually you weren't even driving that day and you don't even own a car.
>It's weird though, most big, modern companies these days actually have an honesty policy where it's seen better to come clean
Shame they don't seem to bother enforcing them, eh?
>just because we don't self-flagellate at how shit we are doesn't mean we are trying to absolve ourselves completely.
Because those are the only options, aren't they? Either lie through your teeth and deny all responsibility, or grovel for your life. There clearly isn't any middle ground there such as, say, admitting that you got it wrong and moving on. Nope, it's got to be one extreme or the other.
>It's like you have only just entered the real world. I can't fathom why somebody would think a company would want to give itself a bad reputation.
Yet they somehow manage to do so by issuing non-apology apologies and denying that they could ever have possibly done anything wrong.
I don't have to justify anything to you, but for posterity when people read through this dire thread they can see my above post (>>25039) pointing out how ludicrous your whine is.
I think OP seems to be under the delusion that there is an objective right and wrong and that people will treat others fairly.
This isn't the case especially for a larger company, because there are groups with ideologies that would rather see them smash to bits and wallow in it then have a productive society and muckrakers to sell papers making everything sound as alarmist as possible, regardless of the consequences.
Your small time business man can be dodge as fuck, mistreat employees, and price gouge,tax dodge and still be treated like they are decent.
But a large company can act perfectly reasonably, but be seen as a heartless monster because of an unfortunate indecent. Best to apologises even though you've done nothing wrong and to appease.
I used to work in the upper ranks for a Council and half of the upper managements job was are kissing complainers to trying to prevent idiot members of the public cause a storm in a tea cup because if there was any grain of truth in a complaint they made, or if a decision was made that had unforeseen negative consequences for someone who could easily be painted as a victim (a mother, an old person, a disabled person, children) the press would jump on that shit.
>>25044 The thing is, it's really not that difficult to get right.
My electricity supplier did their usual thing of trying to hike my DD payment (as they do every three months), but the number looked a bit high. I called to query it, and within five minutes the first-line operator had established that a payment had been missed three months prior, acknowledged that it was their fault and without prompting offered to reduce the DD.
A few months back, I got a reminder for an unpaid instalment of council tax that I was sure I had paid. The bank confirmed that the payment had indeed been authorised but the system on the council's end hadn't followed through. When I called the council to explain what had happened, without much fuss they agreed that I could make it up when the next payment was due.
How much effort did those take really? Not much. Were they bending over and inviting a bumming? Of course not.
It always amuses me how the office drones on here get so defensive about their objectively shitty corporate morality, lifestyle and office culture.
It's almost as if they are failed husks with nothing left but a grim determination to seek refuge in the self-deception that they are not in fact everything that is wrong with modern society.
>>25052 He says, posting from a device whose hardware and software was designed by office drones, purchased using money wired to his account by office drones by sending packets over the world's largest interconnected network - designed and maintained by office drones.
About 25% of the people in an office do the Real Work.
The rest are drones. They make work and they busy themselves moving paper from one place to another, sending emails, invoicing the Jenkins account, distributing reports, compiling absence figures, updating the spreadsheet, collating the yearly uptake figures, implementing the third quarter projections, maintaining efficient networking standards... Ultimately nothing would go terribly wrong if they suffered a brain haemorrhage at their desk one day. In fact I wager it would take upwards of a week for anybody to notice in most cases.
>>25056 Don't knock it, lad. As someone who does Real Work, I know just how important the spreadsheet brigade are. Were it not for them, I'd have to attend pointless meetings and piss about with spreadsheets, which would take time away from Real Work.
Back in The Olden Days, admin was a painstaking business because of the lack of technology. Very little admin actually got done, because the essentials were so time-consuming. Accounts were hand-written in ledger books. Memos were written or dictated, sent off to the typing pool and reached their recipient about a fortnight later if you were lucky. Someone had to spend the whole of Friday filling little brown pay envelopes with cash, because standing orders hadn't been invented yet.
Everything worked, just very badly. Production lines would shut down for days on end for lack of parts and materials. Invoices took six months to settle even at the best of times. Some departments were rushed off their feet while others were twiddling their thumbs, because senior management had only a vague idea of how busy everyone was. Cashflow crises were commonplace, because it was hard enough to keep track of cashflow let alone make accurate forecasts. Frankly, it was a miracle anything got done at all.
Modern offices have their share of pointless busy-work, but it's nothing compared to the epic waste that was rife prior to computerisation.
>>25059 That actually sounds better. Perhaps the act of actually doing something is meaningful compared with faffing about with spreadsheets and having existential crisis.
You sound like the kind of person who when lost rather then check the map, would drive as fast as you can go in potentially the wrong direction, because that is more progress then just sitting there doing nothing.
Get a job op you lazy student whinge rantist. You probably can't because you're a bit of a nob, like all those other socialists and dole lifestyle no hope types. Send an email to Corbyn, he'll raise your lack of employability at PMQ's next week.