The Princess and The Pea

In the previous post I said Carly Fiorina, ex of HP, was "boring." In case it wasn't clear, I meant that Wall Street was bored with her, not that she was as exciting as a fence-post. In fact, just the opposite, as Spooky and Tom note. That's partly her problem, but mostly Wall Street's and tellingly (again, as Tom notes) HP's problem.

In fact, "Boredom" is the problem. As is the impatience it begets. And the lessons it makes us forget. Take the children's story mentioned above. A prince searches for his princess, to no avail. One day, a girl shows up at the front gate and claims to be a princess. The Prince's mother ain't buying it. To disprove the girl's claim, the mother invites the girl to rest for the night, and places a pea under 20 mattresses the girl must sleep on. If she's really a princess, she'll be fine-bred enough to sense the anomaly in her bedding.

Yeah. It makes about as much sense as the Compaq acquisition. Or the HP's board's belated petulance and pique. Over a decision they vetted with glee.

Fiorina was tech's Martha Stewart in a way. The other blonde princess. The personality--the story-- drove much of the fascination, the franchise, the fable, and, hence, what was said and written about her. She was shiny, she was sexy, she was fresh.

She was an impulse buy. A silver bullet wrapped in Versace and Jimmy Choos, rather than glasss slippers.

Should we be surprised those shoes cover feet of clay? Depends. Is she human? Okay then. Her human-ness being established, that makes 80% of what we're reading from the trade press and The Street just so much junior-high hallway chattering, doesn't it?

(Funny. I'm starting to get a Heathers kind of feeling here, how bout you?)

So much of what is written about business, and by business (okay, politics, media etc, too), is really fiction posing as non-fiction; irrationality clothed in faux propriety and the soul-crushing, debate-ending barricades put forth in the form of "irrefutable numbers." And, of course, in Second Comings like Fiorina's.

The silliness leads to us being clubbed by blunt instruments to check our follies: Hello, Sarbox. Yeah. Sarbox and Fiorina belong in the same sentence. Not because of malfeasance on her part, but because of generic fiduciary misfeasance by corporate citizens who really should know better; better than to be suckered into the express lane by baubles and unicorns. Yeah. No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible, said some French guy.

Carly Fiorina was doomed. Possibly in the same way Ann Fudge at Young & Rubicam may be doomed. Another very large snowflake, surrounded by arsonists and a forest of dead trees, with a snowball's chance.

I just realized something: Fiorina & Fudge. 2 women charged with fixing what the boys broke or allowed to fall into disrepair. They're Fantasy fix-it figures. Fairy Godmothers, who quickly devolve into wicked witches of the west if their methods are too soft (Fudge), or too hard (Fiorina). Our response? We're Goldilocks! Bustin up the furniture, testing every porridge in sight, and jumping up and down on the beds because nothin' feels right. Can we describe what would? No. That would require effort, self-awareness, and an admission that the reason the porridge sucks so bad is because we specified the ingredients or didn't speak up when the order went out. Or, that it's our bed, we made it--and now we don't want to lay in it.

On the whole, it's much easier to toss the maid. And throw a tantrum. Because, well, it's just so hard to get good help these days and can we have more ice cream, please?

Snowflakes and avalanches. Dessert before vegetables. Shortcuts always sizzle more than spadework. And they cause us to spin Stockmanesque fairy tales--stories grown-ups tell each other to cover the stupid things we do when our hopes are really pegged to an aversion to doing our chores. Or to stepping forward. In this way, it's not just business journalists acting like teenagers: Krispy Kreme's Scott Livengood didn't like using the laundry hamper or feeding the dog, either.

Maybe there's something to that? Grown-ups holding forth in grown-up venues using grown-up words and doing so with all the credulity, certitude and patience God gave a 13-year old.

Are the folks charged with spinning out Fortune, BusinessWeek, WSJ, and Economist articles scribbling their tales of recieved wisdom, their fables, without any clue or self-awareness to the lessons of the real thing? Could be. Probably.

One for Carly:

The Fox and the Crow

A Fox once saw a Crow fly off with a piece of cheese in its
beak and settle on a branch of a tree. "That's for me, as I am a
Fox," said Master Reynard, and he walked up to the foot of the
tree. "Good-day, Mistress Crow," he cried. "How well you are
looking to-day: how glossy your feathers; how bright your eye. I
feel sure your voice must surpass that of other birds, just as
your figure does; let me hear but one song from you that I may
greet you as the Queen of Birds." The Crow lifted up her head and
began to caw her best, but the moment she opened her mouth the
piece of cheese fell to the ground, only to be snapped up by
Master Fox. "That will do," said he. "That was all I wanted. In
exchange for your cheese I will give you a piece of advice for the
future "Do not trust flatterers."

One for the inky wretches:

The Buffoon and the Countryman

At a country fair there was a Buffoon who made all the people
laugh by imitating the cries of various animals. He finished off
by squeaking so like a pig that the spectators thought that he had
a porker concealed about him. But a Countryman who stood by said:
"Call that a pig s squeak! Nothing like it. You give me till
tomorrow and I will show you what it's like." The audience
laughed, but next day, sure enough, the Countryman appeared on the
stage, and putting his head down squealed so hideously that the
spectators hissed and threw stones at him to make him stop. "You
fools!" he cried, "see what you have been hissing," and held up a
little pig whose ear he had been pinching to make him utter the
squeals.

One for The Street

The Scorpion and the Frog

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the
scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The
frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion
says, "Because if I do, I will die too."

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream,
the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of
paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown,
but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"

Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."

And, hey, why not one for HP?

The Ass and His Shadow

A TRAVELER hired an Ass to convey him to a distant place. The
day being intensely hot, and the sun shining in its strength, the
Traveler stopped to rest, and sought shelter from the heat under
the Shadow of the Ass. As this afforded only protection for one,
and as the Traveler and the owner of the Ass both claimed it, a
violent dispute arose between them as to which of them had the
right to the Shadow. The owner maintained that he had let the
Ass only, and not his Shadow. The Traveler asserted that he had,
with the hire of the Ass, hired his Shadow also. The quarrel
proceeded from words to blows, and while the men fought, the Ass
galloped off.

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard's ideal? That donkey galloped off years ago and people have been arguing over several facsimiles thereof ever since.
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