ARGH! Why do I have to read anti-business books for my business course? (Happy now?)

[Zenmervolt]

So I walk into my first session of "Ethics and the Business Environment" this morning and look at the syllabus only to find that instead of a textbook the required readings are "Fast Food Nation" and "Nickel and Dimed". WTF? What kind of business do books written by a bunch of socialist demagogues have in legitimate Business courses anyway? I transferred into the College of Business Administration to get away from this kind of horse sh-t.

The professor is going to have one long semester. I'm loud, I'm conservative, I've got a 154 IQ, and I'm PISSED OFF. I'll be having fun.

OK, that's my little rant. I'm done for the time being. You can all go back to your regular lives now. Sorry for interrupting.

ZV

EDIT: Fixed the title so that all the people who can't actually speak on a topic relevant to my rant will quit pissing and moaning about my punctuation.

 

[AU Tiger]

It's the Ethics portion of business. My guess is that those two books are required to serve as examples of bad business ethics and give the teacher a topic for discussion.

 

[PsychoAndy]

154? Damn. Thats not an IQ, thats a thermostat operating temperature. Wait. Why me talk?



-PAB

 

[notfred]

I don't know. Why does a person with a "154 IQ" end a question with a period?

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: notfred
I don't know. Why does a person with a "154 IQ" end a question with a period?

Touche. I shall fix that then.

ZV

 

Originally posted by: notfred
I don't know. Why does a person with a "154 IQ" end a question with a period?

w00t...nice one notfred.

Seriously though, I agree with AU Tiger - seems to make sense.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: notfred
I don't know. Why does a person with a "154 IQ" end a question with a period?

Why does a person with a "154 IQ" take a business major, is what I want to know?

Well, I can't say much about Nickel and Dimed but I'm reading FFN right now, and it contains a fairly thorough history some of the nation's most successful businesses, namely Carl's, McDonalds, Wendy's, KFC, and a bit about Disney.
It also contains lengthy commentary on how these businesses operate, marketing to children, hiring almost exclusively young/uneducated/non-white people, and all sorts of other stuff. Seeing as it's a class on "ETHICS in the business environment," it seems pretty damn relevant to me. What did you want to hear in this course? How to do dodgy accounting without getting caught?

 

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: notfred
I don't know. Why does a person with a "154 IQ" end a question with a period?

Touche. I shall fix that then.

ZV

Touche - so you put an exclamation mark at the end instead.

 

[LostHiWay]

Just remember according to many textbooks the only ethical way to run a business is by making $0 profit.

The main reason for going to college is for that piece of paper at the end...and to show employers you can put up with 4 years of BS and come out ahead.

 

[vi edit]

Doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

Unreasonable to me is, a nurse anethstetist(sp?) having to know how to do HTML for her degree. Wouldn't you think that there are more important things that somebody who could kill you by simply messing up a formulation by a couple thousandths of a ML should be doing?

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Jzero

Originally posted by: notfred
I don't know. Why does a person with a "154 IQ" end a question with a period?

Why does a person with a "154 IQ" take a business major, is what I want to know?

Well, I can't say much about Nickel and Dimed but I'm reading FFN right now, and it contains a fairly thorough history some of the nation's most successful businesses, namely Carl's, McDonalds, Wendy's, KFC, and a bit about Disney.
It also contains lengthy commentary on how these businesses operate, marketing to children, hiring almost exclusively young/uneducated/non-white people, and all sorts of other stuff. Seeing as it's a class on "ETHICS in the business environment," it seems pretty damn relevant to me. What did you want to hear in this course? How to do dodgy accounting without getting caught?

I wanted an objectively-presented course. Not a course using books by Michael Moore wannabes as authoritative texts. Business ethics are about not "cooking" the books and about remaining legal IMO. If I want a bunch of BS about how corporations should pay "living wages" and the like I'll go talk with the abundant commies in the student body. And my major is Finance thank you. I chose it because I:
1) was fed up with the pinkos in Arts and Sciences
2) hate programming
3) love the business world, and
4) wish to work for a specific institution that happens to want Finance majors

ZV

 

[vi edit]

Wouldn't an objective course be one that shows BOTH sides of the industry???

You have no idea what sort of supplementary lecture the prof. is going to provide with the books.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: Jzero

Originally posted by: notfred
I don't know. Why does a person with a "154 IQ" end a question with a period?

Why does a person with a "154 IQ" take a business major, is what I want to know?

Well, I can't say much about Nickel and Dimed but I'm reading FFN right now, and it contains a fairly thorough history some of the nation's most successful businesses, namely Carl's, McDonalds, Wendy's, KFC, and a bit about Disney.
It also contains lengthy commentary on how these businesses operate, marketing to children, hiring almost exclusively young/uneducated/non-white people, and all sorts of other stuff. Seeing as it's a class on "ETHICS in the business environment," it seems pretty damn relevant to me. What did you want to hear in this course? How to do dodgy accounting without getting caught?

There's the issue. How the hell is any of what you listed unethical.

business operate - franchises, which some of these companies are, are operated by the owners not the corporations. And if you are going to be picky, you could point out any business and say it has an ethics issue. Sometimes ethics is in the eye of the beholder.

marketing to children - and what is wrong with that, it's the parents ultimate decision.

hiring almost exclusively young/uneducated/non-white people - So are they only supposed to hire MBAs. Then you will hear bitchin'. Or maybe they should become educated. How is this the fault of the companies. Geesh.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
You have no idea what sort of supplementary lecture the prof. is going to provide with the books.

Unless there is a drastic change from his lecture today I think I have a pretty good idea of where this prof's sympathies lie.

On the up-side, my Financial Accounting class is an absolute blast.

ZV

 

[Jzero]

I wanted an objectively-presented course.

How do you know it's not going to be objectively presented? For all you know, the course may not be using these books as canonical texts, but instead using them as fodder for discussion. For example, FFN seems to pitch hiring uneducated minorities as "unethical" but OTOH it's not illegal, these people want/need jobs and are willing to work those jobs for lower pay. You want to cut costs, so why not? The class might involve more a discussion what's ethical and what's not, as opposed to "This guy says the following is unethical, and we're going to take that at face value."

Business ethics are about not "cooking" the books and about remaining legal IMO.

There's a chasm between ethical and legal. Staying legal should be a business law course. Take the founder of PolarTec--when the plant burnt down, he could have LEGALLY laid off his employees or told them they could not be paid until production resumed. Instead, he did everything in his power to see that his employees continued to be paid while the plant was re-built. Whether or not to pay his people was a question of ethics. What would you have done in the same situation, and why? That's what ethics is about...there's no right or wrong.

I chose it because I:

It was a rhetorical question. I like to take potshots at people who point out there IQ as if it has any relevance to the topic. I should have included a smiley then b/c I meant nothing personal, so I include it now:

 

[Jzero]

There's the issue. How the hell is any of what you listed unethical.

You answer your own question when you say:

Sometimes ethics is in the eye of the beholder.

Ethics is ALWAYS in the eye of the beholder, so I seriously doubt this class is going to try and dictate what ethics are.

I have to add:
Note that in my first post, I didn't say whether or not the practices are ethical. You already colored them with your own view. That's exactly the point of the class (or at least that's what the point SHOULD be) - to get you thinking about what business practices you think are ethical or not and to start applying these ethics to your own practices.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Jzero
It was a rhetorical question. I like to take potshots at people who point out there IQ as if it has any relevance to the topic. I should have included a smiley then b/c I meant nothing personal, so I include it now:

No harm no foul. My only reason for mentioning that was to point out that I'm not exactly "unarmed" when I go up against a prof. (Though I'm certainly nowhere near as well-armed as the prof. Still I can catch him off-guard now and again.) And as for my ideas about what the professor is intending, I'm basing it on his commentary today about how commercials are unethical because they are misleading. He was talking about all comercials, not just one or two comercials in particular, but all of them.

And thanks to all of you for blowing a few holes in my rant. I needed to be taken down a peg or two.

ZV

 

[Jzero]

No harm no foul. My only reason for mentioning that was to point out that I'm not exactly "unarmed" when I go up against a prof. (Though I'm certainly nowhere near as well-armed as the prof. Still I can catch him off-guard now and again.)

That, and it's always part of a good rant :-D

And as for my ideas about what the professor is intending, I'm basing it on his commentary today about how commercials are unethical because they are misleading. He was talking about all comercials, not just one or two comercials in particular, but all of them.

I have to concede - for all you or I know at this point, the course could really be bunk, and based on this, I can see where you'd be concerned. I mean, WTF - advertising is about getting people to want your product! Keep us posted....I'd be interested in hearing the final verdict.

 

[JellyBaby]

So Zenmervolt, when you finally go to work for this company with your new business degree will you put numbers ahead of people?

 

[43st]

Originally posted by: JellyBaby
So Zenmervolt, when you finally go to work for this company with your new business degree will you put numbers ahead of people?

Unless they're white.