Supply Chain

Foolish Things We Have to Deal With

April 2, 2012

In honor of April Fool's Day, I've assembled a list of Some of the Most Foolish Things We Have to Deal With. Please send yours along as well. Here we go:Drivers who text while operating a multi-ton moving vehicle. Enough said.Co-workers who sit in ...

Andrew R. Thomas Blog

In honor of April Fool's Day, I've assembled a list of Some of the Most Foolish Things We Have to Deal With.

Please send yours along as well.

Here we go:

Drivers who text while operating a multi-ton moving vehicle.

Enough said.

Co-workers who sit in meetings -buried in their laptops- and surf the web/Facebook/email, etc. while assuming the rest of us aren't smart enough to multi-task like them.

Note to the self-absorbed: there is no empirical research which shows that we humans perform better doing several things at once compared to focusing on one job at a time.

Continuing with the technology theme

Co-workers who think CC'ing everyone on an email is the best way to show how hard they are working.

Somehow, someway, before the Internet, business got done and people lived their lives pretty well. Sending an email is not work!

TSA

Think its bad now? Wait till these folks are all unionized sometime next year

Paying for WI-FI in your hotel room.

I realize the travel industry is hurting. But, please, charge me a few more bucks each time in my base room rate and then tell me I'm getting "free WI-FI". I'd at least feel better.

"Decision-makers" who can't make a decision.

Nothing sucks the energy out of an office faster than a boss who won't act. Give me a jerk that can make a decision any day over a nice guy who never leads.

Entertainment Companies that Pose as News Organizations

When a 30-minute "newscast" includes the latest on Lindsey Lohan, Kim Kardashian, American Idol, plus sports and weather and the latest movie review from their own studio, it's hard to take things seriously

About the Author

Andrew R. Thomas Blog | Associate Professor of Marketing and International Business

Andrew R. Thomas, Ph.D., is associate professor of marketing and international business at the University of Akron; and, a member of the core faculty at the International School of Management in Paris, France.

He is a bestselling business author/editor, whose 23 books include, most recently, American Shale Energy and the Global Economy: Business and Geopolitical Implications of the Fracking Revolution, The Customer Trap: How to Avoid the Biggest Mistake in Business, Global Supply Chain Security, The Final Journey of the Saturn V, and Soft Landing: Airline Industry Strategy, Service and Safety.

His book The Distribution Trap was awarded the Berry-American Marketing Association Prize for the Best Marketing Book of 2010. Another work, Direct Marketing in Action, was a finalist for the same award in 2008.

Andrew is founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transportation Security and a regularly featured analyst for media outlets around the world.

He has traveled to and conducted business in 120 countries on all seven continents.