Quote
"Last month we had to sit through a presentation on eliminating redundancy, and it was a bunch of PowerPoint slides, plus a guy reading out what was on the slides, and then he gave us all hard copies."
M
Max Barry"Hack was asleep when the phone rang. It was amazing how much more sleep he got now that he was unemployed. He was starting to feel bad for all the people who had to drag themselves into their drone factories by nine. They didn’t know what they are missing."
Max Barry is an Australian author. He also maintains a blog on various topics, including politics. When he published his first novel, Syrup, he spelled his name "Maxx", but subsequently has used "Max".
"Last month we had to sit through a presentation on eliminating redundancy, and it was a bunch of PowerPoint slides, plus a guy reading out what was on the slides, and then he gave us all hard copies."
"I feel comfortably qualified to talk about anything, but thats a personal problem and Im dealing with it."
"Marketing (or mktg, which is what you write when you’re taking lecture notes at two hundred words per minute) is the biggest industry in the world, and it’s invisible. It’s the planet’s largest religion, but the billions who worship it don’t know it. It’s vast, insidious and completely corrupt. Marketing is like LA. It’s like a gorgeous, brainless model in LA. A gorgeous, brainless model on cocaine having sex drinking Perrier in LA. That’s the best way I know how to describe it."
"mktg case study #3: mktg shampoo PICK A RANDOM CHEMICAL IN YOUR PRODUCT AND HEAVILY PROMOTE ITS PRESENCE. WHEN YOUR CUSTOMERS SEE “NOW WITH BENZOETHYLHYDRATES!” THEY WILL ASSUME THAT THIS IS A GOOD THING."
"“She’s such a bitch,” Tina says, which I find a little contradictory, but overall quite true. “She’s got to be in charge of everything.” I sit next to her. “Well, I guess. But in business, that’s leadership.” Tina stares at me for a second. “I can’t believe you consider that a positive trait. How about her inability to accept other points of view? Is it good leadership to be narrow, too?” “Focus,” I say. “They call that focus.” Tina stares at me. “Her paranoia?” “Business savvy.” “Compulsive need to have everything just how she wants it?” “Organizational skills.” “Aggressiveness?” “Aggressiveness,” I say, “is already a good thing.” “Jesus Christ,” Tina says, her eyebrow ring glinting in the morning sun. “Sometimes I worry about this country.”"
"Look, I understand that for a lot of people, the US is superior to their country of residence in myriad ways, but Im Australian. We have it all: the weather, the beautiful cities, the brand of football that involves neither padding yourself up like Santa Claus nor standing in a line in front of goal and covering your testicles."