The Root of All Evil

Whether money or the love of, I've had various thoughts bouncing around for a while...

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Some have come up pretty recently. At work, a few of us have been scrambling for the last handful of months trying to set up a new advertising/accounting system. We are supposed to go fully live with it this coming week and the sales team is only just getting into it because... well, "we don't have time" translates to me as closer to "we have no initiative." I can't be too critical. I don't realistically expect people to sink their own time after hours into such things, but I still feel frustrated when others have to be pulled kicking and screaming into something I've already been pushed into. What this really means, though, is this last week we've found a lot of problems we didn't foresee when it was just a few people with admin rights working in the system.

A lot of the new stuff amounts to procedures that need to change, but one thing that's come up is how frequently and extremely discounts have been applied. The sales team and their manager cling to "This is how it has been," giving little thought to how things should be. The new system has been configured to allow anything more than a 10% discount only with direct approval of accounting, sales reps can't complete such themselves. And that is applying to sooo much. One example sticking out in my mind is contract that was passed over for entry that says we'll print a flyer for a local market once a month and insert it into the papers for $X. The problem is, it literally costs us more to do that.

I get the psychology involved in how "half off!" is more appealing than a base price that may be the same number. The problem is our sales team has been focusing on that and making sales and the accounting department is totally separated from that, budgeting based on listed rates. Yeah, the people selling don't know or care what something actually costs and the people looking at what things cost don't have any say in what they're actually sold for. Selling things at a loss is not particularly good business practice - at least not without extenuating circumstances ("less leaders," etc.).

This is facepalm-worthy.

It also raises some massive issues that need to be addressed on a company level at a time when we're trying to get people to learn new software. This is painful. I'm glad I don't have to deal with more of it than I already have to.

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I've also been watching some videos for a while regarding crowd-funded games and projects like "Earth 2." This is how I lose faith in humanity.

If people really want to sink thousands of dollars into "owning" "virtual land," well, I guess that's their choice. The biggest advocates, however, seem to be people trying to get others into the same thing. One could argue that's to share something they feel is good, but the more I see it, the more it feels like a pyramid scheme - like those invested want others to do likewise not because it's a great thing, not because they believe it'll be some awesome virtual reality in the future (though they could be that deluded), but rather because it would validate them and they can potentially sell out and make money (at the expense of newcomers). At that point, it's not a game, it's an investment. And a scummy one at that.

I actually have similar feelings about cryptocurrencies. They seem less about de-powering banks and more about trying to inflate prices artificially in order to make money - which always comes at the expense of someone else. I get the idea, but feel this deep, moral revulsion at the thought of actually pursuing it.

One reason I'll never really be rich?

In my mind, this extends somewhat to the stock market. Investing in companies has some definite upsides, sure. But the speculation in some cases is a little insane. Tesla comes to mind - the cars may be decent, but just about nothing the company does actually lives up to the pitches. The CEO is some combination of dreamer and con man, and I cannot believe how many people seem to buy into everything he says when his track record isn't exactly great. But I suppose investors overvalue companies like that less because they believe in the value of the company and more because they think others will join in and inflate prices even more. The situation with Gamestop stock has demonstrated in a way we almost never have our attention drawn to just how much market manipulation factors into the system.

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And... I guess that's enough financial rambling for now...