Bob's BBB Blog

 Regular readers of this blog may have noticed by now that I have a lot more “unreasonable consumer” stories than “unreasonable business” stories. Why is that?

For one thing, I think it’s because there’s less chance of a business becoming emotionally invested in a problem to the point that the owner loses his customer service mindset – good or bad – and makes an irrational decision based on a flawed position. Don’t misunderstand me. It’s natural that the consumer is more emotional about a problem than a business might be. For the consumer, the problem becomes the center of their universe. Hard-earned dollars have been wasted. They’re stuck with products that they don’t need, cars that won’t work, and home improvements that aren’t improvements at all. For some companies, “business is business,” “that’s the way the cookie crumbles,” move on. There are a few businesses out there strictly for the Almighty Dollar who make bad decisions all the time, and some well-meaning business owners goof here or there. Some are as emotionally-charged as the most difficult consumer. I’m only addressing generalities in this discussion. Trends, if you will.

Here are a couple of differences between even the most ethically-challenged company and a complainant with a faulty position. First, at least where return policies or contracts are concerned, the consumer agreed to the business owner’s terms. The rules exist, often in writing so big that can be seen for miles. From our seat, that’s an incredibly important distinction to make. Most states’ laws governing return policies say that the store can have whatever policy it wants, up to and including accepting no returns at all, as long as the policy is clearly posted. The same can be said of sales that depend on contracts. I’m not a lawyer, but I can draw some conclusions from what I do understand of the law. As a customer, you knew the rules going in. We understand that sometimes the company breaks those rules, but – here’s a rule of thumb for you – whoever is offering a sale by contract is probably favored by the content of that contract. And, in all likelihood, the contract contains phrases or policy statements that eliminate more common complaints from more discussion than, “It’s in my contract, the customer signed it, we’re sticking to it.” A contract carries the power of law, and unless the company is willing to respond voluntarily to negotiating and prodding, it takes the power of law – namely a court or at least the involvement of attorneys – to break it. If you don’t like the content of a contract – or any part of it – don’t sign it until you reconcile your differences and concerns on a new contract that spells out your new agreement! Can I possibly be any more emphatic in this advice?

Next, on the whole, either you’re dealing with a reputable business or you’re not. I honestly, whole-heartedly believe that most businesses try to get things close to right where customer service is concerned. It’s far more common, in my experience, for a company owner to give up a hard, defensible position in the interest of keeping a customer happy than it is for him to turn a cold shoulder. Nowhere is this truer than in one of the more maligned industries in any BBB database: Used Car Sales. Despite having sold a vehicle “As Is,” with all the legally-required sign-offs and carefully-reviewed language, the majority of dealerships – Accredited by the BBB or not – will generally do something for a consumer who picked out a bad As Is vehicle. And the company is under no obligation – other than the owner’s personal ethics – to do so.

Let’s say that’s not the case. Let’s say you’re dealing with the minority and we’re talking about a disreputable business. Hopefully, you’re talking to the BBB before you’ve done business with the company – and that’s my point. A company that’s in it for the short run, protects its own interests and doesn’t care about customer service doesn’t single out one customer to abuse. A pattern emerges fairly quickly, and the BBB report will chart that experience and reflect it – and warn folks of the pitfalls of making a deal with that company. Companies tend to treat their customers about the same, good or bad, and we see trends of behavior, don’t we? As far as long-term ethical behavior goes, looking at the track record of businesses is like looking at a teacher’s grade book, where the students’ scores are recorded. Mary might get high grades, then hit a bump – maybe she stayed out late at a party one night or didn’t do her homework for that chapter – and gets a bad grade. A sharp student will pick that grade up, catch up on her work, and the bad grade, in general, will be the exception. It’s far more uncommon to see an average or poor student spike a great grade in the middle of the quarter, isn’t it? So much of being a good student is based on cumulative knowledge of the subject that it’s difficult to break a trend. The same can be said of business owners and customer service. The tendency is for the company to have high ethics and maintain that scale…or have little concern for customer service and stick with that plan.

I’ll share an ongoing experience that’s frustrating to the BBB staff, and the company is the party being unreasonable in this instance. It’s one of those times that I’m just left scratching my head, wondering where the process failed. It hasn’t quite failed yet, but the writing is on the wall and the clock is ticking…fast.

A consumer paid a contractor to install a decorative drain. The installation was no more or less inconvenient than you might expect for a project involving concrete, stone work, and tiling as well as plumbing, but when it was done, the drain wasn’t working. The consumer offers straightforward (but numerous) arguments. The contractor simply says, “You run the risk of there being some pooling because the tiles aren’t perfect. Stone cut tiles can vary piece to piece and box to box, so there’s bound to be some pooling.” I can buy that much, but…we’re not talking about “pooling.” I’ve seen pictures. We’re talking about an inch or two of water stubbornly ignoring the fact that it’s floating over what should be a perfectly-working drain.

The argument is ridiculously, almost uncommonly simple. The consumer paid to have a drain installed. It’s not draining. But the contractor is arguing against his responsibility, popping out one seemingly unrelated point after another. “We discounted the job.” “She didn’t want the tile sealed.” “It took her a couple of months to complain.” Who cares? Fix the damn drain!

I’ll add insult to injury, here. Somewhere in the mass of paperwork the complainant provided in the course of her dispute, there’s a “100% Satisfaction Guarantee.” That really leaves me confused. If you’re going to use that kind of promise as part of your sales pitch, you really need to stand behind it. This customer isn’t 100% satisfied. I wouldn’t say 70% or even 30%.

The simplest thing the contractor would do -- the right and ethical thing to do after so many arguments and bad blood -- would be to bite the bullet and write a refund check. Walk away. I’d respect that. Right now, after so much name-calling and smoke and mirrors between the two, I don’t think the contractor is allowed on the property even if he wanted to fix the problem (which, incidentally, he insists is not a problem despite mold and mildew growing around the stagnant pool). And I don’t blame the homeowner for not wanting this guy back.

What did the company owner say when I suggested that maybe the least-painful way to resolve the matter is to write a check? “Oh, she’ll probably take me to court now no matter what we do.” Uh…why? Over what? I’m not saying that’s impossible – we live in a litigious society – but the odds of someone going through the expense and effort of filing a small claims court claim when they’ve received a refund are pretty slim. Certainly leaner odds than if you were to, say, keep listing silly reasons why the water ignores the laws of physics and won’t go down the drain!

“I’m not wrong. The water is.”

The company owner can pay now – and avoid the hassles of dealing with me, the courts, or the consumer – or pay later after going through more annoyance and wasted time. I have no doubt that this guy is going to pay sooner or later. It’s just too obvious a problem, and the guarantee is icing on the cake.

In keeping with the school class logic mentioned earlier, I’ve suggested that the contractor remove the “100% Satisfaction Guarantee” from his sales book, too. The trend is being set.

 Pull up a chair, kids. It's time for Uncle Bob to spin you another story of an unreasonable consumer.

There’s a lesson at the end, so pay close attention.

Once upon a time there was a little old lady who wanted to get her kitchen floor replaced with modern tile. She went to the flooring store on the corner and picked out a style, then patiently waited for delivery. After the tile arrived in the store, our heroine asked whoever was behind the desk, “Do you know anybody who installs tile?” The clerk helpfully referred the lady to an installer – let’s call him…I don’t know…Moe.

The reference to the Three Stooges is intentional. Trust me.

Moe came out to inspect the kitchen and gave an estimate, explaining what would need to be done along the way to make the kitchen “cover of Homes and Gardens perfect.” The lady says that, among other things, she was concerned about what would happen when the tile was laid if the old tile was thicker or thinner than the new tile. She questioned what would happen to the cabinets, doors, and baseboards. It’s a reasonable concern. It makes sense, right? And Moe promised that any gaps would be filled, any seams retouched, and that the mortar it takes to set the tiles will take up much of any gaps that would customarily appear.

Regular readers of this blog know what’s coming.

That’s right, sportsfans, gaps all over the place, over-shimmed doors, a real mess, and a generally bad job all around.

Who did the lady complain to us about?  Who is she still furious with?  Who is she demanding we not only sanction, but execute?

That’s right: The tile store.

Much as everybody from the tile store’s manager to my staff through to me has tried to convince her, most reasonable people would see Moe as the bad apple in this pie, but the lady insists that the tile house be held accountable because – as she characterizes it – they invited the incompetent boob into her home by recommending him to her in the first place.

Excuse me, but nothing is that simple.

Without speaking directly to the manager or whatever salesperson at the tile store personally endorsed Moe, I don’t know their side of the story, but I suspect what the customer characterizes as a full-boat, notarized, testimonial-laced recommendation was probably more like, “I think this guy does work with tile sometimes.” A lot of stores have bulletin boards near the entrance where workmen post ads or business cards. I could imagine the so-called recommendation being, in reality, the clerk pointing out such a board. In any case, the store isn’t in the business of making recommendations (or shouldn’t be) and did put itself at some risk singling out any contractor (or supposed contractor) to do the work.

Still, isn’t the customer being a tad unreasonable holding the store responsible for the work of a third party? The store is, to my mind, in the business of selling floor coverings, tile, and the products necessary to install the materials. (Maybe they have a stock of coveralls, too.  Or tape measures.  I've never been there.)  Point is, it’s not, as a retailer, in the installation business. And, as far as we know, the real obligation ends with ringing up the materials. (Okay, maybe there are return policies or other considerations, but as a practical matter, a thousand customers could end their relationship with the store the minute they swipe a credit card and pack the carpet into their truck.) I suppose if we look at a recommendation as an ancillary free service provided, the store missed the mark, but I don’t think the tile shop is automatically responsible for everything that went wrong with the job from that point on.  We struggled in the office with whether or not to even formally count the complaint against the store at all, but based on some other problems with the actual tile order (the store over-estimated the amount of tile and glue needed and cheerfully accepted the return of the extra materials) we decided it was worthy of report.

I’ve done my level best to explain to the complainant that we feel she needs to file a new complaint against the contractor who did the work, since the store (in my opinion, rightly) disavowed responsibility for his bad installation. The lady is pretty upset with me over that, and has suggested that I’m biased on the side of businesses. (Quick math lesson. Redirecting the complaint from one business to another still leaves one business potentially upset with the BBB for taking the consumer’s side in the dispute and facilitating a new complaint, so my personal net gain in trying to focus the complaint process where it belongs is zero, right?  And we're still trying to achieve some reasonable settlement for the lady, only placing the blame somewhere in the neighborhood of where it belongs.  Sue me.)

Matter of fact, I have a problem with our complainant’s insistence – and this situation isn’t especially rare – that she has absolutely no personal responsibility for the problem, or in a way claiming that the store has undue responsibility for the doofus she hired to do the work. The BBB has dozens of advice columns, articles, alerts and pre-purchase features designed to help consumers make smart decisions prior to doing business with just about any company or buying many products, regardless of whether or not we have a report on a specific business. One of our organizational philosophies is to never leave a curious consumer without some direction or information to help in making such a decision before they run into problems. The lady was quick enough to find us after her kitchen was “destroyed” by the bad contractor. I can’t tell you how much I wish she had contacted us before she hired the first guy she ran across (however she might have discovered him) without the benefit of our most general and common tips on home improvements. Like getting three estimates, insisting on a contract in writing, or half a dozen easily-followed tips.  I'm not saying that any part of the bad work was the customer's fault.  I want to hold Moe as responsible for the bad job as I can, but completely and totally holding the store responsible for hiring the bozo is a bit out of line.  Actually, it's a lot out of line.

Please understand that I live my life to try to serve the public to the best of my abilities, but it’s extraordinarily frustrating that once in a while, a consumer comes along who not only could have avoided a headache if they would have used our wealth of advisory information to make a smarter decision before making a bad deal, but then argues with us about the actions we suggest to resolve the situation in his or her best interest.  To the lady's mind, we're wasting our time chasing the contractor when the store was so obviously at fault for all her problems, and probably the national debt. 

The Better Business Bureau is an organization that exists to be used. Like any tool, there are smarter and dumber ways to use it. What I won’t accept is angry criticism from someone who dislikes our efficient, reliable process in favor of their own personal prejudices.

   Preparing the BBB’s annual budget is probably my least-favorite part of the job.

Please understand that I am truly blessed to have found a career that I love. More than anything else, maybe, being in charge of a BBB puts me in the position of being not only the head cheerleader for the organization, but also the chief proponent of high ethical conduct in the marketplace and guru of what good behavior among businesses should look like. Over time, I’ve shown some level of skill for management. I enjoy interacting with company leaders and consumers. It’s obvious that I like teaching in our community, and appearing in the local media -- offering smart shopping tips -- is one of the purest forms of that function. All the while, I’ve been lucky enough to be associated with an eager staff and a Board of Directors that understands the goals of the organization and continues to be helpful in steering the BBB toward success. Along the way, that group is available to offer advice when the rules of the road get blurry from time to time, and that’s an invaluable resource.

For all the good parts of the gig, preparing the budget in concert with a Board Committee has often been a frustrating experience. I don’t especially like doing the math, but that’s not the big headache. What presents a problem for me is an activity that appears, from the outset, to be an exercise in being wrong. I understand the importance of governing any growing concern – especially a non-profit agency – with financial goals and limits in place, but anybody who tells you they know with any degree of certainty what amounts of cash would be flowing next week – let alone next month or next August – is just plain lying.

Any budget might just as easily begin “Once upon a time” as with the mission statement of the organization. There’s simply no way to know how much money will be coming in as much as a year in advance, or, for that matter, how much might be going out. Look at gas prices over the past couple of years and guess what they might be in June 2010. Is OPEC going to call for an embargo? Are we going to be at war with some major fuel-producing nation? Are we suddenly going to learn a way to convert moonbeams into gasoline? Who knows? It’s a simple line item on a budget, but there’s no way to tell how this one basic expense might affect “Transportation Costs” in the budget. But let’s not stop there. If gas prices skyrocket as they have for a few months at a crack in the past 24 months, what impact would that increase have on new Accredited Businesses joining the BBB or renewing companies, the two elements that represent the organization’s growth and stability? Income and expenses are such a moving target at any given moment that the odds of predicting any outcome would make even the most reckless Vegas gamblers cringe.

But that’s what we’re doing, isn’t it? Gambling on making the right guesses. I remember taking a trip to a local horse track for a company picnic once. I had more fun watching my peers than the races, because observing the folks was a great Sociological experiment. The vast majority of my peers were there to have some fun, maybe blow a few disposable dollars, and – if their luck was in – walk away with a few bucks more than they came in with. Most didn’t take it seriously and didn’t assume they’d win more than a couple of races. It was a recreational event. A few, though, were cross-referencing racing forms and generally stressing out over each decision. I remember one guy who feverishly glanced between no less than three papers and magazines – consulting with his calculator from time to time – trying to educate himself to a point of expertise when, maybe the week before, he was completely unaware of what, exactly, the term “trifecta” means. While most people were having fun, a couple of my coworkers were beating their heads against a wall trying to outfigure themselves, the jockeys, the horses and the house, performing probability studies based on track odds versus known percentages. And you could tell when just about anybody did well (an occurrence that seemed fewer and farther between as the day wore on) because they screamed like maniacs whenever their horse came across in any predictable manner.

I’d say that, when preparing the budget for the approval of the rest of the Board of Directors, the finance committee is acting a bit more like those worried mathematicians sweating over the racing forms. It’s not as if we don’t have previous performance to compile and study based on the Bureau’s performance in recent years, or that we each don’t have some understanding of the process. We might approach the project with different mindsets – we might even come away from the same raw data with completely different impressions of what that information means to the budget or how much of an impact any trend or scrap of economic prediction will have on our numbers. Ultimately, examining the trends, looking at past performance, feeling out the data from piles of readouts….We’re still only making our best guess. It’s an educated guess, but the a guess just the same. New accounting software can make the job of crunching the numbers a little easier on both me and the staff, which in turn makes analyzing a few drafts of the budget easier for the Board Members who review those numbers, but ultimately the software is only interpreting the data that’s been plugged into the forms.

I mentioned that professionally, this isn’t my favorite time of year, and that’s true. On the other hand, especially among a few Board Members who have an aptitude for such activities make this frustrating couple of months more tolerable. So do a couple of key staff people. Mark Warner, the OKC-BBB’s Treasurer and budget guru, has a genuine knack for turning the numbers and shaking out potential problems. He’s a great guy to have around, and sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve his patience. Likewise, two staff members – Ramona Trail and Leeda Kurtz – have shown real decorum in going back time and time again to adjust this figure or switch those numbers until things make sense and result in a final product that the authors of the draft can live with….for now.

The budget goes before the entire Board of Directors for a vote next Tuesday. Cross your fingers.

 Anyone who gets to know me (even superficially) finds out some time between about July and maybe mid-November that I truly enjoy Halloween beyond all reason or restraint. Celebrating the holiday is one of my obsessions, in fact. Many times – often in my yard on October 31^st, usually in front of that year’s elaborate display, sometimes by a local reporter – I’ve been asked…Why? Why Halloween, of all holidays?

Lots of reasons. Any holiday might have at some level the purpose of striking an emotional chord in those around us. Let’s take Christmas, the King of All Holidays, as an example. At Christmas, we extol the virtue of the warm glow of peace on Earth and the expressions of love represented by gifts, pleasant gestures, and fellowship. As good and generous as we try to be, though, our ability to transmit our affections amid the trappings of this arguably most spiritual time of the year may fall far short, particularly in the present department. Who hasn’t bought a bad gift? Maybe with the best intentions, maybe even at high cost, I don’t know anybody (especially among men) who hasn’t missed the mark at least once. Oh, we tell ourselves it’s the thought that counts, but we always feel that little nick in the ego and personal disappointment for letting down a loved one. Perhaps worse than that is the possibility of thinking you really nailed a great gift for someone close and getting the nonverbal hint that the gift didn’t go over quite as well as we had hoped.

The Social Contract demands that we at least pretend to like even the most inappropriate Christmas gift. We smile and nod, perhaps even before we’ve truly identified what we’ve just unwrapped, and are obligated by politeness to fake thankfulness and joy for the sake of protecting the sanctity of the holiday and the good will of our friends. I’m not saying that this exercise in protecting the feelings of friends and family is wrong or unimportant. In fact, I believe quite the opposite, but we can’t deny the fact that some of the more effusive explosions of gratitude we’ve experienced or delivered in the face of some gifts might have been insincere. I’ve known a few people who deserve special Christmas Academy Awards for Best Reaction to an Unwanted Fruit Cake. Conversely, I’ve known a few who would be hard-pressed to react with more than an indulgent smile if you gift wrapped a barrel of unmarked twenties in unmarked hundreds. Some time around mid-December, tracking honest emotional responses can be as hard as finding the perfect snowflake.

Ah, but not so with Halloween! When the object of the game is to elicit a little fright, the payoff for the scare-giver is immediate and obvious. Like the skill of telling a joke, being scary is one of those “either you got it or you don’t” situations, but some people you’ll encounter give spectacular reactions to even a whispered “Boo!” in the dark that make the effort to give the gift of fright all the more rewarding. For a Halloween-o-phile like me, the challenge of the season is to get a little jump out of everybody, and, over the years, you collect the tools of the trade – everything from rubber rats to more advanced, laser-technology-based animated boogey men. The payoff for investing in a good scare is on the spot. Immediate gratification. There’s a definite honesty to the widening of the eyes, the physical jump some people will give you, and for someone who carefully designs the spook attacks in his yard, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a hard-earned yelp in the night.

Of course, time and reputation are the enemies of the career fear monger. After the first couple of years of terrorizing the Cleveland BBB, my immediate supervisor (and good friend), Sandy, was used to me showing up in the wee hours of the morning, decorating the office with all sorts of ghoulish totems, and hiding in the dark to ambush the employees as they arrived for work -- especially her. I’m sure she wasn’t alone in anticipating such an attack, but it was relatively easy to assure her that, due to child care issues, I wouldn’t be able to get into the office at 5 AM to perform my spectral duties. That was a fib, of course, and one of the best reactions was from that fine lady. Sandy happened to be blissfully unaware of a zombified version of me patiently waiting in the hallway just inside the door of the Bureau, and, as she juggled a handful of files and a potted plant while switching on the lights, she became abruptly aware that she wasn’t alone.

I believe there is, to this day, some dirt still lodged in the ceiling tiles of that corridor from the plant, which launched skyward to the tune of an ear-splitting scream. I miss Sandy. Always good for a scream. A rubber mouse behind the door. A plastic brain in the fridge. You could count on her for a strong reaction.

Oh, come on. A scream once or twice a year is good for you. Instant aerobics.

As time has passed and I’ve honed my skills, I’ve also acquired what some (including my wife, God bless her) would consider an alarming number of Halloween-related props and decorations. We’ve organized our stock according to specific genres whenever, and at any given moment, we’re prepared to go with anything from a rollicking crew of pirates to man-eating plants. A crowd of vampires or zombies. Egyptian mummies. Mad scientist labs. Aliens. I pitied a gang of roofers who were called out to make repairs, which involved venturing into the attic where most of the props are stored. It must have taken nerves of steel to navigate a space cramped with rows of costumed and masked dummies – at least one of which couldn’t help but be staring at the workers at any given moment – muchless do their jobs.

At the BBB office in Midland Texas, we parlayed my enthusiasm for the holiday into a fundraising event for that Bureau’s Educational Foundation. The annual event also became an avenue to thank the Board of Directors and our media partners. Often populated with my children and their friends in costumes appropriate to their assigned rooms, the themed chambers were known to shake up even rough and tumble construction bosses and crime scene videographers. Here in Oklahoma, we have a party that performs much the same function – to thank our volunteers and partners – as well as entertain the local trick or treaters and their parents as they make the rounds. We’ve gotten solid, positive reviews from folks who attend. I’m proud to say that those media partners have been kind enough to feature our haunted yard displays in their news broadcasts from time to time.

Why is that important?  Well, because much like this blog, this kind of public appearance, this face of the BBB humanizes the organization. We could go out of our way to celebrate any holiday, I suppose, but most Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter in one form or another, and we should remember that those are religious holidays that would not be appropriate for a non-secular organization like the Better Business Bureau. In that same vein, the word “Bureau” in our organizational name has caused enough confusion in the minds of some businesses and consumers that we’re part of the government, so a major celebration of, say, the Fourth of July might prove problematic. Labor Day? We believe in unions, but associating too closely with that certainly alienates much of corporate America, and while all of us work hard, it’s there’s no dotted line between big labor and consumers.

Can you think of a holiday that better illustrates the tension and fear of a lot of consumer transactions? The precarious sensation of signing a contract? The unbridled terror of answering a phone in the dark of night only to hear the deceptively cheerful greeting of a telemarketer? The jangled nerves that only driving off the lot in your new “As Is” vehicle can create?

Neither can I. Halloween it is!

(Have a Happy, Safe, and Scary Trick or Treat Day.)

  Are you a hunter or a farmer?

There are half a dozen popular sales doctrines at work in the United States at any given moment. Some are flash in the pan self-motivational books geared toward helping out those in a tough profession, while others are tried-and-true programs that are designed to increase the productivity of a sales force. I don’t mean to promote one over the other. A case could be made that the “tried and true” should be avoided as old news in a rapidly-changing marketplace. Arguments could put those self-help gurus ahead of the pack when it comes to up-to-the-minute sales models.

What I think most business managers realize is that no one way leads to the golden goose. A program that might lend itself very well to selling cars might fall flat if you’re selling office products. A program that has worked for your veteran salespeople might require more finesse than a new hire can manage. Still, there’s a value to keeping your sales force on the same page, selling the same basic way. That leads to consistency, and if you’re working the right play book, money. Obviously, you’re going to settle on a program that works most of the time.

You can check out online articles from psychologists who have analyzed some common sales programs. What they’ll tell you, for the most part, is that the “good old days” of the point-by-point sales book presentation are dead and gone. Since the 1950’s and 60’s, when those techniques were common, people’s minds have evolved and been conditioned by television and a faster lifestyle. Even the Internet has shoppers clicking along at a much faster rate than would be comfortable attending a flip-chart sales presentation (even if it’s been redressed in PowerPoint or some other computer-friendly format). They’ll also say that a few more common sales programs typical in corporate America over the last few decades have failed over time – no matter how successful they once were – because they didn’t adapt past the buying population’s ability to recognize and counter them.

For instance, one of maybe three old school techniques acknowledged that the sale of high-priced office equipment was a tough sale, and built itself around the obvious conflict of getting a purchasing agent to part with his money. The approach was not unfriendly, necessarily, but it hammered “features and benefits” into the corporate consciousness. Salespeople in the program were taught to beat down any objection with overwhelming knowledge. Looking back at a psychological approach to such a program, it’s got some obvious flaws. It might work some of the time, but a successful purchasing agent was going to figure out quickly enough that the simple statement “I’m not buying today” shuts down a lot of sales offers.

Another blast from the past. One sales doctrine insisted that to be a great salesman, your client needed to be your friend. Open with a compliment. Learn some jokes. Pick up the tab at lunch. Trouble is, that kind of approach is expensive, and depending on the prospect, could backfire. Those psychologists will tell you that this program’s recommendation to greet the client with a “Hey, great tie!” or “Is that a picture of your son? Chip off the old block!” could instantly put you at a disadvantage. What if the guy hates the tie? What if junior – chip off the old block or not – backed over the dog on the way to school this morning and Dad isn’t too thrilled with him? That’s not a way to build trust, especially since there’s a basic assumption that at least some of the time, the salesman was committing himself to a lie. Not everybody wants or needs to be your friend, and handing out cheesy compliments gets transparent after a few meetings.

So what are we left with? What works?

Are you a hunter or a farmer?

A recent philosophy for sales people suggests that your personality has more to do with what approach you should take to selling than any program. Assuming you belong in sales at all, with a few minutes’ concentration, you should be able to decide what style suits your personality better. At heart, most people in the sales profession will identify more with being a hunter – aggressive, dominant, quick – or a farmer – nurturing, patient, cooperative. I realize that those can be charged phrases, but there’s not necessarily anything wrong with being an aggressive person in certain circumstances. Nothing wrong or especially right about being patient, either.

Certain types of products require one or the other approach; few translate to both. Looking at car sales, the trend would be as a hunter, right? You want to close the sale the first time the customer steps onto the lot and maybe build enough confidence in the vehicle for everybody to be happy with the transaction, not send your prospect shopping along to the lot next door or the next few lots before touching base and reselling him on your vehicle. You want to close him – ethically and confidently – but you want to make him your buyer right now.

Other types of sales might require building more confidence over time. Insurance springs to mind. The kinds of situations where a customer will benefit, buy with more confidence, and maybe even buy more if he’s brought along slowly, educated, and eased into pulling out his wallet. More complicated items, or items that carry with them some unfamiliar elements, might fit the bill here. Likewise, I think that building a relationship would benefit a salesperson who plans to have a constant, ongoing, regular buying schedule with his or her clients would benefit from a slower sales philosophy.

Hunting or farming, as long as the sale is conducted with the customer’s benefits in mind, a knowledgeable, skillful salesperson is going to come away with a win.

   Once in a while, a complaint crosses our desks that’s just unbelievable. Maybe not “unbelievable” in the sense that the customer has stated the impossible – 15 years of Bureau work has taught me that practically nothing is impossible where disputes are concerned – but rather that the consumer’s position itself stretches credibility.

Whenever we talk about complainants, it’s fair to say that some folks are just so steamed over their misfortune when they sit down at the computer or with their notepad that the language suffers. We don’t take points off for spelling or bad grammar. Most of the time, we try to polish things up a little where necessary, if only to help the business understand what the consumer is saying and get to the root of the complaint issue. Likewise, the BBB reserves the right to edit a complaint for some content. Profanity doesn’t help anything, and I can think of few situations when its use is germane to the complaint or its resolution. Besides, we’re not snobs, here. We understand that someone’s ability to write like a scholar doesn’t necessarily legitimize their position, nor is the opposite true. What we’re looking for is the basic story of the complaint, the details of whoever is involved, and a reasonable resolution for whatever offense might have occurred. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Let’s toss some complaints out the window right now based on a consumer’s misunderstanding of what we do or what the BBB can accomplish for them. When someone simply has the wrong place, we redirect them to the right one. When a consumer is asking for something we can’t do, we try to get them to restate their desired resolution. We try to work with these situations.

You know there’s a “but” coming, right?

But there are some consumers who leave us scratching our heads.

My coworkers and I discussed a recent dispute that involves no less than six communications from the customer, none of which is less than about 500 words long, most of which circumvent the usual complaint communication process by adding more information via e-mail. This guy needs to be heard. Demands it. Only it’s not “more” information, it’s the same information, sometimes with different phrases bolded, in different order, or with a rash of different misspellings. I’m not saying the person doesn’t have a right to be upset about their situation, only that restating it again and again before we even have a chance to solicit a response from the business is a waste of his time.

I’ll try to reduce the complaint to its essentials for you. In summary, the out-of-state complainant was staying at one of Oklahoma City’s “low rent” hotels. He’s lodged there several times in the past couple of years, but had words with the manager about a distinct smell of smoke in his room after his departure on his last visit. The manager wasn’t calling to say that the patron owed the customary $50 “fine” for smoking in a non-smoking room, only that the complainant was not welcome at the hotel in the future. The bottom line on the complaint is that the customer feels he’s being treated unfairly, and that he demands to be allowed to visit the hotel on his next visit. Along the way in making his case, the complainant ratted out the hotel for its poor service, loud on-site bar, bad rooms, constant traffic of drug dealers and prostitutes, and a host of other illegal activities.

And he wants to be invited back.

There are any number of reasons why the complaint won’t formally count against the hotel in the Bureau’s record on the company. First, the consumer isn’t asking for a tangible resolution, and the BBB won’t process an issue like this when the complainant is only requesting an apology (which is how we view the request for invitation). That pretty much kills any further discussion, but for the sake of argument, we’re not the proper venue for reporting drug dealers, prostitutes or other illegal activity. In fact, the hotel in question is located on a block well known to the police as being a trouble area. If you punched the street name and “hotel” into a search engine, your computer would spit back a dozen warnings from out-of-towers unlucky enough to have booked a room on this block, which seems to suggest that the discerning traveler with online access and enough expertise to file a complaint through the BBB would have the right skills and tools to research the same information and, if the sordid accusations were a major security or moral issue for them, avoid the area. Claims that the rooms are substandard seem inappropriate when the guy says he’s stayed there time and time again. The smoking policy can’t be an issue – the traveler admits that there are signs in the rooms and that he offered to pay for the customary fine. Maybe equally important to any other discussion of why the complaint won’t count against the hotel is our understanding that – as long as no laws concerning discrimination have been violated – a business has a right to refuse service.

I’ve politely made our case to the consumer. I’m sure he’ll argue it.

Here’s a bigger issue in my mind, though. You’ve probably already thought of it.

As comfortable as finding a good hotel in an unfamiliar town might be, and appreciating the principle of being upset after being refused accommodations in the future, how hard could it be to find another suitable – or better – hotel in Oklahoma City? There are hundreds (or, depending on how liberally we define our town, thousands) of rooms available at a wide array of prices and various locations around the area. I understand making your case to a third party, maybe trying to get the hotel management to change its collective mind, but…six long e-mails, counting the initial complaint, spattered with threats to go to the media, the Attorney General, the President of the United States. It’s a little out of hand, isn’t it?

Putting myself in the traveler’s shoes, my best advice is to vote with your dollars and find another hotel. Access to hookers and dope is optional, of course.

    Since the inception of online commerce, doing business via the web has been tricky.

Not to sound like grandpa on his rocker, but I remember back in the early days of online sales when the Better Business Bureau and other agencies were scrambling to offer meaningful, broad-based advice to adventurous consumers eager to explore the new media. The BBB wasn’t alone in being behind the eight ball in its efforts to keep up with emerging websites and practices. Keep in mind that just ten or fifteen years ago, credit card companies, federal agencies and trade associations were trying to develop internal policies at the same time as websites were developing all kinds of enticing offers and online features to separate consumers from their cash. Believe it or not, whippersnappers, there was a time when seeing a photo of the item you were buying was not only a luxury, you waited ten minutes for old style Internet feeds to load it onto your screen. (Kind of like comparing the graphics from a Super Nintendo game to the state of the art of Wii, PS3, or X-Box.)

In short order – and much to the credit of any of the consumer-protection agencies in the world – safeguards and policies, software and PC protections popped into place pretty quickly. Even the credit card companies were extremely proactive in modifying their policies to work with the rapidly evolving new frontier and protect consumers. Let’s be honest: Credit card companies had every reason to snap it up. The Internet has become an incredibly lucrative venue for credit card use, and inventing software or drafting practices that would protect the shopping public was in the credit card suppliers’ best interest. That takes nothing away from the agencies’ ability to provide solid protection and, maybe more important, to develop those protections quickly and, for the most part, keep up with a new toy that seemed to morph into a more complicated beast almost daily.

Think about it. Not too long ago, an escrow concept like PayPal that provides a double-blind between consumers and businesses not only didn’t exist, it wasn’t especially necessary. Consumer confidence in the Internet as a tool of commerce has grown by leaps and bounds only because the tools to make the experience safe for buyers and sellers have evolved quickly.

That brings me to today’s point. All of the players involved in creating an environment of safety in the online frontier should be congratulated for responding to the demands of a new buying model, but all of the products and services, all the software and protections only work if consumers use them.

Case in point? Craig’s List.

Have you visited Cragslist.com? It’s truly an ambitious site. The simplest way to explain it is to suggest that the website attempts to translate the classified sections of your local paper into an international online forum for free communications, sales, and trade. It’s really an amazing concept, combining everything from personal ads to job listings and everything in between. The site itself is so diverse that you can lose yourself for hours shopping ads and dropping through rabbit holes into completely unexpected wonderlands.

And that, of course, is where the site’s problems begin.  Maybe that statement isn't quite fair.  That's where consumers' problems with the site begin.  After all, the site's designers (or its legal advisors) have placed plenty of cautions about the site's advertisers, partners, users, sellers, and just about anybody who has anything to do with listing on the site.  The warning is on the label:  You're responsible for doing your own homework when selecting a business or seller on the site.  Or someone to date, for that matter.  It's a big, bad world in some parts of cyberspace and you're on your own some of the time.

Lately, the BBB and other agencies have been made aware of listings for properties on Craig’s List that are scams. You might find a listing for a rental home in the right neighborhood. A nice place at a bargain price. You contact the landlord and ask to visit the apartment, only the landlord is out of town. He’s very interested in renting the property, but its unavailable for showing. He’ll hold it for you – if you wire a deposit. Trouble is, the guy isn’t a landlord, there is no property for rent, and people find out about the same time as they pull up the driveway to the house they think they’ve rented that not only doesn’t the key fit the front door, the folks who are actually living in the house aren’t too thrilled about the prospect of sharing their abode with strangers.

I can’t tell you how many would-be renters have been scammed in the game. And I can’t tell you how personally frustrating I find it that people actually fell for it.

Let’s say for a moment that you’re trusting enough to believe that a landlord would list a property before it’s ready to be seen. We might understand how it could happen, and con men are notoriously clever about inventing excuses that sound just close enough to logical for some people to buy into them. Oh, someone placed the ad on the landlord’s behalf not knowing that he’d be on vacation this week. An emergency called him out of town just after he posted it. Or – my favorite – being a deacon at his church, he was called away to do missionary work. Even if that excuse seems somehow feasible, why would you wire money to someone you don’t know?

I opened this article by complimenting most service operators responsible for making the online environment safer for shoppers. Who I can’t toss compliments toward in good conscience are service providers like Western Union and Moneygram. From what I understand, wiring money through those services offers little or no protection for the sender. I frankly don’t understand why anyone would use the services to send money to an unfamiliar party. But…people do, and those people generally end up on the phone to a Better Business Bureau asking how they might get their money back.

Who’s fault is it when a consumer wires money through a service that provides little or no protection or accountability for whoever receives the cash? It’s not as if Western Union or other wire services have hidden their rules of conduct. It’s certainly not like they openly lie about the lack of security. Why would someone use these services knowing they are highly fallible when transmitting money to some entity you probably shouldn’t trust too completely in the first place? Let’s take it another step down the Responsibility Chain. Craig’s List is pretty open about its warnings against doing business with certain people under certain circumstances. If the poor folks who fell into this trap had taken the time to think things through, or, failing that, ask a few questions of the right sources, they’d have cash in their pockets and a roof over their heads.

This is one of a handful of situations when I can’t be too sympathetic to the folks who’ve been ripped off by these online landlords-turned-thieves. Agencies like the BBB have warned people dozens of times against such scams, and even if not, common sense would tend to warn people away from such shoddy arrangements.

So…consider yourself warned again.

  I remember, way back in my freshman year of high school, the national debate topic was whether or not the United States should embrace socialized medicine. That was a long time ago, and it seems the topic has bubbled up again and again over time without a standing resolution. Matter of fact, it’s the topic of the day again, without much chance of a lasting answer.

Health Insurance finds a way to be a topic of discussion for most Americans, and not exclusively because our government’s preoccupation with the topic has been in the news for months. Health Insurance is a priority for most of us. Not only are far fewer of us healthy and therefore “at risk” for serious illness these days, the prospect of facing our lives without some kind of coverage is pretty scary. Health care is expensive. Even with most insurance plans, a hospital stay can put a serious dent in our wallets, so the chance of getting nailed for the full pricetag of the same stay without insurance is enough to cause insomnia.

Helping to put the topic of Health Insurance on the kitchen table is the rising unemployment rate. Besides the other problems you’ll face if you lose your job in this economy – like the loss of income, the stigma and worries of being jobless, the unavoidable weight gain, deflating savings and threats to your lifestyle – you’ll need to deal with the fact that you won’t have the insurance your former employer provided to fall back on. Since 1986, COBRA participation would allow former employees to maintain their health coverage under the previous employer’s plan by paying the premiums out of pocket. Sounds like a Godsend, right? COBRA coverage can cost more for a family than the typical unemployment check. Unless you have savings to support you, you won’t be able to afford to maintain the coverage.

So? What do you do? For most unemployed Americans right now, you gamble on not needing insurance and let whatever coverage is available to you lapse. Most likely, you duck and cover, hoping for the best while you scramble to find work that will (among other things) reconnect you with the comfortable world of the insured. You cringe every time the kids ride their bikes to the playground, mentally calculating the overall cost of a broken arm. You invest in over-the-counter cold and flu remedies and pray that junior’s sore throat doesn’t develop into something worse. You stock up on toothpaste and hope nothing hurts too badly that it can’t be ignored for a few weeks.

What about victims of the economy who have ongoing medical issues that simply will not be ignored? What if you’re being treated for hypertension or another condition that requires ongoing maintenance? There are plenty of websites that will offer to sell you stop-gap insurance policies or short-term care designed to last until you find a position that will restore your usual benefits (or something like them). A quick review of many of these websites will frustrate those used to the sort of medical coverage most employers offer. Some might be better than no coverage, but not by much, and all come with uncomfortably high price tags. There’s no “bargain insurance” out there, only “more affordable,” “less affordable,” and “you’ve gotta be kidding me”. Even the friendlier insurance policies available for single-family coverage are unlikely to offer meaningful prescription coverage, and it seems as if that’s a benefit that most patients dealing with chronic conditions are interested in maintaining. Some of the insurance isn’t a bargain under whatever circumstances, either. For instance, you might have one that is available only for short term service, something less than six months, with a high deductible for most services. Since the term of the insurance itself is limited, you’re likely to run out of time before you accumulate enough charges to satisfy the deductible and see any benefit. Some pharmacies, “prescription clubs” or other customer loyalty programs may help lower the costs of common medications, but not all of them. A lot of medications have no generic counterpart, and all of the discount programs I’ve seen limit the products available for special pricing to generic replacements. If you need one of the top-flight medications, you’ll pay full price for them – at a time when money is already tight.

There’s no doubt that Americans need health coverage these days. Being sick in America costs money. Being unemployed and sick might be a lethal combination.

How likely are we to see some sort of major health insurance reform in the near future? Cynically, I have to say that I don’t see it happening. Do the folks on Capitol Hill mean well? Probably, but let’s face some facts: The insurance industry itself – not to mention HMO groups, drug companies and other facets of the industry – is a powerful lobby. Without slinging much mud, it’s obvious that any movement that would make the medical industry (and the associated businesses, like insurance against the need for medical treatment) less profitable is not in the interest of those who make a living through those industries, and the lobbyists will continue to support decisions that keep medical institutions in the black. A major overhaul of the system – one that likely involves socialized medicine and dismantling much of the core of the industry – isn’t in the cards right now.

The futility of the situation forces me to ask some questions, though. Like why some form of ongoing insurance isn’t part of your unemployment insurance, at least temporarily or on some sort of sliding scale.

With so much in the news lately about both unemployment and insurance, seems to me like we could kill two birds with one stone here.

Have you been losing sleep?

Stay at home moms know how it is better than anybody. When school goes back into session, it means that you’re probably the first one out of bed, waking the house, stuffing lunchboxes, making breakfast, pairing socks….

And, at least for a lot of you, switching the TV on to one of the local news shows.

Sure, you want to catch the weather to make sure that your children are dressed right (which can be a real trick in Oklahoma this time of year, when the temperature can go from a chilly 50 degrees to…what? A hundred?…during the course of the school day) and that you’re up on current events.

Something I hope you’re doing is catching the BBB’s weekly segments on a couple of stations. At least in part, they’re targeted at you.  During the summer months, we know that a lot of folks take a well-deserved break and sleep in.  That's great.  We absolutely encourage resting up to give yourself enough energy to keep up with the kids through the long, hot Oklahoma summer.  Besides, there are other groups we focus on during those months.  Mainly, they're the people who don't get that break and are hitting the bricks at dawn all year 'round.

There’s an expectation that where the Bureau is seen during two morning shows in town (at about 6:20 on Monday mornings on KFOR and Thursdays at 5:40 on News9), at least some of the viewers are going to be mothers getting their brood ready for school. Mothers – whether stay at home or those with active careers on the outside – are a huge part of the American buying public, and are in control of more spending money than ever before. Besides the obvious empowerment, there’s a huge responsibility to spend that money right in this economy. The basics cost more. There may be less money coming in. Now more than ever, it has become critical to make sure you’re getting the most out of every dollar you spend.

We’re keenly aware of this, and have intentionally aligned more of our appearances in the media toward helping stretch household budgets. We do our best to tailor those appearances to “news you can use,” and avoiding scams is something you need to keep in mind. Recent appearances have helped viewers avoid work-at-home schemes, insurance scams, and manage vehicle expenses in these tight times.

The BBB always intends to help consumers steer clear of bogus ads, bad offers and shady dealers. We’re just paying special attention to the topics that should be important to households these days, and using our partnerships in the local media to get that message across.

Keep watching.

I'd be deeply remiss if I didn't take the opportunity to thank a few people for making the OKC-BBB's Torch Award event a success, and this is an ideal avenue for taking care of that piece of business.

First, I need to thank the Board of Directors for continuing to make money in the budget for the event and, to some degree, participating in the selection process.  The computer may pre-select the qualified companies for our consideration, but the Board deliberates, sometimes between a few candidates, when the calls are too close for the database to make.  By vesting themselves in the process, the Board has taken a leadership position in the presentation of the awards, and have become a significant part of the Bureau's history in a meangingful way.  Accredited Businesses may come and go, BBB CEOs retire, but the list of companies that won awards is forever.

I also want to thank Amanda Taylor and the staff at News9 for their promotion of the event and coverage of the presentation.  It may be the Better Business Bureau's award presentation, but News9 has adopted it as its own at least in spirit.  Amanda has been kind enough to volunteer to host the distribution of the awards for the past couple of years, and her performance has made a special day for the winners all the better.  We appreciate the partnership and look forward to seeing it continue and grow in years to come.  It's nice for an event like this to have a home in the media.

Speaking of that, I also need to express the Bureau's appreciation for Don White and The Oklahoman's attention to the awards.  You'll notice ads running certain days in coming weeks promoting the awards and the winners.  Those ads appear because Don appreciates the process and values the recognition of a job well done.  The winning companies deserve that kind of consideration.

Lastly, I want to take a moment to brag about a few members of the Better Business Bureau's own staff.  Rusty Trail, our Director of Operations, has done a great job of keeping the computer updated and reliable.  That's especially important when, in compiling the lists of potential winners, which come from programs residing somewhere in the database's vast brain.  Rusty has also been instrumental in gathering complimentary letters from area consumers and, in general, keeping me sane as we debate the process and who is most deserving of the awards.  Likewise, Leeda Kurtz, who is most directly responsible for the administration of the services for Accredited Businesses, took on a lot of work within the project to make sure that the winners were properly identified, notified, and qualified all the way around for the awards.  Between the two of them, they did a great job of keeping us on point and organized as we ran through what can be a hectic and sometimes frustrating process.  While I'm at it, I should thank the remaining members of our staff for putting up with me through the event and helping to keep me sane.  Or relatively sane, depending on who you ask.

An event like the Torch Awards isn't a one man show.  It takes the cooperation, interest, and support of a bunch of people to make it a success.  Thanks, everybody! 

   As you might have seen, heard or read, the Better Business Bureau Serving Central Oklahoma recently presented area businesses with our Torch Awards for Customer Service and Ethics in the Marketplace. We’re happy to say that the presentation was widely announced by the local media, but if you need a refresher on the winners, you should find a link to the press release on the home page of this site, or click here: http://oklahomacity.bbb.org/article/okc-bbb-announces-2009-torch-award-winners-12176

Each year, as this annual event occurs – and, generally, afterward – we’re contacted by a number of consumers and business managers who want to know more about the awards and the process of selecting the winners. I like that people have questions about the awards and – strange as this might sound – that some folks are vocally disappointed at not being named a winner. Both activities indicate an interest in the award, and the fact that some companies wish they had won gives me a clue that the awards (which are only in their third year, locally) are gathering interest in the OKC market. I won’t go so far as to say “coveted,” but business owners have left me with the impression that they’d like one of those big glass flames in the lobby of their offices. That’s a nice position for us to be in. Consider the reverse: There’s nothing worse than throwing a party and having no one show up. Not a problem for us.

The mere existence of the Torch Awards in Oklahoma City is, again, a relatively recent event. A few years ago, a couple of Board Members (most notably Joe Kernke of Smith-Kernke Funeral Homes) knew of the awards distributed by other BBB offices and made it a priority to begin such a program here. That led to a number of planning meetings and discussions that outlined the process and defined our format. The award process has room for growth, but has served us (and, we think, the community) well since its inception.

I think the press release does a fair job of explaining the award process, but I’ll walk through some of the more interesting questions that have crossed my desk since last Thursday.

1. “Does every BBB hand out Torch Awards?” No. Most do, but there’s no absolute requirement for a Bureau office to have an award program. There are certainly reasons a BBB manager might shy away from the process. Depending on what form a Bureau’s award process might take (there’s no set format), you could be looking at three or four months’ work. The presentation ceremonies themselves can take on a life of their own. Some Bureaus hire in speakers, conduct full cocktail parties and award dinners, and generally put on a show that would make Oscar blush. I’ve never felt quite right about that sort of extravaganza, which is generally financed by selling sponsorships for the event. Ultimately, you can be assured that if a BBB office is conducting some kind of award program, that the Bureau’s Board and Management have invested a good deal of time and effort to making sure that the winners are deserving.

2. “Why does the Oklahoma City Bureau limit the winners of the awards to companies that are Accredited Businesses?” That’s a fair question. Many Bureaus that conduct award presentations open the process to non-Accredited Businesses. It certainly could be done here, but the Board of Directors chose to limit the potential recipients to companies that not only directly support the BBB, but have committed to the Bureau’s Standards. That’s a significant difference. We certainly don’t mean to imply that companies who don’t happen to fly the BBB flag aren’t deserving of recognition or fail to conduct themselves honorably in the marketplace. The fact is, though, that our members have set themselves apart by committing to ways of doing business that are above and beyond what is required by law or even the custom of the market. If you considered the award process as being graded on a point scale, we’d award those businesses so many extra points for their willingness to make that commitment that comparing non-members would be futile. Square One in winning an award that honors exceptional customer service and ethical conduct would be to sign up with the organization that stands for (among other things) those hallmarks of good behavior. It simply makes sense to us.

3. “Why does the BBB recognize some industries for awards but not others?” As the release describes, the Torch Award process compares the performance of companies within certain Types Of Business (TOB). The BBB System defines businesses according to lists of literally thousands of trade groups, some so specific that they may only contain a few companies in any Bureau’s territory. The OKC-BBB and its Board decided to focus on a few key TOBs that are of highest interest to consumers. If consumers have particular interest in one industry – or if one industry or another tends to gather a disproportionate number of complaints – it makes sense for us to devote more attention to those same groups, and honor the companies that have excelled in those areas. That’s especially true where the industry typically gathers a large number of complaints. For a business to rise to the top of the statistical pile when consumers have had problems dealing with that company’s peers says a lot about its customer service mindset and workmanship. We appreciate the support of all Accredited Businesses, but as a practical matter, we have to limit the number of awards. Reducing them to reflecting the interest of consumers in our market seems to make the most sense. (Incidentally, those inquiry groups would probably change from market to market. While there’s bound to be some cross-over, like car dealers, I’d tend to think that Air Conditioning companies would rank abnormally high among consumers in the south.)

4. “My company has been with the Better Business Bureau for decades. Why didn’t we win the trophy for our trade group?” The longevity of a firm’s Accreditation is a factor in the award process, but not the only one. Looking at the process as a point system again, let’s say the time in membership counts for 10% of the total points. Just because companies have been associated with the BBB for ten or twenty years doesn’t automatically qualify them for an award. We also look at how quickly and thoroughly a business responds to disputes that may arise, or the overall number of inquiries prospective customers have made about the business, as well as the size of the business, its advertising practices, and the overall customer experience in dealing with the company. As you might imagine, the BBB most often hears from customers who have had a bad experience with a business. It’s exceptional for a consumer to write us with compliments for a company, and we weigh the messages, e-mails, and complimentary letters as an indicator of an Accredited Business that inspires real loyalty from its customers.

5. “Why would the BBB honor a company that has a record of complaints from its customers?” Better Business Bureaus have long held that any company can get a complaint. It’s far more important (and interesting) how a company responds when – despite its own efforts of quality control and customer service – the process breaks down and the consumer contacts a third party for resolution. The Board, BBB Staff and me have all been amazed sometimes at the lengths a company has gone to prevent a complaint, and how willing most businesses are to go far beyond our expectations to resolve a matter. Let’s face it: As I’ve discussed several times in this blog, consumers can be unreasonable, and even where they have a legitimate beef, some companies would be just as happy to turn their back on an unresolved issue and not lose a wink of sleep for doing so. Not so with BBB Accredited Businesses, and especially not so where the winners of Torch Awards are concerned.

We’re pleased that the Torch Awards have been well-received by the community and look forward to increasing the scope of the awards (and the presentation) in years to come. We know that the businesses are happy with the recognition – especially in the tough economy – and hope that consumers will make the most of dealing with the current winners and the businesses that will continue to earn our trust in the future.

 Diploma Mill Redux today, I’m afraid.

Last week’s blog (see below) concerned my distaste for Diploma Mills, the companies that will sell you a diploma (or two) with your name printed on it despite never having earned a degree.

You’d be surprised to learn – at least I was – that someone bothered to argue with me concerning my rather harsh words concerning the business. I received an e-mail that said, more or less, that if the pricetag on a Harvard degree wasn’t ridiculously overpriced, maybe more people would earn them. The author of the message didn’t limit herself to the view that one particular school was overpriced; she took the position that all sources of higher education are just plain gouging students. Besides raising the point that a diploma, from whatever school at whatever price, doesn’t guarantee anybody a paying job in this market, the correspondent made an argument that life experience should have some value versus a piece of paper from a school meant to inform the public (and future employers) that you have demonstrated the knowledge and abilities required by that institution. “All a diploma means,” I’ll paraphrase the lady’s core position on the point, “is that you’ve passed a bunch of tests. You might have years more study and work before you’re really qualified to do a job, and there’s no criteria for someone who has been doing a job successfully for some years to go back and get a diploma for the job they’re already doing.”  After waitressing for a number of years, my correspondent felt that she not only qualified for a degree in customer service, time management, and physical fitness, that she probably was more qualified than most teachers to give practical instruction in those fields.

I think I see where the lady is coming from and couldn’t disagree more in most respects.

Let’s look at an extreme example to argue the issue: Brain surgery. Just because you’ve got a copy of an anatomy book that’s been dog-eared from your constant review doesn’t mean you should run to the hardware store, buy a Black and Decker drill and a hacksaw and start to work. Maybe it’s fair to say that a surgeon doesn’t generally leap right into practice after he’s graduated from his basic classes (a few years as an intern is a good thing), but I don’t know how many would-be doctors would successfully assist in such an operation without being taught and tested on the procedures and protocols.

You might know how to mix concrete, but I don’t think you should be allowed to build a mile-high bridge until you’ve earned an Engineering degree, either.

It doesn’t have to be a life-threatening pursuit. I don’t want someone who hasn’t had extensive training to work on my car, and that’s not exclusively because there are safety issues. I don’t necessarily trust someone without the experience (and proof of those skills) to monkey around with something that has the potential to cost thousands of dollars to repair again. I don’t think it’s too much to expect a professional to know what he’s doing. And part of “knowing what you’re doing” often requires education and proof of that schooling.

My penpal’s assertion that diplomas should be offered by The School of Hard Knocks is troubling, too. There are certain fields of experience that simply don’t lend themselves to such a program. And the argument doesn’t hold up to logic. Let’s say that you graduated high school and took a job that, after a couple of years, turned into a longstanding career. Along the way, maybe you acquired an interest in electronics, and, over the years, maybe you’ve taught yourself how to rewire a lamp or solder a circuit board. Particularized skills – whether learned by necessity or as a hobby of some kind – don’t make you a credible expert in that field. And being self-taught doesn’t mean you know the right or best way to perform the same tasks. Rewiring your hundredth lamp doesn’t make you a certified electrician or qualify you to install a breaker box, it just means you’ve rewired a lot of lamps. If you’re that fascinated with this kind of thing, why not take a few classes and learn more, learn better, learn the correct way? After formal education, you could be more marketable at a job you enjoy. That’s practically a cornerstone of the adult education market.

I don’t think there will ever be a college equivalent of the GED. (“And,” the commentator would surely say, “that’s the problem. College has replaced high school in a lot of ways just to keep a hand in the consumer’s pocket and keep the uneducated in their place.” Reading the message, I am of the impression that the lady believes the current educational structure of the country is designed for exclusivity. That’s something else I don’t believe. The opportunities for minorities – based on sex, race, and even aptitude -- to get an advanced education in this country have never been better.) There shouldn’t be. The whole point of “higher education” is to live up to the phrase. Both words.

The point is that no one should be able to hold a responsible, professional position without the accreditation and proof that he or she is qualified to do so.  Most of the time, that sort of proof takes the form of a diploma.  The ability to shove a quarter in the gumball machine of a diploma mill is not the appropriate criteria to measure such skills no matter what personal experience you might have.

 Continuing our “Y’know what really grinds my gears?” foray….

Diploma Mills.

You’ve seen the ads and pop-ups if you’ve ever cruised the Internet (and, since you’re here, you must know what you’re doing at the keyboard). They promise bigger income, tell you that the easy way to a fatter paycheck is to get a better education, and explain that their easy, time-saving road to a diploma is the right way to go.

Wrong.

There are certainly legitimate online educational sites out there in cyberspace. No argument. Some of them have even been Accredited by the BBB. But I promise you that the sites that provide a real program, real education, and a real degree are not going to push success stories over the need for hard work. Let’s face it: A real education involves…learning something! It’s not just about writing a check to some faceless, sometimes offshore website operator who will promptly cash the check and mail you out a diploma that may have the words “college,” “degree” and/or “university” on it, but has all the value of toilet paper in the real world. A company – I chose that word instead of “school,” “university,” “college” or anything that would denote that any kind of education is going on – that accepts your credit card and ships you a sheepskin without any classes is selling you a pig in a poke or worse. The ones that offer to sell multiple degrees in various courses of study are probably the most pandering and obvious. You can jump on Ebay right now and order yourself any number of certificates that are sold as “novelty” diplomas. They’re as much a joke – and as useless – as the ones you’d buy from one of the diploma mills, only they cost about 10% as much.

Know what? I can only get so angry at the operators of diploma mills. My anger is unlimited when it comes to the people who invest thousands of dollars in the piece of paper. Know why? Because they assume that potential employers or those who otherwise control their employment and financial future are stupid. The assumption when you buy one – let’s aim high, for the sake of this example: Harvard! – that you’ll list the school on your forged diploma as the school from which you graduated on your resume`. That’s the only thing that makes sense, right? It’s not as if a future employer is going to accept a copy of your diploma through the mail, so you’re going to need to lie about it from the first instance of contact. And then you’re going to get the interview (you’ve boned up on the manner in which Harvard-educated businesspeople speak, haven’t you?), maybe present the diploma copy, and the guy on the other side of the desk is going to be so darn impressed he’ll hire you on the spot. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, isn’t it? Well, not really. Not in the real world. For any job that’s really worth getting, employers have an obligation to check out the credentials of the people who want their high-paying jobs. And that’s easier than ever for an employer to do with the help of the Internet.

You’re not going to fool anyone with half a brain in his head.  Now, a fake degree from Yale, maybe....

Okay. Harvard is admittedly a lofty example. So is Yale.  What if you picked some no name school in some distant state? Same problem. It’s easy for anyone, especially employers, to check you out on a lie like where you went to school. It takes only a quick Google session to learn where the fictional school isn’t located, and such a search might result in the Human Resources manager being routed to the same diploma mill where you purchased your fake one! (Maybe he could purchase his own paper to escape the humdrum life of an HR manager….)

For that matter, you can jump online right now and create a colorful military background for yourself.  Or impersonate any number of professions if you drop in on a costume shop.  Be careful, since many professions are protected by laws that frown on impersonating a real person with a real job and real education and experperience to back it up.  Let's make life even simpler.  If you can use a keyboard and have even mediocre graphic design skills and a few dollars to invest in parchment paper and a frame, you can make your own diploma and save some bucks!  Besides being a proud graduate, why not make yourself the dean of education, too?

Bottom line here is that diploma mills won’t work and you should be ashamed of yourself if you try to buy your way into something you don’t deserve to have…that you have not earned.

 In the immortal words of Peter Griffin, “Y’know what really grinds my gears?”

Lots of things. You could make a coffee table book of the petty annoyances that get me started on a solid, five-minute rant. Let’s go at the pile one at a time, okay?

Unsolicited faxes.

Anybody who runs a business or has a fax line has to be sick to death of getting these things. There was a time when stricter rules were in place about who could bomb them into your business and under what circumstances, but those restrictions fell by the wayside. Even at that, the option to “opt out” of future faxes isn’t a great alternative, because responding to the fax tells an unscrupulous operator that he’s found a fax line that is working, and he may sell it to other unscrupulous senders, compounding the legitimate business’ problems.

Have you ever seen an offer come in through your fax that you wanted to jump on? These days, I think the vacation scams are pretty well known, the insurance offers are often too good to be true, and you know where to find lunch around your office, so the menus get recycled. Who does business based on a fax that rang into the office? Anyone?

This is what’s scary to me: Someone must be buying into the game, because the faxes don’t send themselves. There are companies that make their money bundling and transmitting faxes. Maybe a few rubes will pay for a month or two of that service to get their business names in front of some new clients – Who knows what’s being promised by the senders as an incentive to sign up for the service? – but I can’t imagine anyone does enough business through these faxes to make a prolonged use of such a program profitable. Even if some joker is sending them from his own fax machine, he’d have to pay the phone bill at some point, and you tend to find other ways to spend your time when an effort doesn’t work.

Are there people gullible enough to continue falling for the offers in most faxes? Are there folks who take their investment advice from a blip over a phone line? Say it ain’t so!

In the meantime, we keep loading the ink and paper into fax machines in the hopes of receiving a message we want the next time that line rings in.

Wait a minute! Could it be that the same folks who manufacture fax machines and supplier toner are the ones dumping the faxes into our machines? That would be real job security!

As for myself, I’ve made it policy not to deal with anyone who bombs faxes into my machine without asking if I’m interested in what they’re peddling today.

 The viral nature of the Internet – and a lot of other characteristics of the medium -- goes a long way to making it easy for consumers to post irresponsible, unreasonable complaints about businesses in any number of forums.

Used to be that the worst business owners had to worry about in terms of falsehoods being published online was the good ol’ hoax e-mail. You’ve seen dozens of them, I’m sure. Bill Gates is going to pay out a billion dollars and a trip to Disneyland if you forward a message to a hundred of your closest friends, a chain restaurant will send you gift certificates if you respond to a message by midnight, and so on. Lots of well-known businesses have been slammed by such messages and post the truth on their websites hoping to cut off future claims, but they still cycle around.

Over the past few years, though, lots of websites – some of them mirroring in some way the BBB’s function, or what they perceive to be the way the organization works – have opened online complaint forums that appear to allow anyone with a problem (however minor or inaccurately stated) to post statements or grievances concerning their dealings in the business world. It’s a wonder how some of the complainants have the brains to turn on the computer, muchless dictate a complaint statement, but somehow they manage to post their claims. There’s no notification to the business that there’s a complaint posted somewhere in the computer ether, at least not most of the time, leaving the company in the dark about a potential problem and (maybe most important to the situation) the consumers left with the arguable impression that they’ve done themselves some good when they’re no closer to resolving whatever issue annoyed them so much in the first place.

The BBB is not above being posted in such complaint forums or being the subject of unreasonable rants from consumers who either expected far too much of the organization or didn’t have a legitimate claim in the first place. I’ve seen half a dozen complaints leveled against Better Business Bureau offices that solely involved the BBB’s lack of action concerning employment disputes when issues between an employee and a business are clearly not within the BBB’s organizational purview. I know some Bureau CEOs who have responded to such complaints in a reasonable, patient fashion and been bombed with negative responses from unrelated consumers (let alone the one who started the argument) whining that the BBB has taken the business’ side in the dispute. Not the case, of course, but there’s no point in debating it. There are a dozen things a Better Business Bureau can do and a billion things we can’t. I’m not lining up surgeries in our lobby, either, but no one seems eager to hear about that.

To the best of my knowledge, the BBB Serving Central Oklahoma has not been the subject of a viral complaint, and I’ve seen enough unreasonable consumers in more conventional arenas to know that I don’t want to be the subject of one. At some point, there’s just no arguing with people any more. Part of customer service – and this is true of a Better Business Bureau that has been the subject of a nasty online rant as much as any other agency or business – is knowing when you’ve made your case and walking away from further discussion. You could spend your life engaging inflexible Neanderthals who simply are incapable of shifting position from their own self-serving view. And that time would be better spent helping people who may have not only legitimate problems but will also learn how to avoid pitfalls in the future.

Look up any of the typical rant sites and browse the complaints for whatever business. You might find some that are clearly stated, with reasonable requests for a simple resolution. I hope the businesses check into them and make a response, but it appears far more common for consumers on these message boards to spew out a line of bile and run away. It’s irresponsible and cowardly, especially when many of these sites allow anonymous postings. Anybody – from a legitimately disgruntled former employee to a jealous competitor – can bomb in as many random ravings as they like. That’s one reason why the Better Business Bureau does its best to qualify complaints and will not formally accept ones that remain unnamed.

These “alternate dispute resolution sites” brag about their ability to embarrass businesses, but I’ve never seen one that claims a healthy resolution rate. The reason why is that they can’t and don’t have the facilities to track the numbers of consumers who do receive satisfaction through their paltry mechanisms.

Bottom line is that reasonable consumers who want to resolve their issues will play by the Better Business Bureau’s rules. Unreasonable cowards lob grenades from the anonymous comfort of their computers through Johnny-Come-Lately websites that don’t have the rules or procedures in place to fight fair or try to build a fair solution.

 I’m bad at taking vacations. My poor wife has to twist my arm to leave my office – muchless town – for even a long weekend, and when we get back into town, I often wonder if playing catch up on the e-mails, phone messages and paperwork that accumulated in my absence was worth the time off.

I’m not looking for a pat on the back. Matter of fact, a pat on the back would probably put me into a coma this week. And that’s another reason why I’m becoming increasingly leery of vacations. It’s not so much that I’m a workaholic or so bloated of ego that I think the office won’t function without me. I’ve just reached the ripe part of middle age when extended car rides make me dream of a day in traction.

You see, I have a number of internal maladies that make extended travel painful. Don’t be too sympathetic. I earned every ache and pain, not only with questionable genetics, but with bad choices and bad luck. A few too many accidents, coupled with a flirtation with boxing in the late 70’s, plus a stubborn resistance to acknowledging my limitations long before now have combined to give me what they call, in complicated medical terms, a “bad back.” I mean…plenty of people told me over the years to lift with my knees, but it’s so much easier and cooler to just heave stuff around, isn’t it?

And now I’m paying for the folly of my youth one grimace at a time, including not wanting to be behind the wheel of a car for six hours at a crack driving willy-nilly from state to state on what Chevy Chase infamously called “the quest for fun.”

There are plenty of things that might help my middle-aged spine deal with life better, or at least claim to ease the burden. A few of them involve the “s word” – Surgery – or other tried and semi-true medical actions. I say “semi-true” because most doctors will tell you that when it comes to chronic pain, there are no magic bullets. So they can do an operation that should reduce the problem or have shown good results from many patients. I’m a bit too much of a “show me” guy to take a chance on expensive, painful, and time-consuming operations that may or may not fix a problem. Then again, maybe I’m just not desperate enough yet. Or things haven’t gotten bad enough for me to gamble on it.

Outside of more conventional cures, there are tons of offers that make similar claims without surgery. Cruising the FTC website will show you dozens of interventions made against products, devices, homeopathic cures, slings, pins, and FDA-free “drugs” that (the advertisers say) will do everything from restoring the gooey stuff in your joints to rebuilding bad muscle bridges to defaulting nerve groups.

Here’s a quick look at recent FTC cases involving over the counter pain relief products that just didn’t come across with proof that they worked….

“Two marketers of the alleged pain relief product Biotape…have entered into a settlement agreement that will provide up to $2.5 million in consumer refunds….The FTC charged that…defendants deceptively claimed that Biotape – an adhesive tape – provided significant, permanent relief from severe pain and that it was superior to other pain-relief products….Biotape was a space age conductive mylar that connected the broken circuits that cause pain.”

“The marketers of Balance Bracelet, a purported pain relief product, have agreed to pay…to settle charges that they made deceptive pain relief claims about the bracelet….The bracelet is a metal, C-shaped band that is supposedly electro-polarized through an undisclosed process…to relieve arthritis pain, joint pain, back pain, and injury-related pains…[by reducing] excess static electricity in the body, which comes from an imbalance of positive and negative energy.”

“Claims that JointFlex…a topical skin cream…will eliminate significant pain…are unsubstantiated, the Federal Trade Commission said in accepting a settlement with a Florida company and its owner.”

The list goes on and on, but I could easily find three examples of exactly the sort of products that people in pain want to believe in. I may run into arguments from the metaphysicians in the audience who take the position that some of these products have a basis in legitimate fact (or at least logic), but the reason each of the items ran afoul of the FTC was because their makers couldn’t prove the claims made for the products’ abilities to stop pain. It’s that simple. If you’re going to advertise and widely market these products as pain relievers, you need to have solid evidence that your claims are true.

But, really, these stories are as old as snake oil sales pitches that were popular in the Old West. Even older. There was a time when herbalists were burned at the stake as witches.

What amazes me is that folks not too different from me will turn to products like these as a means of avoiding pain. I’ve seen the infomercials. I haven’t felt compelled yet to plunk down cash for anything on the market – not even hand-held zappers that supposedly pump electrical charges into pain receptors to dull them from doing their jobs – but you know that if sellers continue to pick up ad time, someone is buying this junk. The evidence is that, if you’re in enough pain, you’re willing to invest money in a solution, even if it has virtually no chance of working. “Virtually” is the key word here. It’s a bit like playing the lottery. You know that the odds are far against you winning anything, but you might invest a couple of bucks on the chance you will.

Trouble is, you might be better off biting the bullet and having the operation than investing in a chain of highly-questionable products.

Remember what Andy Warhol said about everybody being famous for 15 minutes?

I think he was half-right. You can look at our culture of celebrity worship and question the value of the contributions some folks have made to earn the fact that a lot of people know their names. It used to be that we’d cynically question why we pay public school teachers less than trash collectors, and then pay a quarterback millions of dollars to do what kids enjoy as play. Or what makes one actor earn Brinks’ trucks for ten minutes of screen time while equally-gifted thespians struggle to make ends meet working tables. But there’s a new and wholly frightening aspect to celebrity. The phrase “famous for being famous” comes to mind. I’m thinking of Paris Hilton, among others now.

In the past couple of entries, we’ve explored some aspects of three (or as many as 11) celebrities – Billy Mays, and Jon and Kate Gosselin and their brood. Particularly, we looked at the business side of those folks and the industries they’ve influenced. The connection between Mays and the business world is obvious. As a celebrated pitchman at the height of his game, his death leaves a hole. The Gosselin Family’s ability to sell magazines says a lot about the consumer culture and the whims of both tabloid journalism and advertisers. But I don’t understand why Paris Hilton and her ilk are news or why I know her name.

Maybe it’s part of the Reality TV culture, but I think we started hearing about Ms. Hilton before that, even before her lurid “after dark” video blasted through the Internet. I’d say that she at least contributed that product to pop culture. Sure, she has a perfume on the market now, but that’s a fairly recent development. She didn’t market the tape, and I’d guess that the big winner (financially) was the sleazy ex-boyfriend who put the personal video up for sale. She’s had TV shows, but I don’t know that they predated the X-rated video. Much beyond a reference to her reputation as a “trust fund brat,” I don’t know that she existed beyond the gossip pages and society sections.

Don’t kid yourself, friends. Popularity is big business. I don’t think that anyone would have skipped up to Paris with a TV contract if she hadn’t already been known to viewers – from a scandal or not. There’s something called a “Q Value,” which measures how many people know different celebrities. That quotient decides what celebrities are paid for endorsements and is one of the yardsticks of popularity in the advertising world.

Media – particularly TV – is money. Endorsements and ads, shows and spin-offs earn cash. Everybody from a green lizard selling insurance to a football player’s mom selling soup can walk away with a bundle and increase their level of celebrity.

Billy Mays earned his money. The Gosselins provided entertainment. Tiger Woods can hit a golf ball through a tire at 500 yards. They’ve done something to earn the fact that we know their names. And they deserve to be compensated for their skills. We might argue exactly how much they should take home, but the real answer is “whatever the market will bare.” And we’re the market. We pay for the products that buy more ad time so that advertisers can advertise more.

It’s a strange culture that values popularity as its own worth.

  If you passed in front of a rack of magazines – call ‘em tabloids, if you like – from about mid-May through late-June, you probably couldn’t have helped but notice that Jon and Kate’s relationship was in trouble…even if you were blissfully unaware of who, exactly, Jon and Kate are.

Quickly, for those of you who may have missed it: Jon and Kate Gosselin (along with their adorable children) are the stars of TLC network’s reality show Jon and Kate Plus 8, that title referring to the couple’s eight kids: a pair of twins and a set of sextuplets. The show centered on the family’s sometimes strained efforts to perform seemingly simple tasks – like going to the dentists’ office or shopping for Christmas presents or doing dishes – and, in more recent seasons, treated the family to vacations to Disney World, Utah and Hawaii. With the camera doting on the genuinely cute kids and punctuating the action with interviews with their parents, it became a cornerstone of the cable station’s lineup. As much of an attraction as watching the kids might be, there was something fascinating to viewers about the friction between Jon and Kate and a vague lesson somewhere in the mix that differing styles of parenting could still work in the same household:  Kate is highly regimented, strictly organized, and "all business," whereas Jon is more of a "go with the flow" guy.  The show – and, some would argue, the family itself – became a cottage industry, with Kate’s books and speaking tours (and the program itself, which earns the family an estimated $3 million per year) raking in cash. Friction turned to fire: some time around March or April, photos began surfacing of Jon carousing with coeds at local Pennsylvania bars, and soon thereafter, he was caught on film with a “mystery woman” in the wee hours of the morning while Kate was on a speaking tour.

Things went downhill from there, all under the watchful eye of the tabloid cameras.

I’m not about to enter into the debate or voice my sympathies concerning who was at fault for the explosion of the relationship. What can anybody really have to say about that? Just about any break-up is sad, especially when children are involved, but I’ll leave it to the armchair family counselors and TV psychotherapists to lay blame or steer a path toward a clean, public-pleasing (if possible) separation.

The June 9 issue of People magazine – released before the couple announced the split during the season finale of their show on June 22nd – was expected to sell “above normal” with Jon’s take on the relationship splayed across the cover. “Above normal” means 1.9 to 2.3 million copies, according to online estimates. Us magazine averaged about 800,000 copies sold per week last year. A mid-June issue with the warring pair on the cover was estimated to sell nearly 2 million copies.

By early July, the Gosselins issued a joint statement saying that they won’t play ball any more. TLC has taken the show off the air – sort of. The station is still running old episodes, but it’s gone out of production until August. Jon and Kate say they will not react to future stories in the media. (I hate to say it, but in light of the couple’s decision to put the gossip mags on a forced fast, it might have been lucky for The Star and its ilk that a couple celebrities picked that week to kick the bucket.)

Some websites are saying that the scandal was a revival to the flagging tabloid market. They enjoyed the boost in sales, but there’s more to the business than the number of paid magazines flying off the stands or through subscriptions. Keep in mind that advertising revenue is largely governed by the number of copies sold just as more popular TV shows can charge advertisers more for air time; that means that when a juicy little tale of woe like this pops up, folks start grabbing up copies of the tabloids, and more readers means a higher ad rate.  It's even more valuable when a story like this has "legs" -- it's not going to be over in a week or even a month, so stirring the pot is good for the tabloids.  Hooking into bad news is good for the magazines at the checkout counter.  Look at it this way:  The first couple of photos of Jon misbehaving might have been sold by accidental onlookers, but put some blood in the water and the sharks will circle.  If the weekly magazines didn't have photographers on the front lawn by noon, they weren't doing their jobs.  And that single action itself stirs the pot.  The mere fact that there are cameras circling you increases the odds you'll get frustrated and make a mistake.  The camera never blinks, as they say.

It’s also good – although more difficult to measure – for the advertisers themselves. Thumb through a People, Us or Star magazine and you’ll generally see the same types of ads. Make-up, pet food, health products, sunblock, and booze. Oh, sure, there’s a car ad once in a while -- mostly an SUV or single-child-friendly compact -- but there seems to be a pretty reliable, nearly stereotypical, angle toward the female shopper (except the booze.  I don't generally associate women with vodka, although, to be fair again, they are flavored vokas in the ads I'm seeing). Nothing wrong with exploiting a demographic, and that’s what the science of advertising is all about. If women have a tendency to buy this sort of magazine and you sell products generally used by women (or, maybe more accurately, a certain subset of women), you’re going to want to put your budget toward the venues where it will do you the most good, right? That makes sense.

There’s something else that bubbles out of a quick review of these magazines in conjunction with both the Jon and Kate mess and a light discussion of advertising. The magazines seem to have chosen sides. People seems to have favored Kate – although the reporting is cleaner and balanced – by characterizing her as a hard-working mom with a “strike while the iron is hot” attitude and a solid commitment to her kids. The competitors appeared to support Jon. Wouldn’t that seem unwise? The evidence (if you can call grainy photos and supposed unnamed eyewitness accounts “evidence”) suggests that Jon was sowing some wild oats with eight kids at home, and one might logically suspect that siding with him would be the last thing a magazine aimed at female buyers should do. The assumption there is that the average female magazine buyer is on Kate’s side. Checking a few blogs quickly uncovers that this is not necessarily the case. Many women found her treatment of Jon abusive to the point of referring to her as a “shrew,” “harpy,” or other such defamatory terms, and some go so far as to say “If there was ever a man who deserved to cheat….” Over time, some of Kate’s “super mom” status has tarnished as crews of nannies, cooks, babysitters, maids, and other on-hand staff have come to light, making her look less perfect. (Common chat room debate topic: Is Kate a successful career woman enjoying the fruits of her labors or has she exploited the happy accident of multiple-multiple births for her own wealth/comfort/celebrity?) Looking at this again from strictly an appeal to the core demographic, the tabloids made solid bets. And so have the advertisers.

Schadenfreude is a German term that translates to “taking comfort [or joy] in the misfortunes of others.” I think that sells magazines. Watching the Gosselins skip from one vacation spot to the next on TLC’s tab might be difficult – especially for huge numbers of Americans who are struggling to make a house payment, muchless vacation with even half as many children. Watching them move into a million-dollar mansion on acres of secured ground gives the situation an almost-surreal touch. For those who questioned the wisdom of choosing to parade a family under the constant glare of the media spotlight, the end of the marriage probably has a special appeal. And the only difference between Jon and Kate and their daily soap opera is that the Gosselins are real and therefore more entertaining. Just as addictive.

Advertisers and gossip mags can take that to the bank.

After last week’s entry, a reader wrote back to say, after reading my comments extolling the virtues of Billy Mays’ salesmanship, that Billy might have been best at selling batteries: He made her reach for her remote the minute she saw him onscreen.

The thing is, Billy Mays was a fascinating individual and should be a glowing example for a whole class of salesperson. Like him or not, you know his name.  In this day and age of 80 mph consciousness, short attention spans, and computer-age impatience, there are few icons that cross generational and social lines like he did. 

Think back to the days before infomercials. Most people would agree that Ron Popeil was the grandfather of that commercial format and that through his first business incarnation, Ronco, he introduced lines of unusual products like the Veg-O-Matic for sale on TV. Way before QVC and other shopping networks, Ronco products were raking in cash. According to the Ronco website, Popeil bought his first airtime in Florida in the mid-1950’s and branched out with familiar products that anyone in his 40’s will remember by name. The Pocket Fisherman springs to mind. Popeil probably invented a lot of the phrases that we come to expect from ads – “Act before midnight tonight and we’ll throw in….” or “Operators are standing by.” He moved billions of dollars in products over the years. Over time, imitators followed. Someone got the idea to expand a simple 30-second ad into a full 30-minute ad. Who could forget the hand-hammered Wok from the People’s Republic of China?

Now, Billy might not have invented the infomercial or selling products by mail on TV. But I’d take the position that he perfected the pitch and I would contend that he came away with something I’ve never seen before: He became more than the products he sold.  You'd probably remember the name Billy Mays before you'd remember any of the dozens of products he sold over the years.  Or, more complicated, you'll probably hear the name "Oxi-Clean" and immediately jump to the mental image of Mays hawking the stuff.  Mays himself became an icon, from what some are calling the greatest beard in the history of facial hair to his trademark blue button-down shirts.  Mays was as much of a product as anything he expected us to buy before midnight tonight.

People might not remember Ron Popeil’s name or face. They might remember “Ronco” or some of the other business names Popeil products were marketed under over time. But they remember Billy Mays and his bear-like frame, his cherubic, bearded face beaming out of the screen with the booming “Hi! BILLY MAYS HERE for….” whatever. Great intro line and delivery. You learned to identify Billy Mays more than the products he sold. Whatever he was selling at the moment didn’t quite matter as much as his identification with the product, and that practically makes him a social icon in a marketplace where being on TV – repeatedly and over many regions – makes you “popular” or at least “known.” The value of his endorsement, implied by his adoption of a product to sell, is immeasurable. His association with products boosted them to levels that other advertisers will surely imitate over time.

Why?  Why did so many Americans immediately identify with this man who pitched such a wide variety of products?  Hard to say.  He had "it":  The sort of personality that just shot out of the screen and grabbed you.  Not necessarily in a good way -- I'm sensitive to those who winced every time he popped up on screen -- but even they would have to admit that they could instantly identify who the guy was.  And the number of products his personality sold is staggering.

Who will be Billy Mays’ successor? Hard to say. Like they say on TV, “often imitated, never duplicated.” The experience of watching Billy Mays might be lightning in a bottle, a one-time event that, now that he’s gone, will never be quite the same.

Two American Pop Culture Icons passed away last week – Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Over the weekend, famous pitchman Billy Mays joined he choir invisible. Early in the week, Ed McMahon was the first to go.

Bad week to be a Hollywood celebrity.

McMahon and Fawcett were not unexpected. He had been battling various diseases and age wasn't on his side.  She had a long and well-known battle with cancer that she sadly lost.  Mays and Jackson, both young men of 50 – an age that seems somehow younger each birthday I get nearer to it myself – were surprises.

I don't think Billy Mays would mind being referred to as a "huckster."  After all, he was discovered gathering crowds to sell various "as seen on TV" products on a boardwalk.  If his overly pleasant jive worked on jaded tourists, it would work at 2 AM on television.  Watching a few episodes of "Pitchmen," the cable TV show that profiled his efforts to bring new quirky products to the masses, I learned a new respect for the man.  Half-salesman, half-carnival barker, you couldn't help but enjoy his enthusiasm for everything he sold, from laundry detergent to putty.  I'll miss him trying to talk me out of my money.

Still, I don't see a Billy Mays bobblehead doll on its way into production. 

No doubt, Michael Jackson left his mark on the world of pop music. And pop culture.  A few days have gone by since his passing as I write this, and already hours of retrospectives and news magazines have aired to remind us why he was known as “The King of Pop.”  The idea that he was coming out of semi-retirement to begin a world tour (the rehearsals for which might have contributed to his untimely demise) only makes his death more tragic to his fans.  He was about to turn to a new chapter, perhaps putting the legal troubles of his most recent past and rumors of financial strains behind him.  If things weren't looking up, they were certainly looking hopeful.

What’s coming most obviously for Jackson will be a flurry of products commemorating his life, death and career. Already, Jackson-related items for sale are blowing out Ebay auctions. (An unopened Jackson “Thriller-era” action figure was listed Thursday at a starting price of $50; by 4 PM, the auction prices and reached ten times that much. How much will Jackson’s estate benefit from the existing products and autographs trading hands, their value inflated by his demise? Not at all. But I’m sure there are tee-shirts, coins, plates, posters, stamps, dolls, CDs, DVDs and other collectors’ tributes on the drawing board. At the vigil at the hospital the night he died, fans could buy commemorative tees for $20.  Enterprising individuals work that fast. 

Whenever an event like this occurs, marketers run to the stores with “special edition” items. Some are half-baked. Some might be in poor taste. But within a couple of weeks, I can promise that there will be fresh batches of collectibles being offered online, on TV, and in the stores. Many will be marked “limited editions,” “collector’s specials,” and the like. Most of the time, it’s not those ultra-special boxes that increase in value. Far more often, it’s an unexpected, unheralded item that skyrockets in price. Partly, that’s because those licensed, commercially-produced products come in crates of a thousand – “limited” or not – and are easily available at stores or by picking up a phone. (Remember what the TV ads often say about commemorative coins – they aren’t guaranteed to go up in value. They might. And you might visit Jupiter.)

Now, I’m not saying that you absolutely shouldn’t purchase these commemorative products. I’m just saying that you should buy them because you don’t mind having them in the house, you generally like the look of them, and are something you might have purchased anyway, maybe just because you were a loyal fan. Otherwise, stay away. If you’re planning on making a business investment on the item, you’d be better off making an investment in a nice lunch.

What makes Jackson unique among a lot of celebrities is that, largely thanks to the phenomenal success of the “Thriller” album, there are already tons of Jackson items on the market. Michael Jackson was popular since he was about 5 years old. That means there are loads of toys, autographs, and other memorabilia that may truly have some value. It also means that if you’re going to get into that market, now might not be the best time. Collectibles tend to run quiet for years – the second-hand market of traders sets a price for a relatively rare item and it wiggles around within twenty or fifty dollars of that price – until there’s an event like this. The folks that own an autographed genuine unopened moonwalking Michael doll already have them on the auction block. For the next year or so, the market for those is going to be out of whack. Those items are going to be worth exactly what distraught fans are willing to pay, and a quick scan of Ebay will tell you that they’re willing to fork over a lot more today than they would have a couple of weeks ago. Then again, that market will normalize over time when the subject of Mr. Jackson’s demise drifts out of the public consciousness. Maybe they’ll be worth a little more than when we started off June – after all, his autograph alone increased in value now that we’re dealing with a finite number of items baring his signature – but things in the collectibles market have a way of “right sizing” back toward normalcy over time.

Ultimately, though, it’s up to the fans to decide how much their hero-worship will cost them.

   Last week, I mentioned the need for businesses to have an employee handbook. A couple of readers suggested that this site provide the basics in preparing one. Why not?

Smaller business owners may question the value of an employee handbook or consider their companies too small to need one. In fact, the mere name “handbook” or “manual” may bring images of big books or expensive, glossy-covered volumes to mind when that’s just not the case. Some handbooks may need to be lengthy, but the majority can be just a few pages long. These are designed to cover just the basics of your business, not be a comprehensive job guide for each employee, and while some businesses go through the effort of replacing pages as needed in three-ring binders, you might do as well to simply print off a fresh edition once a year. The document doesn’t need to be long, but it can be very important to your employees. Even two or three-person businesses can benefit from having the basic business policies in writing somewhere, if only to reduce the chances of misunderstandings and disputes, or just to keep the business on track. There are no rules for preparing a handbook for your business, and no real limitations on what can appear in its pages. There are certain statements, policies and other items that commonly appear in the documents, though, and employees would expect to see a statement (if not a formal policy) listed under each heading.

Suppose this: You’re a small business owner with a lot on your mind. Do you really want to have to remember if Arbor Day is a day off with pay for your business? Think of all the little questions you’re asked by different staff people that could otherwise all have the same answer: Good question! Look it up in your manual. You have the potential to save yourself a ton of time and brain power here.

There are any number of templates available online or wherever you buy software that can walk you through the process of completing a handbook, or you can simply roll up your sleeves and produce one on your own. However it’s developed, it’s probably a good idea to run a draft by an attorney just to make sure you haven’t left yourself open for an obvious lawsuit or misstated some common rule.

Most handbooks open with some sort of welcoming statement for new employees and a brief outline of the company’s history or basic business philosophy. In the last couple of decades, something called a “mission statement” became popular. If your business has one in place, or you feel that it might benefit from some over-arching statement concerning your purpose in the marketplace, this might be a good place to unveil it. New employees might be inspired by such a statement, and it can’t hurt to ascribe the high ethical values of your business conduct for anyone who might come into contact with the document and your company’s practices.

That said, your handbook can get into the meat of the matter, as far as your interaction with employees and your daily business practices. The particular order of each section doesn’t really matter, as long as a concise statement, citing examples where they might be helpful, follows along in some logical form.

Your handbook’s sections might include:

n Hours of operation, staff scheduling practices, dress code, smoking policy, and other housekeeping issues. Does your business open at one time, admit the public during another set of hours, and have a separate shut-down period? What are the duties – in general -- for each shift? Do different personnel have a need for different uniforms or general dress codes, or will one policy cover everyone? You can get into as much or as little detail as needed, or refine the policies as you go. Do you expect the thermostat set at certain temperatures through the day and overnight? Who is responsible for locking up, setting alarms, or other security issues? (Some employees have a natural urge to test the boundaries of what’s acceptable, and many managers have a trend to understate their positions – not because they’re unclear on what their positions are, but because they want to create some illusion of freedom in their offices. Let’s say you’ve decided to make every Friday “Casual Friday.” A lot of businesses do these days, but you can bet that someone will try wearing shorts or patched up jeans that you won’t find acceptable under your forward-thinking philosophy. It’s okay to include a line in your dress code that says that management has the right to determine what’s acceptable dress, and employees that break the code will be sent home to change at their expense.)

n Payroll policies, a list paid holidays, vacation policy, sick days, and equal opportunity hiring statement. No one expects there to be a statement of each employee’s salary listed as common knowledge, but stating that you may have full or part-time employees with associated pay and benefits, or stating that you only consider employees for raises at the first of the year – or whatever your policy is – puts the rules on the table for everyone to see. It’s also good courtesy to let your employees know the payment schedule (every two weeks? The 15^th and 30^th? Daily?) and how they will be paid (Direct deposit? Checks? Cash?) How do you expect employees to notify you that they can’t make it to work? How much notice do you need of vacation time? You might think that employees will figure this stuff out as they go, or that you can let them know verbally, but handing it over in one bound or stapled volume is more convenient for everyone. You should also consider printing your policy on advances on payroll here, and if you don’t have one – if only to say that your company doesn’t provide “payroll loans” or offer to cash in earned vacation money – you should consider inventing one for this purpose.

n Offerings of any insurances available. If you offer insurance, chances are you’ll present the employee with a bundle of information explaining the choices, and if you don’t, you’ve probably notified the employee of that fact prior to hiring. It doesn’t hurt to briefly describe the options (if there are any) and state when an employee becomes eligible for coverage.

n Retirement plans, 401(k) or other benefits. Since you likely have other enrollment materials, it’s not necessary to get into much more detail than saying that a plan exists, who administers it, and when enrollment in the program becomes available. You might list other employee benefits here as well, such as discounts or other perks.

n Drug Policy/Testing. There has been a good deal of debate concerning the wisdom of putting a policy concerning the prohibition of illegal substances or misused alcohol in an employee manual. The wording must be clear and concise, and largely depends on how your company backs up any suspicions of abuse. You may find it necessary to pre-screen employees who operate machinery or drive your vehicles, but not cashiers or front-line employees who are less of a liability. That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t terminate an employee in the untested positions if they were obviously under the influence, but clever attorneys have questioned the exact terminology used in some documents. The fear of excessive litigation has squeezed some business owners to rely on their states’ “at will” termination policy and never bother putting a drug policy into print, or include a statement in whatever documents employees sign to authorize drug testing. You’re probably safe to state: This is a drug- and alcohol-free workplace and abuse of chemicals will not be tolerated. That leaves it up to management to decide what constitutes abuse or what disciplinary action will be taken if abuse is suspected or proven.

n Harassment/Office Violence Policy. If you’re going to have a handbook, it needs to state clearly that management will not tolerate any form of harassment or violence (or threat of violence, for that matter). It should also protect you from wasting time on meaningless or malevolent claims and limit such discussions to serious matters by threatening action against those whose claims are proven to be false.

n Evacuation Plan. We’ve discussed this in the last several blog entries. Sadly necessary. Yours should include the exits, meeting place and responsibilities in the event of any on-site disaster. While we’re on the subject (sort of)….

n Emergency Closings. Some businesses find it useful to set a policy for snow days or other weather-related closings. You may expect employees to do their best to get to work whenever possible no matter what the weather, and that’s fine, and some businesses don’t lend themselves to this sort of policy at all – let’s hope hospitals don’t adopt this section. For smaller businesses, it may be enough to say that employees will be notified by a supervisor in the event of a company closing due to weather, but for larger businesses, you may consider some simple, widely recognized program that employees can easily identify by simply watching the news, such as: If the Oklahoma City Government Offices are closed in a snow emergency, we’re officially closed.

n Disciplinary schedule, up to and including discharge. Some employers hold the discussion of disciplinary actions for one major section in their guide, others state the formula for verbal warnings, written warnings, and final dismissals applicable to each sections. It’s up to you how you want to deal with it, but someone in the handbook should be a statement that explains that the employee can be terminated at any time with or without notice. Point out that, in serious infarctions of the rules, you have the right to terminate employment.

This is a “bare bones” outline with the items or sections employees would commonly expect to see in a manual. Other handbooks can be much more extensive in their coverage of employee issues (largely depending on the size, expectations, and prominence of the company). You might include your customer service philosophy, a guide to how you expect employees to approach patrons, or other discussions in your handbook. Of course, the handbook is not a substitute for training, but you can address some over-arching issues that every employee should know. You could also get into specific policies that may be important to you that may not be an issue for other businesses – every company is unique in some aspect, after all. You may not care if an employee takes or makes personal calls, within reason, but it might be a major no-no for your neighbor. The same can be said of everything from religious or political discussions (or displays) through parking assignments. An employee manual does give you the opportunity to express what’s important in your workplace, the rules that are most important to you, as the owner or manager, and you should make it count.

It’s important to note that any policies outlined in your manual can be modified, updated, amended or discontinued at any time, with or without notice, at management’s discretion, and that the policies are not meant to address each and every situation in the workplace. Reserve your right to keep control. If you do make a bad or unworkable policy, or commit an error of omission, give yourself the right to interpret your own rules or break them altogether if the situation is unintentionally unreasonable. At worst, an unclear or unwise policy will cost you – once – and then can be modified to better suit your needs. The disclaimer also gives you room to be more or less generous as particular circumstances arise. For instance, you might make a hard policy against office solicitations and “forget” it when a good employee’s house burns to the ground and someone wants to take up a collection. Or you might state that you, under no circumstances, advance payroll, then allow a loan when the exception arises. Naturally, you want to pick the exceptions you make to policies, otherwise the rules get watered down and you risk hurt feelings from employees who perceive that peers have received preferential treatment. The consistency, clarity, and efficiency of providing a written handbook outweigh the occasional exceptions and hassle of building the document the first time.

Also, remember to have employees sign and return a release for each manual you distribute. In spirit, that obligates the employee to be responsible to live within the rules, or at least demonstrates your good faith in letting them know your general expectations for conduct in the workplace.

   How do you fire someone?

Any employer or business manager responsible for hiring and firing has struggled at some point with letting someone go. You know that a discharge -- no matter how well-deserved or necessary -- may devastate that person and perhaps his or her family. You also know that you have to act in the best interest of your company. Sometimes, those two notions are in conflict. They shouldn’t be; ideally, the decision to terminate the employment of a lackluster member of the staff should be easy, because you’ve got solid reasons, documentation, and the right to rearrange the staff as you like on your side. Someone I know in the community claims his optimistic philosophy on firing an employee is that he's "freeing them up to find a career that will appreciate their services more and clearing space for someone who'll be a better fit."  But personnel managers are people, too, and even under the harshest of circumstances or where there’s no alternative, “pulling the trigger” can be just as difficult for the person doing the firing as the person being let go. Sometimes harder.  We develop relationships with our coworkers, even if we don’t work together directly, and – as a basic human truism – we don’t like change, even if we know it’s for the better.

Still, it’s harder to fire some employees than others, and maybe for good reasons. You might not think twice when faced with the prospect of terminating the delivery driver who misses four or five days of work per month – it’s easier to get rid of someone when you have clear evidence of wrongdoing or when they’re just plain not doing the job – but more difficult when you’re cutting staff for financial reasons or when the circumstances around the firing are a little cloudier. Or more complicated.  There’s a reason behind every discharge. Every employee brings along baggage – that’s part of working with people – but others some bring along enough that they should come with their own valet. Some employees excel at only part of their job, and you need to decide whether or not its worth getting only half the work out of the position that you had expected. Some people are just plain unlucky – with cars, marriages, or health issues – and you have to decide how much bad luck you’ll tolerate before that dark cloud extends to their employment, too. Every business manager can think of half a dozen people he’s had to discharge and might come up with distinctly different reasons for each.

It’s natural to suffer some guilt or hesitation when approaching even the most obvious termination, but once the decision is made, there’s no going back on it. There’s also no need to sugar-coat things. Successful managers know that it’s better to “rip the bandaid” than prolong the process. Letting the employee dangle isn’t good for anybody. You only prolong your own stress, give the soon-to-be-ex employee hope, and make the rumor mill work overtime. If the end is truly unavoidable, there’s not too much to discuss. If there’s a possibility of the employee saving his or her job, then you’re not having a termination discussion.

Here are some hints that should make the process as easy as possible on everybody.

1. Have you put the rules on the table…and in writing? Your employee handbook should cover all the major rules of working at your business. When a rule has been violated, you should have a defined, progressive system in place that notifies an employee of exactly what went wrong and, if necessary, provide disciplinary action to correct the problem. Everybody should know both the rules and the downsides to breaking them. (To protect yourself as much as possible, document the distribution of the handbook or whatever document posts the rules of your business when they are given to employees. You can’t make them follow the rules, you can’t even make them read the rules, but you can require them to sign a sheet that documents them promising to do both.  Then, document the written corrections in the same way:  Make the employee returned a signed copy acknowledging receipt of the memo.)

2. Are you on solid ground? In terms of employee relations, there’s no more serious decision than terminating employment. You owe your employees the courtesy of being sure you’ve looked at the problem from every angle and that there’s no alternative left to either of you. If you’re unsure about the decision, don’t go ahead with it.

3. Can this employee be saved? Is there one thing the employee could say when you sit down to fire them that would change your mind? It’s generally better to work with an existing employee than go through the effort of hiring someone brand new and bringing them up to speed. There was a reason you hired this person. What’s changed that led you to this point? Can you identify the problem? What would the employee need to do, specifically, to keep working for you?

4. Is it a temporary problem? If an otherwise good employee has hit a rough patch, is it worth giving the employee time to get through the problems, or are you better off moving ahead without him? Obviously, the outcome of this decision is purely dependent on the value of the employee and the disruption he’s causing. It takes a savvy manager to come to a clear determination. For instance, who are you more likely to fire in this scenario: Your receptionist shows up late and hung over every Monday morning during football season, or your warehouse manager who, despite being an efficient, long-time employee, has announced that he’ll be late three days a week until he can afford to get his cracked engine block replaced? (A smart manager, faced with this kind of setback, might give the solid employee a break, but put in writing the need for a situation to improve and underline the possibility that the employee will be terminated if the problem doesn’t go away in a reasonable time.) Has the employee actively made you aware of the problem in advance and tried to work with you to find a solution? Being proactive and admitting a shortcoming – especially one that might go away over time – should protect the employee to a point.

You’re absolutely sure that the relationship is over? You can’t fix what’s wrong with this employee? The employee seems unwilling to work with you to get the performance you need? The problem is just too big to ignore? Go ahead with the termination with a clear conscience….

5. Collect documentation. Oklahoma may be a “hire and fire at will” state, but you want to make sure you’ve provided employees with evaluations and notes that reflect their shortcomings – and had them sign any letters of reprimand and return those copies to their employment files. Sometimes, a situation so egregious and over the top arises that an immediate firing is called for, but other than that, you should be able to demonstrate that you have made the effort to correct the employee. It’s fair to the employee and protects your business from allegations that the employee was unfairly discharged.

6. Run the final check. Whenever possible, HR experts recommend presenting the ex-employee with a final check for several reasons. First, it’s a solid indicator that the relationship has been severed, next, it gives the employee no reason to return to your business, and third it helps your bookkeeper make certain the ledgers are straight. Make sure any vacation time or other pay is accounted for so that the employee has as little reason as possible to come back. The termination should be done last thing on a Friday afternoon and always in front of at least one supervisor or management-level witness. If you can, schedule the termination for a time when the other employees should be on their way out or already gone. This reduces the chance for any “poison interactions” between the discharged employee and his former peers, cuts down on unpleasant confrontations or accusations, and leaves the outgoing worker with some dignity. The planning also gives the ex-employee the weekend to plan out his next steps.

What if the discharge is immediate? You can think of a dozen examples of when an immediate discharge would be necessary in your business. Employees seem to have a way of challenging the boundaries of our patience and try new ways to get fired. Maybe it’s theft, drunkenness, or insubordination that would break the camel’s back. Whatever the case, terminate the employee and get him off the property as soon as possible. (If he’s drunk or under the influence, call a cab.) In this case, don’t rush a final check. Promise to put it in the mail at the end of the current pay period so that you have ample time to prepare the check, taking any necessary deductions you might miss if you hurried it through payroll. As soon as possible, sit down and document in detail the reason for the discharge. State the facts and get the record into the employee’s file.

7. Have an exit strategy. Who will handle the ex-employee’s workload? How soon can the employee be replaced? Is this a good time to juggle positions around and promote someone from within? Who will train the new employee and – maybe most important – can you do anything to prevent the replacement from going down the same road as the person you just fired?

Unfortunately, terminations are part of doing business. Unpleasant as they may be, following those few basic steps can prevent you from feeling guilty…or developing an ulcer.

   Last entry, we talked a little about the unfortunate potential for workplace violence. Now, let’s chat about what you can do to protect your business and employees.

Something on every manager’s “to do” list should be planning an evacuation route in case of an emergency. It doesn’t have to be devoted to a workplace shooting. This is Oklahoma, after all. If a tornado siren sounds off a little too close for comfort, having plans for an emergency could come in just as handy. Same goes for fires or any other disaster. The experts on workplace violence say that if employees know the sound of gunshots and hear them in your place of business, they need to immediately consider where they are in the building. If they are office workers surrounded by walls and doors that can be locked or blocked, they should stay put and hide until police or other first responders arrive on the scene. If possible, those employees should call 911. If they can give any sort of report on what’s happening, great. If not, they should keep the line open so that the dispatcher can hear what’s going on and send someone to your location. If you’re in a larger facility, a plant, factory or other such building, the advice is to move as quickly as possible to the nearest exit away from the gunfire. Ideally, any business has two or more exits. If your facility has a paging system, agree on a code word that will be broadcast in the event it’s time to abandon ship. Employees might be instructed in that same voice message which exit to use. You should also pick some safe point for the employees to meet once they’ve made their exit, and, when you can, gather as much information as possible about the event and who might be missing so that you can relay that information to the police or other emergency workers when they arrive.

Are you going to remember the code word in an emergency? Will everyone remember where they’re supposed to go? Who can say? But having a plan for an emergency and not needing it is better than having no plan and hoping that everything will work out for the best, and the code words and rendezvous are part of that plan. Are you going to remember that the woman who opens mail was going to be late that day because she had to take her kid to a dental appointment and is, thankfully, not really missing? Maybe not. You’ll have other things on your mind. None of this is going to go “well.” On a day like that, there’s only slightly different degrees of “worse.” Of course, no one wants to take the time to think about such things. And, hopefully, these plans are a complete waste of time. Hopefully, you’ll prepare a one-sheet, easily-remembered plan and include it in your employee handbook and never have to think about it again.

Can you avoid a workplace disaster altogether? Some psychologists say, sadly, “No.” One article on workplace violence says that these events are so random and unpredictable that the time bombs are already scattered across the planet, and even they don’t know who they are until it’s too late. We don’t have to be talking about a full-blown shooting rampage, either. A simple hothead who is willing to punch out the boss when he’s handed his final paycheck is enough of a threat. Our friends in the psychological community don’t help much with that, except to say that the guy who’d hit you is only a notch or two down from his counterpart with a shotgun in the trunk of his car. That kind of unbridled rage comes from the same place. It means that the need to inflict pain or damage outweighs any potential consequences in the person’s mind. We’d think that we could look at the profiles of those involved in other incidents to learn something, but we’d be wrong again. Trends, tendencies and profiles are nearly useless, because of the hundreds or thousands who are out of a job because of the recession or going through a divorce or lost their house, only the tiniest fraction will snap.

And not all the advice for dealing with a potential blow-up is consistent. One expert will say, “You need to remove the troubled person from the workplace as quickly and smoothly as possible,” where another will say, “Ushering a discharged employee out too quickly and unceremoniously could make him feel like trash and put him in a mindset that will make his path from your doorstep to a gun shop and back.” And even that advice presupposes that the potential shooting will take place because of a discharge.

There are right and wrong ways to do just about any job, and terminating an employee – particularly one who has a reputation for a bad temper – might be one of the more important things for employers to get right the first time. Ideally, a planned termination will take place on a Friday afternoon when the person has the weekend to get over it, make plans for future employment, and cool down. Ideally, an employee set for termination should be asked to report to the supervisor after his shift to limit the distraction and spectacle for other employees, reduce the possibility that he needs to talk to his peers, and spend any longer in your place of business than necessary. A lot of Human Resource experts recommend that any discharge be done with two managers in the room: One to perform the termination and one to witness it. If you’re picking your witness and know the soon-to-be-former employee has a nasty reputation, there’s nothing wrong with making sure that the witness is someone who could either A) help pull Bluto off of you or B) call for help. Maybe your company employs a security guard. He’d be good to get in the room if you think the final interview might go badly. If possible, for the sake of consistency and experience, the same person should perform all the terminations for your business. Once the termination is done, encourage the employee to gather any personal effects and get out. That doesn’t necessarily mean rushing them, but it also doesn’t mean that they should be allowed to have their run of the place any longer than necessary.

Pop quiz: When should you involve the police? Best guess from the experts: When the terminated employee shows signs of being unreasonably upset, is destructive, won’t leave, or makes aggressive threats toward the business or management. Police officers understand this kind of situation and, while they aren’t in the business of watching your employees pack up their lockers, they’d rather escort someone off-site than have to go in after them with guns drawn. Needless to say, if the employee becomes physically violent, you call 911. No hesitation.

Let’s peel the onion a little deeper, though.

About the only thing the experts agree on as far as identifying the employee most likely to go horribly, destructively wrong is to get to know your employees, or – failing that – depending on supervisors to perform that function. And that’s tricky, in today’s PC environment. If you have a smaller company, it’s more likely that you come into direct contact with your coworkers and subordinates on a daily basis. You might get to know them and even consider them your extended family. “Feeling their pain” --whether in the form of a divorce, financial hardships, or some of the other triggers for violent outbursts that typically get associated with these events – can be its own problem, can’t it? The same closeness that gives you inside knowledge engenders sympathy, and sympathy might make you turn a blind eye toward the warning signs, or dismiss what could be a big clue toward bad behavior. The same could be said if you’re trusting supervisors to be your eyes and ears on subordinates. The legal flip side to the entire discussion might be that getting to know your employees on a personal level is a bad idea because that level of intimacy could lead to all sorts of questions about your conduct.

Even identifying a problem employee – violent or not, one who is disruptive to your business and robs others of productivity – isn’t the end of the story. We’ll talk next about the ways you can deal with them.

  What are you prepared to do to protect your employees?

Sad but true: In 2005, over 560 employees were killed by coworkers, making homicide the fourth leading cause of workplace deaths in the United States. That’s according to OSHA and the Department of Labor’s statistics. There are more stats available on how many were assaulted, verbally abused, or otherwise harassed by coworkers.

And that was before the economy slumped.

What were the circumstances surrounding any of those incidents? Without digging too deeply -- I’m sure each story is unique, especially if you asked the victims -- I’d bet that there are a few common themes. We can probably chalk up a bunch to some kind of chemical habit (whether illicit drugs or just plain alcohol). The psychological profiles for a coworker at the center of such an event tend to involve unmanaged stress. In the aftermath of such tragic events, how often have we heard that the perpetrator of the violence just lost his job and came back to the old place of employment to settle the score? Or is deep in debt? Or just split from his wife? (Isn’t that scary on its own? The notion that the guy beside you in the assembly line might go berserk one day not because of anything wrong in the office, but because his wife ran away with the paperboy? If someone has to take leave of his senses, I’d prefer to think that they’d aim their insane rage somewhere close to the source of their frustrations.)

The stats, as far as I can tell, also fail to split up violent acts between current and former employees. The Brady Campaign website (bradycampaign.org) provides other startling statistics, though. Like the fact that 77% of workplace homicides are committed with firearms, 60% of major employers surveyed said that they had experienced some manner of threat to managers by employees in the past year, and that, if you’re a woman, the most likely cause of death in your workplace is the guy in the next cubicle. Aside from the death toll, one estimate I saw put the cost in lost productivity and property damage over $35 Billion.

With the downturn in the economy and the constant pressure in the marketplace to perform, stresses can go to work on somebody’s last nerve like a jackhammer. That’s especially true when we’re talking about an individual who – in retrospect, too often -- probably didn’t have the greatest sense of self-worth to begin with. Potential staff cutbacks, a sagging wallet, mounting bills, and family expectations on someone with an overactive imagination and a diminished self-image can be a recipe for disaster. That’s to say nothing of his decimated 401(k). While I’m never quite sympathetic to someone who rounds the bend to the point where shooting his coworkers looks like reasonable option to close out a Monday afternoon, I can understand how the situation creates itself.

Every manager should understand it. Everyone should keep an eye out for it.

Too often, according to lots of websites that have the unpleasant task of dealing with the issue of violence in the workplace, the problem employee was no secret. The U S Office of Personnel Management’s website (opm.com) offers a number of articles concerning the issue, which is of growing concern to most business owners, and even that venerable agency is quick to point out that “no one can predict human behavior and there is no specific profile of a potentially dangerous individual…[but] indicators of increased risk for violent behavior are available.”

Such as? Direct or veiled threats of harm. (Yeah, that’s a solid clue. Eventually, for all the goons who say, “I’m gonna kill you,” one does?) Intimidating, bullying, or other inappropriate and aggressive behavior. (If he’s collecting lunch money from other employees by threat of force, I would tend to think that management should act like the principal and remove him from the job pool.) Numerous conflicts with supervisors and other employees. (Again, aside from redefining “numerous,” how is this guy employed?) Bringing or brandishing a weapon in the workplace. (Really, Sherlock? The first step in a workplace shooting may, in fact, be to bring a firearm to work. I’m making a broad generalization there. Out on a limb….) A fascination with weapons. (I think there should be a caveat here. The office Star Trek fan who brings his sheet metal Klingon battle axe to show off isn’t very likely to face down the Star Wars geek and his lightsaber.) Attention to incidents of workplace violence, especially when the employee makes statements agreeing with the perpetrator of the violent acts. (Posting the clippings from the shootout at the Xerox plant in Hawaii isn’t necessarily a bad sign until you see a map of your facility hanging next to it, down to little X’s and O’s representing the position of fellow employees.) Statements indicating desperation, whether involving family, financial or other personal problems. (Here’s the fine line for you Politically Correct office managers. Where does an open door policy, a caring management staff, and a friendly ear end and harassment lawsuits begin?) Statements concerning suicidal thoughts. (Suicide doesn’t seem to be the problem, here. It’s when those on the brink decide to take someone with them that we run into real trouble, right?) Drug or alcohol abuse. (This is another instance I have to question. If the management team hasn’t identified the problem drinker on staff and dealt with the issue, maybe now is a good time.) Extreme changes in behavior. (I think when the VP of Marketing shows up in cammo gear and a hunting vest, you’ve got your first clue.)

The OPM article goes on to explain what we already know: Most people facing these kinds of problems don’t “explode” one day. Thought One: Most people weather the emotional storms and buck up to their troubles. In fact, the same article that suggested the warning signs I summarized above says that needlessly profiling employees according to these general trends is a bad idea, because you could alienate and unfairly stereotype employees who might be experiencing a rough patch, but will turn out just fine when the dust settles. Thought Two: Problems build, don’t they? Unless someone is pretty imbalanced to start, one bad thing isn’t going to throw them into a murderous rage one day. No. It’s a string of one too many bad days that sends the average person into a tailspin.

Sure, we’re talking about a pretty complicated issue, but doesn’t that advice seem to conflict with itself? Isn’t it saying, in one breath, that these trends seem to be true much of the time, but don’t rely on the trends because they’re not necessarily reliable?

The one thing that jumps out at me from that list of “negative indicators” is the notion that, to be aware of any of these trends, you have to talk to your employees and coworkers, right? I’m not saying that we need to adopt everyone we hire or work with, but if we’re going to have any chance of identifying a potential problem, we have to familiarize ourselves with how the people around us act normally before we can see what abnormal looks like, don’t we? And even that’s half the job. Once you’ve picked up on the problem, what are you prepared to do about it?

And that brings us full circle. What are you prepared to do?

   A couple of months ago, I went off on a rant in this blog about consumers, generally those involved in the complaint process, who try to manipulate or short-cut our procedures or call for unusual attention, or who think they have a better way to resolve matters. It’s not that we aren’t willing to think outside the box or consider other points of view. Seeing other points of view is part and parcel of what we do, but we can’t bend and break rules at a whim, and we don’t necessarily agree with consumers when they suggest that we toss our procedures out the window.

There are some business managers who might like us to do the same thing.

For instance, we were notified by one company’s prospective clients that the firm was making a statement like “no complaints on file with the BBB” on its website. Those curious clients who checked the company report on our own database saw that there were a few complaints (all of which had been resolved or reasonably addressed by the company) on file for the business, but they let us know that there appeared to be some distance between what was said on the company’s website and the reality of things. There’s a difference between four and none, right?

The BBB operates under all kinds of rules, some of which are designed to protect the integrity of its information, others that protect the value of the Better Business Bureau’s name and logo. One thing we tend to frown upon is misinformation being distributed with our name attached. This situation has another dimension, though. The business in question is not associated with the BBB in any way – it’s not an Accredited Business – and there are significant gaps in the Bureau’s information about the firm which the company has chosen not to supply to us, at least not as of this writing. Updating the general information would be a simple thing, but it’s a voluntary process and the company hasn’t shared the data. It’s the business’ right, but the gaps in information result in a lower grade for the report.

Would we allow an Accredited Business to make such a statement concerning its complaint totals on its website? No. For one thing, most companies that support the BBB are content to allow interested consumers to click on the links provided and view their BBB report live on this website. Those that are not Accredited tend to stay away from mentioning our organization at all; if consumers find their report, that’s okay, but they aren’t inclined to direct people to it. There’s a more important reason for our objection to the mention on the website, that being in this marketplace and with the ability consumers have to file complaints online, nearly any statement concerning a company’s stats could be perfectly true one minute and completely wrong the next. We’d discourage an Accredited Business from making any quantitative statement about its complaint activity for just that reason. Additionally, there’s a possibility that a consumer looking at that statement on a company website might assume that the business would only say something like that with the consent of the BBB – and assuming that, it’s not much more of a leap to guess that the company is Accredited by the BBB. That, again, isn’t the case here. This sort of unclear (or, at worst, misleading) statement may violate consumer laws that say, more or less, that it’s illegal to state or imply such an association exists where one does not.

We politely asked the company to remove the reference from the website and, when we checked back, were surprised to see something like, “no VALID complaints on file with the BBB.” Who decided that? The business owner, obviously. In an e-mail exchange that followed, he explained that none of the complaints, in his view, are valid, because they each involve someone misunderstanding the terms of their contract with his firm. Again, it’s not as if the BBB makes things up as we go along. We have standards, procedures, and rules we follow – including what complaints we consider valid, inappropriate, or outside our purview.

We submitted the suggestion that, since the BBB name, logo, and other indicators are copyrighted, it was not appropriate for unauthorized businesses to make use of them, and as such, the statement needed to be removed from the site. As discussions continued, the business owner became more confrontational and heated, down to questioning what right a Better Business Bureau has to exist, or what value we have to a community. Interesting that he would question that, since he clearly feels a need to defend his business’ reputation on his website by mentioning the organization and (I’m guessing his opinion here) helping put those errant complaints into a better context for his potential clients.

I understand that this gentleman is frustrated. He clearly doesn’t understand the purpose of this organization and isn’t in a place to have a pleasant conversation about it. Or even a plainly informative conversation. That disappoints me, because if he took the time to meet us in the middle and just open his mind a tiny bit, I’m sure he’d come away with a different appreciation. For what it’s worth, I’m sure he operates his business with the proper care and – especially based on the thorough responses to complaints we’ve received from his office – with all due diligence toward avoiding disputes with his customers and resolving them fairly when they pop up.

We’re about at the point where I turn the discussion over to the attorneys at the Council of Better Business Bureaus. I hate when things go that way, but (as I’ve said a hundred times in this venue) I’m not a lawyer. If this guy needs to hear chapter and verse of copyright law (or the legal right a BBB has to operate), there are a whole squad of attorneys at CBBB who would like nothing better than to debate the matter with him.

I’d rather reason things out with a business owner like two adults, but that’s not always in the cards. I also like to think I’m excessively reasonable, but there are a few issues that give me no bending room. This may be one of them.

   So what do you want to talk about this week, gang?

How about the fact that, since I started this blog, the largest number of comments have come from users with names like dslajjlajkjl, Webbot712331, aaa23, and other gibberish?

I have no idea what the computer gunk spewed in the text of the messages might mean, or if the robots sending these comments have attempted to attach any files with them (the commenting system doesn’t seem to allow attachments…thankfully). I know well enough not to open those kinds of messages and their attachments when they show up in my regular e-mail – after all, the BBB is one of the organizations that usually torques up the panic level when it comes to computer viruses and promotes excessive protections against them.

But I do wonder what the point of bombing such messages to blind addresses might be.

Call it curiosity. Call it suspicion. Call it what you will, but whoever created – and pays for – this kind of software and makes use of it must be engaged in the process for a reason. I doubt it’s a hobby. The kind of effort it takes to create the kind of software needed to seek out and send messages to e-mail addresses pretty deeply concealed in a website takes more than a passing devotion to technology. It takes talent, it takes skill, and it takes enough cash to make the process work.

There was a time when I used to advise businesses and consumers alike not to respond to unsolicited faxes and e-mails (even if you're following the sender's directions to "opt out" of receiving future messages) because all you’ve done is tell the senders that they’ve discovered a working fax number or e-mail address. Back in the day, that sender would catalog the working contact information (on the promise that the numbers and addresses were confirmed as operational, perhaps), then sell it to the same guys who would broadcast ads for online Viagra and low-cost vacations to Cancun.

Maybe the robosenders hitting up this blog are nothing more than the next generation of the same sort of programs. I have a hard time figuring out what, if anything, can be done with whatever information they might get. The computer world is becoming more armored against viruses, your e-mail in-box probably sorts against junk messages and spam before you ever see it, and we’ve all become a little more selective in how we do business, if only through online suppliers.  I'll throw a bone to the conspiracy theorists who might imagine that the same technophiles who create robo-mailers would have the required skill to create security software to block those automated intrusions, potentially creating both the problem and its solution at the same desk. 

This is one time when the security technology seems to be just slightly ahead of the curve, and the only cost is the time it takes to trash these messages.
 
Or, maybe, our discussions here are ultra-popular with the computers themselves.  The BBB could have a very devoted cybernetic fan club for all we know.

Is it possible for computers to have good taste and an interest in consumer issues? 

   As you might imagine, I meet a lot of people in the course of a month. They might be business owners, folks on the street, at the parking lot of the local mall. I’m used to answering questions “on the fly,” if only to answer by passing them a business card and suggesting they get in touch with me when I’m within an arm’s reach of my computer. There’s only so much information I can keep in my head at any one time, after all. There are a couple thousand BBB Accredited Businesses in OKC. I don’t remember the reports on all of them. If you’re asking advice buying a particular item, I might do better.

One thing I can do at the drop of a hat is tell you the origins of the organization, how it came to be, and, to one degree or another, where I think it’s headed.

I was amazed to recently meet someone who asked – in all earnestness – if the Better Business Bureau was started by infamous gangster Al Capone.  It's been years since someone repeated that old myth around me.

The fact of the matter is that Al Capone was about 13 years old when the first BBB offices began appearing. And they weren’t in Chicago.

With the timeline askew, there’s more than enough evidence to suggest that the Better Business Bureau is about as far away from the mob as you can get. You don’t see too many criminal figures invited by the governor’s office to participate in Consumer Protection Day, for instance. Or that we have open, cooperative relationships with many aspects of law enforcement, like the Federal Trade Commission. Those relationships don’t end at the border, either. Project Phonebusters, which is an agency aimed at con men sniping at American consumers, is hosted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the BBB system has a hotline to it. If the Mounties are willing to associate with us, I think a suggestion of mob ties is pretty far from credibility.

With so many friends so close to law enforcement, I think someone might have at least questioned the legality of the organization and its practices if any aspect of it even a hint of impropriety to it, don’t you?

The fact of the matter is, the first BBB offices began popping up in different marketplaces, generally around big cities, in the 1910’s. The story goes that Sam Dobbs, then VP of advertising for Coca-Cola, was so sick of bad advertisers that he banded together with like-minded individuals to combat unfounded, unsubstantiable claims in the marketplace. From those ad associations, Better Business Bureaus grew from the intention of ethical business owners to provide an overall safe shopping experience for customers.

Not as lurid as having your roots in the Mafia, but it has the benefit of being true.

My cynical side would love to bubble out and take over the keyboard right now, suggesting that, whereas the BBB takes its power from the ability to alert consumers to bad business practices, being linked to the mob would give us the latitude to firebomb the shifty used car lots who refused to “play ball” with us. Taking it to its logical end, consumers would probably love us more than they already do if a BBB crew could simply visit a business owner and “collect” a refund for complainants. It’d make our lives a lot easier around the office.  How much faster could we close a complaint if we could threaten to fit an uncooperative mason with concrete shoes made from his own cement?

Where did the rumor get started? Reach back about twenty years, before the popularity of the Internet, cell phones, and blogs. A disgruntled business owner who supposedly had an axe to grind against his local BBB office (the company had a bad record for failing to respond to multiple complaints) would bomb out a “fact sheet” of lies on the Better Business Bureau containing the fabricated story of the organization’s origins.

It’s a bit like people repeating the story of Richard Gere and the gerbil, isn’t it?

    Here’s a question for you: What’s the difference between “ethics” and “morals”?

The Better Business Bureau, as an organization, holds high ethical standards as a paragon of the sort of conduct we expect from ourselves and the Accredited Businesses that support us. We talk about ethics, ethical conduct, ethical standards…but what does it really mean?  And what's the difference between "good ethics" and "good morals"?

The dictionary says that ethics is “the code or standards of right and wrong as defined by a particular group.” Oddly enough, the same dictionary defines morals or morality as “behavior determined by good and evil.”

It seems to me that a difference between ethics and morality is something more spiritual. Maybe religious. There’s a certain difference between saying “right and wrong” and “good or evil” isn’t there? Is ethics what comes from a right-thinking head and morals what comes from a peaceful heart? Is ethical conduct more intellectual and moral behavior more emotional? For that matter, the dictionary appears to make a distinction between ethics being adopted by a society and suggests that morals are more internally decided. Individualized.

Of course, they’re just words. Words with similar meaning at that.  Nearly interchangeable.

I was asked the difference years ago, as a philosophical exercise. I can’t help but take the position that ethics is the reaction to a problem or situation based on an informed opinion and personal reflection, taking into account existing laws and accepted rules of conduct. I attach a religious component to morals. Something more spiritual. Just mentioning “good” and “evil” in the definition plugs into an attitude of motivations that gives the definition of morals a different dimension, and somehow lends a purity to a consideration of ethics as being more a thing of the mind.

I won’t say that using one or another is better or worse. I can’t even restrict the terms according to situations. I can't say, "Morals applies to this or that, but Ethics apply to whatever other."  Admitting to a limited imagination, I can’t think of a situation that would find good morals and good ethics at odds in any significant way. Can you? I’m thinking that being “in the black” on one list of criteria probably puts you on the right side of both. As a matter of fact, I would submit that a solid ethical decision and the end result of musings based in moral thought would end up in about the same place.

There is one right answer, much of the time, to an ethical or moral problem. It might be complicated and overlong, but it’s right. And I’ll go so far as to say that, for much of the world, right and wrong are universal concepts. Let me qualify that: Right and wrong are universal concepts among the sane of the world with a high ethical and moral center. I’m sure there are people the world over who use self-serving logic to rationalize bad decisions. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about a Japanese whale fisherman, an Arab oil sheik, or a drug dealer in New York. Any of those three examples might be perfect pitch men for the rationalizations that get in the way of living right. We also can’t speak to the morals of those who have taken leave of their senses. I doubt that Charlie Manson had a code of ethics, and if there were rules of the house out on his ranch, they probably wouldn’t fit into the true definition of “ethics” and “morals.” He may have formed his own society out in the desert, but its impact was – thankfully – limited to folks who were just as warped as their master. I’m sure a whale fisherman will justify himself by claiming that he’s only doing his best to feed his family, an oil sheik could say that economic blackmail and advancing political views is a simple twist on the concept of supply and demand created in the West, and a pusher is going to make the case that he’s only giving the people what they want. You can justify all kinds of evil deeds if your mindset is warped enough, or if you kid yourself into believing them.

Unlike those examples, though, I don’t know that a solid ethical decision requires all too much justification. The more exceptions, excuses, drop-downs and attachments you’re making to support a decision, the more likely that they’re really masking a bad decision outside the field of ethics. Or morals. Ethics tends to be a lot cleaner than that. They might require thought to put into words, but I think ethical decisions are nearly instinctual and hard-wired into our personas. Ethics may be learned, but I tend to think that once you’ve reached adulthood, the basics are already formed.

Did my forefathers, the creators of the Better Business Bureau, know what they were doing when they specifically based the organization in high ethical conduct and standards?  I think so.  Going back to the definitions and echoing this discussion, if ethics are applied to business decisions, and we've agreed to the basic rights and wrongs of conduct in the marketplace even beyond what is merely required by the law, I believe the basis of the organization is on very firm ground.

Do we expect ethical conduct from our peers, employees, Accredited Businesses? Ourselves? Of course we do. We expect the same in terms of moral conduct as well.

Maybe, through the Better Business Bureau, solid ethics and high morals cross, twine and splice together.

 This morning, I had the mixed pleasure of loading my youngest son onto a bus for an out-of-state school competition. It was a little rainy, which kept the crowd of parents from displaying too much emotion in the school parking lot. I won’t get into whether or not there would have been a collective cheer and the pop of champagne bottles (or, conversely, hyper-worried moms chasing the bus with one last scrap of precautionary advice). The rain kept all that to a minimum, thank God, and the kids got on their way without major incident. You could see that most of the mothers looked like they were suffering the first pangs of Empty Nest Syndrome – many of the kids were off on their first out of town expedition under mainly their own supervision – while most dads stoically stood by, nodding their last good luck wishes, although in markedly better humor than the moms. (That’s not sexist. That’s purely observational. I could be wrong, and I’m admittedly a guy myself, but that’s my take on the situation.)

I have to admit to hiding a happy grin, and I wasn’t alone among the parents. Not happy to get rid of our children, just happy that the busride signified another step on the course to adulthood. Independence. It’s not as if the middle-to-high schoolers on the bus are completely unsupervised, about to be unleashed in a feral frenzy upon an unwitting state. Teachers and parents will be along to supervise, but for the first time in his young life, my son won’t have me or my wife jogging along behind him to remind him to eat up, go to bed, watch his money, brush his teeth or change his underwear. (Yeah. That last line was designed to embarrass him at some point.) On another level, you have to trust that you’ve raised your kids right and they can handle being out on their own without causing, participating in, or being a victim of their surroundings. That, or that one kid in the group will exercise good judgment and divert the pack. And – failing all else -- you have to maintain some trust in those supervisory people, most of whom are parents themselves and are fully authorized to tell the kid his teeth are green and it’s high time he explored the hotel shower. There’s a busload of kids in good hands. Anyway, we wished ‘em luck, off they went, and I feel one-third less responsible for the rest of the week.

It did bring to mind, though, what must be going on all over the city this month. All over the state. Schools are letting out. That means children are spilling onto the streets, flooding yards and – whether permitting – pools, and generally making a racket from sun up to sun down.

Ah. Summer….

A lot of parents don’t have the luxury of waving good-bye to a busload of children under the supervision of deputized parents and teachers. Bunches of parents are scrambling for day camps, away camps, summer camps, day care, night care, and generally looking for anything to occupy their children and keep them safe, sound, and out of trouble for the next couple of months. Few of us these days are fortunate enough to have a stay-at-home parent to tend to the children for the summer. Even those who are lucky enough might find that a break from the kids once or twice a week can come in handy in maintaining the overall sanity of the house. And that works both ways, folks. Believe it or not, your kids might get just as tired of spending time at home with you as you suffer migraines being locked up with them 24-7.

None of this is meant to imply that children are a burden or in any way less a joy than they were when we brought them into this world. It’s even less my meaning that schools are merely babysitters most of the year. There’s a plain fact at play, though, that when school is closed for the summer, finding things to do with children that are legal, responsible -- and maybe even fun – can be difficult. In general, the authorities frown on turning your children loose on the street while you go to work and handing them off to strangers can be even less caring.

What do you do if you need some form of day care at least part time to get through the summer? Assuming you don’t have after-school arrangements in place that could be expanded to cover the work day, you might be in the position of shopping (in a hurry) for day care. The standard rules of finding listed, qualified professional day care would apply if that’s what you can afford. That means checking the basic background of the center and its staff as best you can, checking the various rules for day care centers at the Oklahoma DHS website http://www.okdhs.org/programsandservices/cc/ and http://www.daycareresource.com/oklahoma.html are great places to start), knowing exactly what services you can expect, counting the number of staff versus the number of children, “dropping in” unannounced a couple of times in the first weeks to check on things, and looking for any hidden costs. Look for a place with lots of rules posted – not that you’re looking for a prison camp, here, but the more rules generally imply better controls on the kids and their activities. Another “insider tip” is to pick up a couple of toys and check their condition: Does the site devote sufficient funds to weeding out the battered old gear and replacing it? Also, watch (and be willing to pay for) special perks like a trained nurse at the facility and the facility’s own kitchen services.

In OKC, and in most of the surrounding areas, there are alternatives to cutting your schedule or scrambling to find day care. If you ask around the neighborhood, there are probably other moms, church groups, or other trustworthy folks who can take your kids a few hours a day. Relatives, too. Some communities organize rotating houses that trade kids through the week, so that parents know that one day a week, it’s their turn to have everybody over and the other four days, they’re relatively free. Most of these arrangements fly below the radar of state authorities, but you’d be safer to call your city hall to ask what the maximum occupancy and other child care requirements might be; of course, if no money is trading hands, it might not technically qualify as day care.

You may not trust your kids to your neighbors (nothing wrong with that; I don’t know your neighbors) or might not be in a neighborhood that promotes that sort of activity. What about your local library? The YMCA? There are a lot of activities to keep your children active and limit the possibilities of cultivating a TV Zombie Farm for the summer. Jump online and check the schedules. Even if your son dreads the thought of spending any time learning over the summer (“It’s called summer vacation for a reason. I shouldn’t have to think.”) or your daughter was really looking forward to “vegging out” with Barbie for a couple of months, they’ll have plenty of time to themselves and could pick up some nifty skills – like swimming, for instance – at a very low cost to you for just a couple days’ investment in time and brainpower a week. Some local parks offer craft classes or other activities, too.

A zoo pass, season ticket to a water park, or other such commitment may be an investment in your sanity and a healthy tan for the whole family. That takes some structure, and it might be a great idea if you have a built-in babysitter in the form of a semi-responsible, semi-older child in the house that could supervise the visits. It can also get pricey, depending on what your children expect while they’re at the park. Maybe they pack a lunch or you carefully budget what they can spend each trip. Or maybe, if you calculate out the cost of a family pass and some treats, you’ll see that it comes out ahead of a paid sitter.

Speaking of those older, more responsible siblings, it could be worth a raise in the allowance for the summer if they take on the responsibility of “dealing” with their younger counterparts. If they can use a microwave and dial you at work – and maintain some level of authority in the house – and, most important, if you can trust them enough to find the house standing when you get home with minimal damages, you might be in business.

In any case, here's my best wishes for everyone to have a safe, happy, fun summer season in OKC.

 Summertime. It evokes all kinds of images of laughing kids down at the swimmin’ hole, steamy Saturday mornings sipping lemonade in the shade of a freshly-mown yard, and the sometimes less relaxing image of loading up the family car and hitting the open road for the traditional family vacation.

For how much work goes into planning, coordinating, budgeting and scheduling vacation, I wonder sometimes how the concept has survived. It’s a relatively recent idea, in terms of human evolution, by the way. Much before the 1900s, only the very rich took time off to travel and get away from home for a week or two. Some of the first “resort communities” were havens along the Great Lakes or coastal beaches that popped up in the 1910s and 20s, bankrolled by families with names like Rockefeller and Morgan. Back before there was air conditioning, the well-to-do often built seaside mansions that took advantage of cooler breezes or supervised the construction of rail lines to carry them to private retreats away from the bustle of the city and the considerable pressures of being the proto-rich. No doubt, they liked their privacy, and as captains of industry and, some would argue, America’s royalty, they earned it.

Plus, you know, avoiding the paparazzi wasn’t as difficult back then.

Most sociologists credit the expansion highways and the prosperity of the 1950’s to creating the modern vacation. You could probably toss some credit to the birth of theme parks, too. Between resorts, natural vacation spots like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, and Las Vegas, Cedar Point and the Disney parks, families had plenty of opportunities to explore the open road by the mid-60s.

Before you gas up the Vista Cruiser, there are a lot of decisions to make. And “Where are we going this year?” isn’t necessarily the most important.

Set a budget. Before you know how much you have to spend on a trip, there’s little point in even considering where to go. Be realistic, but also build in a significant “fudge factor” for unforeseen spending, tourist traps, and impromptu stops. A few travel-smart websites suggest clearing one credit card for emergencies, packing it away somewhere in your car, and forgetting you have it unless it’s truly needed.  It helps to check out newspapers local to whatever town you'll be visiting to get a feel for what things cost.  You can do that online.

Consider your interests. For most families, a satisfying vacation for the whole crew is going to take a place that has at least one point of interest for each person in the car. Maybe you’re satisfied with laying on a beach for two weeks. Chances are, your 8 – 12 year olds are going to get bored after two hours. Ideally, you’ll find someplace that has nearby attractions that can be used to bribe your children into giving you a few hours’ peace.

Food costs money. Tourist towns know they’re tourist towns. They’re counting on your money. That means the hamburger that might go for two bucks in the off-season is suddenly a gourmet steak sandwich at eight dollars during the travel season. Everybody needs to eat, but eating at restaurants three meals a day will chew up a chunk of your travel budget. Shopping for a few no-cook meals or groceries at the local super market is a lot cheaper. A tried-and-true money saving tip is to plan to eat one good restaurant meal each day, invest in a cooler, and eat breakfast or lunch in your room. (Those of us with young children also know that a cooler or fridge in the room can go a long way toward providing inexpensive midnight snacks, too.) Picnics might be an alternative to fast food, too. By stocking up on simple groceries or a box of cereal on your way to the hotel, a family of five will save $30/day or more over breakfast in the hotel dining room. (Some hotels feature breakfast buffets that are included in your room fee. The value of that perk is directly relative to what they serve versus the cost per day. Do some math and consider the more picky eaters among your traveling companions.) Saving a little money on meals gives you that much more spending cash for your vacation.

Prescriptions. Maybe Johnny hasn’t had an asthma attack in two years. Wanna bet that the instant your car gets a hundred miles away from home, you start hearing wheezes from the back seat? If you or your children take any kind of prescription drug, it’s always a good idea to make sure you have a stock of medications with you. Many major drug store chains will transfer temporary prescriptions along the way, but that’s not going to help you at 2 AM in the hotel room, and you really don’t want to spend any portion of your time away exploring the medical facilities – or the limitations of your insurance – out of town.

Reservations. Some families consider cruising down the road looking for “Vacancy” signs part of the adventure. It can be, but it also can lead to long, late-night drives to no-name establishments you may not otherwise have considered as a home away from home. If you have a credit card and access to the Internet, you can book rooms well in advance of your trip and be reasonably assured of a certain quality to your accommodations. Using a popular booking site, you can lay out your requirements, the towns you need, and even your price range all in one stop. Those online services generally result in lower overall fees – and a lot less frustration – than paying as you go. It’s always a good idea to check your reservations first-hand, by calling each hotel, a day or two before you leave just to make sure there’s been no mix-up.

Car maintenance. Something to keep in mind as the date for your vacation draws closer: Schedule a quick stop at your local garage for an oil change, a check of the air conditioner, and a “once over” of the basic systems. Nothing will sideline your vacation faster than breaking down on the road. Tell your trusted mechanic you’re getting ready for a trip and ask him to point out any potential problems. Even if you choose not to get them fixed, if they happen to break down on the road, you’ll know that an unknown mechanic isn’t trying some flimflam to boost his bill. You need to build that maintenance stop into your budget as well.

Use your computer. Not only can your PC save you a pile of cash on travel arrangements, you can save a lot of time, disappointment and frustration by checking out your destination online. You can explore the area (and maybe surprise yourself with attractions that aren’t on the usual tourist routes) by visiting municipal websites along your path. It also helps when planning a couple of “rainy day” activities. City and Chambers of Commerce websites might show low (or no-) cost museums or other attractions you might not otherwise consider. Don’t forget to check out the major attractions’ websites, too. Many report their maintenance schedules or other events that may or may not impact your plans.

Remember: Most of us only get 14 vacation days a year. It pays to invest some time ahead of your vacation to make sure you get the most out of it.

  We chatted recently about parental obligations to make certain that children are making the most out of summer job opportunities. That entry bounced a number of comments onto my doorstep.

“Parents should make sure that a student employee is putting at least some of the money they earn aside,” wrote one reader. Another said, “It helps motivate a teenager to find work if they have a specific goal in mind. They might be saving money for a car, trip, or next year’s books. Helping them find what they might like to do with the cash can help them come up with reasons to find work.”

Both of these thoughts – creating a goal for savings and making sure that the money gets into a savings account – are good ideas worth exploring.

It’s tempting for young adults to want to spend the money they earn, especially from those first summer jobs. Maybe part of those parental obligations we talked about is to sit down and ask what your older child plans to do with the money and how, exactly, they mean to stockpile it. There’s nothing wrong with a vague answer where the “What are you planning to do with your newfound wealth?” question gets asked. Maybe there is no plan, and that’s okay. Maybe your daughter simply wants her own money to use for makeup, gas money or shopping. Maybe your son needs the cash to splurge on dating. (What if your sixteen year old wants to save up money for a car? Just asking where the money is supposed to go might open up an entirely different discussion if you weren’t planning on adding another vehicle to your insurance premiums right now…so talking is good.)

Planners who deal with young adults suggest that parents accept those as valid reasons to get a job. Some will tell you that showing the gumption to go out and get work is more important than what they do with the cash. Others – and I tend to agree with this mindset – suggest that even if your son or daughter is bringing home only a token amount of money from their job scooping ice cream or mowing lawns, that you strongly recommend that half the money be put into a savings account.

Get ready for that horribly disappointed, “But Moooooooooooooooooooooom” right now.

A youngster can rightly make the argument that they’ve earned the cash and should be able to spend it how they like. It’s your job as a parent to decide how important it is for your child to learn that savings are important and stack that against their arguments. It’s typical, almost natural, for an “upper-teenager” to be impatient and to want everything at once. Us old-timers need to accept that situation as true going into the discussion, but we also need to have our personal experience and the absolute certainty in our pockets that training yourself to set some of your money aside is a great habit to get into. We’re not talking about the tried and true expert view of stockpiling 60 days’ running money in a “no touch” account here. We’re talking about a percentage of your teenager’s paycheck.

If you convince your student to put some money in the bank and they don’t have their own account, take them along to your bank and invest a few minutes in helping them open one. Relying on the experts again, an account that comes with a debit card can be its own teaching experience – as long as you’re ready for one of the lessons to be that the usual debit card account can be overdrawn just like a checking account and carry the same “bounced check” fees. There’s a bit of danger, there. The cash machine will often continue to dispense money long after the amount in the account has disappeared. It’s up to the young adult to check the balance before each withdrawal and make certain they're still in the black.

Certainly, that makes for a good real world lesson in how banks and finances work, but if you’re less comfortable with that prospect, it’s reasonable to suggest that you hang onto the debit card and hand it over only when its true owner has had time to consider drawing on the account. That can limit impulse purchases and keep more money in the account. (For 13-16 year olds, that plan can be ideal.) Older teenagers (if the use of that term is not an oxymoron) should be encouraged to hold their own debit cards – after being strongly cautioned about the kind of leakage that can occur after just one trip to the mall. Of course, different banks and credit unions have others types of “hands off” savings plans. Shop around.  Find what’s right for you, although, realistically, it's a practical and sound idea to have your son or daughter bank where you bank.

A lot of pride can come from managing your own money. A lot of heartache and disappointment can come from mismanaging it. Help your son or daughter decide exactly how much experience they’d care to risk this summer.

 It’s been about five months since the first appearance of this blog.

Is there even a term for a five-month anniversary? It’s been a long time since high school Latin class. Penta-something, probably. “Pentaversary?”

I was prodded into recognition of this milestone by a recent BBB project that more or less forced me to look back on this site and evaluate its arguable progress. I’m pleased with how things are going, and based on some of the comments you readers have shared, you’re tuning in here for a reason. Thankfully, the readership numbers have been growing. Really: Thanks for convincing me that the medium is working.

If you scroll all the way down to that original post in January, you’ll notice that I had some doubts and hesitations about joining this venue of communication. I also made some promises about the content of this blog and the sort of stories and messages I hoped to share.  I’m happy to say that, thanks to your warm welcome, I’ll keep posting. It’s become a habit for me, and the new medium has given me (and the BBB) a new way to keep in touch with our supporters, consumers, and casual surfers that we wouldn’t otherwise have.

Please keep bouncing our way. I promise to keep writing as long as you keep reading.

See you next week!

 A teacher once told me that the proudest moment in a parent’s life should be when a child says, “I don’t need you to do that any more.” My own mother, who was a bit of a control freak, had a huge problem with that simple philosophy, but I’ve adopted it in my own life. It’s still a little early to tell when – or even if – that moment will come in my career as a parent, but with my children at the ripe ages of 12, 17 and 19, those farther ahead of me on the child rearing curve have told me that the day is right around the corner. And it will be here sooner than I think.

I’ve found that, as children grow up, one of the hallmarks of development is their need to begin earning their own money. It’s part of that growing independence any child should feel as they mature into young consumers. It probably starts with an allowance for simple chores around the house. Maybe it grows into a paper route, tanning as a lifeguard (the gravy summer job if there ever was one), baby sitting or mowing lawns. Then they graduate to working part time after school at the checkout, doing stock, or flipping burgers. (I, myself, was a world-class burger-flipper back in the late 70’s.)

Developmentally, psychologists will tell you that there’s a great deal of pride, satisfaction, independence and social skills to be learned with those first paychecks. It’s an important time in a young adult’s life. Some good, hard manual labor never hurt anybody, but it has helped a lot of young people decide that they didn’t want to dig ditches for the rest of their lives. A few vertebrae in the backbone of the American free enterprise system may be built on teenage labor, but the few years many kids work in that employee pool helps them decide that what they don’t want to do with the rest of their lives is work minimum wage jobs. And that’s one of the strongest links in the backbone of American colleges. None of those are bad lessons to learn.

But…

Imagine your son coming into the house, excited and proud that he’s just landed the perfect job selling magazines door to door. He’s going to make a ton of money, of course, and the recruiter told him that he’s got the perfect personality and the little old ladies on his route are just going to empty their pocketbooks at his feet. The guy said he’ll even teach your son how to “bend the truth” just a little. Just to get him started, maybe he’ll say part of the profits go to disabled veterans or to support a school trip.

Picture your daughter being chatty and bubbling with enthusiasm for the sales team she’s been invited to join. They’re going to sell perfume at local malls. Well, technically, they’ll be selling perfume in mall parking lots. The great part is that the company will sell your daughter the perfume for just seven dollars a bottle and anything she charges for them over that is what she makes – one girl last summer in Tulsa made a million dollars in just six weeks! And, if the mall lot gets trapped out and they need new customers, the boss will carpool your daughter and the rest of the employees to another mall to look for fresh money! And – and – AND if she does well enough, the company will open a store for your daughter to manage all on her own!

Sound far-fetched? Nope. These kinds of summer gigs are being offered to young adults all across the country right now. In fact, BBBs are seeing record numbers of complaints about magazine sales already this season, and most of those complaints at least involve high-pressure and misleading sales tactics. A company based in Georgia was making huge profits roping young women into the perfume-selling scam with disastrous results for those girls. One horror story: The sales team was picked up at the mall parking lot by the adult “sales manager” and driven into another county, given a box of perfume to sell, and told they had to “sell their way home.” Naturally, the bozo who drove them out to the middle of nowhere had the right to charge for his gas, right? He had already (in at least some cases) committed kidnapping. To be fair, this was a couple of years ago, before cell phones were as widespread as they now are, but would you want your daughter under the supervision of someone operating a business without any ethics even if she had a hotline home?

In either of these examples, there are red flags that any parent should find of concern. No reputable business is going to teach a kid to out-and-out lie to customers to make a sale. Any time items are being sold to a youngster on consignment, you should be asking questions. And in both cases, you need to know if the business owner will obtain the proper licensing needed to conduct sales that way. Keep in mind, some towns require that salespeople (or even those who solicit donations for charities) register with the city hall and carry an ID as they do business. More than a few young adults have a black mark on their records – not the business’ – for selling door-to-door without the proper licensing. Let’s say the company does require employees to acquire appropriate licensing. Who pays for it? How much will that impact your kid’s bottom line? (There’s a lesson in profit and loss for you.) For that matter – and this is especially applicable in sales jobs – is your son or daughter technically an employee of the business, or are they considered an independent contractor? Do they receive a paycheck, with the proper taxes taken out? Are they paid cash? These may seem like trivial concerns for a simple summer job, but they snowball into major issues very quickly.

Good parenting should mean letting your kids try their wings, but it can also mean standing over their shoulders just a bit longer to help them make smart choices. At the very least, you can offer to hop online and check websites – like the Better Business Bureau’s, for instance – to learn the reliability of some of these companies. And if a quick online search doesn’t yield quick answers, here’s a thought: Call the company yourself and ask a few simple questions about its history and exactly how and when they pay, or what the company does. Who owns it? Where’s the home office? Meaningless questions? Maybe, but there isn’t a legitimate manager used to working with young people who won’t indulge a concerned parent and explain what junior will be doing with the summer. I guess I’d say that the willingness to answer the questions (whatever you might ask) is more important than the answers to the questions.

Con men are getting faster at their sordid jobs all the time.

Case in point? The Swine Flu scare. H1N1. Whatever is the popular term today. Con men watch the news, just like you and me, and they’re becoming exceptionally quick to roll out some new (or at least “new-ish”) scam whenever bad news hits the air…which, unfortunately, might be any day.

Within hours of the national media picking up on the Return of the Swine Flu (which, itself, sounds like a bad horror movie sequel), scams were racing across the internet. “Buy your Swine Flu SURVIVAL KIT Here!” “Protect your family.” “Swine Flu Guide Now Available.” You’ve probably seen the kind.

It used to take days, sometimes weeks for con men to put together a campaign to collect donations, set up bogus mail delivery addresses, or blast faxes. The internet and e-mail have sped the process. So has practice.

Con men, in general, stop at nothing. Certainly not at being tasteless. Or fearmongering. And no topic from national disasters to fires to terrorist attacks are immune from their exploitation.

Over and over, con men jump on a news item and spin some money making scheme from tragedy.

The first week of the Swine Flu outbreak, your Better Business Bureau appeared on at least six local news programs warning about the con jobs designed to huff and puff at Oklahoman wallets. We’re very pleased that the local media partnered with us to keep the scams away from our state.

The only thing that will stop a con man is being smart enough to know when you’re about to be taken. That’s part of what the BBB’s educational efforts are designed to do.

   I’m no technophobe, but I wonder if all the excitement and attention paid to networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and – the latest – Twitter, are necessarily a healthy thing for the world.

I don’t mean to sound like the grumpy old man, here, but watching the development of these sites and their growing popularity is both interesting and amusing. I hesitate to use the term “fads,” but it seems that these networking sites are ultra-hot for a few months, then are replaced in popularity overnight. That kind of “flash in the pan” lifespan – and whatever technet site is the next big thing – pushes them toward being a string of fads by definition.

In the first entry I wrote for this blog, I mentioned my hesitation to enter into this medium, wondering if I would have enough fresh ideas of interest to a wide enough group to not add to the background noise of the internet. One could make the argument that Twitter strikes have the virtue of being exceptionally short.

Demi just Twittered Ashton that she’s reading a book!

Part of me wants to say “Who cares?” Another is amazed at the technology available to us. The ability to share that information on such a wide scale – even if I personally find that data in particular to be useless – is just stunning. And who’s to say that if I’m not especially interested in that couple’s interaction that there’s not a group or Twitter user I’d find fascinating?

What causes me pause is wondering where the interaction ends and how personal we’re all willing to get with pseudo-strangers. Sure, there are figures in the world – world leaders, captains of industry, celebrities and sports stars – who are practically guaranteed a following. Reporters, folks in local government, and – let’s remember that we live in the state capitol, here in OKC – legislative officials probably form another pantheon. On a smaller, more personal scale, I’m sure that my daughter keeps an eye on some of the Twitter groups around her school, or might bomb in on them when someone has posted an especially cute link or pithy line. I’m not going to ask where Twitter users find the time to update every ten minutes or where readers get the energy to follow along with their adventures. If I really was a grumpy old man, I’d dismiss 99% of Twitter as a waste of good computer neurons.  Where do people get the time to update their sites and post fresh entries?  Where do people get the time and energy to check up on their favorites? 

Good news: Donald Trump closed another million-dollar deal!  Bad news: He’s not sharing the cash with you!

What causes me professional concern is that the nature of these networking sites attracts younger people. Old enough to afford the technology (or at least be trusted with it by their parents), young enough to fall for some scams and tricks. Don't be offended, Next Generation Consumers.  Plenty of people who have been around the block long enough to know better and to have some experience under their belts get scammed every day -- That you'd fall prey to con men is almost to be expected. 

The potential for young folks getting ripped off scares me – beyond the “Craig’s List Killer” and other more egregious characters you might have the misfortune to meet online. There have already been scams (and worse) reported on networking sites, and there’s only so many times any authority figure – from concerned teachers to worried parents to…well, BBB CEOs, I guess – can warn semi-adults away from sharing personal data with strangers. We come up with all sorts of clever slogans, cautions and factoids – “It’s like leaving your front door wide open!” “Sharing banking data leads to ID Theft, and it can take you YEARS to recover your identity!” or even “Why don’t you get out in the world and meet REAL people?” – but there’s no denying that young adults are going to play with the new technology and whatever sites catch their eye for the moment. The problem used to be watching for security seals on websites that collected credit card data for payment. Next, the legality of sharing certain music files was a hot topic. Then, being “too friendly” with faceless entities on websites.

Hey, I was thinking about throwing a party this weekend. Do you need me to come pick you up? What’s your address, anyway?

They’re out there, in the computer ether. It’s no secret that bad guys are going to stalk the medium. They’re attracted to whatever is popular, just like we are, just like any curious person would be. Everybody from Identity Thieves to con men to sexual predators are crammed in the dark corners of any network site. The supposed authorities can preach caution, but it only takes a moment of weakness for anybody to make a big mistake.

Oops! I preached again, didn’t I?

Ultimately, I guess I’m interested not only in how the technology works, how quickly and easily it seems to be replaced as the “flavor of the moment” -- and then try to figure out how some sleazy jerk is going to exploit it. It helps to be a little ahead of the curve to try to nip some scams in the bud, and to do that, you don’t necessarily have to “embrace” the technology, but you have to acknowledge its popularity and understand what it does.

Now…it’s a nice day outside. Take a walk. Ride your bike. Call your Mom. Put the IM function on vibrate for five minutes (or better yet, shut it off for the evening) and have a life.

    Remember when we were talking about unreasonable consumers?

Sometimes – and this isn’t necessarily a good thing – I write a concept into this blog that immediately proves itself. Such was the case this week when I wrote about a small percentage of consumers who expect a little too much in stating their desired resolution to a dispute. Most people seem to be in the ballpark with their expectations – most simply want the company to fix the problem or issue a refund – but others seem to think that making a mistake in business should be a capitol offense. At a minimum, some complainants believe, a company should be immediately closed down (a few would seal the deal by burning the shell of the store to the ground) because they didn’t fulfill their obligations.

Case in point: A long-distance complaint about a florist.

You know those nationally-advertising floral services. I don’t need to name names. You see their ads on TV at least once a day. They’re usually heart-warming. Sometimes funny. But I don’t think anyone believes that there are some giant florist shops floating in the geographic center of the country, dispensing floral displays by carrier pigeon as they are ordered. No, these associations and services are allied with local florists. When you place an order, the big national advertiser checks a list of which allied florists are closest and assigns the job to one of them. That local (or semi-local, depending on the per capita distribution of florists in the state targeted for the delivery) is responsible for prepping and delivering the flowers in a timely fashion.  Pleasantly, in a manner that evokes the sort of heartwarming feelings we get from the ads.  (Everybody go "Awwww.")

With that bit of shorthand education out of the way, let’s say for the sake of argument that one of those local florists just plain makes a mess of the delivery. The flowers get there late. Okay, several days late. They’re not in good condition – depending on who you ask, let’s say half of them are brown and dead.

Let’s throw in a few more “important” factors. Let’s say that the delivery was being made to a treatment facility for a patient who needs cheering up. Let’s say, too, that the delivery was supposed to be on Valentine’s Day.

All of that applies to a recent complaint.

Okay. Pop quiz, folks.

You’re the customer service rep dealing with the complaint that the situation above generated. Do you:

1. Quickly and within company policies refund the money paid for the order, including any handling fees, offer to redeliver fresh flowers at no charge and apologize for the poor service. Additionally, you “red flag” your account with the florist who is at the heart of the bad situation and start looking for another florist in the ZIP code who might do a better job in the future.
2. Blame the entire mess on the fact that the flowers were ordered very close to February 14, say that any reasonable customer should have known that Valentine’s Day is traditionally one of the busiest days of the year for florists (and their delivery crews), and insist that the flowers were fine when they were delivered, but the hospital took forever to route them to the correct patient.
3. Assume the worst. Dive head-first into a pile a longstemmed rose clippings and roll around in a bizarre attempt at botanically-themed hara-kiri.

If you selected Option 3, please seek psychiatric help immediately and recognize that customer service may not be the best career choice for you.

Option 2? A lot of companies might select to go that route, especially if that was the case, as it was here. While it’s unfortunate that a patient anywhere might go through a holiday (especially one so closely associated with romance, love, and spending money on flowers) without some token at her bedside, it’s not necessarily the florist’s fault if the arrangement wasn’t delivered. Other factors – when the order was placed, exactly what the order was, how efficiently the hospital staff delivered the flowers – might sound like excuses (and maybe they are), but they could be very accurate reasons behind the disappointment. We might ask if the customer was promised delivery on a specific date (or even told it would be “no problem”), but the complaint materials I’m referring to don’t mention that. And this complainant would mention that. Trust me.

The right-minded customer service rep in this instance selected Option 1. (Insert wild applause here.) Actually, I take that last parenthetical joke back. That was exactly what should have been done in the situation. Apologize for the inconvenience and hard feelings and issue a refund. Anything more than that would have been generous, but potentially excessive.

Speaking of “excessive,” the BBB got word from the deeply offended customer after the closure of the case that he was not in the least bit satisfied. What would have been better? An apology, refund, and…well, “$100 for pain and suffering” would be a good start. (I think this guy would like, in addition to the financial settlement, that Option 3 be involved.)

Sorry. The BBB does not pursue punitive damages, whether in the form of pain and suffering, lost wages, or the disposal of dead flowers. In some cases, any of those line items might be important considerations in the resolution of a dispute, but not through the Better Business Bureau. In that case, you might want to consult a lawyer or small claims court. The BBB traditionally deals with more tangible issues.

I explained that very patiently to the complainant via e-mail. And wished the patient well in her recovery.

I don’t think I’ll send flowers.  That's in bad taste.

 We’ve been chatting a little about how rules help shape the BBB’s complaint process and, based on some feedback, we’ll discuss things a little further.

Here’s the core of the questions I’ve received about last week’s entry: “Why does the BBB have rules for complaint submissions? Isn’t a complaint a complaint no matter where it comes from or what it’s about?”  There's no short answer for that.

Part of what the Better Business Bureau represents is fairness in the marketplace, and that concept works both ways between businesses and consumers. Simple idea, but without a few common sense rules, it would be easy for a consumer’s position to become a moving target, and all the more difficult for both the company involved and the BBB as a monitoring agency to bring the complaint to any successful conclusion. You have to set some boundaries to keep the players on the same field, right? Also, if we didn’t have rules – like the Bureau’s unwillingness to process anonymous complaints against a business – the validity and reliability of the BBB’s reports on companies could be destroyed. Think about it: A company might believe that its competitor is absolutely wrong in its sales practices and bomb in a dozen anonymous complaints to help demonstrate that mistrust. If the company is right to question the motivations and practices of a competitor, consumers will discover that they’ve been treated unfairly and will file complaints on their own. Magnify the potential to defraud the system in just that one example by fifty or a hundred companies in the same type of business – any of which might distrust each other – and the structure of complaints and reports could fall apart very quickly around here.

Why are the appropriate and proper processing and closure of complaints important to the BBB? There’s an intrinsic need to satisfy our calling as a mechanism for fair reconciliation between companies and customers with disputes. The number, nature and resolution of complaints forms an important part of a company’s BBB report as furnished to the public. A company’s reaction to any complaint can have an important impact on the report the BBB supplies to inquirers on our website or over the phone. It’s necessary, then, to protect the accuracy and integrity of Bureau reports that the complaints that become part of the company record be recorded fairly. A Bureau axiom is that any company can have a complaint filed against it; how that company responds to a dispute says a lot about the nature of the business and its management. The importance of that relationship reflects itself in the BBB’s reports.

Let me leave the topic of complaints for a paragraph to mention that the BBB (as an organization -- Oklahoma City isn’t an island in this) changed its reports at the first of the year to balance the size of a business versus the number and nature of complaints in a way that most companies have appreciated. Before that carefully-considered and well-organized change, a complaint weighed the same whether a burger joint forgot to put pickles on a sandwich or a concrete driveway never cured out, whether a dress shop refused to accept a return or a new roof leaked into a bedroom. When we change things on such a large and elemental scale, you can bet that the best minds associated with the organization scrutinized every inch of the policy changes to make sure that the improvements were fair, sensible, and accurately protected both consumers’ wallets and the reputation of hard-working, ethical businesses.

If the resolution of complaints potentially impacts a consumer’s decision whether or not to work with a business – and it should – it’s a BBB’s obligation to make certain disputes (and the company’s efforts to resolve those matters, successful or not) are fairly reflected in the Bureau’s report on that company. We do our best to do so, and of all the computerized drop-down menus to describe the closure and rationale behind the disposition of any given complaint, it sometimes becomes necessary to – gently, if possible – point out to the consumer that they were wrong. Or unreasonable. Or assumed too much going into the deal.

Contrary to popular belief, the customer isn’t always right. Ask any business owner. Once you recognize that notion, you have two choices. Either you’re predominately going to be a “stick to your principles” business owner or a “make ‘em go away within reason” business owner. I knew a successful business owner who had an interesting philosophy about complaints. “Is the customer always right? Of course not, but it would be arrogant of us to believe that we get everything right every time. Any business is going to make a mistake once in a while, if only not explaining things clearly enough to the customer. When a customer does complain, it’s far more efficient to admit a mistake and fix the problem than to prove the customer wrong. You’ll save more, in terms of aggravation and effort, to just make things right than argue on principle.” Whether or not a business owner adopts that view, complaints are going to exist. If a business owner accepts his potential responsibility for at least part of the problem, he’s ahead of the game going in.

Conversely, there are those unreasonable customers who would challenge even that generous philosophy by asking for too much or being unnecessarily rude in lodging their complaint. The phrase “making a mountain out of a mole hill” sometimes bubbles up in the resolution process, and that can be a fair description of the exaggeration some complainants reach. I’ve sometimes wondered if taking an extreme view is a bargaining ploy. “Shoot for the stars and settle for the moon.” Overstate the importance of the issue, ask for something you’re not likely to get, and maybe you’ll get more than you were willing to settle for to end the dispute, right? While some consumers may be that tactical in their thinking, I think it’s far more common for people to honestly expect a company to jump through hoops over even a minor error.

Business managers will be pleased to know that the new reporting system balances the value of complaints versus a company’s reasonable response to them. The BBB isn’t here to say that, simply because a complaint exists, that the customer is right or that the company “owes” the customer one thing or another simply because they complained. The BBB doesn’t reward bad behavior, but it does respect a thoughtful, honest response from a business manager – even if that manager’s core position is that the customer is wrong.

Which brings us back to my initial discussion here about the need for rules. There are a bunch of rules concerning the type of complaints a BBB will accept; there are piles of rules concerning a business’ response to those complaints. We talk a lot around here about what constitutes a “good faith effort” to resolve a complaint. We expect all BBB Accredited Businesses to put forth an honest, sincere response to a dispute, and do it in a timely fashion. We expect that if mistakes were made, that the company will not only admit them, but present the company’s plan to resolve the situation. And, again, there are rules concerning what an appropriate answer to the dispute might look like.

As I said, we expect Accredited Businesses and other ethical companies in our marketplace to play by the rules. We expect the same of consumers.

 As Dennis Miller famously said, time and time again, “I don’t want to go off on a rant, here.”  Sometimes, though, a good, solid rant can help make a good, solid point.

Why is it that some folks – and a percentage of them are consumers filing complaints through the Better Business Bureau – seem to think that the rules don’t apply to them? Now, you probably don’t know me, but let me assure you that stupid, bureaucratic, useless red tape doesn’t thrill me one bit. As a matter of fact, I like eliminating superfluous rules and cut out meaningless steps wherever I can. It’s a hobby for me. Knowing that, I can promise that the rules that are left over are probably pretty important for one reason or another.

From the outside looking in, I'm sure that there are steps, procedures and rules engaged by the Better Business Bureau that may appear sort of goofy or unnecessary.  But they're rules, they're here for a reason, and if you have about forty hours, I'll explain each of them to you in detail.  On a good day, I can even tell you why one rule exists to support another seemingly unrelated rule.  We know what we're doing.  Part of the BBB's status as a trusted organization is nailed to the spine of these rules.  The rules give us the consistency, reliability and standards that consumers and businesses trust.  Nowhere are the rules of engagement more important than in the complaint process.

Remember in English Class when the teacher taught you that every sentence has to have three parts? Subject, verb, predicate. Complaints are sort of like that. For a BBB to consider a complaint viable, it has to have certain parts. There has to be a transaction with a business, you have to be able to communicate the problem, and you have to have a reasonable solution in mind.

I understand that those three items are incredibly complicated, or at least are open to interpretation. Especially that whole “reasonable” part. Tricky word.

So, what can we learn from that simple, three-phase requirement?

1. The BBB will not process a complaint against an individual. We won’t process a complaint against your neighbor because he can’t keep his dog in his yard. On a more mundane and common level, we don’t formally process complaints against a business that involves hurt feelings. The BBB – and, probably, the company – are very sorry that they showed up ten minutes late to do the estimate on your roof, but we don’t have time to collect apologies for that when your neighbor is complaining that his roof has fallen into his dining room. Also, we won’t process a complaint from someone who has never actually done business with the company.  If you don't have firsthand contact with a company in which money changed hands, we have a problem dealing with your issues.  (I’ll throw an exception here. Maybe you know someone doesn’t write too well and you want to help out. That’s great. Fill it out. Complete the form on the website in their name. How would we ever know, really? What we can’t do is process a dispute you wrote on behalf of your sister, who is too timid to complain about the company herself. First person experience is important to the resolution of a complaint. Besides, we don’t want to get three-quarters of the way to your stated resolution and find out your sister wanted something else.)  And, about a hundred times a month, we have to remind folks -- although these rules are carefully outlined on the complaint forms -- that we don't get involved with disputes between employees and employers.  We'll direct you where you need to be, but we're not the organization to help you.
2. Communicating the problem can require a lot of information, which is sometimes necessary to fill out a third party’s interest and understanding of the issues involved. However, we don’t need to know – although it might be a perfectly interesting story – that your grandparents came from a small village in France (unless it directly relates to the meat of your complaint. For instance, if you were filing a dispute against a travel agent who was supposed to send grandma to the homeland, fine. Other than that, feel free to skip it) or, frankly, how old you are. It amazes me that it appears as if every complainant much over the age of 60 feels compelled to tell us their exact age in the body of their complaints. I respect age, but we give any complaint the same attention. As a matter of fact, being under 18 (and, for instance, having signed a contract) comes into play more often than being of retirement age under any circumstances. It’s not relevant to the complaint. It’s not even relevant to the problem, necessarily. If it’s not directly part of the dispute, it doesn’t belong in the complaint.  The BBB does not put an extra black mark next to the complaints that involve seniors.  We don't process them any faster.  We're no more or less sympathetic.  It's just not an important factor 99% of the time.
3. “Reasonable.” I appreciate that one man’s reasonable is the next man’s outrageous, but it seems to me like there has to be a middle ground somewhere. I am not making this up – we’ve had complainants who demand a new car after the twenty year old “As Is” used vehicle they’ve been driving for a year gives up the ghost. “The company listed the wrong size detergent in an ad at the wrong price – they should be closed down for lying to the public like that.” “I had a new roof installed in 1968 and the company went out of business under that name and I know the son opened up a plumbing company under a different name. My roof has been leaking for years. He should pay for a replacement.” The suggested resolutions offered by a few consumers may be completely out of line, but they have the benefit of suggesting something, even if it is unreasonable. There are some consumers who seem to believe that the BBB – or the company they’ve lodged a dispute against – should know what would settle things for them. I’m unaware of any Bureau employee who has gained the ability to read minds, and until we develop that super power, it’s critically important for the consumer to put into words what would satisfy them.

Let me tell you what prompted me to write this blog. It’s a particular consumer’s ongoing e-mail argument that set me off. For about a week, the Bureau has been communicating with a retiree who was quite upset that the BBB did not process his complaint because, in his online submission to our complaint department, the necessary forms are incomplete. (Keep in mind -- I know he's a retiree without having NECESSARY details to process the complaint.)  A couple of us took our time explaining to the man that we couldn’t process a complaint without the necessary data, but the man railed against us. "Why don't you do what you're paid for?"  "I guess you won't take on THIS company."  Countless insults.  It’s not that he doesn’t have the information – and believe me, it’s nothing personal or sensitive in any way – but he refuses to finish the form and still complains that we won’t help him.

Sometimes, I’m down to that old chestnut from childhood. It’s our bat, our ball, and our yard. We get to make the rules.

But there’s a broader insult to dealing with someone like this who is too stubborn to acknowledge that he’s contacted us and that he’s arguing against procedures that have been around (in one form or another) for a hundred years at more than 130 Bureau offices. This guy thinks he knows our job (and our limitations) better than we do.  I've checked the logs and he's not a former Bureau employee.

I don’t mean to sound spiteful, here, but the first thing we all need to realize is that the case for most consumers is that they are approaching the BBB to help them with a dispute that they could not satisfactorily resolve for themselves. In that relationship, we get to set the rules for how we provide that assistance.  Either you'll play by those rules or find another game.

 Remember that hail storm that blew through town a couple of months back? Or the tornado strikes mixed in with that storm?

We had some hail damage to our house. Nothing major; we were lucky. Most of the rooftops in my neighborhood had some degree of damage. You’d find it difficult to find a yard that doesn’t have a roofer’s sign on the treelawn. Needless to say, our neighborhood isn’t unique and OKC roofers have been busy cleaning up after Mother Nature. The roofer who did the job on my place (a good Accredited Business, of course) got in, did the work, cleaned up after themselves, and was finished in about a day. I’m very pleased with how things moved along and – at least until the roof is tested by the first rainstorm – I’m satisfied that the crew did a good job.

I’m also confident that, after that first rain pelts the roof, if there are any problems, this roofer will be back at the house to fix it.

I talked with one of the roofers who came to do the clean-up and check the roof projections after the rest of the crew went on to their next job (which, I think, was on the next block). As we chatted, the guy explained some of his frustrations with local consumers. He had heard, for instance, that one out-of-state roofer offered prospective customers in Edmond a $1,000 bonus if the homeowners allowed the roofer to deal directly with their insurance companies. He was also discouraged by the number of homeowners who appeared eager to do work with unknown, low-bidder, unregistered businesses with unfamiliar license plates.

Of course, those “foreign” companies – from as far away as Oregon, I’m told -- offer extensive warranties at least as comprehensive as those from local businesses. Thing is, though, I wonder how difficult it might be for Oklahomans to get a company from Oregon (or even Texas) to return here if a gutter falls off or a shingle blows away in the infamous Oklahoma winds.

It’s easy to understand that out-of-state companies would see storm damaged Oklahoma homes as a great opportunity, and our location is just central enough to make it worth the drive for businesses in neighboring states to jump the border to help us out. Some of those companies, I’ll bet, are doing it for altruistic reasons. As a matter of fact, a lot of them are BBB Accredited Businesses who happen to have addresses in other states, but are held to the same rules as our local members. Sure, the money comes into play, but the fact is that there are plenty of business owners who know their obligations and will stand behind their contracts if there are problems.

On the other hand, I’m just as sure that there are roofing companies from out of town that tossed the magnetic signs on the side of a van and blew down the highway as fast as they could with the dollar signs swimming in their eyes like an old “Scrooge McDuck” cartoon. And those guys are going to be the problem in a week (or a month) when the rains hammer down and homeowners discover that they’re in as much trouble or worse than before they signed up with those companies -- some of which never even bothered to register with the state house before they stopped off at the local DYI store to charge of a couple bundles of shingles and started knocking on doors.

Was I on TV warning people about doing their homework when selecting a roofer? Did the Bureau issue hundreds of reports on different roofing companies over the past couple of months? Did we advise people to at least make sure the unknown businesses were registered with the state and hold the proper insurances to do work in Oklahoma? The answer to all those questions is a resounding “Hell, yeah.” We were exceptionally busy with roofers since about February. That’s fine. That’s what we do. That’s what the BBB is here to do: Offer advise and pre-purchase information.

I’m afraid, though, that after those first couple spring storms come blowin’ down the plain that we’re going to get different calls from homeowners. Calls that sound like “My roofer won’t return my messages!” “They were quick enough to cash my check, now they won’t come fix my roof!” “They’re from Nova Scotia. Isn’t there some law that says they have to come back and fix things?”

The Bureau will address those calls and file the complaints and do our level best to help those consumers out – even the ones who ignored our advise – and deal with the dust-ups as we go. Again, it’s what we do.

But I do want to offer some comfort to those local businesses, the roofers who got passed over in favor of some lowball bidder from Texas, Kansas or Oregon: Don’t worry. You’ll get some of that business back when the homeowners who made bad deals with those out-of-state carpetbaggers realize that they should have done business with a Sooner and need the repairs redone.

 In my last entry concerning the mortgage crisis, I mentioned “Predatory Lending.” Now might be a good time to unpack that practice, especially since it figures into the current problems of homeowners across the country.

You can’t talk about Predatory Lending without talking about the “sub-prime lending market.” The sub-prime market is the high interest rate loan brackets among those consumers who have a bad credit history or are otherwise “undesirable” subjects for a loan. Predatory Lenders specialize in taking advantage of those people, who are old, under-educated, low-income or otherwise disadvantaged, and they know that these “high risk” loans can come with hefty fees, processing charges, and higher than average interest rates to grease their pockets. What makes them attractive to unscrupulous brokers and seedy institutions is exactly what makes them wrong from the perspective of their victims – people who are least able to afford the hits pay more for the loans that they probably should not have received.

Predatory Lending itself can take many forms, but most agencies agree that a loan written to the distinct disadvantage of the homeowner (generally without his understanding of the position the loan is placing him in) but to the advantage of the lender and/or broker fits under the umbrella. The abusive practices of some unethical mortgage brokers and lenders catch borrowers in loan agreements that contain hidden and excessive fees, prepayment penalties or adjustable rates that make repaying the loan difficult, if not impossible. Some homeowners are steered to sub-prime interest rates when they could have qualified for a better deal. Appraisals that overvalue houses and loan applications that falsify applicants’ incomes also contribute.

In practical terms, what does that mean? An unethical loan broker might canvass a low-income neighborhood, identify the homeowners, and selectively target them for his services. In inner cities and communities with a higher elderly population, dozens of these loans might be written under the mask of helping pay off bills or helping with expenses, because rewriting the mortgage almost always results in some surplus cash from the value of the home. Many times, the brokers would create that extra cash by over-valuing the property or guarantee a bank would accept the terms by inflating the homeowner’s income. In any case, these loans end up being bad for the banks and the homeowner – the only one who truly benefits is the jerk who knowingly brokered a loan that had little or no chance of being repaid. That means the bank is stuck with an over-valued house that it must resell to recoup its losses and the homeowner…doesn’t own a home any more.

I’m sympathetic to the folks who are out on the street because someone took advantage of them. I feel sorry for the ones who were tricked into buying into something they didn’t understand, or worse, the ones who were lied to along the way to the poor house. I’m not so forgiving of the folks who knowingly lied or allowed the broker to boost their appearance to the banks. And I think there were lots more of that breed than anyone is willing to admit. How do you not know you can’t afford the million-dollar house with the view of the golf course? What could anyone tell you to convince you that doubling your income on the paperwork is a good idea?

While the scenarios captioned under Predatory Lending might seem egregious, the same sort of practices might have led in some part to the current mortgage problem. Within the last ten years or so, brokers were eager to get people signed up for loans to make money. With the interest rates at their lowest in decades, people who had never owned homes before were eager to take the plunge. And banks had buckets of money to give away. The brokers were quick to apply some of the same tricks used in Predatory Lending scams to process new home loans, like purposely over-estimating the values of the property and the earnings of their clients to the banks, and would-be homeowners signed off on forms that they sometimes knew misrepresented the facts.

What about the banks? Were they the unwitting victims of bogus paperwork and lying brokers and clients? Let’s not let them off the hook quite so easily. While some banks were clearly abused by brokers and other intermediaries in the process, the truth of things is that a lot of banks just weren’t paying attention. Or “enough attention.” It doesn’t take a genius to drive through some neighborhoods and see that the mortgaged properties aren’t worth what the banks financed for them. If a banker somewhere in the process had questioned some of the financials – how a janitor earns over $100,000 a year, for instance – things might have worked out differently. Why didn’t they? Some smaller institutions, like credit unions and city-based savings and loan companies that favor same-town mortgages were too smart for the game, but other banks, particularly larger ones used to doing out-of-state business, took the bait. And those bigger banks set the pace for the rest of the financial market, don’t they? They can’t afford to see a meaningful percentage of their mortgages going belly up, and that’s exactly what’s happened. In some parts of the country, foreclosure signs are going up like picket fences in neighborhoods.

A lot of people on the ground level ask, “So how are the banks hurt when they foreclose on a property? All they need to do is resell it to recoup the loss.” Not so simple. For one thing, the same banks that got a bloody nose over mortgages aren’t writing loans to new homeowners like they used to, so the resale period has been extended, and most banks don’t want and can’t afford to have a bunch of houses on their own asset lists. In fact, an abandoned house isn’t much of an asset to the bank, except on paper. There’s a significant outlay on the bank’s part to maintain and resell the home, and there are horror stories among some lenders that, when they realized they’d lose the house, the homeowners gutted the property for cash on scrap metal copper. There’s a pretty well-known story about a homeowner who sold everything – carpet, plumbing, cabinets and fixtures – before turning over the keys to their bank. So foreclosing on the property certainly doesn’t guarantee the bank will ever see its money back.

And the former homeowners? Where do they stand? They’ve walked out on a terrible situation that will haunt them, in terms of a bad credit report, for years. For those who earned their position by not doing the homework or misrepresenting themselves, I don’t have a ton of sympathy. For the ones who lost themselves in the system or unwittingly placed themselves in harm’s way, they’ll spend a lifetime rebuilding. (And, let’s keep in mind, that many of those would-be homeowners will be saddled with the difference between what their mortgage amount was and what the bank sold the house for, which might mean still owing the bank thousands of dollars.) They’ll have to wear the scarlet letter of bad debt for a long time to come.

Did the brokers get off Scott Free? Not likely. Already, a lot of loan brokers have closed their doors, perhaps reaping the reward of mistrust that comes from the bad practices of the past. Banks don’t trust them any longer, and with the banks lending less money (and having learned to be closer to the front of the loan process), brokers can offer less eye-popping deals than they could put in front of consumers just a couple of years ago. Some of the worst offenders in the loan broker market are behind bars or facing other penalties…and deservedly so.

So who is to blame for the crisis? All three parties in the equation, I think. If some brokers weren’t greedy, if some homeowners had done their homework, if some banks asked questions, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.

In the 80’s, Michael Douglas’ character in “Wall Street” famously announced that “Greed…for lack of a better word…is good.” That’s not how it turned out in the real world.