| Saturday, April 4, 2009 |
16:56 - Things better kept to oneself
http://blog.wellsfargo.com/wachovia/2009/03/bouncing_back_in_tough_times.html
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Ah, the world of corporate blogs. A magical land of sitcom-grade committee-authored "jokes", stingily released bits of "insight" into the internal workings of business, historical factoids that may as well have been culled from Wikipedia, inspiring quotations from high-ranking suits who probably don't even use their own company's products and services, and precious little in the way of actual useful information.
Whoever writes these blogs (certainly nobody who in real life resembles the oh-so-human-looking little avatar photos accompanying each folksy post), or at least whoever handles the admittedly unenviable job of policing the comments sections for the inevitable torrents of profanity and idiocy that no company would want to be held responsible for dishing out from its own servers, seems to have little to no understanding of the realities of blogdom, such as spambots:
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Sarah
MODERATOR'S NOTE: Just so you know, we removed a URL from this comment in accordance with our Comment Guidelines. Nothing else has been changed or altered in any way. Please see About This Blog for more information.
Yyyyyeah. Don't worry, I doubt "Sarah" will be too offended.
Not citizen journalism, not pure PR-speak, but some kind of bizarre hybrid creature existing in a forced wretched netherworld: you don't read this stuff in the hope of being entertained, but rather in the hope of finding out how soon you might be able to do something like make a Wells Fargo deposit in a Wachovia branch (the answer, as given by an actual branch employee, rather than anywhere on the blog: a year, if ever), or what the long term plan is for the coexistence of the Wells Fargo and Wachovia brands (answer: Wachovia will be "gracefully retired", and presumably replaced by Wells Fargo branches from coast to coast; though whether that implies the omnipresence of those wondrous ATMs that take check deposits without envelopes, and that will allow you to access them from outdoors even when the bank is closed and provide you with pens and envelopes the way Wells Fargo does out west, and maybe not require you to swipe your ATM card to get access to the glassed-in atrium where the ATM is, yet somehow FORGET TO TURN ON THE CARD READER SO EVERYONE HAS TO LINE UP OUTSIDE AND SWIPE THE CARD OVER AND OVER AND THEN GO HOME IN FRUSTRATION none yet can say). The bits of useful info come few and far between, and a simple FAQ page might be far more handy in finding out what diverse bits of data we all want to know, without having to wait for it all to be doled out bit by capricious bit.
Yet surely we ought to be grateful to these publishing organs for the unintentional comedy they (or their robot ghost-writers) provide:
About 10 years ago, when I was a college student and life was uncomplicated, I had a bumper sticker on my 1987 Chevy Nova that simply said "Positive." While it seems naive now, I remember imagining how that little word would impact anyone who happened to be driving behind me. I guess you could categorize me as one of "those" people. You know, the ones who turn lemons into lemonade and see the glass as half full. But I gotta be honest with you: This past year has made me want to just dump out the whole glass of lemon juice. And I'm surely not alone.
Buddy, I don't think that is quite the reaction you may have inspired in the people driving behind you.
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Brian Tiemann
