One of Paypal’s resident cretins brilliantly demonstrates Bird’s Law: Nothing fails like success
Murphy’s Law – anything that can go wrong will – has been with us over 100 years.
Despite my wrinkled aspect I wasn’t around then, but I was in 1955 when Professor C. Northcote Parkinson stated “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.
Ten years later I became friendly with the UK publisher of The Peter Principle, which suggests people tend to be promoted until they reach their “position of incompetence”. They get promoted, by the way, because although they may be hopeless at what they are supposed to do, they are very good at oiling their way to the top.
So now you know why the guy you report to doesn’t have a clue. Anyone who has dealt with a few marketing directors – or as they are now fatuously called, Chief Marketing Officers – knows the principle holds true. It explains all sorts of natural disasters like the Financial Services Authority, Tony Blair, anyone running the BBC – and so on.
Anyhow, a few years ago I coined Bird’s Law – Nothing fails like success*. No doubt others had stated it before and better, but that will do me.
People constantly worry that fast-growing organisations are going to take over the world. But then what happens? The morons rise like scum and things go wrong. Take Microsoft. Bill Gates was doing a great job. Would they end up running everything? No worries: along came the bellicose, obnoxious oaf Ballmer to screw things up.
A chief symptom of impending decline comes when idiots are put in charge of small but important daily matters. This happens because morons at the top, greedy for profit, economise by employing cheap labour.
Take Paypal: an essential service in its limited way which I imagine will be slaughtered when transferring funds by phone becomes more popular. I use it to send money to my daughter in the U.S. because the banks rip me off and are too slow.
Two weeks ago I sent her rather more money than usual. The computers at Paypal noticed this and, oblivious to the fact that I have been sending her money for years, stopped the payment. Eventually my loyal helpmeet Kelly sorted it out.
Yesterday when I wanted to send a much smaller payment it was stopped again – despite the fact that everything had been sorted out the previous time. In the words of Dr. Johnson, “Such an excess of stupidity is not in nature”.
Later today I am going to have to waste time talking to some witless buffoon explaining the obvious. I shall probably fail because I can’t recall one of the zillion passwords I have for one thing or another.
* There is a corollary to this law in which I state that Nothing succeeds like failure. This is based on the promise that as long as you keep trying – assuming what you’re trying makes sense – you will succeed.
Most people fail to sell stuff because they give up too soon. I believe that on average the first sale is made after six visits. Most people who send e-mails are blissfully unaware that they are trying to sell, and should study selling principles. Actually most people who send emails are blissfully unaware of almost everything to do with marketing. But that is another matter
