Politicizing Professions

Just imagine if other professions were like politics. Let’s go beyond just comparisons to prostitution because currently there aren’t many differences of note between those two except that in politics the ones getting screwed i.e. the taxpayers really don’t enjoy it. However, what if engineers were like politicians making many promises with their products yet don’t keep a single one of them?

The typical electronic product would advertise the most incredible list of capabilities. There wouldn’t be anything that this device couldn’t do, but once the product is bought, taken home and opened only then is it revealed the severe limitations. Not many of the desired functions work properly, and there are numerous anomalous features i.e. bugs that were not advertised.

The website “The Onion” has a spoof on just such a product. It’s the “Sony Stupid Piece of ‘place appropriate expletive for excrement here.’” Buyers purchase the product because they like spending big money on the latest gizmo that can just utterly frustrate them, and Sony is proud to create a product that is so successful at driving their customers totally crazy. Supposedly, it’s just a spoof.

Some would argue that the new “iPhone4” could be such a product. It has a severe problem with reception if it’s held the wrong way. Like in politics it’s a scandal that’s already been called Antenna-Gate. And like a politician, the company’s CEO gave a press conference where he defiantly defended his new baby.

Even though it has problems, its design is not flawed the CEO proclaimed. “This has been blown so out of proportion, it’s incredible,” he told reporters. He even accused the media of trying to “tear down” a company that’s been so successful. There the media goes again on an agenda against success and anything big, like “Big iPhone.”

The company’s value lost more than $16 billion since its gizmo’s debut, but shares climbed 1.4 percent after a free case is offered. A case is a good place for a product that has problems. Yet, frustrated users would have probably appreciated more being able to flush their non-functional devices with “iToilet.” No doubt, there’s a crap for that.

While the CEO admits that his iPhone is “not perfect,” he had only heard about the antenna problems just days ago. He called a Bloomberg report that he had been warned about the problems well before its debut a “total crock.” It’s a political “What did he know and when did he know it” scenario.

He then accused the New York Times of “making stuff up.” That’s something the New York al Timezerra has only done millions of times. Could it be that this liberal CEO is finally getting the conservative treatment? Well liberal CEO, welcome to the world of prize winning pro-regressive New York journalism.

What if the product were an important energy source like oil? This company would have the worst safety record far worse than any other of its competitors. But it wouldn’t matter because this company would have bought off many politicians including the US president who received more money than anyone else.

Then, after receiving a “categorical exclusion,” in other words, “a license to spill” from that very president, this company goes about its business to have the worst accident in what was previously the safest aspect of the oil industry not having a oil rig explosion for over 60 years. Oil tankers have spilled the most oil historically, but this company in one oil rig explosion managed to change all that in just 90 days.

But, don’t worry the president grants a get out of jail free card for only $20 billion. Then the president’s wife wears a white shirt on an oil soaked beach that looked like she rolled around on that very same oil soaked beach. After she recommends that everyone should come and vacation on an oil soaked beach, she goes and vacations with the president and their children on another beach that is not oil soaked.But what if the hero of the whole oily story was a plumber? Yeah, just an ordinary guy who looks at an extraordinary problem and designs a cap that finally plugs the hole. And he doesn’t even have a daughter who had to ask him to accomplish that task while he was shaving. But if one thinks this could never happen, he obviously hasn’t been paying attention lately.

Disclaimer: Anything or anyone portrayed in this article is in no way meant to be a representation of actual events, persons or companies. If readers do get an eerie feeling that an actual something or somebody has been portrayed, it is entirely coincidental and accidental and should be immediately disregarded, i.e. no lawyers need be consulted, which incidentally is another profession but for another article.