The Pity Pot

Self-pity is essentially humorless, devoid of that
lightness of touch which gives understanding of life.

— Anthony Powell

The owner of a large Texas-based company saw fit today to blog about her "heartbreak" over furloughing her employees.

"Nobody wants to go in front of their employees and deliver bad news," she says. "But when the news to thousands of employees is that we were enacting a plan to save their jobs in the long term by furloughing them in the short term… well, nothing can quite prepare you for that."

She describes her discomfort at handing out several thousand pink slips; how she had to forgo her prepared speech and speak instead "from the heart;" and how she's truly madly deeply empathetic with her now-former employees. 

"Empathy cannot be something you only do halfway," she says solemnly. "Empathy is the thing that helps you truly connect with the people around you, guiding you through the tough moments by reminding you that, in the end, we are all human."

I have no doubt, on the heels of her self-disclosure, the owner feels better. 

After all, confession's good for the soul. 

But how do her out-of-work employees feel? Are they consoled by her reminder that, "in the end, we are all human?" We are. But not a few of us are also facing the breadline.

Self-pity isn't only humorless—tiresome and banal—as the novelist Anthony Powell says; it's unbecoming, in the way Marie Antoinette's toilet (above) is unbecoming: you can dress it up, but you can't take it anywhere. "Sitting on the pity pot," as they say in AA, is equally unbecoming; blogging from there is worse.

Psychotherapist Joseph Burgo thinks sitting too long on the pity pot reveals an individual's sense of entitlement: the "inner brat," frustrated by adversity, believes she's helpless, a "victim of circumstance."

In a leader, self-pity is particularly unseemly. As Edward Segal, a crisis-management expert and the author of Crisis Ahead, told me, "Self-pity is not a good look for a leader. Singing 'Woe is me' only shows you cannot put yourself in the shoes of your furloughed employees."

You'll recall how frequently BP's CEO Tony Hayward sat on the pity pot when he was interviewed by reporters during the Gulf oil spill. It won him no friends.

And you're aware, thanks to the daily Coronavirus briefings, how the president seems permanently affixed to the pity pot when he's interviewed. It isn't pretty.

I've managed people in my time; I've had to lay some off; and it was indeed painful—but not nearly as painful for me as it was for them. Denied their livelihoods, my self-pity was a luxury they simply couldn't afford.

Self-pity is pointless when those around you are looking for a leader.

Like hope, self-pity is not a strategy.

The Art of the Deal

The president notwithstanding, gangster Dutch Schultz truly understood the art of the deal.

When he sat for a conversation, Schultz never failed first to unholster his gun, drop it on the table before him, and ask, "Now, what was it you wished to discuss?"

I admire the Dutchman's style. Except I'm afraid of guns, don't own one, and don't pack in public. I prefer to pack my blankie.

From 1920 to 1933, Schultz distributed bootleg beer to speakeasies in the Bronx, building a loyal clientele through threats and intimidation. By 1928, his sales—adjusted for inflation—reached $30 million a year. Rivals called him the "Beer Baron of the Bronx."

Schultz was, without doubt, a psychopath; no act of violence was beneath him. By combining kidnapping, beatings, torture and murder, he and his gang of Jews rapidly showed the local Italians two could play at the game. Schultz became nationally famous for the phrase—coined by his accountant—“Nothing personal, just business.”

Dutch Schultz's 1931 Armored Lincoln

The Dutchman expanded his enterprise from the Bronx into Manhattan in 1928, crossing paths with the Irish gangster Legs Diamond. Diamond retaliated  by having Schultz's business partner killed. Schultz, in turn, had Diamond's partner killed; then Diamond, as well.

Schultz rounded out his portfolio at this time by adding illegal slots and lotteries to bootleg beer.

Like Al Capone, Schultz eventually was indicted for tax evasion. Although exonerated by two juries, Schultz fled New York in 1935, after the state's prosecutor threatened to indict him for running his illegal lotteries. He relocated his headquarters to the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark, New Jersey.

But Schultz just couldn't let go of his anger at New York's prosecutor. He told rival mob bosses he was going to kill him. Rubbing out a public figure was off limits, so the bosses contracted the hit squad Murder, Inc. to kill Schultz, which it did on October 23, 1935, while the Dutchman was dining in the nearby Palace Chop House.

My mother, 15 at the time, vividly recalled visiting the Palace Chop House and seeing the scores of bullet holes left by Murder, Inc. in the walls and windows and mirrors.

She also recalled attending a family wake where Squawk Reilly, Legs Diamond's business partner, arrived to pay his respects. Chastened by the Dutchman's recent demise, Squawk was attended by no less than four bodyguards. 

Wake Up, America!

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

— George Bernard Shaw

I've been sacrificing lately.

Cheaper cuts of meat. Cable instead of streaming. Pepsodent toothpaste.

It's getting old.

A neighbor said last evening, "It's time to get this economy rolling."

I couldn't agree more.

My retirement accounts continue to see a paper loss. It's time to stanch it—even if that requires a little human loss.

Have we forgotten, America, the battles our fathers fought?

Rationing. Curfews. Blackouts. Lonely deaths at the hands of the foe. 

It was good for our mothers; it's good enough for me.

Wake up, America! It's time for you to roll!

Our workforce is already neatly partitioned. You're either Essential or you're Nonessential.

Why can't our population be? You're either Expendable or you're Nonexpendable.

The designation is elegant, don't you agree? 

Let the economists and lawyers quibble over the "Value of Life" 'til the cows come home. I've got no time for that!

When the president toured the Honeywell factory last week, the PA system blasted "Live and Let Die" and I thought they're playing my song!

Wake up, Expendables! Get out there and die for the Dow.

Me, I'm strictly Nonexpendable.

Grifters

The details of my life are quite inconsequential.

— Dr. Evil

This week the video Plandemic proved its box-office mojo.

Before YouTube deleted the video, over eight million people watched.

Plandemic stars discredited NIH researcher Dr. Judy Mikovits, who claims that two eugenicists, Mr. Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci, are plotting to take over the world.

Plandemic “recast a pusher of discredited pseudoscience as a whistle-blowing counterpoint to real expertise,” a political scientist told The New York Times.

As P.T. Barnum observed, Americans are suckers for self-proclaimed "truth-tellers" like Mikovits.

They fail to see these messiahs for what they are: grifters.

Since Plandemic was released Monday, Mikovits' $22 book Plague of Corruption has reached the very top of Amazon’s list of print best-sellers.

And before the video's release, she cashed in on a fundraising campaign—halted last Friday by GoFundMe—that backers of QAnon were publicizing.

"Conspiracy theorists are winning," writes Jeffey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic. "America is losing its grip on enlightenment values and reality itself."

But that's nothing new.

Americans have always been targets for grifters.

Take, for example, George Bickley.

An accomplished con artist, in 1854 Bickley founded the Knights of the Golden Circle, a membership organization dedicated to expanding slavery by annexing Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean.

Membership dues were paid by checks made out to "President General of the American Legion," who was none other than George Bickley.

Or take, for example, Robert Welch.

A retired candy manufacturer, in 1958 Welch founded the John Birch Society, a membership organization dedicated to combating a "furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians."

The society was in fact a pyramid scheme: members had not only to recruit other members, but buy an inventory of books they were supposed to sell to prospects.

Or take, for example, Charles Manson.

A small-time thief, pimp, jailbird and drug-pusher, in 1968 Manson founded The Family, a California commune with over 100 members.

A year later, he persuaded a band of his stoned-out followers to murder everyone living in two Beverley Hills homes, because their owners had ripped him off in a drug deal.

Or take, for example, Glenn Beck.

A former disc jockey, alcoholic and drug addict, in 2002 Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts, a right-wing multi-media company. The company is named after Orson Welles' Mercury Theater on the Air.

Although he cites the muck-raking hero of Citizen Kane as the explanation, Beck in fact chose the company's name because he admires the way Welles hoodwinked all America with War of the Worlds.

The word grifter—meaning con artist, thief, swindler, or flim-flammer—dates to the early 20th century. 

It blends the words grafter and drifter.

A grafter profits through shady means.

A drifter is rootless.

That's rootless, not ruthless.

Grifters are the ruthless ones.

Beware the Highwaymen

No thief is happy to be a thief and no murderer is happy to be a murderer.

― Rajneesh

Amid the celebrations of sacrifice and innovation, it's easy to forget malfeasance.

While hard times bring out the best in some people, they bring out the worst in thieves.

I ran into thieves during the Great Recession, when I was running consumer shows. 

A half dozen exhibitors―people with whom I'd been doing business for years―wrote me bad checks for their booth rents at the close of several shows. Some simply skipped out of the shows without paying anything. 

I lost more than $18,000 to those thieves.

I'm running into thieves now. Texas-based Newtek last month billed my credit card nearly $900, claiming I owed the company for "storage." 

While the company had been my web-hosting provider for 10 years―billing my card $6 every month for the service―I shut down my website over two years ago, after which I heard no more from Newtek.

Until it suddenly billed my credit card the $900 last month.

Now the company wants me to prove I shut down the website it hosted. 

"If you 'turned off the services in February 2018,'" the CFO wrote me yesterday, "I could not find any tangible evidence to support this event. 

"I can assure you we are only collecting on balances that are due and payable. 

"I would be more than happy to credit the account if you can provide the tangible evidence."

"No thief is happy to be a thief and no murderer is happy to be a murderer," the guru Rajneesh said. 

"They have been forced. In fact they are victims; they have been compelled by the logic of situations. They have been brought up in such a way that their whole being has been poisoned.”

Time are hard―and growing harder.

Beware the highwaymen!