Friday Favorites: Despair, Inc.
March 14, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Management, Uncategorized, humor, jokes, motivational, videosI like good quotes as much as the next person. Really.
So when my sister sent around this “great quotes from great leaders” video from Simpletruths.com, I watched it happily enough. It’s only three minutes long, and it does have some really good quotes. It also has some really sweet piano music.
All that’s missing are the smiling receptionists, the strong scent of chemicals, and the dentist drills whining in the background.
“The Beautiful Gift Book” from SimpleTruths.com, which contains all these quotes and many MORE, costs $19.95. Plus you get a free DVD.
Motivational quotes and sayings — particularly the ones made into the glossy, black-framed motivational posters that line the walls of our schools and work places, are a multi-million dollar industry. Or so I’m told by Despair, Inc., whose mission is to Fight Back.
Deeply concerned that “while promising to stimulate “Hope”, “Success” and “Teamwork”, instead these tools of coercion and intimidation have inspired only grief, anger and nausea,” Despair, Inc. seeks to redress these irrationally exuberant products with some profiteering, er, amelioration of their own.
At Despair.com, one can purchase high-quality DEmotivational posters, despairwear, pessimist mugs, and other thoughtful corporate gifts. Featured prominently is bestselling book,The Art of Demotivation, praised by Financial Times Management Columnist Lucy Kellaway as “the most daring, funny and subversive management book ever written”. There are also several downloadable management training podcasts on the site too which shouldn’t be missed.
Hint: if you like/understand “The Office,” either in its American or British versions, you will like these, too.
In fact, the webmaster recommends that if your life is desperately without purpose or hope, you ought to make Despair.com into your homepage.
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March 14th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Uplifting.
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LOL
March 14th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I appreciate this series of posters, plaques and books. The way quotes are positioned, they encourage readers to transcend their own created barriers or limited mindsets to step into the image. We can all learn to redefine an understanding of personal freedom.
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Thanks for commenting, Liara. Um…
March 15th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Too funny! Love the “I’m a loser, baby” tune on the video. Keep it up, Almost. Hate it that you lost your job, but love your sense of humor!
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That’s good to hear! Some aren’t so sure I have any…
March 15th, 2008 at 2:06 am
The platitudes from ‘great quotes’ could be corrosive. Or, do they give us fuel for positive and productive thought? Lately, I’ve been reading books about great leaders and great icons in business. Nothing I read is really all that surprising. They work hard. They’re smart. They’re a little lucky. They’re diligent.
What do these quotes (the ‘positive’ ones) do for us? Are they enlightening? Do they make us better people? Or, are they in the same industrial category as diet fads, get-rich-quick seminars, and other schemes designed to give us hope?
I don’t know where I’m heading here. All I can say is that I found myself saying, “no shit” to just about every quote that appeared. I do like Thomas Jefferson, though. His quote, “The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave” is very artfully crafted. Carefully created literary brevity is a lost art, I think, even though I’m really not sure what liberty has to do with the sea. And, why does liberty have to have waves? See? It’s making me think.
As a brief aside, I recently heard about some scientists that had created an amazing visual representation of the complexity of the cosmos. It was breath taking and beautiful. It actually sort of seemed to make sense. Of course, Steven Hawking then pointed out that it wasn’t how it actually IS. Yes, but I could understand the way it IS NOT.
So, what I need is to know how to be courageous, thoughtful, diligent and less depressed, dude. Does that mean I focus on things that actually ARE or the cliffs note versions? Need a little help here.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Those are AWESOME!
March 16th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
My goodness, how I love all these comments! Thanks so much for each one of them.
Yep, your observations are so good. One of the best things about good parody (imho) like that of despair.com, is exactly the note of truth it contains. It pokes fun at the right things, and for good reasons. Platitudes so self-assured and unquestioned that they become coercion. Platitudes that even can be (your word was good) “corrosive.” Yes. And disrespectful, even, of the human CONDITION, which is complicated and experienced a little differently by each one of us. And there is no “Cliffs Notes” version… unfortunately.
I don’t know where the hell I’m headed a lot of the time either, Yep, but here’s what I think (today, at any rate): any words that help a person be “courageous, thoughtful, diligent and less depressed,” and which also help focus us on “things that actually ARE” are Good Words. (and I’m not sure even Steven Hawkings is the best and sole authority on that one: art can say something truthful about a thing even if it fails to be strictly representative) All the other words are bad — and bad for you, too. I could live with that rule of thumb, I think.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
How very wonderful and funny and true and cynical–all traits I adore. ‘Uplifting’ is a word that should be reserved only for brassieres.
Bravo! It’s so very good to have you back!
E
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OH! It’s perfect:
“‘Uplifting’ is a word that should be reserved only for brassieres.”
I’m going to cross-stitch THAT on the little plaque every good girl is supposed to hang in her kitchen.
March 24th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Good luck with the bathrooms
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Thanks, Jimmy! Good luck with the tour!