Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Remarkably Compelling! Yes, But What Is It?

Another corporate brochure in the mail from ‘Professional Advantage’ addressed to me, this time spruiking a 'remarkably compelling' product called ‘Infor SunSytems eXFM’.

Allow me to examine the sum of its parts.

‘Infor’ sounds like it’s an abbreviation of ‘Information’, but the usual word for that is ‘info’. Maybe it’s short for ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’

‘SunSystems’. Now, I would accept ‘Sunsystems’ and ‘Sun Systems’, but not 'SunSystems'. Somewhere along the corporate way, back in the early 90’s I suggest, some arsehat with a marketing degree and a $1000 a day cocaine habit decided that putting title words together but retaining their capitalisation was a smart idea. PricewaterhouseCoopers is one such horror - actually they're even worse because arbitrarily, they drop the capital 'W'.

As for ‘eXFM’, well that’s not even a word; it looks more like my cat walked across the keyboard with the ‘Caps Lock’ key left on.

So what does this amazing product actually do? Dunno. I’ve read the brochure four times and the only hint is a mention of ‘timesheets’.

Features of the product they seem eager to impress upon me include:

• eProcurement (Does that mean I get email? Because I already have that.)
• ‘Self Service’ reporting (Does that mean I have to do my reports myself? If so, why would I want their product?)
• ‘Expense Mgmt’ (Would it kill them to add in the missing letters?), and
• ‘Functionality’ (Mentioned twice. I presume it means you can turn it on and off… whatever the hell it is.)

I ask again: Why can’t businesses talk like normal people? If they want to communicate their concepts to me, why don’t they start by using the English language as opposed to this part-gobbledygook and part-Klingon?

The free ‘strictly limited’ seminar is on the 20th November at Professional Advantage’s offices at 500 Collins St, Melbourne, and it includes a light breakfast.

I’d love to go but there’s some grass growing in my backyard and I feel compelled to watch it.

37 comments:

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

it includes a light breakfast.

Light breakfast, my arse.

It means you get a couple of stale muffins and watery coffee.

These jokers would get a much better response if they offered free beer.

wari lasi said...

These jokers would get a much better response if they offered free beer.

For breakfast? I mean I like a beer as much as the next bloke, more perhaps, but I only drink in the morning when I'm out fishing.

That's what I tell people anyway.

It should say, "Includes a light breakfast and some heavy duty pressure from a smarmy sales guy"

Mahalia Jackson said...

A FATHER and daughter who caused controversy when they revealed their incestuous love affair and had a baby together have split up.

Adelaide woman Jenny Deaves, 40, has told New Idea magazine that she recently split with her father John Deaves, 62, and has found romance with 34-year-old Shayne Farrell - a bisexual father-of-three and now her fiance.

"I love Shayne. He's been an emotional and physical godsend," Ms Deaves told the magazine, according to the Courier-Mail.

"We've only known each other 10 weeks and people may think we have rushed into things but he's my rock.

"Now my love is legal."

Ms Deaves and her father became national news after appearing on 60 Minutes in April.

But they split in July after a court-enforced sex ban ended their intimacy and sparked fears for Ms Deaves's two children from a previous marriage as well as the couple's one-year-old daughter.

But New Idea revealed that Mr Deaves, who is seeking treatment for alcoholism after a suicide attempt - was still living with Ms Deaves and her new fiance.

Mr Farrell said he was OK with it.

"I don't feel threatened by living with John," he told the magazine.

"He's (the one-year-old's) dad and I'm Jenny's fiance and we do get on."

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

The Germans have beer at breakfast, wari.

Those Germans, eh!

Anonymous said...

Perseus, anyone would think you'd never seen CamelCase writing before.

Anyone with a Mac or Fitz prefixed surname is probably already intimately familiar with it.

Ramon, those Germans also have urine with their foreplay too.

Those Germans, eh!

Melba said...

In Japan, one of my bosses we called 'Morning Beer' for obvious reasons. I don't think he was an aberration.

Also, re the Deaves 'story' obviously their love couldn't survive the absence of physical intimacy. You need more to sustain a relationship than sex and shared DNA obviously.

Excuse me while I go and throw up.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

I had hoped the entire ghastly Deaves clan had finally gone far, far away.

I seems I was wrong.

Perseus said...

It wasn't just the incest, it was how ugly they were.

*

Boogeyman: I'd never heard of CamelCase before. Thank you. There's my lesson for the day!

Anonymous said...

Perseus, you should espouse your "only beautiful people should interbreed" philosophy to these miscreants.

Only in the Northern Territory... or South Australia... or Tasmania.

Perseus said...

"She said he felt "incredibly ashamed" about what had happened and had been "reading the Bible and doing as much sport as he can".

He shouldn't be reading the Bible. Incest is commonplace in that thing.

wari lasi said...

A bloke ducks out of the office for a couple of hours and the thread goes to shit.

I'm with Melba. The whole thing makes me sick. At the time I thought the only thing sicker than what they were up to (and I blame the father primarily of course, he's got some fucked up nurturing gene) was that they were happy to go public with it.

I mean, really, what the fuck? It doesn't surprise me at all that she's got with another fuck up by the sounds of things, without getting rid of the previous fuck up, who happens to be her dad. I mean, really, what the fuck? Or did I say that already?

Melba said...

Dad's doing as much sport as he can? Because he's not getting any now he has all that extra energy?

I wonder if he can hear his daughter and her new man (who has been her "physical godsend") while they're at it.

Sorry, now I'm making myself sick.

"Physical godsend"?

What the fuck?
What the fuck?

Brain is about to explode now.

Perseus said...

Melba, the sport comment was about the son who raped his wheelchair-bound mother, twice, that Boogeyman linked to.

But your end comment still applies in any case.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

The 26-year-old man asked his mother "why don't women want me" as they watched a movie at their Darwin home

I wonder what the film was?

Mr E said...

"reading the Bible and doing as much sport as he can"

And there was I thinking I'd heard pretty much every euphemism for "masturbation" there ever was......

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

Pers. is currently "reading his bible" over nudie photos of Sarah Palin.

Melba said...

Sorry everyone, I didn't follow the thread properly. That'll teach me not to mix my incest stories.

patchouligirl said...

I wonder what the film was?
Misery?

wari lasi said...

That'll teach me not to mix my incest stories.

Much better than mixing your metaphors though.

Or your drinks.

Mr E said...

I wonder what the film was?
Misery?


Mother Goose?

WitchOne said...

Anything by Hans Christian Anderson or the Brothers Grimm.

Natasha said...

Pers, go here:
http://www.weaselwords.com.au/

Everything you need to know about corporate bullshit :)

catlick said...

"Adelaide woman Jenny Deaves, 40, has told New Idea magazine that she recently split with her father John Deaves, 62, and has found romance with 34-year-old Shayne Farrell - a bisexual father-of-three and now her fiance."
So if her father can be tempted into some man-dancing, there's a happy ending right there. A menage a trois to make all our brains explode.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

Thanks for pointing that out, catlick.

Stubbadub said...

I wonder what the film was?
Why, it could only have been the No.1 choice of all incestuous freaks: Bad Boy Bubby!

And catlick, I thought exactly the same thing. If the new man is in the middle, then no court orders are being violated.

Anonymous said...

State authorities are quite clear that that threesome is acceptable only if it takes the form of a MMF, and not a MFM.

WitchOne said...

Or is that the state of Boogey authority??

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

We need Desci to provide us with sexpert advice on threesomes.

What a shame she's in China.

catlick said...

Apparently FFM is an entre, not the main course.

Mr E said...

As main courses go, a "Spit Roast" is hard to beat.

wari lasi said...

This whole incestuous threesomes thing is doing my head in.

Can we get back to having beer at breakfast please?

Those Germans, eh!

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

This should make you feel better, wari.

wari lasi said...

I'm afraid not Ramon.

And I'll take the beer thanks, but it's a dodgy looking brew.

Pepsi said...

The Deaves family story started me thinking.

If you are a woman in a relationship with a man who is bisexual, doesn’t that make the man now heterosexual?

Or if he says he is still bisexual, doesn’t that mean he is cheating on the woman with a man right from the get go?

I was pondering this dilemma over my breakfast pint of Guinness this morning as I was giggling over the "models" used on the Professional Advantage website.

The movie was "Sex in the City"

Anonymous said...

Or is that the state of Boogey authority??

Legislative authority on threesomes, a fair and balanced tax system that benefits everyone equally but myself more equally, and total spiritual enlightenment upon your deathbed. What more could you ask from your head of state?

catlick said...

Now that's Boogey Wonderland!

Fad MD said...

I wonder what the film was?
Why, it could only have been the No.1 choice of all incestuous freaks: Bad Boy Bubby!


Just what I wanted to say!!

"Be still kitty!"