If It's Not One Thing, It's Another Thing.

It's always something.

What is it with people?  Sometimes it seems that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter what you achieve, you are only as good as your last [fill in the blank].

Take Apple for example.  The company stock has skyrocketed from less than $10/share in late 2003 (I am painfully aware of this as my younger brother and I debated whether to buy shares of Apple or shares of Ford at the time... guess which we invested in?) to more than $200/share this year.  But suddenly and inexplicitly it is nosediving. 

"The stock is plagued by high expectations," said Shaw Wu, an analyst for American Technology Research, in an interview. "Looking at the numbers by themselves, they are actually quite strong."

So, what's up with that?

[Kirk: Is he dead, Bones?
McCoy: For God sakes, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a—oh, right.]

Maybe it's just human nature.  Or maybe some people are just jerks.

As an agency that gets paid to represent clients, we are constantly aware of our responsibilities to deliver powerful results.  Long before a client ever has the opportunity to point out the occasional shortcoming or failure, we are typically beating ourselves up and attempting to change the situation.

Still, things happen and clients drop the hammer.  And so it goes.

I was watching the ABC Nightline report on Barack Obama last night. Throughout the broadcast, they did their best to ask the tough questions and cast seeds of doubt concerning his abilities as a future commander-in-chief. But really, he held his own throughout the entire interview. At one point he told our soldiers on the ground in Iraq that "while we (the citizens of the United States) may be divided on the issues and may disagree about what to do and how to do it (referring to the war), we are nonetheless united in our support of their efforts."

But before the show could air its last commercial, John McCain had a response for Obama: "Hey, what have you done for us lately?"

[Now, let's get started by letting me give you a little bit of a scenario of what my life is all about. First off, I am 35 years old, I am divorced, and I live in a van down by the river. Now, you kids are probably saying to yourselves, "Hey, I'm going to go out and get the world by the tail and wrap it around and pull it down and put it in my pocket!" Well, I'm here to tell you that you're probably going to find out, as you go out there, that you're not going to amount to JACK SQUAT!]

You see what I mean? There's just something uniquely American about helping people get to the top just so you can knock them off their pedestal once they get there. It's like the bumper sticker says:  Keep honking, I'm reloading.

But I am not buying whatever it is that this segment of society is selling.  I have a new world order in mind: the truth.  Yeah, really.  If I do a bad job, tell me I did a bad job.  If I do a good job, tell me I did a good job.  Just don't prop me and drop me for no good reason.  I am human.  I do good work and usually get good results.  And on occasion I screw up... but not often.

So please be considerate.

[If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is “God is crying.” And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is “Probably because of something you did.” Jack Handey]