Fortune’s new "comic book" style


The huge typefaces, the exclamation points, the big high impact art. POW! ZAP! BAM! BLAMMO! Couple of editions ago they had the huge hand bashing through a wall and the headline, BUSINESS IS BACK! Who knew it ever went away? Today my assistant, Ja’Red, left the new edition on my desk, and it’s the worst one yet. Two badly dressed dirtbag kids and the headline, “MANAGE US? PUH-LEEEZE….” Story is about how hard it is to deal with these crazy Gen Y kids. Like, they’re super idealistic and loaded with self-esteem and they’re total rule-breakers, man, who demand meaningful jobs with cool bosses who totally respect them. Whew! Wow! Blam! See the whole ridiculous piece here.

Money quote: “They’re ambitious, they’re demanding and they question everything, so if there isn’t a good reason for that long commute or late night, don’t expect them to do it.”

In other words, they’re stupid lazy retards. Just like their elders. Yet Fortune treats these kids like some different species, as if they’re creatures from another planet. In the print edition there’s even a full-page photo showing some kid with arrows pointing to his Gen Y accessories, which include headphones, an iPod, a latte, a laptop, a Blackberry and “hipster clothes” like “jeans.” Ahem.

Then the deep philosophical questions: How do you attract them? How do you retain them? Fortune, Puh-leeze. You attract them with money. You retain them with more money. You motivate them with fear. I’ve covered a lot of this in my post about my management style.

Rest of the edition includes a big book excerpt by Stanley “Watch Me Try to Be Funny” Bing about different types of bosses; I couldn’t stay awake. Then there’s an article about Marvel comics. Why is this in a business magazine? Mostly, I suspect, so they can run pictures of Spider-Man and the Hulk. I was hoping they’d do a sidebar like, “Management tips from Spider-Man!” or “How YOU can be a SUPERHERO!” No luck. Maybe they ran that stuff online.