Too Good for The Likes of Us
“I just got the Company newsletter.” I say to my Supervisor. “Don’t you think it’s kind of funny that the Company’s Chairman is too good to have his portrait taken by a Company photographer?”
“Yup.” He says with a sage nod. “It’s one of those things that makes you go hmmm.”
The New Company sends out little bits of propaganda once in a while. These are glossy little publications filled with nice photos and professional writing. But oddly, they don’t have a lot of photographs taken by people who actually work for The Company.
The first portrait we see upon opening the booklet is of the New Company’s Chairman. It’s a nice enough portrait in a contemporary style with a lot more negative space than I would use and an awkward pose. In one corner is a signature from a portrait studio in Canada. A Professional Portrait Studio.
From time to time we do Shoots in big churches with a lot of rich parishioners. These are the people that run the local big companies, live in the good neighborhoods, and drive the latest luxury cars. On first glace this seems like a good place to shoot, they have the money and we have portraits for sell. But something funny happens with rich people-they are too good to buy portraits from a lowly Assembly Line Portrait Company.
These good folks often tell us that they have their own Portrait Photographer, or that they are going to visit a Professional Portrait Photographer soon, so they don’t need anything from us. The message is clear enough, the kind of portraits we take are not good enough for them to deign to purchase.
I was never fond of the owner of the Old Company, but at least when he plastered his face on every bit of paper the Company used, it was a portrait taken by a Company photographer.
Now for all I know, the New Company owns this fancy studio, along with all the other studios it has gobbled up over the years. But I didn’t see any proof of that.
This is like the owner of the Ford Motor Company driving to work in a Ferrari. On the one hand its like, Hey, I’m rich I can do what ever I want. But on the other hand, it clearly says what my Company makes is good enough for the working stiffs, but not nearly good enough for me. It’s worth pointing out that Sam Walton shopped at Wal-Mart, back before they became the heartless giant corporation they are today.
I’ve worked at a few small Companies where I could talk to the owner whenever I wanted, but most of The Companies have been large and clueless. Management has always been a bit condescending. They have always held the opinion that they could have the perfect Company, if only they could get rid of all those damned stupid employees.
Of course, this is what makes Undercover Boss so much fun. The Boss isn’t really a bad guy, but they are often a bit out of touch with the world that their employees live in. Somewhere along the line things shifted just a bit too far out of whack. When the people who work at a company can’t afford to use the products the company sells or the people who run the company see no value in the products they produce, then we have problems. It’s not a bad thing that a Big Wig wants to use the best Portrait Studio he can find, what’s bad is that he doesn’t think the company he runs is the best-and that he goes the extra mile of putting his uber expensive portrait in the company newsletter.
A quick google takes me to Wikipedia-
Eating your own dog food, also called dogfooding, is when a company (usually, a software company) uses the products that it makes. In 1988, Microsoft manager Paul Maritz sent Brian Valentine, test manager for Microsoft LAN Manager, an email titled “Eating our own Dogfood”, challenging him to increase internal usage of the company’s product. From there, the usage of the term spread through the company.
Dogfooding can be a way for a company to demonstrate confidence in its own products, and hence a kind of testimonial advertising.
For example, Microsoft and Google emphasize the internal use of their own software products. The idea behind “eating your own dog food” is that if you expect customers to buy your products, you should also be willing to use them. ~Wikipedia
I like the bit about using the product yourself if you expect others to use it.