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The Chronically Insubordinate “Nurse Jackie”
If there are people out there who can be identified as The Frustrated CFO's devoted readers, they probably have been to the author's Facebook page and know that, for the time being, Nurse Jackie is listed there as one of my top 5 favorite TV shows. Besides the incredible ballsiness of the creators, who do not shy away from some of the most controversial issues of healthcare industry, social division, workplace dynamics, and intimate relationships, my highest appreciation goes for the show's realistic depiction of the overwhelming human frailty.
There are no good or bad people on the show – everyone is a cunt with some redeeming moments here and there. Nobody more so than Jackie Peyton herself, all her blemishes exposed under the microscope of the show's creators. I have no right to judge, but I hope my readers will agree that Jackie can be considered severely flawed even under our contemporary, shifting moral standards. She is a shitty mother, wife, friend, girlfriend. It would be an unpleasant experience to simply bump into her on the street by accident. She is a cheater, a liar, and… oh, yes, a drug addict. As I always say, "Love the show, hate Jackie."
I can hear the opposition screaming at me, "But she is a wonderful nurse! She helped so many people!" Here's what I have to say to that: Jacky Peyton is a highly skillful professional, but she is a terrible employee, who violates all rules of her workplace and, as a result, does more damage than good. Moreover, she is an unethical employee who bestows her graces on a few people of her choosing, while screwing others.
Those who consistently watch the show probably anticipate my bringing up her current season shenanigans. But no, I will not do that. Instead, I would like to give you an example of Gross Audacity strategically introduced to us at the very start of the series.
The main medical emergency of the Pilot was a young bicycle messenger with a brain bleed. When he died, Jackie falsified his driver license to pass him as an organ donor, because she was of opinion that it was a "right thing to do." Then she sat in front of his family and lied to their disbelieving faces about it. The deceit deepened when she convinced the transplant team that Coop signed off the body release to them. Jackie can lie like no one else! And you know why she doesn't waver? Because she thinks that she is above personal wishes of a dead young man, above rules and regulations, above subordination. She believes that she can get away with anything as long as she follows her own perverse sense of right and wrong. And that's fucked up!
Here is my question for those who still think that Jackie is a Good Nurse – if you had an employee like that on your staff, how would you deal with her? By the way, this and many other cases could've landed dear Jackie in jail. Loving mother, isn't she?
Lessons from the Author of “CFO Techniques”
Or Ten Things Your Publisher Will Forget to Tell You.
Disclaimer: The following conclusions are based on a specific experience of one first-time author with one particular publisher. Marina Guzik does not infer that any other writer of professional books, working on her first or n-th opus for any other, or even the very same, publisher would encounter the same disappointments.
1. There will be no color inside your book. Color printing is expensive and the publisher's intent is to keep the production cost to a bare minimum. So, all your colorful charts and graphs will be in fifty shades of gray (pun is always intended). The good news is that many people read eBooks now and those are full of color.
2. As I found out after the signing of the contract, publishers of professional literature utilize a practice of technical reviewing. Regardless of your credentials, depth of knowledge, experience and professional stature, the publishers will need to hire someone for 2 cent per page to serve as a technical reviewer for your book. This person's job is to verify that you did not make any errors in definitions, calculations, etc.
3. Amazingly, this technical reviewer will get his bio printed prominently in the Front Matter right after your own, the author's. Moreover, the publisher's production department will not have enough common sense to at least make it shorter than the one provided by the humble author, who thought it was unnecessary to list all her accomplishments.
4. Speaking of production. Somehow their compiler squashes words together, cuts out letters in the illustrations, and does other weird things to the final book layout. So, after everything is done, you will still need to reread your book in its entirety, fishing out this stupid shit, before giving your final-draft approval.
5. As you get closer to the finish line, the publisher will randomly move the book's release date back and forth, due to some internal considerations (like printing arrangements), without letting you know. So, don't book that wrap party for yourself (did you think for a second that the publishers will do it?) until the book is actually out.
6. If the publisher includes a Promotion clause in your contract, which states: "We’ll promote the Work, using Our reasonable judgment about the methods and amount of promotion," you should understand that it means they will not spend a penny on promoting your book – there will be no advertising, no sales tables at the professional conferences, and stuff like that. There will be nothing, except their "wonderful PR team's" campaign.
7. There are Publishers and there are publishers. If your book is with Wiley, for example, it will be handled by a stronger public relation team. On the other hand, smaller, less known publishers are staffed with people who didn't make it into the world of the big-time PR influence. They don't have connections and their rolodexes are skimpy. They don't have a pull to call on, let's say, a reviewer at Financial Times and recommend your book. So, their entire "promotional campaign" amounts to posting a public release on PRWeb.com and, allegedly, mass-emailing it to their undisclosed distribution list.
8. That single promotional tool, the public release, will be written in a wooden, cumbersome language. Moreover, it will misrepresent some crucial aspects of your book. And when you rewrite it yourself to make it snappier and smarter, they will completely ignore your version and post their own anyway. They will add insult to injury by misspelling your name under your quote.
9. If you dare to express your frustration with all this bullshit on the pages of your blog, which is specifically designed as a venting outlet, they will lash out at you and then shut you out: they will not even list your book among their featured titles.
10. Last, but not least, the various eBook versions (Nook, Kindle, ePub, PDF, MOBI) will not be protected by any resellers. They will be ripped off every legitimate site, including that of your publishers', and offered for free on the Internet. Thus, your copyrights will be brutally infringed and your meager ability to earn any royalty off of your own work will be drastically diminished. The publishers will not do anything about it. They will not even reply to your emails on the subject.
You have to appreciate, though, what they do tell you in advance:
1. Even though there are 6 million companies with less than 100 employees in this country and you wrote a book that can help them to survive, you can consider yourself lucky if a few thousand copies will be sold in several years. How many small-business owners and their downtrodden senior financial managers have you seen improving their organizations by the book?
2. Hence, there is no fame or fortune in writing professional books;
3. It's not the book itself, but what you do with it.
Knowing this keeps you real. If you are not going to promote the book at your own expense, or utilize it to enhance your professional exposure, accept the fact that seeing it published simply massages your ego. Nothing more.
Quote of the Week: CEO’s Brain Freeze
From an actual email exchange between a CEO and a CFO who are on friendly terms with each other:
"CEO:
Hi! Is there 8.15924 gallons per metric ton, or 8.110117 gallons per metric ton?
Thanks, expert!
CFO:
Yeah right! A metric TON is slightly over 8 gallons???!!! Just 8 jugs of milk???!!! I can carry that, the whole ton of it. And they say I don't have any strength in my arms!
It's the pounds: there are approximately 8.34 pounds in a gallon. And there are approximately 2,204.62 pounds in a ton. This means that there are about 264.34 gallons in a metric ton.
Aren't you glad you have a CFO?"
The Frustrated CFO's comment:
Remarkable isn't it? Emailing the CFO instead of looking it up on the Internet – that's pretty much the essence of a business owner's attitude.
In Defense of Business Owners: Scope of Responsibility
Many of my fellow small business CFOs and Controllers mistake my singling out a BOSS as one of the main frustration triggers for an ardent enmity towards business owners. The truth is quite opposite. As the matter of fact, most of the time I find myself on the same side as my boss; shoulder to shoulder, fighting the daily war of commercial survival.
Yes, it’s tough to deal with their complex of unlimited powers. At the same time, I always say that business owners create our jobs and that alone merits respect. I also never imply that all CFOs and Controllers are made equal. I’ve met plenty of inadequate, limited, lazy and dangerously indifferent financial execs who damaged the companies they were supposed to guard. In due time I’ll write about them as well.
But we interact with out bosses more than anybody else and that’s why they are prominently featured in my posts. Being a CFO or a Controller makes it inevitable that everything a CEO does or doesn’t do becomes a concern and frequently a touchy subject.
And one of the touchiest subjects is the Scope of Responsibility. I cannot even count how many CFOs and Controllers have complained to me over the years about perceived imbalance between their scope of responsibility and that of their bosses.
This disconcert derives from two sources. First of all, it’s the much-discussed here overwhelming multitasking of the senior financial management.
Secondly, it’s the confusion about what exactly the Scope of Responsibility is. Even though the position’s breadth of influence on the business is important, it is not just the number of tasks and duties you perform. The key factor is the depth of the impact executive decisions make on the company’s future.
The way I always looked at it is as follows. If you are fortunate to work for a brilliant entrepreneur who, given sufficient time and support, is capable of generating ideas that will ensure your company’s prosperity and growth, that should be his ONLY task. I consider it my job then to take away from him all functions I can handle myself in order to free him for what he does best. I don’t let bankers or vendors bother him; I don’t allow him to fiddle with numbers; I don’t ask him to learn the operational system. As the matter of fact, I prefer them not even know Excel. All I want them to do is to create business strategies, network, establish new commercial relationships.
Let me leave you with this simile of sorts. Radiohead’s frontman Thom Yorke cannot read sheet music (neither does Sir Paul McCartney, by the way). His musically educated multi-instrumentalist band-mate Johnny Greenwood have been deliberately resisting for 25 years now to teach Thom any musical grammar out of fear that it may diminish Yorke’s creativity. That’s a great executive support strategy.
And let me tell you: I’ve been to multiple Radiohead concerts through the years and I wouldn’t change anything about Thom Yorke. Nothing at all.
The Frustrated CFO 