Anybody out there Spluming?

Hey, happy Halloween, everybody...! Just sending out a hello to all the goblins and trolls who read this blog. Otherwise, there's nothing major to report.

On a good note, my stapler magically appeared on my desk this morning. Gee, wonder how that happened? And, gee, I felt a little sick after eating one too many of the pumpkin cookies Tracie brought in. Oh, and I wanted to ask if anyone out there has played Splume's "survival mode?" It's driving me crazy! I can't tell if you can get past the first screen, or if it's the only level you get?

I think Decateur and Hendersen come in on Friday.

Tricky treat...
Ella

Spluming the minutes away...

Hello again...

Well, not much to report on here at FSRI headquarters. It's been a slooooowwwwww month, to say the least. My sister and her boyfriend visited me over the weekend. Yippi!! Haven't seen her in a while. ...And, the Red Sox won the World Series, I think...? They're from Boston.

Like I said, nothing much to report on here at FSRI mission control. Other than more than a FEW people have called in sick this week. I call it the Halloween flu epidemic, 2007. Also, I seem to have "misplaced" my stapler, so if anyone here in the blogging wing finds my stapler, would you please return it to its proper owner...? I also got sent one of the scary YouTube movies. Come on guys down in Tech Support, you can do better than that! And I found a cool site that's perfect for those times when you have work you should be doing, but you're just not in the mood. It's a game called Splume.

Oh, yeah... Captain Wolfbrooks emailed me last Friday and said that he's sending Decateur and Hendersen out for a week, so I'm kind of excited about that. In the meantime I'll be working hard here holding the blogging division fort down.

Take care,
Ella

Ella Foster - VP in charge of Media Relations

Hi, I'm Ella,

I'm sure you've been wondering where Dr. Ager has been. Well, he wanted me to tell all his readers that he has taken a short leave to serve in the role as Executive Producer for a short film he is involved with. Instead of temporarily shutting down the entire FSRI Blogging Division,(...we were actually threatened NOT to do so by the UPB - Union of Professional Bloggers - Local 808) he asked me to step in to keep this blog afloat.

What will I talk about? I don't know! Dr. Ager's only instructions were to keep it pertinent to Faking Smart, so, I guess that is what I'll do.

So keep Faking Smart! I'll see you around...

Ella Foster, VP of Media Relations

Results of Our Latest Poll...

While discussing the interview process, we here at the FSRI were eager to "test the waters" to see what common perceptions existed when it came to interview attire. But instead of conducting one of our normal polls we decided to get creative and try something new. For starters, let's examine the raw data.

The question was simple, "During an interview, what clothing style are you most likely to wear?" These four options were given:

Business Suit

Corporate Casual

Tuxedo/Formal Dress (or)

Revealing Nightwear

We weren't surprised to see "Business Suit" stand out at the most popular choice of attire. With three votes cast, it is clear that 50% of the world population would chose to go to their interviews dressed in a conservative business suit. What did surprise us, however, was the fact that only 33% of the global population chose tuxedos or formal dress as their preferred attire. This clearly indicates a "softening" of social mores, or a grim deterioration in modern image management. (A traditionalist, I would expect everyone who came to interview here at the FSRI to dress in appropriate formalwear, ...top-hat or feathered boa included!) For the 17% who chose corporate casual as their "look" of choice, we can safely assume that these respondents were software designers.

BUT ALL THESE ANSWERS WERE ULTIMATELY WRONG!

Yes, this is unfortunate, but true! What we didn't tell you in the question was that we were looking for the style of attire one would wear to a Victoria's Secret job interview. Of course, in this case "Revealing Nightwear" would have been the most sensible choice! But alas, none went that route...

The lesson learned here is to NEVER pick out a style of interview attire before you find out what company you are interviewing for! Not one single respondent found it in his or herself to ask us.

Be vigilant out there.

KWA

Ingersoll/BIAC Rescind War Declaration on FSIHL/FSRI - Hendersen Sent as Emissary!

In a bold move late last week Buckmister J Ingersoll Ph.D., MD, FSIHL-MD retracted his threat of aggression against FSIHL expansion into Mid-Country. Hendersen, Buckmister's top diplomat and amateur import auto-mechanic, was immediately dispatched to begin the process of dialog (...which quickly descended into a lutefisk and akvavit "blowout.") To clear the air the FSRI has decided to go ahead and publish this, until now, top secret letter of détente:

Salutations Mr. Ager,

Dr. Ingersoll IV, PHD MD here. Forgive me as I scratch out a few words on this stenograph-like device they put in front of me. In beginning, let me indulge your curiosity. Despite investing a small fortune in ointments and elixirs over the years, I have never been able to grow a scant of facial hair. As a direct consequence to this fact I have developed a keen “6th sense”, if you will, on how to read a man by how the mustache hangs from his face. You, I have surmised, are someone who is not afraid to take risks in building his Faking Smart! empire from blood sweat and tears. Your goal is nothing less than to tear down the corporate status quo. Veni, vidi, vici! Mr. Ager, you are indeed a shadowly reflection of me in my youthful days. I too once frolicked in the sunlight of guru status, bathed in the shiny silver dollars of corporate profits and suckled from the sweet pipe of luxury. I remember when Mr. Ford said that he would pay his minions $5 dollars a day. Immediately, I dispatched my best man at the time, James A. Biltmore, to infiltrate the company and see what was transpiring first hand. I soon discovered that it was a Marxist ploy worthy of Socrates himself! You, Mr. Ager, are no Mr. Ford! Or are you?

Now, let me tell you a little about the Buckminster J. Ingersoll Institute for the Advancement of Charlatans. It does not surprise me that you have not heard of us. We are a secret society that has no less the goal than to put those members of BIAC into positions of power in and round government, the corporate hierarchy, and medical establishments around the country. All knowledge of BIAC is strictly forbidden and denied at all costs to all outsiders. Our sacred rights include, oriental cricket fighting, bathing in a tub of German ale while humming The Blue Danube, and the swearing of allegiance to the great practitioner of all BIAC laws, my Great-Grandfather, the late Dr. Buckmister J. Ingersoll I PHD MD. By chance, have you ever heard of Tommy Thompson, the president’s chief advisor? Or perhaps you have heard of Joseph McCarthy and his grand-daughter Jenny McCarthy, both prominent senators? These are examples of current or former BIAC members.

Perhaps Mr. Ager, what you mistakenly call “extremism”, is in fact a passion that rivals the early patriots of the founding of this great nation? This passion wells up from the breasts of my forefathers and can not be quelled. BIAC has revealed through the rigors of scientific analytics that the Faking Smart! formula for success in regards to the inadequate “player” in today’s post-modern-fangled-doodad society is in fact our undoing. We have concluded that anyone who absorbs FSIHL wisdom will in turn run the fast track to corporate stardom and eventually, domination within any company. We here at BIAC are threatened by this. It demonstrates the antiquity of our ancient ideology, the lackluster approach to promoting forgeries in the workplace, and the foolishness of our own non-substance prattle.

I have sent my man-servant, Hendersen, to find this document you speak of, for I am bed ridden with gout and a hyperactive lymphatic system. Hendersen is a loyal Norseman with impeccable fortitude, constitution, and earnest guile. He is the one who tracked you to your notorious “Witch’s stew” hideout. Yes, Mr Ager, I know of its location!

Ah! Hendersen brings forth the gift to me as we speak. I will accept this most gracious gift as an olive branch. I will add it to my title. Thank you. I will also reframe from a declaration of war but I must send this ultimatum and set of conditions.

- Any major acquisitions in Mid-country by Faking Smart! must be provided in previous full disclosure to the BIAC proconsul, namely myself, Buckmister J. Ingersoll IV.
- That you hire Hendersen as the De Facto Midwest advisor at FSRI and accept him as one of your own. He will serve you well.
- That you allow Henderson and myself into the Faking Smart! Blogging Department as guest bloggers hence forth.

I am sure this alliance will find our Institutions in a much more beneficial place. I look forward to working with you and I await your response.

Yours truly,
Dr. Buckmister J. Ingersoll IV PHD MD FSIHL-MD

BIAC Declares War on FSIHL...!

Every now and then, during the publication of this blog, a reader comment catches the eye of one of our blogging editors. The following is one such response to the Ager Midwestern Update post of 27 Sept. 2007:

Damn you Ager!

Dr. Ingersoll IV, PHD MD here.

You are a gentleman of much ambition! I suspected this move in grievous anticipation, for I have been monitoring your organization’s activities since its relatively recent inception. You whipper snappers over at FSRI have no business coming to the great Middle World of Wisconsin. We will never yield our status to up-starts such as yourselves. Here in Wisconsin we have a proud heritage going back to 1748 to the founding of our great state of which many respected embellishment institutions of thought reside. These include the Albert Abrams School of Radionics (AASR), the John R. Brinkley Impudent-Impotence Alliance (JBIIA) and my own Buckminster J. Ingersoll Institute for the Advancement of Charlatans (BIAC). We are an old and venerable business going back to when the red men roamed the lands and snake oil fattened the cheeks of enamored wee babes. Today we have our people in the higher echelons of respected Midwest companies like Rayovac, Menards, Kohls department stores, and Madison Sanitation Services (MSS). We were the first organization to put our certified psychic palm readers in the Chicago and Milwaukee Police Departments (CPD and MPD respectively).

If you do decide to open an office of FSIHL here, as you know, we will consider this an act of war. Consider this cheese as all ready taken, this beer half drunk, and this Polish sausage already smoked! We will fight you until my last breath is drawn from my frail failing lungs.

Yours truly,
Dr. Buckminster J. Ingersoll IV, PHD MD

KWA Responds:

Dear Mr. Ingersoll IV, PHD MD,

First of all, I want to thank you on behalf of the FSRI Blogging Division for having added a comment to one of our posts. Secondly, it is without hesitation that I encourage you, or anyone for that matter, to comment on any and all of the content in this blog being it facilitates dialog on the very subject of this forum - namely, Faking Smart!

Regarding your concerns, Dr. Ingersoll, I speak on the behalf of everyone here at the division when I say that we acknowledge your disappointment with our drive for expansion into the Midwest - namely, Northern Wisconsin - and we are disheartened to hear that you harbor any objection to our future designs.

It has not been our intent, nor will it ever be, that you "yield" your "status", nor is is our wish that the FSIHL supplants any of your "respected embellishment institutions of thought." We do, however, hold a responsibility toward a power greater than any heretofore mentioned - that of society at large. The FSIHL's goals are noble in their simplicity ...to spread Faking Smart! around the globe, and by doing so raise the slightly unmotivated person to the rank of semi-respected corporate player (and when we say "player" we mean it in the most toned-down of interpretations).

Dr. Ingersoll, I will have you know that I am no stranger to your great stretch of Mid-country. Having spent some time ambling through the granite halls of the AASR (Albert Arahms School of Radionics) I am familiar with their achievements, and as for the JBIIA (John R. Brinkley Impudent-Impotence Alliance), I have no doubt their work will find permanence in the contemporary canon, ...but knowledge of your BIAC (Buckminster J. Ingersoll Institute for the Advancement of Charlatans) eludes me at present and I will be the first to admit that the advancement of charlatans is a movement beyond my ken. Each - and all - of us must bear at least one shortcoming.

I want to thank you for regarding me as a "gentleman", Dr. Ingersoll, and acting as such it would not be unwarranted to expect the same from you. To proclaim that you will "fight till the last breath is drawn from my frail failing lungs" is to enter through the door of extremism, and once through that door, it is hard to return. So I beseech you, dear sir, to moderate your reaction to our inevitable entry into your great tracts.

And with this, I wish to extend you an olive branch by granting you an official FSIHL Master's Degree (use code 87403A6H at any Wall Mart Pharmacy or Hallmark Card store to claim your degree). With this honorary degree you hold all the recognition a graduate from our four-week Master's Degree program holds. Please, be kind enough to accept this humble offering, and we hope this will allay any further animosity between our honorable and venerable camps.

Hey! ...and keep Faking Smart!

KWA

(FSRI Disclaimer: A degree from the FSIHL should in no way be considered an "official" degreee. Any person receiving a degree from the FSIHL may be subject to DHS investigation and may be designated a "person of interest" by the NSA.)

Analysis of Our FSRI Poll

I'm sure some of you have been waiting a long time for this, so let's cut to the chase and tell you what we discovered after analyzing our most recent poll.

Many of our readers were surprised when we first posted this poll, and many of you expressed concern over its accuracy and relevance. But it is important to remember that each and every poll we conduct here on the Faking Smart! blog is first researched thoroughly by the FSRI Blogging Division, scrutinized by the division for bias or "leading", beta tested in several NATO countries, then, finally, sent down to Dwight D. Eisenhower Elementary for last minute testing and approval.

After these steps we have before us what we call a "Thumbs Up! Hard-copy" - at this point we are ready to go live.

With our methodology out of the way, let's go ahead and look at what our poll has taught us.

The question ran as follows:

Which company would you least like to work for? (one vote represents 1000 votes.)

The choices were:

Exxon/Mobil

Wall Mart

Halliburton or

Ben & Jerry's

Because of massive voter participation in this poll we were forced to incorporate advanced statistical manipulation to help keep the raw numbers in perspective and to keep our supercomputers from overheating. The FSRI Weights and Measures Department decided, therefore, to compartmentalize or "truncate" the final data into rounded-down, shorter and more hand-countable size to facilitate reader comprehension. This may be over your head (it sure was over mine), but here's a simplified version of what we found:

Exxon/Mobil: 1000 voter responses

Wall Mart: 2000 voter responses

Halliburton: 4000! voter responses

Ben & Jerry's: 1000 voter responses

So what does this mean? Well, without getting too deep into statistical mumbo-jumbo, the results indicate this: with over 4000 voter responses, Halliburton, was clearly the winner and should be considered, by far, the most selected of all these companies; next in line was Wall Mart with over 2000 votes; and, last but not least, Exxon/Mobil and Ben & Jerry's were tied for last with 1000 votes apiece.

Congratulations Halliburton! We, here at the FSRI, want to wish you a long and successful corporate life and we thank you greatly for agreeing to participate in our survey. As for the others, ...don't give up! There's always next year. And remember, getting the most votes does not always indicate the overall "quality" of a company or corporation. Sure, getting a lot of votes feels good and it give the higher-ups something to brag about, but companies are made from the bottom up, and with a little hard work and drive you can be assured of getting more votes in the future.

Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll, and look forward the next FSRI poll to come out in a day or two!

KWA

Ager Returns Safely to FSRI Headquarters

Hello, and welcome back to the Faking Smart! blog.

I am glad to announce that, after a brief, yet well earned reprieve from my blogging obligations, I'm back and ready for work. After a little tidying up (I had to remove the Ping-Pong table, pop-corn machine, wet bar and entertainment center that somehow found their way into my office) I am officially "on the clock" and eager to carry on with Faking Smart!

I have given our readers nearly three weeks to muse over the results of our most recent poll. Tomorrow comes the FSRI analysis, so stay tuned!

Thursday arrives with a "surprise" response to one infamous commenter, and Friday returns with Decateur's Weekly Business Roundup. Yes, Decateur has agreed to continue with his weekly column, much to the surprise and muted fanfare of everyone here at the FSRI Blogging Division.

Thank you for your patience and loyalty,

KWA