Compliance

There's a mandatory online compliance training class that all new employees have to take. It's short and sweet, and the contents are pretty obvious. Although given the shenanigans we've seen as of late in the world of finance, perhaps people have a difficult time knowing right and wrong. Anyway, in this compliance training class there's mention of blogs and disseminating sensitive info. Basically, you can't say anything about work to anyone outside of work. In fact you can'teven say the word "work" outside of wo...that was close. The first rule of compliance club is that there is no such thing as compliance club. I think the moral of the story here is that I'm going to be super careful of what I write in regards to work. For example, I work between the Equator and about said place where I go five times a week between 8:30am and 8:00pm.

Last Thursday night I played in my basketball league and after a late game (a win), a post-game beer, and a trek all the way uptown it was coming on midnight by the time I started to settle in at home. I needed to get in early the next morning to finish up some work for a midday deadline, so I simply didn't get a whole lot of sleep. The next morning I walked into work with my bacon egg and cheese sandwich and got into the elevator. I got out of the elevator, turned a couple corners and went to my cube to start the day, and lo and behold there's someone sitting in my cube, sitting in my chair, eating my goddamn porridge. I thought to myself, "wow, I haven't even been here a month and I've already been replaced, that sure was quick". And then I looked around and realized that it wasn't my floor, and it was this crazy moment where I wasn't sure if I was in The Matrix or The Matrix was in me. Red pill, blue pill, red pill, blue pill. There I was, with a bacon egg and cheese in hand and a dumbfounded look on my face, a passive observer in this world that was exactly the same as my world, just one floor below me and yet completely different. It was like an out of body experience where I was looking at myself eating breakfast and just thinking that on every floor in this building at that very moment there was some bizarro Finger at the same cube eating his bizarro bacon egg and cheese, and I felt mighty mighty insignificant. I think it's probably best not to think of such things at work though. That was by far one of the strangest ways I've started a Friday in a long time.

Today there was an article about the FTC's new rules regarding bloggers and compliance. Jeez. Why won't everyone just get off my back. Here's a recap from the New York Times:

"The F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently. The new rules also take aim at celebrities, who will now need to disclose any ties to companies, should they promote products on a talk show or on Twitter. A second major change, which was not aimed specifically at bloggers or social media, was to eliminate the ability of advertisers to gush about results that differ from what is typical — for instance, from a weight loss supplement."

I can't even begin to count the number of products I've mentioned/reviewed/lambasted in the last two years. I've never received so much as a penny, a Mallomar, or even a hug for any of my writings. In fact, I've only ever gotten a product for something I've written once, and this was when FingerTheBlog was just a twinkle in my eye. One time back in college I wrote to Chipwich telling them how awesome I thought Chipwiches were and how since 7-11 was only a half a block from my fraternity house we would eat them all the time, and how I would be truly honored if they'd send me a Chipwich t-shirt so I could spread Chipwich love across the world. A few days later I get this email from Chipwich saying how great my email was and how they wanted to use it on their website as a testimonial. I literally had absolutely no clue what the hell they were talking about so I went back to my "Sent Items" in Outlook to see what email they were talking about and found an email I'd written to them at like 3am on a Thursday night. Interesting. I thought to myself, this is why computers should come equipped with breathalyzers. So I wrote back that they could use my email on one condition...they send me a Chipwich t-shirt. A week later I got my t-shirt, which I still have. It reads "Chipwich...a miracle in your mouth". So FTC, eat your heart out, I had a torrid love affair with Chipwich back in 2002 and I'm shilling for them right now. Chipwich chipwich chipwich. Eat 'em while their cold and delicious.