Spring is on the horizon my friends. Winter is doing what it can to cling on and drag us down into one final bout of cabin fever, but it’s too late. It’s that special time of year where things get slightly warmer by the week, snow begins to melt, and that one guy is going to put on shorts a full month before it’s acceptable. You know who I’m talking about; the guy who will throw on just above the knee shorts when it hasn’t even cracked 50 degrees yet. We all make mistakes, but his mistake is exposed to the public in a much flashier and profound way. There are others like him, and they are the focus of this week in financial blunders. So read on, and see three instances of “financial shorts in winter.”
http://township.com
The city of Woodside, California has been offered a very bizarre deal in the name of a publicity stunt. A dating site known as SugarDaddie.com has offered the town $11.65 million to change their name to, you guessed it, SugarDaddie.com. It probably won’t shock you to find out that the town isn’t taking it seriously: the Huffington Post reports that that the town has residents that prefer to be anonymous, like actress Michelle Pfeiffer and Larry Ellison, CEO of the computer hardware company Oracle. Even the mayor has commented on it, saying he would only consider the multimillion dollar deal if it was his name that was being changed. Surprisingly (depending on how you look at it) this isn’t the first time a town has been offered to change their name for company incentive. The town of DISH, Texas, got free DISH satellite TV when they changed their name to the all-caps cable provider and the town of Bankersmith, Texas now goes by the name of the chain restaurant Bikinis. SugarDaddie.com also approached the city of Sugarland for the name change, but only for $4.65 million, and it was turned down by their mayor.
Don’t go Microsoft on them
For a seemingly insignificant and easily fixed issue, the European Commission is fining Microsoft $730 million. The problem has to do with Microsoft’s computers providing options for internet browsers; they don’t at all. According to Al Jazeera, the commission told Microsoft in 2009 to offer a variety of web browsers for their consumers through 2014 in order with antitrust laws. Turns out they didn’t follow that one too closely. During the launch period of Windows 7, roughly 15 million people had no choice in web browser. Even though the computer giant made over $73 billion last year, it’s a significant chunk of change for the company to pay.
Job cuts deep
Layoffs are never fun to deal with, but recently let go employees of the Daily Voice got a truly raw deal. The hyper-local network of news sites had a change in leadership last week after CEO Zohar Yardeni decided to resign but stay in the company as an advisor. Gawker reports that employees were bummed, but an email followed from Chairman Carll Tucker stating not to worry and that an email discussing the future of the company and “good news” was to follow on Monday. Daily Voice employees opened their email that next morning to find out a fair chunk of them would be fired without severance.
That’s right; in a the way your elementary school teacher would allude towards cupcakes and give you a pop quiz, the Daily Voice offed all eleven of its Massachusetts offices , and continued the layoffs through its 41 New York and Connecticut offices. As if to poke at the already salted wound, Daily Voice has already posted reporter and account manager positions on the website for fresh, new employees. Not only is it a blunder, but the first time I’ve found a borderline immoral one.
There you have it friends, another week closer to spring is another week of people making very public mistakes. As the warmer weather approaches, we’ll only find less intelligent people getting more daring to make stupid decisions due to the warmer weather. If you find this happening, please post it below!
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