(Editor’s Note: originally posted November 2008). When Atlanta native Jim Herman went to deposit his $227 pay check on Friday, he thought his weekend would be just like any other – “Two buckets of chicken, a few cases of Bud, and a little something for whatever bill was most overdue.” Ten minutes later, and much to his surprise, Jim became the new owner of the 2nd largest bank in America.

“Yeah, I’m still not quite sure I understand what happened” a shaken, somewhat jubilant, and very hungry Jim reported yesterday. “I’d heard a bunch of stories on some sort of liquidity and capitalization problem in the ol’ banking system, but didn’t really think it affected me – I know at least 27 different state capitals, and really don’t want to drink anything at the bank anyway. Frankly, I just wanted my chicken, some beer, and some electricity to warm up that chicken and cool down that beer. But when I pulled out my check, all of the sudden everyone was going bat-shit crazy. Some portly dude came out and told me my $227 now represented all the money in the bank, and said I could have the damn thing if I wanted it. I’d always wanted to own my own business again – ever since the incident with the squirrel kind of knee capped the small engine repair thing – and I was a pretty good adder back in the day, so I figured why not? Let’s give this banking thing a shot.”

Continued »

In a move that goes one step beyond Microsoft’s efforts to force laid-off workers to repay “erroneous severance overpayments“, GM is now asking workers to pay back over 30 years worth of “erroneous wages” – which is a rough estimate of how long the company has been “functionally insolvent, if you exclude various government subsidy packages provided along the way.” The auto workers union has been slow to respond to this request thus far, noting that “we can’t be expected to reach the 82% of our members who are currently retired somewhere in the tropics overnight.”

After announcing last week that they were closing their call center because “people who e-mail or write us are more satisfied with our responses”, chTONGUEeek has learned that United Airlines is now eliminating all outgoing flights due to the fact that “people who don’t fly with us are more satisfied with their travel experiences.” Continued »

After years of struggling to convince companies to outsource assorted software, business process, and catering services to them, Barko Outsourcing Inc. has found an innovative new way to prove their value proposition – successfully outsourcing themselves entirely. As CEO Ivor Davin explains:

It’s been tough to convince companies they can trust us to do mission critical things like accounting, ensure proper pastry delivery, and the like. So I got to thinking – what better way to prove the model than have Barko show the way? Now, I can go to any company and show them how powerful the set-up is, because we really live it. In fact, we don’t do a damn thing anymore, and it isn’t really ‘we’ either. Basically, I just forward emails to that Chinese outfit.

When asked why companies wouldn’t just go direct to said “Chinese outfit”, Davin explains that “by actually doing something, they prove they just don’t get the outsourcing thing the way I do.”