Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies
We’ve all got our personal superpowers… and then there are the things we fumble through like a goat on roller skates, plenty of room for ‘extraordinary growth,’ in the words of a nauseatingly insincere HR professional. One of my many extraordinary growth areas is brown-nosing.
Brown-nosing is a high-contact sport where you cultivate and flatter authority figures, anyone higher than you in the dominance hierarchy, while gradually selling off pieces of your soul in exchange for upward momentum. Try as I might, I just can’t seem to master the subtle art of brown-nosing without looking like a Ponzi scheme salesman in an over-tailored suit, grinning too hard, sweating ambition, and one compliment away from collapse.
The True Goal of Retirement: Eye-Roll Freedom
One of my main motivations for hitting retirement age with some financial independence is to have the fuck-off money to freely roll my eyes and laugh out loud at the narcissistic leaders we’re all expected to applaud. But have I got this all wrong?
Melania, Jeff & the Cost of Looking the Part
The big splash with the release of the Melania movie set me to ruminating. Unfortunately for us savages down here at the southernmost tip of Africa, our local cinema chains decided not to release the movie, ostensibly for commercial reasons. So, I’ll have to wait until it’s streamed. OK, I lie. I’m not about to take a barf bag and a cocktail of anti-nausea medication and psychedelic drugs just to get through this movie.
In the global scheme of the financially independent, I’m a rather modest player. Jeff Bezos, on the other hand, is extra-galactically financially independent. I couldn’t even afford to pay for the starter at his über-tasteful and much-admired trophy wife wedding in Venice.
Bezos stumped up $75 million to produce and market Melania: The Movie. Melania herself pocketed a perfectly reasonable $28 million, especially when you factor in her wardrobe requirements. One must look the part. Or perhaps I’ve got it wrong, and the very tasteful wardrobe wasn’t covered by her cut at all.
The Annual Brown-Nosing Awards (Starring Jeff)
So, if one were to create an annual Brown-Nosing Award, I would ever so tentatively suggest that Jeff is a shoo-in, preferably with a tasteful Trump gold medal. Speaking of awards, and given the woke-communist leanings of Hollywood, the chances of Melania snagging an Oscar are slim. That said, since FIFA has recently expanded its mandate to handing out peace prizes to leaders who end eight wars, perhaps it should continue evolving into a more merit-based movie awards platform.
Perhaps the real benefit of financial independence is the ability to ramp up your brown-nosing, and the more money you have, the more lavishly you can do it. Is brown-nosing the secret sauce for success? I clearly have a lot to learn from Jeff.
Worshipping Jack Welch: MBA Theatre at Its Finest
Of course, brown-nosing isn’t just a charming personality flaw; it’s a strategic asset. Take the Jack Welch era at GE: a time when grown adults with MBAs would practically bow before his management wisdom, quoting his bible Winning like it was scripture and adopting his leadership style with the zeal of cult converts. And to be fair, it worked. GE looked unstoppable, the share price soared, and the faithful flatterers were richly rewarded with titles, bonuses, and enough corporate stock to fund their third home in the Hamptons. Turns out that worshipping a CEO like a deity was not a stupid strategy, at least not then. It only started to unravel years later, once the Welchian gospel turned out to be less of a legacy and more of a ticking time bomb.
When Steinhoff Went Full North Korea
Then there’s the full-contact, soul-surrendering form of corporate flattery, the North Korean school of leadership theatre. The kind where the boss enters a room, and people start clapping like their livelihoods depend on it (because they do). We’ve seen watered-down versions of this even in South Africa, shout out to those execs who called Markus Jooste a “visionary” while he was busy turning Steinhoff into a flaming mattress pile of creative accounting. Praise was flowing, shares were climbing, and no one dared ask why the emperor’s spreadsheets had no clothes.
Will I Change? Perhaps Not.
So, am I going to change? Am I going to polish up my smile, practice my insincere nods, and start handing out compliments like “unique value proposition” and “huge value creation” on a PowerPoint slide at a management retreat? Unlikely. I’m too old, too twisted, and frankly, I just couldn’t give a shit. Brown-nosing is a craft, one that requires restraint, timing, and a functioning gag reflex, and I’ve never had the temperament or stomach for it. My real talents lie elsewhere: annoying people, asking the questions no one wants to answer, and refusing to clap when the emperor arrives in a new outfit.
To My Readers, Keepers of the Vibe
So, to conclude, dearly beloved readers, paragons of intellect, titans of taste, Olympians of discernment, it is truly an honour to bask in the radiant glow of your collective genius. Your minds, so sharp they could slice through corporate jargon at 100 paces, elevate this humble blog to heights I could never reach alone. I often wonder: am I writing for a niche audience, or simply the last remaining council of high-functioning sentient beings on this side of the galaxy? Honestly, just knowing you’ve read this far fills me with a sense of profound validation and the urge to nominate you all for a Nobel Prize in Critical Thinking and Exceptional Vibe Management.
Until Next Time
Bruce
Ruminant Pink Friday 