An informed Writing Boots correspondent points out that Wells Fargo took $25 billion in government bailout money and recently posted a $2.5 billion quarterly loss.
Then, when press reports criticized the company for rewarding high-performing workers with a trip to Las Vegas for an employee conference, the company canceled the trip.
But then Wells Fargo took out an expensive ad in Sunday's New York Times—did our tax money help pay for this ad?—to defend its original intention.
"Okay, time out. Something doesn't feel right," the ad begins. It goes on to attack the media for implying that every employee recognition event is "a junket, a boondoggle, a waste, or that it's for highly paid executives. Nonsense!"
In the old days, one would simply say this about Wells Fargo communicators, and many communicators at this precarious moment in history:
They don't know whether to shit or wind their wristwatch.
David — I’m supposed to get upset about a Las Vegas junket, an ad and $25 billion, when Congress just passed the mother of all earmark/pork bills? The ad was stupid; planning a Las Vegas junket was more stupid. But they pale in comparison to what Congress just foisted on us, and our children, and our grandchildren, and our-great-grandchildren. And our Treasury Secretary wants to drop another cool trillion on the banks. What is this, a competition to out-stupid the Bush Administration?
I don’t know how you analyze these things, Glynn. Your pork is my jobs, my spending is your stimulus, your tax relief is my tax cuts for the rich. What would you have had the gov’ment do, if anything at all?
In any case, this blog is (generally) about communication, and (often) about corporate communication. The Wells Fargo silliness pales in scope to the stimulus plan, but it’s the sort of thing I cover here, so that’s why I’m covering it.