Fritinancy

Dispassionate

"A Passion for Excellence."  "A Passion for Innovation." "A Passion for Performance." "A Passion for"—I kid you not—"the Business of Accounting."

There's a passion surplus out there in corporate America, and it's not a healthy sign. I write about the overused P-word in a new guest post at Duets Blog. Just for fun, I've included a 15-question passion-slogan quiz. If you get more than two correct answers, I'd love to hear about it.

A bit of good news: It's beginning to look as though I'm not alone in my antipathy to the P-word. Here's Alina Tugend in Saturday's New York Times business section:

If there is one word I’m rapidly growing tired of, it’s passion. Not the sex and love type, but the workplace kind. Lately, it seems, I keep hearing career counselors advising the unemployed to identify and develop their passion. Then they need to turn that passion into paid work and presto! They’re now in a career they love.

I know I’m being somewhat flippant, but I do wonder if passion is being oversold. Are we falling into a trap of believing that our work, and indeed, our lives, should always be fascinating and all-consuming? Are we somehow lacking if we’re bored at times or buried under routine tasks or failing to challenge ourselves at every turn?

I can see it now: "A Moderate Enthusiasm for Scrap Metal."

(If you're new around here, you may want to read my original passion post, "Our Passion Is Your Problem," which I wrote back in 2006.)

Feeling Passionate about Excellence

GoodCopyBadCopy, the blog of London agency DAC Creative, has been publishing "Scenes from Corporate Life," a series of original cartoons poking fun at corporate jargon. This one has a familiar ring:

 

Ah yes, our old friend corporate passion! 

More Fritinancy posts about corporate passion here. More Scenes from Corporate Life here. This post, about how a self-described "artistically incompetent" person developed the cartoons, provides interesting background.

And more corporate cartoons at Business Guys on Business Trips, a mordant Monday-morning skewering of creative-department folly.

P.S. Speaking of cartoons, I miss The Red Phone, Mxrk's sardonic political series.

Eh?

Are your ears burning?

Because, you know, I'm talking about you.

What? Not even a tingle?

Here's something that ought to raise the temperature: a little Passion.

Not the Passion you dab behind your ears--the Passion you put in your ears.

I'll enunciate clearly: the Passion is a highly intelligent hearing instrument with Receiver-in-Canal (RIC) technology and precise Integrated Signal Processing (ISP)

Got it? Passion is a hearing aid, one of several new brands being marketed to a rapidly growing market of Boomers who stood in the front row of one too many rock concerts. And who don't flinch at spending $2,800 to $4,000 per ear to reclaim their sonic youth. 

According to a four-page insert in my daily newspaper, the Passion, from Widex, is "virtually invisible" and "the world's smallest hearing aid." Curiously, although the device disappears inside the ear canal, it's offered "in a luxurious selection of 12 top shell colors with gold and platinum detailing"--perhaps in case you choose to wear your Passion on your sleeve.

Widex's launch effort is straightforward compared to last year's major hearing-device introduction, the Audéo from Phonak. (I wrote about the Audéo's in-your-face ad campaign here.) Unlike Phonak, Widex uses old-fashioned marketing language and conventional images of youngish, satisfied-looking customers. It proclaims the Passion to be "the #1 new hearing aid of the year," a phrase the company has somehow managed to trademark. (Widex has also trademarked "ear candy" and "lifestyle saver," and illustrates the product next to small round candies.)  

But the call to action is unintentionally amusing: "LET US SHOW YOU HOW SMALL THE PASSION REALLY IS!"

When it comes to passion, my own motto is: go big or go home.

Seriously, though, "Passion" strikes me as an off-target name for a hearing aid, even for one that comes in a dozen colors.

As I know from watching older relatives endure countless frustrating experiences, buyers of hearing aids aren't shopping for excitement: they want quality, comfort, clarity, and reliability. Those primary benefits are better communicated by the names of Passion's high-tech competitors: Audéo, Dot from ReSound, Pure from Siemens, and--my favorite--Lyric from InSound Medical. Respectively, those names say hearing, precision, simplicity, and sweet music.

In general, I'm guessing that Widex's strong suit is technology, not nomenclature. Other Widex model names include Inteo (OK, but not strongly evocative), Senso (a bit generic), and Senso Diva. (Yes, our dear friend Diva!) And there's a Bravo and a Bravissimo--gee, wonder which one I'd rather own?

Then there's Widex itself, which looks disconcertingly like Windex while suggesting a rather uncomfortable amplitude.

As for Passion, let's not forget that the word's original meaning is suffering, as in "the passion of Christ." And consider all that passion connotes in contemporary English: Volatility. Jealousy. Crimes of. 

Of course, longtime readers already know my stated objections to the promiscuous use of passion in non-boudoir contexts. Newcomers can catch up here.

___

"Acoustic appliances" (Sears, Roebuck catalog) from here.

The Passion That Dares to Speak Its Name ... Again and Again and...

It's been a while since I've mentioned the scourge of corporate "passion," but that doesn't mean the P-word has withered on the vine. No, indeed.

London graphic designer Ben Terrett writes:

We had a printer turn up this morning, unannounced. He just knocked on the door. His business card assured us that he was "passionate about print". Which made me wonder how many other printers were "passionate about print".

Lots, as it happens.

In fact, Terrett found at least 11 companies that used the slogan "Passionate About Print." He has visual evidence.

And that's just in the UK. On this side of the pond, Corporate Printers (is that a passionate name or what?) in Cummings, GA, is "as passionate about print as you are." I can't resist quoting the first sentence of Corporate Printers' home page: "Nothing has the sheer emotional sizzle than a beautiful piece of printing." Tip: Less passion, more grammar.

PrintJuce.com [sic], in Las Vegas, is "passionate about print media and we pay attention to details." A new diagnostic category: obsessive-compulsive-passionate, or OCP.

Rosiedog Creative Services in Las Vegas is also "passionate about print." And lukewarm about web design, to judge from the insanely wide column width on its home page.

PrintPlace, in Arlington, TX, gives the slogan a creative twist: it's "passionate about printing."

And so on.

Read my original post on the topic, "Our Passion Is Your Problem," which includes my rhyming ode to corporate passion, suitable for setting to music. Still not satisfied? I've got lots more.

Hat tip to Qwghlm, who linklogs at Del.icio.us.

Another Vote Against (and Also For) Passion

Heather Havrilesky in Salon.com:

"Passion." What an unsavory word! A perfectly nice word, really, that's been poisoned by the people who overuse it, people who run around announcing to anyone who'll listen, "I'm a very passionate person!"

Unless that statement is uttered by a preteen drama student or a Brazilian or an abstract painter three glasses into a bottle of red wine, it's tantamount to saying, "My head is so full of thoughts!" or "I just love puppies!" or declaring Wallace Stegner a great writer, as if to suggest he was just an unfocused drunk scribbling away in his journal until you came along. It's like saying, in a conspiratorial tone, "I'm such a sexual person" or "Music affects me at such a deep level" or "I breathe oxygen" or "I walk on two feet and eat food and sleep in a bed at night."

Read the rest of the story, about the genuine passion of the contestants on "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Top Chef." Just one more snippet, because it's so good I can't help myself:

Despite the bad outfits, despite the screaming preteens in the audience, despite the "Vote for me!" hamming of the contestants, despite the alienating "Meet your dancers!" routines, with their excess of cheesy, exaggerated grooving, this is a competition that hinges on passion. Each performance, whether it's a contemporary extravaganza of tangled limbs and faux-passionate emoting or a faux-passionate Argentine tango or a romantic, graceful faux-passionate waltz, depends on the real passion of the dancers involved.

Read my own rant, "Our Passion Is Your Problem." 

The Price Is Wrong

Bridgestone Tire is running a full-page national magazine ad this month with this offer:

Get Up to $100 Dollars Back

I know the dollar is weak, but the dollar symbol ($) is still pronounced dollars. You don't need to artificially prop it up with the redundant spelled-out version. Use one or the other, not both.

(Oh, and I'm very sorry to report that Bridgestone's tagline is "A Passion for Excellence." I'd prefer a moderate enthusiasm for proofreading.)

Appassionata? Basta!

The anti-corporate-passion movement has a new spokesman: reporter Mike Weiss. He writes in today's San Francisco Chronicle:

Spring training is upon us, and with it a renewal of passion. I don't mean passion for a long home run or a diving catch. What I have in mind is "a passion for the business of accounting," the catch-phrase of a sponsor of Giants radio broadcasts, Grant Thornton, as I will be hearing all season long.

Now these accountants -- heralded in song and story as the passionate profession -- could instead have put forward their competency, their thoroughness or their honesty. They could instead have promised to twist and torture every IRS rule and regulation on behalf of our bank balance, which is, after all, what we desire of our accountants. But no, they offer us passion.

Have you noticed that nowadays everybody's got passion? 

 

Why, yes, I certainly have.

Naturally, I have sent Mr. Weiss a cordial yet dispassionate email welcoming him to the front lines. I say: let's keep passion in the cheap motel room and the back seat of the borrowed Chevrolet, where it belongs.

About the cartoon: I found it on the web site of Carol Hartley, an accounting professor at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island. It was unattributed, with no copyright notice.

Update: The resourceful and sharp-eyed Wes Phillips of Stereophile has identified the cartoonist as Chris Weyant.

I'm Not the Only One Who Hates 'Passion'

I really take exception to being congratulated on my passion. I think passion is something really best kept for the bedroom. You can like your work very much indeed ... but passion--no, thank you.

--Financial Times workplace columnist Lucy Kellaway, interviewed by Renee Montagne on NPR's Morning Edition on the subject of mass thank-you emails sent by managers to their employees.

(For more throbbing prose, read "Our Passion Is Your Problem," "Heaving Bosoms in Human Resources," and "And the Worst Are Full of Passionate Intensity.")

Pointy-haired Passion

Faithful readers know that I am wont to get a bit tetchy about "corporate passion." I'm gratified to see that Dilbert's Scott Adams is, too.

And the Worst Are Full of Passionate Intensity

More sightings on the passion front:

City National Bank's billboard on I-880 south, near Oakland International Airport:

Passion Is Currency

(Oh goodie--that must mean I'll get a loan if I breathe hard and lick my lips seductively.)

Bilingual passion on a billboard on Cahuenga Blvd. near Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood:

Hay Pasiones Imposibles a Imitar (Translation: "There are passions that are impossible to imitate.")

The second billboard was advertising Senorial sangría, but the product name was so small I had to stand virtually underneath the billboard to read it. The "pasiones" part, on the other hand, was huge.

The headline on this post comes, of course, from William Butler Yeats's "The Second Coming" (1920), which also gave us "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." Thanks to Matthew Stibbe for jogging my memory.