Home » What It’s Like Being Reminded That Sometimes You Can Be A Little Mean: Tales From The Slack

What It’s Like Being Reminded That Sometimes You Can Be A Little Mean: Tales From The Slack

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Col Hathi
Col Hathi
10 months ago

Spot on!

I had a ringside view to his hash-job at Home Depot from my time at college in Atlanta. We had a business case on how he ruined the culture at Home Depot, which in turn led to bad business. The founders had to come back and kick his butt out to save the company. Fast forward one year and Bernie Marcus (one of the founders) was a special guest at our graduation ceremony and spoke to us on how culture was biggest asset on any business’s balance sheet…right before Bob “Kick me in the Nards” Nardelli was hired by Cerberus.

Nardelli was one of the few guys no one had a positive thing to say about.

Ben
Ben
10 months ago

For better or worse, negativity sells. A couple of YouTubers I follow have talked about how it dismays them that their hyper-negative videos get all the clicks and they’ve gotten a reputation as takedown artists, despite having made many more positive videos. And you know what? To quote a different Taylor Swift song: “It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.” Because I’ve watched some of those negative videos multiple times. It just never gets old watching people rip on the Cats movie, alright? 😛

Stef Schrader
Stef Schrader
10 months ago

I feel like I used to be a lot meaner when I wrote for Jalopnik. There’s a lot of meh out there, but not all of it is really worth my energy. Sometimes the best insult is simply never mentioning the meh, too.

That guy absolutely deserved it, though. Quality rant.

Last edited 10 months ago by Stef Schrader
Dave
Dave
10 months ago

“he’ll be extremely responsive to any lifestyle suggestions you may have. For god’s sake have suggestions” – One of the best lines I’ve read in ages. Thank you Adrian.

Amateur-Lapsed Member
Amateur-Lapsed Member
10 months ago

You’re a shill, Bob Nardelli. A figurehead for a fucked up company and a fucked up system. You’re not even an empty suit, because I assume the shit would have to go somewhere. You are, then, a suit filled with shit.

I read the whole piece, up to and including this concluding paragraph, and, given the subject, it seemed like restrained, responsible and factual business reporting to me.

Jblues
Jblues
10 months ago

There is a fear I have that someone is going to come up to me and remind me of something I said that I absolutely don’t remember. Not something nice. Something mean.

Happened to me once. I apparently left a voice mail for the IT department (who had left me working my job without a PC to do it with for a month, and the loaner from another department was about to be repossessed.) and cussed up a storm about how they needed to get me a PC immediately or explain to my boss how I wasn’t going to be able to do my job until they did.

I had zero memory of leaving that voice mail or what I allegedly said, but I had that nagging feeling that I might have actually done it. The IT guy who eventually showed up did a masterful impression of me saying whatever it was that I might or might not have said and it was eerily accurate.

MATTinMKE
MATTinMKE
10 months ago

Went back and read the article. I mean, damn man.

Shop-Teacher
Shop-Teacher
10 months ago

Matt, having met you at the Chicago reader meet-up last summer, where you were nothing but incredibly nice, I have no trouble believing you can be a real insult ninja … a true killer.

And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Taco Shackleford
Taco Shackleford
10 months ago

Matt, I still hold a fiery hatred for Chris Christie. That dumb turkey leg shut all the NJ state parks, including Island Beach State Park over 4th of July weekend in 2017. Then the sad excuse for an overinflated volleyball was at the Governors beach house in Island Beach State Park that weekend. Keeping all the normal vacationers from going there, while sitting privately on the beach. Get bent Chris Christie.

Hoonicus
Hoonicus
10 months ago

Why do they beach themselves?

Shop-Teacher
Shop-Teacher
10 months ago
Reply to  Hoonicus

*rimshot*

Toecutter
Toecutter
10 months ago

It would be easy to lure the Chris Christie into a trap. A box of Krispy Kremes is the perfect bait for that thing. You’ll have to move quickly, because the Chris Christie will inhale that entire box in about 30 seconds.

Amateur-Lapsed Member
Amateur-Lapsed Member
10 months ago

It may have been acceptable back when Joan Rivers was the occasional guest host of Meet the Press, but fat jokes aren’t cool these days. and I say that even though I like to think I’m not a ¾-height replica of the former governor and ongoing bastard who didn’t leap out to oppose the former president until it was clear he had no other path to potential influence within his party. Also, no matter what reason y’all may have for drawing the parallel, likening Chris Christie to them is a very cruel thing to do to our cetacean friends.

You Are Just A Customer
You Are Just A Customer
10 months ago

Dear Adrian, Helter Skelter was a pioneering metal tune.

Matt, Jeesh, tell us how you really feel. 😀 I gotta go back and read that piece.

Toecutter
Toecutter
10 months ago

Dear Adrian, Helter Skelter was a pioneering metal tune.

It inspired Charles Manson, after all.

You Are Just A Customer
You Are Just A Customer
10 months ago
Reply to  Toecutter

Thank you! I almost put that in there, but decided to wait for someone else to point that out. 😀

I should state that I’m not some rabid Beatles fan and that I am just amused with that absoluteness of Adrian’s take on the Beatles. It reminds me of when I would dis The Dead, for whom I have since developed deep respect. I used to think of Ringo as most replaceable member of the band, but have realized he was the ideal drummer for the group and a true musician. Adrian may never come around to such thinking, but that won’t stop me from needling him in a hopefully good-natured way.

Toecutter
Toecutter
10 months ago

I’m not a fan of the Beatles either. Now Black Sabbath and Ozzy, OTOH…

Last edited 10 months ago by Toecutter
SAABstory
SAABstory
10 months ago

Did Matt and Jason give DT’s date the hint to wear Rust-o-leum, DT’s favorite scent?

Spartanjohn113
Spartanjohn113
10 months ago

…I wanna hear about this stolen pickle xD

A. Barth
A. Barth
10 months ago
Reply to  Spartanjohn113

I just wanna ride my motorsickle

Jack Trade
Jack Trade
10 months ago
Reply to  A. Barth

A Honda Hawk, right? 😉

Mercedes Streeter
Mercedes Streeter
10 months ago
Reply to  Spartanjohn113

David, Jason, myself, the lady who would become David’s girlfriend, and another lady went on this group dinner date thing at a Jewish deli. It was a great time and I got to watch my bosses get a bit loose with alcohol.

On our way out, Jason saw a pan full of pickles and snatched one on the way out. The whole restaurant banned us on the spot. Apparently, they don’t remember what Jason even looks like, so the ban hasn’t worked. lol

Last edited 10 months ago by Mercedes Streeter
A. Barth
A. Barth
10 months ago

I know some of the biggest online jerks in the automotive space and most of them, maybe all of them, back down in person.

This has been around for a while* but it’s relevant, I think:

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboards-and-other-anomalies

The text reads “Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total F*ckwad”.

* 20 freakin’ years!?!? That can’t be right.

Spartanjohn113
Spartanjohn113
10 months ago
Reply to  A. Barth

What I wouldn’t do for a new Unreal Tournament game. Kind of shocking with all these other F2P FPS games, there isn’t one already. Or that it’s not a mode in Fortnite.

Mechjaz
Mechjaz
10 months ago
Reply to  A. Barth

> * 20 freakin’ years!?!? That can’t be right.

It’s the G.I.F.T. that keeps on giving.

Chronometric
Chronometric
10 months ago

I have friends at Home Depot. From what I know about Nardelli, Matt nailed it.

Ranwhenparked
Ranwhenparked
10 months ago

That guy who ran Chrysler for like a couple months about 16 years ago, right after they were sold, and right before they went bankrupt and sold most of their assets to a government-backed SPAC?

Yeah, that’s the guy with the extensive indusry resume to be commenting in the current state of things in 2024. I’m pretty sure I’ve bought German bread with a longer shelf life than his whole tenure at Chrysler

Doctor Nine
Doctor Nine
10 months ago
Reply to  Ranwhenparked

Right. Besides, one really should expect harshness, when the olfactory offering is nothing more than acrid smoke, puffed in billowing superfluity, atop a cloudy, nearly opaque, mirror.

Harvey Park Bench
Harvey Park Bench
10 months ago
Reply to  Doctor Nine

> billowing superfluity

Stealing this

Greensoul
Greensoul
10 months ago
Reply to  Ranwhenparked

Sickening this is the ass hat is probably living like a king from the golden parachute he got for the privilege of mussing everything up so quickly.

Greensoul
Greensoul
10 months ago
Reply to  Greensoul

*thing….fricken autospell, return henceforth to the hell thouest cameth from

Toecutter
Toecutter
10 months ago
Reply to  Greensoul

Be careful when calling forth demons to drag something back into Hell. I recommend sitting in a protective circle of white salt so that they can not grab you along with the autospell.

Mechjaz
Mechjaz
10 months ago
Reply to  Toecutter

Best to use Michigan DOT Road Salt in the shape of a Pentastar and burnt offerings of American rust. Contact David Tracy immediately if the ritual goes awry; you may need a Coolant/Ion/Spectral Flush.

Greensoul
Greensoul
10 months ago
Reply to  Mechjaz

I am laughing so hard right now. My dumb ass just realized there is this little wheel thing by the text box I can click on and fix my spelling and send this AI shit that thinks it knows more than me back to the hell it was derived from. BTY, has anyone, I mean anyone, ever used David Tracy’s name in the same sentence without the dreaded rust word involved? I’m asking for a friend…..

Ranwhenparked
Ranwhenparked
10 months ago
Reply to  Greensoul

He didn’t help, but the company was already a desiccated husk when Daimler shuffled it off, and the economy collapsing like 10 months later wasn’t a huge boost, either. Cerberus really didn’t own Chrysler for long enough to do much of note with them, besides approving some interior refreshes.

Really, its pretty hard to see any scenario where Chrysler, as Daimler had left them by 2007, was going to be in any shape to weather 2008/2009 outside of bankruptcy. Had they been left to their own devices from 1998 onward without a “merger of equals”, sure, but not after 9 years of mismanagement then straight into a Great Recession.

Last edited 10 months ago by Ranwhenparked
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