Minutes ago arrived in my news box the fines that Romanian TV channels received for unscrupulously presenting the suicide of a popular local singer (Madalina Manole – see photo) to general public. Amongst others there were accusations on presenting suicidal methods, showing clear images with her one year old son and invading people’s private life in very difficult moments.

Nothing interesting so far; this may even look like authorities are really doing their job. Only until one could see the size of these fines. The biggest one (for doing all the above mentioned cruelties)  was RON 10’000 which is less than EUR 2’500 which is probably less than one minute cost for  commercials at prime time. In such situation who would really care not to do it again?

Does this look far from our day to day business realities? I do not think so. Many of our current policies are screaming out to be ignored. Or, even worse, they (financially) “legitimate” what may otherwise be a moral problem. In other words, intruding into someone’s private life may be morally unacceptable; however, if that costs EUR 1’000 only then one can conclude it may not be that seriously morally unacceptable.

As a Romanian citizen I do not feel protected by such kind of authorities and policies. In our case I am sure that all TV channels will repeat the same abuses again and again every time they will have an opportunity. Meaning the benefit from doing it outweighs by far the size of punishment. And when the worst punishment is at the level of 1 minute rate card it would practically mean… anytime. Are your regulations and processes strengthening your business or rather weakening it?

Paul is being auctioned (informally). Price for him, as a forecaster of future football games not as a dish, went up to €30.000.  Let’s see what one may get for this money.

·         First of all a young octopus (maybe 200g) feeding culinary fantasies of many Germans.

·         A football oracle. Really?

Let’s look at what happened. He was not always right. Two years ago, rather young and not enough “experienced”, he got wrong the final game in European Cup. (more…)

When the (now) famous Paul-the-Octopus “predicted” Germany’s loss in the semi-finals lots of German fans volunteered to prepare Paul into some delicious dishes as revenge (especially after proving right again).

Punishing the messenger looks as a pretty ugly thing to do (but often seen in business too). How about grilled Scweinsteiger (of course with beer) or Oezil sautéed?

Just read recently that the Spanish football federation will grant each Spanish player €600.000 in the eventuality of winning the World Cup.

While this amount of money would have the power to highly motivate many of us (at least me and my readers) to master some tasks, I have my doubts when it comes to football players. It would surely trigger some questions amongst players and I am not so sure they are all motivational! Here there are some of them: (more…)

Quarterfinal: Nederlands vs. Brazil

Arjen Robben was in my view the man behind the victory, although for many Wesley Sneijder was more in the spotlights. What I found interesting about this player was controlling his nerves. On average, he has been brutally attacked every 5 minutes. Even myself watching I discovered I became nervous just seeing this happening almost every time he hit the ball. In the second half one Brazilian paid for all these fouls by receiving the red card and finishing the tournament 20 minutes earlier. A minute later Robben was again put down close to Brazilian goal. Referee gave free kick for Holland and immediately arguments ignited among Brazilians, Dutch and referee and lasted for about a minute. All these happened just two meters behind Robben who was sitting on his butt on the grass facing the opposite direction and choosing not to get involved in the argument. (more…)