The Satirical Retrospect 2018
Let's start with something easy: The Donald. He started early in the year, after the school massacre in Florida: "If there had been a teacher who would have been familiar with firearms, this could very well have led to the attack being ended very quickly." Since then, we've been waiting for the Teachers' Association to put the first sniper courses out to tender...
Roger Köppel enters new dimensions: first he invites Steve Bannon as a host, a few weeks later he is guest at Marine le Pen. I know he's said to be so brilliant and intelligent, but still, there seem to be limits. That's somewhat reassuring, after all – or not. What else will he think of in the future to make the next step?
Volkswagen makes record profits despite the diesel scandal – so the free market doesn't fix everything after all.
In March: an interview with a representative from the deepest undergrowth of the consulting jungle: "With the mind we can learn to react with the right feeling". Sounds somehow like "the right feeling in the right place at the right time". Who will define “the right feeling”? Why do I feel so tired all of a sudden... Her website says: "I realized early on that I can't learn what I want to learn at the universities of the rich industrial nations. I spent formative years of teaching and development in India and Indonesia, travelled to Central and South America and finally returned to Europe". Nevertheless, one would be a little curious as to what her background actually is, because air miles alone don't make you wiser per se.
In hospitals, flat rates per case are introduced for dying patients who enter the clinic. In plain language: if you are not dead after a certain time, you will be sent home again. Like at school in the old days: At the door for improper behavior. "Stop wasting our time and come back when you're serious." Well...
And then: Cambridge Analytica dies – so, every now and then the free market actually does fix it.
Guillaume Barrazzone, Geneva City Councillor, makes phone calls for over seventeen thousand francs in a year. Very impressive. The time you have to invest in this alone…But apart from the justification for these conversations, the city administration could at least have thought of flat rate subscriptions...
On my birthday it was time for one of my favorite topics. A psychologist explains: "So when I think twenty times, "I should finally make the shopping list for my perfect menu", but nothing happens, the brain notices: That's obviously not so important. When I then really want to create the shopping list, my brain no longer provides me with energy for it." From the series "me and my brain", and once more I ask myself: Who else might be living inside me? Maybe the air miles are better, after all?
Then the excitement about Novartis charging four million for an infusion that promises a child who would die at the age of two thirteen additional years of life in good health (and who then logically will die at fifteen, but that is not mentioned. At some point this child will be old enough to understand that his parents made that decision; that doesn't make it any easier). In the discussion it was said that the Swiss were prepared to pay a hundred thousand francs for one year of life. This in turn sounds like the argument of a group of hostage-takers looking for an investor. But do I have a good answer here? No. We're living in a time of overload, and I'll bet it's going to increase.
Last but not least: Emotional intelligence is becoming more and more important in the workplace, and there is now a test procedure with an interesting concept: the test focuses exclusively on problematic situations that evoke negative emotions. The test developers, but obviously also the buyers, seem to assume that employment consists mainly of hardship, stress and disgust... before my mind’s eye, loud job advertisements appear: "Are you tough enough to work for us? Because we tell you one thing: it won't be fun!" If you ask me: maybe you should check whether you are doing something wrong in your organization, if that is your model.
And so, we are curious to see what the new year will bring, and despite all the absurdities, there is one thing that always remains: to contribute, wherever possible, to making things go as well as they can. In this sense I wish you a very happy new year.
