With the financial world in constant flux, some businesses take preventative action, at the expense of its personnel, to avoid crisis situations. For example, in June 2005, Fortune 500 company Western & Southern Financial Group, based in Cincinnati, announced plans to move everyone with its Louisville, Ky., subsidiary to corporate headquarters. Instead of laying off 300 sales reps, actuaries, computer programmers and analysts, the company gave the “choice” of relocation. Each person mulled the idea of exchanging a laid-back, business casual dress environment for a cafeteria, a fitness center and a strangling - by a necktie (corporate attire only, please) and organizational bureaucracy.

Two months later, the men and women in suits arrived to document the documents, proactivate the buzzwords and cage the circus animals (aka tech support). Was the job worth uprooting families and lives? And why exactly do people give up their independence to become company drones?

I pledge allegiance
to the brand
of the corporation that hired me,
and to the bottom line
for which it stands,
one company,
under innumerable upper and middle management,
conflicted,
with paychecks and pink slips for all.

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Fun times at the Baltimore Writers' Conference

November 10, 2008 - During the weekend, I had a chance to finally attend the Baltimore Writers' Conference. There had been times in the past when I was thinking about going to one, but I could never fit it into my schedule. Luckily, I think I picked a pretty decent one to attend. First, it happened to be at Towson University, where I attend grad school. Second, there was a pretty good crowd of people there, all of whom seemed like qualified members of the writing profession. Finally, I had a chance to talk to some pretty cool people, including Gregg Wilhelm from the CityLit Project, travel writer L. Peat O'Neil, literary agent Shannon O'Neill and Mohamed Mughai, the author of "Resolution 786." I will admit, though, that a fair amount of the information I heard was stuff I already knew. But the writing business is a lot about who you know, and not necessarily just what you know.



Why the book name change?

October 26, 2008 - You may have noticed that I recently changed the name of my new book to "Corporate Ties." I haven't had a chance to change all of my marketing material yet because, well, there's only so much time in the day, right? After thinking about it and discussing with others, "Polos to Ties" worked great for the local audience, but from a book sales standpoint, a random person might not notice the fashion connection.



Busy busy September

September 04, 2008 - I will be making three book appearances in September, marking my first events since the early summer. Yeah, work and other things have gotten in the way!

About the author

Ben Woods is a freelance writer who has written workplace- and humor-related articles for Belo Corporation and Scripps Interactive Newspaper Group websites, American City Business Journal newspapers and other technology and independent media websites. His first book, a tech-humor fiction novel titled "The Developers," delves into government conspiracy, online privacy and crazy people on the Internet.

He works in Baltimore as a web developer for Advertising.com, a Time Warner AOL subsidiary and the largest online display advertising network in the U.S. and U.K. During the past five years, he has held full-time computer programming positions with companies large and small, collected a stack of employee manuals and health insurance cards and worked with a litany of CEOs, PMPs, BBMs and A-HOLEs.

Woods (shown here while being suffocated with a necktie in the Amazon rainforest) has a journalism degree from Purdue University and is working on a master's degree in Professional Studies at Towson University in Baltimore.