brand loyal

Today, I read where car dealers who took on extra inventory in an effort to help their company, Chrysler, feel betrayed now as the company plans to close 700+ dealerships nationwide. The dealers may have felt it was their company. Chrysler, privately owned, probably fell into disrepair because of its lack of authenticity as a company with at least a few pages of its books visible. But their private woes have become public business after all.

Some will say this is a lesson to younger people about company loyalty. While some urge us to learn from other people’s mistakes, we humans more often maintain our optimism about our own existence. We go to work each day with co-workers, bosses, customers, and things to do in the name of company vitality and profit. We row the boat together. We get through tough times in the company and on a personal level we form wonderful friendships and help our friends with things personal and non-company agenda-like.

We could make a case for encouraging companies to exercise more empathy in tough times. Some companies do that now, offering pay cuts for continued employment. Teachers in some school districts in California have volunteered to take less pay and even use their own funds to continue extracurricular activities.

Recent veterans of the 2001 bubble bust, often share their experiences in light of today’s woes. The bubble busted in the tech world and because of that sector pop other sectors didn’t feel even the slightest concussion. But those thrown from the moving car still have a few scars from the tumble to the curb.

The lesson I learned was to use care when affixing a logo to your self. That lesson, among a few others, comes after some dusting off time. More people dusting off and preparing to get dusted these days, across more job sectors and business types, makes me think that logos may be something we’ll see fewer of on clothing.

I just noticed I’m wearing a yellow t-shirt with a large green adidas logo. My daughter gave me this shirt after my grand daughter Lila and I ate yogurt together, sitting on the couch and watching Mickey Mouse.