The marking of April Fools’ Day has been banned in the Guru household since Mrs Guru spent an entire spring season in counselling after spectacularly misunderstanding one superb, but high-risk, prank. However, if this year’s efforts are not dramatically improved upon, Yours Truly will have to get back in the game and remind everyone how it’s done.
The only employment news spoof last week came from the unlikeliest of sources – the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It was not so much a case of scraping the barrel, as one of burning the barrel, and trying to get nutrition from the fumes.
The serious and much-feared markets regulator sent a news release to journalists announcing plans to require public companies to reveal the pay and perks of the “top 100 people who make more than the CEO”.
Commission official April Fuhrst – see what they did there? – was quoted as saying the changes would reveal a “treasure trove of titillating information”. Guru’s sides did not just stay intact they actually seemed to grow in fortification.
At this point, Yours Truly would like to respectfully point out that he never tries to tell publicly limited companies in the US how to comply with the law, so he would appreciate it if the US Securities and Exchange Commission did not try to make jokes out of employment news.
It gives the whole genre a bad name and, frankly, it is about as funny as finding a court summons on your desk on a Monday morning.
