“…He also wants you to pull his finger.”
“GLADLY!”
IDPounder
Would that I could give this comment more upvotes. Well played.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
We’re all doing our part to celebrate Hfar’s unceasing cleverness!
John Smith
He might just go for that, if he thought it would help make a sale. 😀
Insane Disciple
Maybe offer it instead?
http://www.zapcomic.com/ Pascalle Lepas
hahaha! Great dialogue!
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
Joe’s like 70% responsible for that!
Mike
Ha! Now we can have our accidental discharge which kills the messenger! That IS why you wrote it this way, right? Also, Genchu I recommend you stop trying to explain. You’re just making it worse.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
We’re totally still building up to that! It is a thing that is absolutely happening! Soon!
endplanets
“So he is saying that my cargo is priceless?”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
CaptainBetrayer
Ya know, I’d have thought diplomatic doubletalk would be useful for a salesman. Guess I was wrong. I mean, look at the value!
Really, his issue is that he came to Japan assuming he would be able to walk off the boat and randomly find someone bilingual enough to serve as a reliable translator (as opposed to one with ulterior motives). His sales technique is pretty good, but what kind of merchant doesn’t bring a translator with him?! Also, if you’re intending to sell something to a military you don’t know, perhaps invest in a few guards?
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
Agreed, your points are exceptionally valid. Luckily what we do, we do for laughs! What, you’re not laughing??
Have a rock
…does anyone else think his shirt makes him look like a barrel, or is it just me?
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
Ricardo is barrel chested, after all.
MoveAlongCitizen
Where ELSE is he gonna keep all that booze?
Lady Courage
The stunned third panel. I can’t stop giggling at it. XDDD It needs a “WOW!!!” sound effect.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
OH! That would’ve been a good sound effect. Not a lot of room for it, though!
Lady Courage
Are you saying there’s just not enough room to fully express his wowness?
reynard61
Wow, what an idiot! He must be a Harvard MBA…
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
Is this a commentary on Harvard or people with MBAs or both?
Now, granted there may be some MBAs out there who don’t behave in this manner (and I’d be happy to listen to your story if you wish to share it); but I think that if they want to change that image (and I’m not the only one who feels this way) then they need to do a better job of doing their jobs. (End of rant.)
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
Our opinions are aligned on this matter, sir.
KungFuKlobber
My dad has an MBA (from a prestigious eastern school that is not Harvard) and a master’s degree in chemistry (also not from Harvard). He started a one-man business and did pretty well for himself.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
So, on a scale from one to George W Bush, your dad’s pretty much awesome, is what I’m getting.
I have heard that MBAs are the most time effective degree for financial success. The least required amount of schooling for the most successful job opportunities. In the end, it’s more how you implement your knowledge than how you received it!
Roland James Belanger
Did a political discussion just start based on a comic that involves ninjas?
….
I need a break from the internet.
reynard61
What was the business? Did it emphasize the Chemistry degree or the MBA? Also, how was the MBA useful (or not) in that business?
(Let me emphasize that I have nothing against your father. I simply tend to see more negative consequences in the world from MBA holders than positive ones.)
KungFuKlobber
He developed some software for IBM and Compuserve in the late 70’s-early 80’s before becoming a licensed Realtor who also owned, managed, fixed up, remodeled, and built add-ons for his own properties personally. He also made a good deal of money in the stock market. So, not much use for his chemistry degrees in a business capacity but his finance, accounting, and management skills came in handy.
reynard61
Then I guess that an MBA *can* be useful to certain people in certain careers (and benefit society to boot) if they choose to make it so; but, as I said previously, they need to do a better job of not turning it into something that the rest of us will see in a negative light.
purplelibraryguy
The core problem with the MBA, and much other business education, is that it is designed around the idea that all businesses are effectively the same. Since a business is a vehicle for making money, if you know how to manipulate money you know how to run a business–any business. Specifics are abstracted away. But in real life the specifics are important. One strength of German business (although this may be eroding these days) has been that they still retain a production-oriented outlook and framework, including colleges oriented towards the nuts and bolts of manufacturing and other “hard” technology.
If people learn the skills without inhaling the ideology underneath, the skills can be useful. Managing money has its place. But people who drink that kool-aid cause problems by devaluing the idea that any given business has real skills associated with whatever it’s actually doing, and by applying one-size-fits-all solutions that rarely fit. So they can run businesses into the ground because they think they understand them but they don’t really. What’s worse is that most financial solutions which can appear to work anywhere tend to be very short term. So you get downsizing and outsourcing type stuff; cutting costs always improves the bottom line, until you get messed up because of the things you cut because you didn’t understand how the business works. In some cases this isn’t even done out of ignorance, it’s done because the one doing it planned to exercise their stock options and jump ship before the damage became obvious.
reynard61
Oh, this! So, *SO* much this! Yes, if an MBA degree was simply about “Time Management” and “Production Efficiencies” and all of that theoretical, nuts-and-bolts widget-making crap then I suppose that I might not hate it quite so much. (I’d still hate it for it’s emphasis on turning people into faceless cogs in the manufacturing machine, but that’s not particularly relevant at the moment.) What I hate is this idea that somehow an MBA automatically makes it’s holder The Smartest Man In The Room when it comes to making business decisions — even when those decisions are quite clearly damaging or destroying a company…or a Nation! (Read the books The Smartest Men in the Room and Conspiracy of Fools for an excellent example of how “drinking the (MBA) kool-aid” not only brought down Enron, but damn near brought down the American Economy with it!)
So, yes, I hate the legacy-student, “Gentleman’s C”s ease with which some Universities confer the damned things (yes, Harvard; I’m looking at *YOU!* Also, imagine if Harvard Medical School or Harvard Law awarded M.D.s and J.D.s in that manner! Can you imagine someone like Dubya as a Doctor or a Lawyer?!), and I hate the Can’t-think-beyond-this-Quarter mentality that seems to permeate the MBA mindset/worldview. (Although, part of that I also blame on the SCOTUS for it’s Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. decision that *requires under the law* that businesses make a profit for their stockholders — although I also think that MBAs tend to use this as a rather pathetic excuse for some of the crap that they pull. There are, after all, still plenty of *legal* ways to make a profit that don’t require the ruining of people’s lives, the environment, etc.)
So, yeah; both the mentality *and* the ideological swill that come with an MBA need to be addressed — and changed — or, more and more, it’ll just continue to mean “More Bad Advice”.
Sunwu
This is priceless!!
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
I see what you did there!
IDPounder
You know, this panel really cries out for a remix. I wonder if I can make that happen…
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
ask I ye shall receive.
IDPounder
The dialog just sort of wrote itself, I swear.
http://www.nn4b.com suburban_samurai
This is brilliance! I’ve always considered flatulence jokes to be one of the highest forms of the comedic arts, and I’m glad to see I was proven right yet again. Excellent utilization of the third panel reaction shot, I must say!
IDPounder
Your work brings me a lot of joy, so always happy to spin a bit back your way, sir. As Hfar originally pointed out, this one just begged for a “pull my finger” reference.
Yeah, third panel worked out great, and the expression on the padre’s face in panel 4 rolled along with it well. It’s like the look on a skinny underclassman’s face when a football coach is sending them in as an injury replacement. “Don’t worry kid, that last guy’s leg was only broken in three places. You can do it, go get ’em!”
KungFuKlobber
Yep, flatulence deserves a place in the Shrine of Very Funny Things right up there with banana peels, midgets, penguins, and Harpo Marx.
Thiago Kurovski
His lovely 3 year old daughter will be able to pay for her cancer treatment! His likeable wife will be able to buy food again!
Portuguese guy, a hero for commerce, progress and possibly inexistent family members!
