#56: How to Compromise by Rejecting Every Proposal and Refusing to Counter
a SATIRE on the AMPTP’s negotiating strategy
It’s negotiation season, and you know what that means. Some poors are going to want you to compromise. But why meet in the middle when you can force them to meet your middle finger?
Remember the number one tenant of negotiation: concessions are death. Your opponent will have you think reaching a compromise requires you to make compromises, but that’s a trap. Only one person needs to compromise in order for a compromise to be reached and it damn sure doesn’t need to be you. If you need a little support to get you through heated arguments full of reasonable demands, use this mantra: bleed before you concede. Bonus: if you get blood all over the conference room, they’ll probably want to postpone. The longer the process the better! Bleeding money is also great. Show them you don’t mind throwing it away as long as you don’t have to give it to them.
No matter what happens, don’t back down. The only mutually acceptable agreement is one which is totally unacceptable for the other party but absolutely completely extra acceptable for you. This is especially true if you are the Big Dog in the negotiation. For example, you’re a Great Dane entertainment conglomerate making $28 billion dollars in annual profits and they’re a lowly Yorkshire Terrier barely scraping by on $52,000 a year in the fourth most expensive city in the world. Or maybe you’re an English Mastiff streaming goliath spending $19 billion dollars annually on original content and they’re a lowly Chihuahua you’ve hired to invent that content out of thin air who churns out Emmy-award-winning series but can’t figure out how to feed their own family. The Chihuahua sounds a little dumb to me! Like, just buy food, stupid! Ask your dad for money! It’s not that hard!
If it really gets down to the wire and you’re having a moral crisis about declining your opponent crumbs while you mix big dog metaphors with tons of glorious artisanal loaves of bread, remember you can always Kendall Roy this shit and make up the numbers they need to see to prove you can’t meet them halfway.
Wait — we just got word from the writers that you can’t actually Kendall Roy this shit because they invented Kendal Roy and ergo Kendall Roy-ing this shit. But what do they know? You own them! And all their intellectual property! You can do what you want! You’re daddy’s number one boy! Hell, you’re also daddy!
In conclusion, the greedy always prosper. Extra billions trump a living wage. And when in doubt, reject the proposal and refuse to counter.
Happy negotiating! See you in hell! 😘
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If you’d like to learn more about the writers strike, what’s at stake, and how you can support, check out the WGA Strike Hub.
In case it wasn’t abundantly clear, I wholeheartedly support the writers strike and hope to be a WGA member myself someday soon. Writers deserve a living wage! See you on the picket lines.
ily bye,
Ariana