Here Are The 69 Words General Motors Employees Were Forbidden To Use In Memos During The Chevy Recall Scandal
TIME- Documents released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday show that there are some things you can say if you’re an employee at the kingpin automaker… and there are other things you just can’t. Released as part of General Motors’ $35 million settlement with the U.S. government over its faulty ignition switch scandal, the slides from a company presentation in 2008 told employees to choose their words carefully, because anything said could end up publicized. Basically, the presentation is a 101 in how to avoid a PR disaster. It’s not hard to imagine how the meeting unfolded. GM management appears to have asked employees not to liken vehicles to “rolling sarcophagi,” and not to compare an automobile to the “Titanic” or the “Hindenburg.” And it could have really unnerved drivers if they heard that GM engineers had called their Chevrolet “gruesome” “deathtraps.”
Fantastic. There seems to be common theme throughout that list. Basically “Hey, when you send out a memo, make sure you don’t mention that our cars are rolling death machines because that would be bad for us. K thanks” I’ve been paying particular attention to this GM recall because you know who drives a Chevy Cobalt? That’s right, I do. I drive a black 2009 Cobalt that is the envy of all my neighbors. It’s pretty much the Ferrari of mid-size sedans and way cooler than a Fiat. It really is a great car minus the minor detail that the ignition switch could break at literally any second and morph from a car into a rocket on wheels with me sitting in the driver seat. I got a letter in the mail from GM saying to take all of my key chains off in order to avoid it. Quick fix much? I guess what happens is the ignition switches to off and you lose all control of the car. Which is pretty sweet I guess. So if one day I abruptly stop publishing blogs it’ll be because I either got canned or because I lost all control of my Cobalt and plowed head first into a telephone pole at a high rate of speed and died.
Among my favorite words from that list: Titanic, Hindenburg, Challenger, widow-maker, potentially-disfiguring, genocide, rolling sarcophagus and you’re toast
If I were forced to pick my single favorite out of the whole 69, it’d be a tough call, but I’m going with widow-maker. Simply because it’s hilarious and nobody would ever think to put that in a memo but GM felt the need to cover their ass in such a wide scoping way they put it on the list just in case.
Weirdest one on the list: Cobain