When did many of today's accepted norms become the norm, when many of them are really stupid?

One example is journalism, as I quickly commented on in the past. Why do journalists try to be 'witty' or alliterate wheneever possible in their headlines? Does 'man arrested for lewd conduct' get less reads than 'freaky flasher found friday'? Do they actually teach you in journalism school about such nonsense, and encourage it?

Then, there's all of the various mantras, chants, and habits thrust upon employees at retail outlets, fast food chains, etc. Managers receive memos that they must pass on to their employees which generally involve some stupid acronym or statement that employees must follow to make people want to shop there. No, wait, I mean, "to maximise the shopping experience!" Old Navy, for example, has assigned 'CEO's CEO in this case, stands for Customer Experience Officer. How lame is that? I'd hazard to guess that such mantras and silliness harbours more contempt in their (often teenaged) employees than cheerfulness or glee. What's wrong with, "do your best to be a pleasant person for our customers to deal with."? Again, do they teach you in business school to come up with this crap?

Business executives are known for their meaningless buzzwords and statements. If you ask half of these assholes the definition of 'synergy', 'core competency', and 'turn-key', they'll quietly excuse themselves.

No, wait, they'll, "consider all aspects of the heavy lifting, and approach all of the points of interest going forward", and suggest you "regroup tomorrow for a little more face-time so they can spend the evening thinking outside-the-box, and will touch base with you later'. This particular one I can unequivocally tell you they don't teach in school -- it's usually spouted off by PHBs who have no place in business, much less in an executive position, who are trying to sound catchy. Er, 'up-to-speed'.

When did 'happy birthday' go extinct? Restaurants have their employees sing some stupid made up song at birthday's instead of good old 'Happy Birthday'. Is the regular song uncool now?

When did a company's name said a certain why or sung a certain way become acceptable as a jingle? Wait, lets go back a step. Who decided jingles were a good idea in the first place? Marketing droids might suggest Vonage's jingle works because it sticks in your head. It sticks in my head in a want-to-physically-hurt-the-person-who-invented-it kind of way, not a hey, maybe I'll give them a try kind of way.

And lastly, when did it become acceptable for people to paste entire song lyrics into their away message on IM networks, or in message threads on web forums? And why do they feel the need to tell me everything they're doing throughout the day in their MSN name? Big events are OK, but, "gone to do dishes", followed by, "walking the dog", followed by "showering", followed by "watching TV" is more information than I need, but thanks for the play-by-play.