I did not know where to start with this paper because it was such a short piece. However bullshit is used in everyday business practice and I felt the need to touch on it. I will be writing about Harry G. Frankfurt’s piece “On Bullshit.” Which after reading the piece I was not satisfied and did a little more research about it to give me a little more insight. The piece in the book compares lying and bluffing to bullshitting. He explains that lying is a falsehood and so is bluffing. The liar and bluffer are intentionally getting the facts wrong. Bullshit on the other hand is basically a counterfeit. Frankfurt uses an older Mr. Simpson from Eric Ambler’s novel “Dirty Story” and he said to his young son “Never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way through.” Frankfurt really never comes out and talks about his position on bullshit which is why I had to go and dig a little further. I found that he thinks that bullshit is worse than lying. I think ethically that he feels whether in business or in normal day life it should not be used. We are more tolerant of bullshit than lying which he leaves for us to figure out. Frankfurt explains, for a liar “Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus” and for a bullshiter “His focus is panoramic rather than particular” (54). I do not completely agree with Frankfurt’s position on bullshit. I do not think that bullshit is worse than lying. With bullshit there is still truth. Bullshit I feel you can still see the truth it just takes the longer road to get there but in the end you still get there. When someone lies to you they don’t want you to see the actual truth. They are leading you as far away from the actual fact as they can. I also feel that in sales there is bullshit. When I was younger I was in Kirby vacuum sales. I was one of the top sales people in the Madison area. I didn’t realize it then but some of the sales tactics that I used and eventually taught to others was bullshit. One of these strategies is used at the end of a sale. In Kirby sales the price is always too high so you would get them to trade in their vacuum cleaner. You would then call the boss and get a lower price and make them an offer. When that didn’t work you would call your boss back and beg him to give you a better deal and tell him that these were really nice people, how bad they could use this new cleaner he would go through everything with you throwing in the shampoo machine, and if they did not like it in three days we would be back to pick it up. I already knew what my bottom line was so my phone calls were normally to my answering machine. This way I could listen to them later to see if I could pick up on anything I could have done better. When going door to door, telling people that it was my first day just to get in to show the product. People seem to feel more sympathetic or relaxed when they thought it was your first day. I don’t feel bad morally or ethically about what I did or how I did it. I felt good about the product I was selling and to this day still talk good about the cleaner. I feel bullshit is a sales tactic. I think that when we go out to buy a new car or anything that needs to be negotiated, it is our responsibility as the consumer to do the research to get the lowest price. It is fair for the sales person to make a living also. Bullshit has been around for a very long time and people are very aware of it. I don’t feel people are bothered by bullshit because of being able to look for so much information on the internet before going out to purchase what they want. I believe the bullshit sales tactic is slowly being moved out because of modern day technology. Bullshit will never be completely gone.

References
E.Ambler. (1967). Dirty story.
Frankfurt, H. G. (2011). On Bullshit. In C. M. Joanne B.Cilla, Honest Work (pp. 53-54). NY, NY: Oxford University Press.
You tube. (n.d.). Retrieved October 25, 2010, from You tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1RO93OS0Sk