The language of mountaineering (and business)
By Cam Burns |
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing many mountaineers who’ve worked in the motivational-speaking arena. Most of them earn their biggest dollars talking to dysfunctional business units, inept C-somethings (CFOs, CEOs, COOs, CucKOOs, etc.), and management teams that need a serious headcheck. Most of us can understand.
But strangely, as much as I hate to admit it, climbing is just like business. Climbers often liken their sport to an art form, a dance, a strategic exercise — be it surfing, sailing or ballet. But doesn’t the term “risk management” apply better to climbing than terms related to the arts or sciences?
My point? The terminology. Here are just a few indicators of why climbing is more like busy-ness than most of us would think:
Accounts Payable. He/she saved your ass, now it’s your turn.
Accounts Receivable. You get the candy bar.
Accrual-Based Accounting. The numbers of inches of new snow versus your willingness to strap on crampons.
Assets. A group of climbers’ small backsides, the result of much time in the field (from the French assettes).
Frozen Assets. A group of climbers’ nether regions after a long night out.
Intangible Assets. Friends who’ve gotten much higher on the mountain than you and you can’t catch up to them.
Balance Sheet. A ground sheet placed on a ridge.
Break Evan. A point when you bust your Welsh climbing partner’s nose.
Business Plan. How you’re gonna get out of the tent, do the business, and get back in without splatter, ice nip and antagonizing your tent-mate.
Cash Position. A bivouac sleeping position that, if you’re willing (and of questionable character), could earn you a few bucks.
Current Liabilities. The challenges of crossing a raging river en route to a mountain.
Current Assets. Your fellow swimmers. Whose shorts were swept away.
Current Ratio. The number of folks wanting to go on versus those who are headed back to Skardu.
Debt Service. Often misspelled. Refers to spending the night with Deb T., a fictitious character who appears in Jon Krakauer’s “In Through Thin Clothes.”
Depreciation. The gradual loss of your usability and value in dangerous places.
Distributor. Just one faulty component on the expedition bus.
Gross Profit. Cousin of the world-renowned French mountaineer Christophe. Was good at lawn bowling, but not handsome.
Profit & Loss. The mid-1990s climbing duo of Frenchman Christophe and UK climber Dead.
Income Statement. “Wow, that incoming sucker nearly took out Camp III.”
Leverage. The use of an ice axe to get a bunch of frozen assets off a ledge.
Liquid Assets. When the sun comes up and things melt. Or, when an expedition stomach goes south. (See “Assets.”)
Liquidation. See second explanation in “Liquid Assets” above.
Loss. Something you should’ve held onto better.
Management. Are you effing kidding?
Market. Where expedition members buy their fruits, veggies, lentils and rice before heading into the mountains for a series of gastrointestinally distressing picnics.
Market Penetration. How sincerely you scouted for rutabagas … or did you mean “Margaret?”
Market Share. Sharing shopping chores with fellow climbers.
Multinational. An expedition with bigots on it.
Net Income. Comments on your expedition website.
Net Worth. The amount of interest your expeditions generate with Internet viewers. Often an inflated or manipulated figure.
Outsource. When you are chucked off an expedition for behavioral reasons.
Outsource to Asia. When you are chucked off an expedition and you’re replaced by a Sirdar or a Sherpa. A common occurrence in European and North American markets.
Partnership. When two or more individuals come together and create some kind of arrangement for operating a rope.
Limited Partnership. When two or more individuals come together and create some kind of arrangement for operating a rope but not necessarily for operating brains.
Pro Forma. A form you fill out and send to a gear company so you can buy wholesale. If you have a pro forma it means you have contacts but no sponsors.
R&D. Like S&M but of limited entertainment value.
Rollover. What you do to prevent some weirdly enjoyable spooning in the tent.
Skimming. Getting the flies outta your soup, tea, etc.
Sole Proprietorship. You made that dumb decision — you own it.
Strategic Relationship. Being nice to the strongest Sherpa.
Turnover. After altitude sickness makes you puke left, you feel better puking right.
Vertical Integration. Climbing on a multinational team. Sometimes buses are involved. See “multinational.”
Wholesale. Dying in a really spectacular manner.
Working Capitol. Getting repeatedly stormed off the north buttress in Colorado’s Elk Mountains.
Cam Burns can be reached at jonathanhemlock@hotmail.com. This piece was approved by MG management after a readership-to-advertising cost-benefit analysis.
