The Cashier Con is the Monday Morning Memo from Roy Williams today. He’s talking about a trend where businesses show their disdain for their customers by taking advantage of them through sneaky offers at the cash register. You’ll recognize them. You’ll nod your head in agreement.

I’ve also noticed a trend toward simply assuming your customers are stupid. Unfortunately, this is often (wrongly) justified by the acts of a few of your customers who really are stupid. For example, it just takes a few out of the hundreds of people on a 747 to act like knuckleheads and a flight crew starts treating everyone like babies for the rest of their careers.

I had a 6-hour layover in Los Angeles last month before flying to Australia. I opted to get a day-rate room at a hotel near LAX to freshen up, wash some laundry (I’d already been on the road 4 days) and rest a bit. This sign was actually in the bathroom. My guess is that some years ago, some poor soul clogged the toilet with too much paper and the manager or the maintenance guy had a hissy-fit resulting in these signs. They now insult the intelligence of every customer for the mistake, misfortune or even prank of one person. Guess what? I wasn’t that person. Why are you yelling at me with your sign?

Do you have any signs, policies or procedures in your business that could be insulting to your customers? How would you know? The best course of action is to hire an outsider to come in and have a look around. We call it uncovery. It’s the only way to see yourself real.

We were gathered in Austin from Australia, Canada and all over the U.S. for our annual partner meeting when Roy got the news about Alberto Mendieta. In today’s memo he remembers Alberto for what he helped accomplish. You can read it at Wizard Academy, but I suggest instead that you read it at the Chapel Dulcinea site and then look at Alberto’s beautiful accomplishment.

In this week’s Momday Morning Memo, Roy Williams shares a thought that’s been “tumbling around” in his head lately. Democracy, Socialism and Communism and how they relate to the American Dream and a business economy. I suggest you read the entire memo.

The nugget of advice is to never introduce democratic principles into a business environment.

The business should be a dictatorship. I agree. There must be one person who takes ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of the company. This works ideally in a small company where a bad dictator/owner will be financially crushed by poor dictatorship. In a publicly traded company the dictator is usually removed from any personal harm by the nefarious democratic control of a board of directors and their compensation committee. Go ahead, name a CEO of a large publicly traded company who has ever been harmed by poor dictator skills.

Now…the day after Roy’s memo…into my in-box this morning comes an email from Despair Inc. with their new video podcasts. The perfect example of a malignant company dictator. The videos are hilarious and a little sad, but mainly hilarious.

Sure you need to be a dictator, but there’s no good reason to be an ass about it.

Remember, your subjects can always find another dictator, or stake their claim in the economy and start their own. No need to stick it to “the man” when you can become “the man.”