HR wall slogans are cringey when still drying on the wall. They are even cringier in a ruin.
But it's true. Citizens of those ancient Egyptian cities probably did roll their eyes at some of the wall hieroglyphs.
Especially because the pharaohs exaggerated their victories.
And the priests probably made up ridiculous stories of what their gods "did" and "accomplished"
Some citizens were probably just as incredulous as we are today.
Ramses II exaggerated even his defeats, that is, he claimed that as his victories. For example the famous wall relief of Ramses II slaying the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh. https://www.memphis.edu/hypostyle/tour_hall/ramesses_ii_scen...
In reality it was a terrible defeat and it allowed the Hittites to limit Egypt sphere of influence to no further West than Canaan.
Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 1978
https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/1979/...
Today they are still active in Medical, TVs and light, a faint shadow of what they used to be.
Edit: this comment is false. Please ignore.
(Given that this is in my country and in my field of interest that's a pretty good indication of how big of a miss this is, so thank you for the correction.)
I remember after that their consumer electronics got really, really bad. Basically all their products were just... not finished. The firmware on most of their devices was just terribly buggy, and features advertised on the box where sometimes not even available. I remember having an MP3 player where selecting the FM radio mode would just crash the device. Never did they release a firmware version that would enable FM radio mode. I had to carry a small metal pin in my wallet, just to be able to use the reset button behind a tiny hole in the side of the MP3 player. I usually had to reset it once or twice a day.
I also had a media streamer that did not work at all out of the box, it just didn't support any of the advertised codecs. And I had a Phlips TV that would reliably crash when switching from TV mode to Teletext mode.
Living in the Netherlands, I felt kind of obligated to choose Philips over brands such as Samsung. However, many times I found myself returning a Philips appliance, and buying a Korean/Japanese made alternative instead.
Never, ever again will I trust them for consumer electronics.
And given how much goodwill that brand had it is very impressive how fast it was run into the ground. I still see their TVs for sale here, and medical devices and some stuff for infants.
Basically they are banking on their previous glories and advertising.
Sometimes you can spot the exact same product from a noname manufacturer, it's just missing the right sticker.
They have been slowly getting out of the consumer business for a long time. They just recently spun off their remaining consumer appliances business after having spun off lighting some years ago.
“We advance humanity.”
I guess the message is, don’t take yourself too seriously, most of where companies succeed is happenstance. It still takes a moment to all visitors to understand that it can’t be serious.
We are innovative. We constantly create ingenious solutions to the real challenges of today, tomorrow and beyond.
We are passionate. We meet every challenge with energy and determination, always pursuing ever-higher standards.
We are driven. We keep it simple by focusing on what matters most so we can seize opportunities with speed and confidence.
We are accountable. We stand behind the work we do, the contributions we make and the high business standards we maintain.
We are partners. We succeed together because we respect all individuals and value contributions from colleagues and customers alike.