Defending the Status Quo

Seth Godin has a list of excuses that people give that keeps companies/organizations/groups from moving forward, defending the status quo. Here are a few from his list that I can relate to (and I bet you can too).
"That will never work."
"Can you show me some research that demonstrates that this will work?"
"Well, if you had some real-world experience, then you would understand."
"I don't think our customers will go for that, and without them we'd never be able to afford to try this."
"It's fantastic, but the salesforce won't like it."
"The salesforce is willing to give it a try, but [major retailer] won't stock it."
"Well, this might work for other people, but I think we'll stick with what we've got."
"It's been done before."
"It's never been done before."
"We'll get back to you on this."

Here are a few of my own:
"Our readers won't get that."
"Black covers don't sell."
"White covers don't sell."
"The editor thinks it needs to look more like [insert current bestseller here]."
"We don't have the time to try that."
"We always put the title in upper and lower case."
What are some of yours?

Comments

[Chris Ortiz]

"We showed EVERYONE in the office and..."

"This looks nothing like what we said we wanted."

[RisingSunofNihon]

Great post! These are things that I've heard pretty constantly ever since I entered the business world. My favorite from Seth's list would have to be "We'll let someone else prove it works... it won't take long to catch up." That's definitely the hallmark of a company that isn't going anywhere!

[Cheryl Van Andel]

Hey! Quit quoting me, Chris!! Okay, I have two more for you: "Can we see a revised version of that using a different image, font and color?" And my all time favorite from our sales director: "Covers with a cake on them don't sell." Huh?

[Barry A. Smith]

What about the preverbial..."Hdd you tried (insert absolutely anything here) yet?

Translation: Why didn't you try (insert absolutely anything here) yet?

Kills me. Atleast once a week. Wanna hear something worse...sometimes it's said between feloow designers in critiques.