Failing at failure

I watched a commercial where a lady, let's call her: "Linda" puts a manikin in her cubicle in order for her to skip out of work to go shopping at wal-mart. This is concerning for a couple of reasons. First, what would happen if you did that and got caught? Yep - that's a firing. Plus, nobody in your office is going to like you for shirking your work, even you happen to avoid getting fired. You would never be able to work with coworkers who don't trust you, and who obviously are under the opinion that you are dispensable enough that you can shrug off a day of work without consequence.
So... yeah uh... Linda... how's the job search going huh? Hmmm.... yeah that sucks, I was wondering how the shopping at wal-mart is going now? Oh! You're not going to wal-mart anymore and you're collecting food stamps because nobody but the strip club will hire your unreliable ass?
Second, what kind of example is advertising setting for the children? (think of the children!!!) This is no way to encourage a society that is lazy enough as it is. Not that the average marketing musketeer gives a rat's ass about motivating a society that pretty much encourages the absolute bare minimum.
What? "Bare minimum"?!?!! Of course your precious hairless chimpanzee baby-child is being taught to work hard! Teachers don't encourage the bare minimum! [link]
My cousin is a primary teacher, and she tells me that they would burn her at the stake like it was Salem in 1692 if she failed one of her kiddies (this is in Canada). I guess no kid sucks enough to fail these days; especially not yours.
North American society is too caught up in the political correctness of making everyone feel good. We're so afraid of taking those little diaper poopers down a couple of pegs and hurting their self-esteem, that we've bred a society that is on the brink of failing to recognize failure. That's a scary thought isn't it? Suddenly, we start pumping out sub-par engineers and professionals with meaningless degrees out of our schools - all because we don't want to fail anyone.
Failing to recognize failure is where the saying "history repeats itself" comes from - I guess there's a pretty good track record for that kind of stuff.