I had to go to the all-employee pool party meeting today. I can't even fathom how much more not fun something could be. Our beloved CEO told another of his heart-warming stories, too. You know, the one about the guy who had cancer peppered throughout his kidneys and lungs and was doomed to die but the great people of this company gave him a second lease on life and health insurance is the best thing ever! He closed the tale with the same joke as last time, too, telling our sales team not to sign up people like him because they cost us too much money. Only recruit the healthy ones!
Ha ha! Funny joke! Let 'em die, because my $300k salary isn't quite covering the BMWs I have to keep replacing for my drunkard 16-year-old son, and the only way I can afford them (and my seven-room hillside mansion) is to make bonuses off of the old people I'm ripping off on a daily basis. Let God sort 'em out!
What's that, Mrs. Levins? You're 72 years old, your husband passed away six years ago, Medicaid isn't covering your prescription medication, and you'd like us to carry your Medicare part D drug policy? Sorry, lady. Call us back twenty years ago, 'cause otherwise we might have to actually pay for some of your medical issues, and we don't like doing that so much. But if you have any healthy friends you'd like to refer to us, we'll gladly rob them annually until they die.
I was given a motivational button, too. It said, "You lift me up." That sucker flew at least fifty yards when I threw it away. Impressive. I want another one to see if I can throw it farther.
Our company is also being steered in a more "hip" direction by a new advertising-savvy PR person. She threw out a bunch of vocab words I learned in college, and demonstrated that, if read cover to cover, an advertising textbook can provide many options for expanding your business. As a college graduate with a degree in advertising, lemme tell you - this woman fed our CEO a shovelful of total malarkey, and he swallowed it whole. I could do a better campaign for 'Happy Hank's Poop Swabs' than the hot-glue-and-popsicle-sticks campaign she showed off today. But I work in the mailroom. I'm not bitter.
Yeah. I'm not feelin' the love for my job right now. Not so much. Now I have to go to bed, so's that I can be rested up to work OVERTIME tomorrow. On a FRIDAY.
THBBBBBBBBBTTTT!
Pool party, pool party, it was a pool party.
ReplyDeleteCool party, cool party, fa la la la.
It was a pool party for the cool kids at my school...um, my job.
Your PR-lady storycalled up some flashbacks for me -- like all the snake-oil folks (peddling whatever New Thing was going to fix or public education system for good) we'd get days "off" to see the presentations of, when I was a public-school teacher. And even further back, one summer when I was a camp counselor and the Orientation Week spent no time on telling us about our actual future jobs and what we'd be expected to do, but instead brought in a specialist to guide us in the playing of a week-long role-playing game that was supposed to get us to work together better.
ReplyDeleteAre these barnacles on the working world Truly Evil? Or do they really think they're providing helpful services? (Do they really believe in what they do -- or do they snicker all the way to the bank?)
I still don't know, after decades of wondering. I couldn't imagine aspiring to become them, I do know. Where do they come up with the ideas for these bogus, oversimplified fix-everything systems? (Cleveland? I think that's what Stephen King answers when people ask him, Where do you get your ideas?)
Sandy
The presentation was given to about 120 employees, and the thing that killed me was...during the pitch, you could look around and watch these people nodding their heads approvingly at each new idea the lady demonstrated. It was as though they not only agreed with the new advertising strategy, but they felt that their input played a key part in orchestrating the future of our company. Don't be fooled. It did not.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked for Target, I was frequently required to give presentations instructing non-security employees on how to react when they saw me apprehending a shoplifter. It was fascinating being on the other side of the podium. About two-thirds of my audience was completely ignoring me, one person was interested, and the rest were bobbing their heads like drunk pigeons, regardless of what I said, because they were afraid that I would fire them if they didn't each make an individual positive impression on me.
Nah, I wanted to fire 'em because they were weak, social remoras that needed MY acknowledgement to feel loved.
Okay, I'm not that mean, but it's still a little disconcerting.