Tag Archives: corporate

Closed on Christmas

Unfortunately, due to budgetary constraints, we’re not going to be able to have that holiday party this year. I know, everybody was looking forward to getting together, or maybe not everybody, but Morris was definitely excited, remember last year? Ha. But we’ve got to look out for the bottom line, and in this economic climate, well, you never know when we’re going to need that money. Besides, think about the shareholders. Do you think they want to see us loafing around for four hours at an open bar?

I know what you’re thinking, you’re wondering about those bonuses. Yeah, well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that we’re still doing bonuses. The bad news is that it’s not for any of you. Haha. That was supposed to be a joke. The delivery, anyway, I guess the subject isn’t that funny. Just think of it as more of an incentive to work harder, year after year, and maybe someday you can become an executive, and hopefully then you’ll be eligible for a bonus.

We are buying some bagels though. They’re actually already here, I think Manny dropped them off this morning in Conference Room B. There was cream cheese in there, right Manny? No? I thought I told the secretary to get some cream cheeses, a regular one, and then something else, something with chives, or scallions. Manny, are you sure there wasn’t any cream cheese?

I’m actually just being informed that the bagels are all gone, apparently the nighttime custodial staff must have cleaned house on their way home for the day. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, right? Although, I probably should have had Marge make an announcement, an interoffice memo. As long as somebody ate them, I guess it’s not a total waste.

Morris, can we write off those bagels as some sort of a charitable contribution? How much do you think two dozen bagels cost, fifty bucks? Seventy-five? I’m just going to go ahead and write eighty, because I definitely ordered cream cheeses, I’m sure someone must have had them. Can we write it off as a teambuilding expense also? Does the IRS let us write off expenses incurred while building the team? That’s job creation right there. Just write it off twice.

Good news everybody, we’re giving everybody a half-day on Christmas Eve. It’s nothing, no need to thank me. Just go home and have a very Merry Christmas, you know, after three. The half-day ends at three. At least you’ll beat the afternoon rush home. But to help kind of make up for lost time, we’re actually going to open up on New Years Day. So, you know, you can come in a little late, let’s say nine-thirty, or nine. Let’s just say nine-fifteen. But yeah, enjoy Christmas Eve, but remember to come in on New Years Day.

Why the long faces? You’re still getting Christmas Day off. Right? Marge, check the calendar. Well, that’s got to be a typo. I’m not even sure the building will be open on Christmas Day. Well does Manny have an extra set of keys? Can he leave them with someone else? OK, no, yeah we’ll just keep Christmas Day. Why not? We’ll all stay home on Christmas. But let’s maybe rethink that whole nine nine-fifteen in time on January 1st. Let’s just make it nine flat.

Come on, don’t look at me like that. Don’t you want to be team players? Don’t just think of yourselves, consider the team, about everyone else. And to think, I was just about to send out for pizzas. Well, you guys can forget it. I’m just kidding, everybody march over to Conference Room C, I’ve got a couple of pies waiting for everyone. OK, so you brought lunch, that’s great, can’t you just take it back home and eat it for dinner?

What’s that? Manny, goddamn it man, I told you last night that I was thinking about ordering pizzas today, not that you’d order pizzas last night for today. Man, those’ve got to be … well, cold pizza’s not bad. I love cold pizza. Help yourselves, this place gets pretty cold at night, ask Morris, ask anybody, you know what this place feels like after five, so I’m sure that pizza’s still good. Enjoy.

Me? Oh, no thanks, the board’s going out for our annual holiday luncheon. Honestly, it sounds a lot more glamorous than it is, you know these corporate wine-and-dines. Anyway, get back to work everybody, and Merry Christmas. Right, Happy Holidays, whatever, that’s what I meant. No, I wasn’t trying to exclude anybody, Jesus, just have a great day off, and remember, nine o’clock sharp on Thursday.

I’m with you, sir

Sir, I just wanted to let you know that, despite all of the growing doubts about your ability to lead this company, I’m still with you, you’ve still got my support. And so, going forward, I hope you don’t feel like everyone’s turned on you, that the vote of no confidence is unanimous. Because regardless of how everyone else voted, you’ll always have my vote, a vote of yes confidence.

And when the board meets later today to decide your fate, know that it’s against my strongest objections. I object to the fact that they’re meeting in the first place. We don’t need a board. We’ve got you, the best boss this company has ever seen. Sure profits have tanked lately, but there’s always going to be a period of loss. We’re cutting out the crap, right? Isn’t that what you said? So it’s just a matter of time before things turn around.

If they do throw you out, and things do get better, that’ll be exactly how you saw it coming, loss, then gain. But the board, the rest of staff, everyone’s so short-sighted. A few misguided ethics inquiries and it’s off with the king’s head. Well I want to you let you know that, whatever future successes this company might achieve, and whoever happens to be leading the helm to take credit for those future successes, I won’t be sticking around to add on to the pile of false praise.

No, because if they kick you out, I’m going with you. That’s if they kick you out. The board hasn’t even met yet, and so, who knows, right? Maybe they’ll all have some eleventh hour sense knocked into them. True, it does seem more and more unlikely that anything is going to sway the tide of popular opinion. But one has to hope.

Still, like I said, if that hope winds up not bearing any fruit, I’ll be by your side. Wherever you wind up next, know that you’ve got my unconditional support. Even if that means no pay for a while. Even if it’s just you at your house getting up in the morning and trying out a next move. I’ll make you breakfast. I’ll help you look for a new job, for a new company to lead.

Remember that speech you gave at last year’s quarterly? You said something about, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” That was really inspirational. And I’ve kept that with me, not knowing exactly when I’d get to actually utilize such wisdom. But the moment is now. We are tough, and we’re going to get going. Together. Like if you’re pacing back in forth in your living room, trying to figure out how you’re going to get back in the game, I’ll have a pot of coffee going, so when you want a fresh cup, you’re not even going to have to ask, you won’t even have to stop pacing, you’ll just get to the natural end of your stride and there it’ll be.

And when you do make it back to the top, assuming that the board does vote you out today, and again, I’m not hoping that’s what’s going to happen, nor is it a certainty, I just feel like we should be ready for anything. Because if the office chatter is backed by anything substantial, it only makes sense that we brace ourselves for all options. But when you are back on top, you’ll have me right by your side. You won’t have to lower yourself to your opponents, sinking to their level, getting in their faces, pointing your finger at them and saying, “Hmph. I told you so.” No, I’ll be the one to do that for you.

So keep that chin up, boss. For the next four hours or so, you’re still the one in charge around here. Don’t forget it. Keep that chin up. Tell that guy over there to stop standing around by the water cooler and get back to work. There’s still time to get a few office wide memos in circulation, I could help put everything together.

And just remember, whatever happens, I’m with you all the way. My name? It’s Johnson. I work on four. Remember? I met you a few months ago at the spring benefit? We talked about the chicken, how dry it was? My hair was a little longer, not that much longer, but I just got a haircut the other day? Our wives had the same Chanel clutch? I passed you the salt shaker? Remember? Nothing?

I deserve a promotion

I want a promotion so badly. Johnson got a promotion over a year ago, and we started like two weeks apart. And now that I think about it, I think it was me who started first. Or I interviewed first. It doesn’t matter, except that he got the promotion, and I definitely want one too. I didn’t even know he was up for a promotion. Real nice of him to let me know there was one up for grabs.

Fuck, Maggie got a promotion like last week, and she definitely didn’t start until like six months ago. What the hell man? Part of me has a mind to just barge into the boss’s office, I want to be like, “Boss, that’s it. I want a promotion right now, or I’m walking.” But that’s a little too aggressive, right? It’s like, I don’t know how to approach these situations.

And we haven’t even really talked, the boss and me, not since the old boss’s retirement party. What a fucking mountain out of a molehill, excuse the cliché, but that’s exactly what it was. I showed up, it was just in the conference room, right? And he wasn’t even half a day away from taking the reigns of the business and he’s like, “You! Hey! You! Where’s your tie? Show some respect!”

I didn’t even know what to think, how to respond. I was wearing slacks and a button-down. Nobody on four wears ties. Come on. And I probably should have just faded into the background, yeah, I wasn’t even that close with the old boss anyway, but, and maybe it’s because I wasn’t really aware that this guy was going to be the new boss, like I was aware of it, but my mind hadn’t made the official connection yet, and I was like, “Come on man! We never wear ties on four!”

And I know how it looked, like I was double-fisting those beers, but I wasn’t. I always do that at those corporate open bars, I get there early, I grab two beers, then I wait for the line to get really long and I’ll go up to somebody way in the back, somebody I haven’t necessarily talked to in a little while, and I’ll be like, “Hey! Long time no see, huh? Hey I got you a beer!”

But I kind of botched that this time around, I went up to this guy Phil, I hadn’t talked to him since orientation, like way back, and I was like, “Phil!” and right away, like before I even got a chance to really say hi, he just kind of puts his hand up, “I don’t drink.” OK, fine, don’t drink, but let me say hi at least. How did he know I was going to offer him a beer?

That’s what I was thinking, in my head I was like, who the hell does this guy think he is? So I took a sip out of each beer, just to be like, I don’t know what you’re talking about Phil, you don’t drink, fine, this beer wasn’t for you, I’m drinking double. That’s right, I’m double-fisting.

And that’s when I got called out on the no-tie thing, and after I told him that we never wear ties on four, he actually did call me out on the double-fisting. And so, yeah, I get how it looked, but there was more to it. There was a whole thing going on, with Phil, with the beers. I started to tell him and he just walked away, fine, whatever, that’s not exactly a quality I would personally look for in a potential successor, but I’m sure the old boss had his reasons.

That’s when my friend Greg came up, one of my friends down on four, and he was like, “Hey man!” and I held him out that beer, whatever, I only took a little sip just before to show Phil, but it wasn’t that big of a sip, and Greg didn’t care, he was like, “Thanks man! You’re the fucking best!” Which was great, Greg’s a great guy, although I couldn’t help but notice he was wearing a tie, which I found kind of surprising.

And it’s ridiculous because Greg got promoted like three months ago. Greg! I need a promotion. It’s really not fair at all. All because of one corporate cocktail party? One no-tie situation? I was like three beers deep, and that’s another thing, why have an open bar if you’re just going to stand around and judge your employees for taking advantage of it? But whatever, all of the sudden the new boss showed up, “Here, put this on,” it was this old, like old green tie. It was like permanently warped, I don’t even know where he found this thing. It was green and slimy looking, like a dead garden snake.

“I don’t want to put that on, you’re not the boss,” not yet he wasn’t. Like I said, that hadn’t yet sunk in fully, I probably should have chosen my words a little more carefully, I could’ve been like, “You’re not the boss, yet.” And that was when my open bar trick kind of got me in trouble, right as I was arguing about the tie, Greg came back with four more beers, two for him, two more for me, and I was already holding two.

The boss put the tie in his pocket and told us both to leave immediately, to which Greg laughed and said, “You’re not the boss yet, get out of here,” and then he walked over to the old boss and got him a beer also. And the new boss just stood there in the corner for a while and scowled.

But it’s like, come on, you’re going to hold a grudge for that long? Can I please just have a promotion? I’ve been down on four for forever. Come on, I’ll start wearing a tie. Greg, you can put in a good word for me, right Greg? Greg? Does Greg still work here? You know, the big fat guy with the shirt always sort of untucked? No? He got fired? When? I thought he got promoted. How come nobody tells me anything around here? Am I on the email lists? Do I still work here?

About that raise

Boss, I’m going to be direct. I’m here to ask for a raise. That’s right. I feel that I’ve earned it, that I work really hard, much harder than the majority of my coworkers, definitely harder than Phil, than Maggie in accounting. And that guy who works on the third floor, always wearing the big hats … you know, it’s not important. I’m not trying to put anyone else down. Except Phil and Maggie. I definitely work much harder than those two. Like, if you could somehow combine them into one person, or just add up their hours, or, not their hours, but their productivity. I guarantee you that it doesn’t add up to my productivity, or even my hours.

Before you say no boss, I want to stop you right there. Maggie, or, let’s just say one of my coworkers, someone in accounting, they put up this Facebook post about a big raise. Yes, I know corporate policy regarding social media. I’m not friends with this person on Facebook. But my sister is. Apparently last week everyone went out for karaoke and my sister happened to be there and so, you know how it is, how some people are, they meet ten new people and start sending out ten new Facebook friend requests. And all of the sudden my sister’s like, “Oh Rob, tell Maggie congratulations about her new raise!”

Look, I’m not saying it was Maggie. I don’t remember who it was. All I’m saying is, I deserve this. What’s the corporate policy on raises? We have to wait for a performance review, right? Well, it’s just that, it’s funny, because I feel like during my last performance review I was trying too hard, too hard to be humble, something I’m not. I mean, I am humble, in a good way, you know, it’s just that performance reviews, it’s like …

Why didn’t I get a raise last performance review? I feel like, nobody even heard about that time that I fixed the copy machine, the huge one right outside of Conference Room B. Yeah, you remember, right? A while back? Like right before the performance reviews. It wasn’t loading anything from the main tray, it was like, if you wanted anything copied, you had to load from paper tray 3, and so you’d have to feed it manually every time you wanted a copy, but nobody knew about it, like whenever somebody’s secretary was out, they’d walk from the copy machine to me and just kind of be like, “Hey! You! Make ten copies and put them on my desk!” like walking away before they even finished the sentence.

So that day … please, this is huge … one day I’m like, OK, nobody’s making a real effort to fix the machine, let me see what I can do. So I stayed late, I called the manufacturer, I looked up videos on Youtube, and it was easy. I mean, it wasn’t that easy, I was here for like two hours, three extra hours, but … and you know what the funny thing was? It was a staple, just one staple, jammed right in the main feeder. But, no, that’s not the funny part, the funny part is, I never knew we had a staple function on that machine, so do you know how much time I saved everybody, the rest of the staff, putting up fliers, letting them know that, one, the copy machine was fixed, and two, that the machine could staple stuff for you?

And I didn’t get any credit. Like, I wrote about it on Facebook but, but you know corporate Facebook policy. But that was me. What? No, it definitely wasn’t Maggie, they never even use that machine, they have their own machine over by accounting. Which is another thing, why do they get their own machine? Look, that’s not important.

What’s important is this, growth, raise. I’d like a raise. And I’m prepared to not be willing to take no for an answer. Seriously? The answer’s no? Well, that’s … that’s unacceptable. I can’t accept that. Well, maybe I will. Yeah. Sure. OK, fine, I will leave your office. Well maybe this company would get along fine without you too.

No, I’ll … I’ll let you know, I mean, no … no I don’t want to leave just yet. Just, OK, yeah, I’ll look for something else. OK … seriously? OK … OK.