Friday, January 18, 2019
Remnants
-Well...remaining smart the two of us.
Despite everything!
-Been.
-A...decline note you?
-Precipice!
-The Mountain Goat leaps from precipice
to precipice and back again to piss.
-A blessing we both can do that at least.
-That goes too, the hose.
-Before or after the brain.
-Simultaneous!
-Well I’m okay with both.
-You should ask Gwen.
-You’re mixed up! She left YOU!
-Shame. And during my third reinvention.
-How’d that go?
-Going Great! I’m helping to start BANDSTAND for WHEEZERS!
-Better than yours truly. They just
called me in to offer a puny
termination package.
-Did you inform them that you
once led that outfit, now so
esteemed?
-Me or it?
-Sorry. Never again you or me.
-Will they stamp our foreheads?
-Already have.
Labels: age, ageism, employment, firing, intelligence, termination
Monday, February 26, 2018
Round of Layoffs
So he must beg to keep his job?
Abject humiliation!
Especially since he must beg you,
his sniveling inferior all these years!
I’ve not sniveled lo these many grimy
timeframes!
And when will you loosen the thumbscrews
on him? Just let him work?
Probably never.
You know? When I speak to someone
like you, I still remember there are
different, decent people in the world!
Where?
Labels: firing, job, layoff, personnel, petty, power, revenge, workforce
Friday, December 02, 2016
A Bracelet Shaken in a Dance
-As my career winds down,
I more and more have to
convince younger colleagues
of my worth.
-That gang now is fractious
and edgy. Not a laugh in
a carload.
-Fair appraisal.
-How long do you have?
-The CEO, half my age, doing
my final evaluation.
-Did you pack your shit in the
famous cardboard box yet?
-My last trick is to distract him.
A sort of gypsy dance with lots
of silver bracelets.
-The flash sets him to musing on
pleasant topics, and he says...?
-Let's keep the gypsy for another
year or so. Plug it into some new
group or other.
-Where no one wants you?
-Probably.
-Or, OR! he says...?
-You know? I'm sick of gypsies and
their dances. Let's terminate now.
Cleaner!
Labels: Age Discrimination, employee evaluation, firing, modern business, termination
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Strategy
Jeanette S Windom could not have
been nicer. Mine was the biggest
snafu she had ever seen, but she
dove into the huge computer bank
and came up smiling.
I just knew I would have then, clutched
close, the 14e. That form of liberating
dreams!
She was fired next day.
I went to Republican Liaison at my job.
"We found we can kill morale by axing
the truly good ones," smiled he.
I couldn't believe such a policy!
"Civil Service Protections? Not to
mention Constitutional Rights?"
"Wipe our ass with both! How we get real!"
“You invite Revolution?”
“Only because we're bloodthirsty. But shove
past the necessarily vicious politics of life.
Your Jerry is some baseball player!”
“Netty too.”
“Let's concentrate on Jerry, shall we?”
Labels: bureaucracy, Civil Service, Constitution, firing, political, Republican, sexism
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
No Man Is An Island?
The Wave
Ernst could take it no longer!
Wages cut in half and all vacation
time cancelled.
Time to speak out! He was a bit
of a parliamentarian, and found
the obscure provision in the
Employee Handbook that enabled
a single worker to call a meeting.
Couldn’t leave anything to chance,
of course, so phoned all he could
to get promises of support, and
hear the individual grievances he
could get expressed at the right
moment.
The Board sent the CEO, first occasion
he was actually caught working.
Ernst rose, and swayed, and began speaking.
The whole surrounding audience seemed
to leap chromatically.
But he calmed down to deliver his prepared
remarks, mostly to the effect that too
many rights had been viciously stripped!
There were places where he invited other
comments. There were none.
“So it seems,” CEO laughed, alone on the stage,
“that we have a Revolution of One!”
The audience around Ernst joined the laughter
as if their life depended on it.
Then abruptly stopped as the CEO hissed:
“And in this time of serverest danger to
The Nation!”
Ernst’s test then was not to look ashamed.
Not a hint! as he finished strongly to
vast, vast silence. Can silence groan?
When he was alone in his cubicle, with
just the guard helping him gather his
things, individuals dropped by to tell him
why they couldn’t risk...etc etc.
Only Broadwell told the truth. “I didn’t help
because I'm a coward. I watched that
squealing little pisser berate you and
did nothing!”
The guard informed the crying man: “Enough!”
One woman allowed in, and she imparted
that all the women thought of it as just
another male folly.
Ernst went to his car escorted by the
guard carrying the box.
A bicycle stood there, a long legal notice
taped thereon.
The guard helped him secure the box to the
handlebars with the tape, and Ernst shoved
the notice down his shirt.
The bike proved to have an eccentric front
wheel, delighting everyone in the town
who saw him. Most waved.
Labels: Capitalism, CEO, employee meeting, firing, rebellion, stacked deck, vacation, wages, workers' rights, workplace
Saturday, June 06, 2015
In and Out
Our whole company involved The Box. You stayed
locked in, or burst out.
That is you did things traditional, Steady-Eddie, or
you innovated.
Most of us stuck with good ole Eddie.
The innovators could get wild! A crazy bunch.
The whole business proved workable for most
companies, but ours, finally, got stuck.
At first, this handled by everybody going into
the community one day a week. But, such action
turned out wretchedly since the community
harbored hatred, but didn't have a way to fully
express it until now.
In the Board Emergency Meeting, Dr Renslow
shouted "What we need is The Man on Horseback!"
Thus we got Carlos...then a string of ten names.
Cadiz royalty of sorts, and Olympic Equestrian.
We pasted to HQ windows the day he rode in, accoutered
in silver, on his pale horse.
Well, he was interested in only half the work force,
the women.
A big scandal followed many petty ones, and out he
galloped, an embracing female assistant in back of him.
Nude. Yes, that’s what I said.
New CEO, Rhodine Dirks, aka The Ax Woman!
She went so far with it, she fired herself!
This much chaos, the Master of All Chaos had
to step in: The Government!
So we really work for Uncle now! And are
therefore subject to the scathings of
Congressional Committees.
The Republicans praise the box dwellers:
rock-ribbed, American Values, etc.
They damn the burster-outers as Socialists,
responsible for the ills of the company and
the world.
The Democrats came in and put through an
anti-hierarchy bill. Now we have no positions
of authority. But, no, we don't call each other
Comrade!
The Next Chapter? Well, there can't be one, really.
Just been named a Department. And now a cabinet
seat for the former Sad Randolph, The Totally
Defunct and Ragged Cowboy Clown.
He’ll be the best cabinet officer ever, no contest!
Labels: Cabinet, CEO, Democrat, employee, firing, government takeover, innovation, Man On Horseback, organization, reorganization, Republican
Friday, March 20, 2015
Dream Tactic
Varieties of Lying Experience
-I guess the moral question is can you trust someone who
lies in dreams?
-Let’s jettison the dream part! I don’t wanna show off my
two-bit psychology just now. Maybe the moral part too.
At any rate, what happened?
-Lorkie screaming “I SENT you verification on that!”
-“Well I never GOT it!” I lied.
-Okay, okay, that’s the Self-Preservation Lie. Real question
is how many share it?
-Whole department.
-Whole department lying? Triumph of Capitalism!
-Somebody’s gonna get fired!
-A necessary component! But, let’s recap: We have the
Self-Preservation Lie and the Social Lie together. Yeah, they
can’t let you get away with that!
-I’LL be fired?
-Most likely. They’ll trap you into lying again. With witnesses,
your former friends. Then beef up the discharge report with
additional Creative Writing.
-What can I do?
-Stick a fork in yourself: you’re done!
-In the dream or life?
-There’s a difference? But you can do what Bipsey Hockney did,
some sort of voodoo delivered Mr Cato the flu for a week. When
the obnoxious prick came back, thirsting to perform Management’s
dirtiest tricks, Bipsey fell through the cracks. So let’s hear it for
Incompetence!
-My only hope?
-Has never failed me!
Labels: business, Capitalism, firing, incompetence, lying, Lying in Capitalism, office, prevalence of prevarication, Self-preservation lie, Social Lie
Tuesday, September 09, 2014
Faces
Effie pretended nothing was
different, but, truth is, she
couldn't really see their faces.
They were pixillated in life, like
some victims on TV.
She walked elsewhere in
the company to see others
with exact noses, eyes,
mouths. So, it wasn't her.
But just her boss, Rector, Sales
Manager, Mipsky, and Jill, in
charge of New Business.
Last week they had been called
into the boardroom. Thereafter,
their facial features had gradually
disappeared.
Now she is called in. Funny, she
has no fear, but has kept out of
the loop during the last, disastrous
month.
It couldn’t have been a warmer
experience, and she emerges
in charge of her section.
She'd have to fire Rector. Promised to.
Indeed, the other two will shortly
follow in her plans.
They'll all receive faces back, so not
a complete tragedy.
And the new people will be well-
defined, like everything else
under her.
Labels: business, business atmosphere, face, firing, save face
Monday, January 20, 2014
Working
Blind Justice
Bell apologized to Supervisor Reddly. It was a foolish mistake,
a brain fart, but trivial. And he caught it quickly, and corrected it.
Evidently not so trivial, since a guard appeared, and Bell was
told to fill the proffered cardboard box and walk out with him.
“That’s not a firing mistake! Nowhere near! Did he ask you to
blow him and you refuse?”
Bell didn’t know how his friend, Chunks, came up with things!
But Chunks wasn’t to be deterred. “They count on nice guys
doing nothing. Well, not this time!”
Soon he was on the phone with National Overall Personnel,
and his intense drama got a hearing scheduled in three months.
At the hearing, a completely different charge was read out,
which was okay with Bell, since he had forgotten the original one.
His two attorneys, male and female, had negotiated the change.
The complant, when detailed, involved one, Carruthers, at a
different work locale in another city.
He whispered this mistake to the attorneys, who told him they
were going to let it slide, since this Carruthers was very active
socially, and volunteered for everything. That would sound
good in Bell’s defense.
He forgot most of what he heard in the three day procedure,
and the government lawyers were sarcastic as to his
misty answers.
His male advocate asserted: “Mr Carruthers has lost his mind
due to the cruel and baseless and entirely erroneous charges
feloniously leveled against him. The Red Cross and Salvation
Army and scores of others will experience a great loss if he
cannot recover.”
His female lawyer acted out a drama where a bum is rescued
near a Salvation Army Kettle, and becomes the mayor of an
Alaskan town. She shivered in carrying out both parts:
Kettle Attendant and bum.
The room enthusiastically applauded, and she bowed shyly.
The Judge called for order, but she, too, was crying.
Bell won the case and was reinstated, but at Carruthers’ job
in the bottling plant. The foreman there, Rip Kelley, laughed
“What the fuck’s the difference what anybody’s called?”
Bell, though, was somewhat sad that the real Carruthers had
been disappeared.
“Hey! Luck of the draw!” Chunks told him. “Besides, they’ll
probably get a young guy marked for periodic eradication, and
plug him in as you. So everybody wins!”
“Not Carruthers. "
“He has gone to a happier place!” Wasn’t that the crap
the leaders once peddled in the dark ages? Anyway, what’s
the difference? Today’s shit just as bad! By the way, what’s
your first name?”
“Rensselaer.”
“Oh? Fancy-shmantsy! Gonna start wearing Calvin Klein
underpanties?”
Labels: Calvin Klein, firing, hearing, identity, job
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Terminal
After Monday swam
with rumors, I asked
G to meet me at Starbucks.
He had seen the new VP's
spreadsheet axing two. We
kicked around strategies
but concluded no use.
"He'll pick D to fire us.
She's the most uncouth."
Labels: firing
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Two Wretches
Returning after flood,
quake or eruption, one,
bucket of possessions
over sunken shoulder.
Another escorted out by
guard, work-life in a box.
Labels: firing
Monday, September 06, 2010
Working Intrigue
Flown to a remote site to solve a unique problem,
he returns to the office without sleep, only to be greeted
by a guard with a box containing his personal items.
Later, to his wife:
-I'm fired!
-I don't think so.
-How could you not--?
-Take a peek at my car. Therein sits a guard.
Without doing justice to his macho vacuity I recite:
“Please return. Those responsible dismissed.”
-What a headache I'm getting! How? Why?
-A cabal discovered and snuffed. But why did it
focus on you?
-I just do my job!
-That's it.
Flown to a remote site to solve a unique problem,
he returns to the office without sleep, only to be greeted
by a guard with a box containing his personal items.
Later, to his wife:
-I'm fired!
-I don't think so.
-How could you not--?
-Take a peek at my car. Therein sits a guard.
Without doing justice to his macho vacuity I recite:
“Please return. Those responsible dismissed.”
-What a headache I'm getting! How? Why?
-A cabal discovered and snuffed. But why did it
focus on you?
-I just do my job!
-That's it.
Labels: firing, office politics, working
