Holiday Stress

You need help during the holidays to avoid stress. Here are a few suggestions:

• On buffet day come in as a light bulb and show people you are enlightened.
• For the office candy dish give public recognition to those who bring in chocolate instead of the hard stuff
• Break down a door somewhere; Walmart set the precedent
• List the url for that famous book: "Laughing Nine to Five" in your favorites; prove you are not mean spirited
• If they find you dozing in front of your computer tell them that this is the moral way to sleep your way to the top
• Put red and blue tape around your cubicle to let everyone know the election is over
• Put yellow tape around the cubicle as a signal that you are willing to work for the government when you leave where you are.
• Tell them you know how to fix bridges (you slept under them)
• Again to the office buffet: Bring in lutefisk or sushi soaked in lye; next time you will only be asked to bring olives or potato chips.

Management Memo: Holiday Turkeys

We regret that we will not be able to buy turkeys or hams for employees this year. We were sure that we had enough money in the budget after the healthy reduction in employees this year.

In fact we had already purchased turkeys which are now in cold storeage. However, our corporate attorneys strongly recommended that we do not distribute them, suggesting that since we would be cutting benefits across the board prior to the beginning of the year it would be sending a false message of affluence.

However, all is not lost. We are donating the turkeys to our company cafeterias and offering lunch time turkey dinners at reduced prices. Retired employees are asked to secure a pass from security to take advantage of this offer.

Christmas Sales Story

Take her outside and pants her? What? We always look forward to the holidays so we can ublish this Christmas story from Carol, one of our humor workshop participants:

"After years of conflict between the outside and inside sales force, emotions hit a crisis point one snowy day in the middle of December. The manager gathered the mixed force in a small, heavily windowed conference room The discussion heated up the room like no climate control thus known.

Passions boiled over when an inside rep accused outside reps doing their Christmas shopping on company time.

The room grew silent after several sharp intakes of breath. Outside sales reps unleashed their sales claws while sales fangs bared themselves behind nervous quivering lips. This was room of sales animals ready to pounce with sales adrenaline running on high, primed for a kill.

The manager in charge of the meeting teetered on the knife's edge of an ugly explosion of defensive anger, a possible homicide, and her managerial concern to keep the room under control. Fine, upstanding career professionals had been acccused of the worst transgression known to their trade, i.e. squandering precious sales time on selfish acts of shopping. The outside reps meant to set the record straight at any expense.

Unknown to many in the room, behind the cool professional and pristine demeanor of their manager, lurked a prankster somewhere near the level of a sorority sister. In unladylike fashion, the manager led the charge, 'Take her out and pants her.'

The room erupted with laughter as each person looked outside at the heavy dusting of snow and imagined the well deserved feel of ice on a bare butt. Sure, some left in a huff, some just shaking their heads, and one or two made a note to themselves to be more careful next Christmas.

With a little humor the manager expressed how seriously she took the accusation---not very---and she diffused the highly charged anger that threatened the good work she was trying to accomplish by combining the staff."

Excerpt from Laughing Nine to Five.

Christmas Letter

We are sendi ng you this Christmas email as a much better substitute for the Christmas cards we have sent you in the past.

We know that the term "Christmas Letter" may be inappropriate, particularly for a sophisticated HR organization like ourselves.

With this in mind, please note that we really only intended to extend to you and your employees our warmest, heartfelt Season's Greetings.

If you choose to send cards back to us be sure they do not say: Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men.

It is our hope that we will eventually be able to encourage Good Will toward Women as well.

Election Excitement!

This is an exciting day. As some have said it is a historical election.

It is an exciting day here at Algamated as well.

First we understand that there have been some difficulties in voting. Apparently some voter machines are not working. Also many voters have been unable to vote because they have been challenged because of wrong signatures, identification problems, etc.

For various reasons there are long lines out there.

Lots of organizations have talked about doing something. We at Algamated are doing something. All employees will be given time off to vote today up to two hours. Republicans will be given four hours.

Office Terminology

Blame Storming: The process of a group blaming someone for a missed due date---normally the department not present

Chainsaw Consultant: The outside expert that recommends massive layoffs to pay for his fee.

Career Limiting Move: Trashing your boss who is sitting in on the conference call---in another office

Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles that will be eliminated in the bankruptcy.

Dilberted: A cubicle dweller with no obvious support of his boss.

Credit Risk: Banks with collateral damage

Percussive Problem: A person with a hearing loss banging on a computer

Ohnosecond: The loss of a manuscript in the computer by the action of one key

Prairie Dogging: The art of hiding in the kneewell when a loud noise (the boss) is near

Photocopy Felony: Being caught taking pictures of various parts of the anatomy

Global Warming: The selling of derivatives for hot mortgages

Your life filled with absurdities?

From the excellent book: The Healing Power of Humor by Allen Klein

"Your life is filled with absurdies. Look for them; they are laughable. One of the easiest places to find these is in your mistakes, those bloopers that are an inevitable by-product of being human.
Here are some examples:

(From student tests)

Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, veins, and caterpillars

To be a good nurse you have to be absolutely sterile

(From letters parents wrote to teachers)

My son is under doctor's care and should not take fiscal ed. Please execute him

Please excuse Ralph from school on Friday. He had very loose vowels

(From a letter received by a county department)

I am very much annoyed to find you have branded my son illiterate. This is a dirty lie, as I was married a week before he was born."