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."

Exaggeration Exercise?

Yes. You can have fun expanding a "truth" about yourself. Here are a few examples from my humor class:

• I talk to myself all day while driving and tell myself jokes and laugh. Other drivers think I'm crazy. They may be right.
• In the morning I take 20 minutes getting my hat ready to put on my head, take the cleanest clothes out of the dirty mess on the floor. On the way to work I yell at other drivers. At the end of the day I go home and talk for hours with my best friend: The television.
• I am technical. If someone asks for the time I tell them it is 4:42 not a quarter to five. If someone asks me what I did I tell them---precisely what time I did it and where. My boy friend doesn't understand this----particularly when I report things like precisely what color shirt my waiter was wearing at lunch.
• I need to decorate space. Bows and flowers, pillows, and knickknacks. I dream about Ethan Allen. I can't think straight when there is an unpainted white wall.
• I have a love of olives: black, green, and stuffed with anything. Sometimes I bounce them off my children's forehead. At my bachelor's party we stomped them into the floor when we missed tossing them into a ring.
• I talk with my hands more than my mouth. Sometimes I can't figure out why people around me keep flinching and ducking. Then suddenly I realize they're trying to avoid possible serious injury.
• Most of the time I get this overwhelming feeling that I am boring. I have the feeling that when I say something to someone they will turn to someone else and speak as if I hadn't said anything. It's ridiculous, particularly when I determine that I didn't say anything to anyone.
• I blow my nose and I leave my Kleenex in my nostrils. It keeps my nose warm. It keep the air warm that I breathe. I look at myself in the mirror and think I wouldn't want anyone else to see this.
• I have a cowlick that pops up every time I touch it. It has a mind of its own. My girl friend makes it a habit to touch it. I could weld it down and it it would still pop up.

Prime Qualifications for Work?

Here's a list from Humor Workshop participants:

• Low enthusiasm
• Willing to work long hours for little pay and to feel good about it
• Ability to smile
• Ability to use ears, eyes, and voice for long hours
• Showing up/able to entertain self
• Able to count to ten
• To be small minded, judgmental and have boring taste in clothes
• Be able to write like a doctor and speak with a heavy accent (any country)
• Can read manuals
• Know something about cars and oil
• Strong back, willingness to work hard, get filthy, and be abused for as little money as possible
• Being able to ignore the department next door
• High stress tolerance
• Must be related to another employee in some form or another