Cool Animator Dudes v. Corporate Zombie Trolls
Part One
The Cool Animator Dudes with whom Zen Bank shares a building are just flaunting it now. Two more small episodes today were sobering reality checks to just how awful corporation jobs are.
Zen Bank had an all-employee staff meeting this morning, like we do every two months. Here's a run-down of one of these artifices of corporate importance:
7:30am - I walk in no earlier than I need to be and fill a plate with mini-muffins, cinirollettes--anything--and a styro cup with scorched-earth coffee. Why? Because the pain from the subsequent gutrot and lava-flayed mouth is a more welcome feeling than the upcoming forty-five minutes of pretending to like each other and pretending the banking world isn't being hit hard.
"Not this early in the morning!"
7:35am - Mini-muffins and cinirollettes decimated; flayed skin hanging from the roof of the mouth. Let's get this over with.
"Generic weather comment!"
7:36am - Birthdays! For the people who have been attending these meetings for decades, this event is exciting. Each employee whose birthday lands that month or the next gets to reach into a plastic pot full of ping pong balls. Everyone is granted a half-day of Paid Time Off for their birthday, but if they pull out a ping pong ball with the month or day of their birthday written on it, they get a full day of PTO. There's a wild card too: a orange ping pong ball for another chance at a full day!
"Competitive saying left over from my high school football days thirty-five years ago that will somehow inspire someone to pick the orange ball!"
The trolls and zombies love this part of the meeting because it's the only one left up to chance. The rest is dictated by the dooming reality of statistics, trends, and some other third thing that resembles the worst episodes of the Twilight Zone--not worst-chilling or worst-thought-provoking, but worst-campy, -produced, or -cheesey.
"Playful ribbing about your golf swing!"
Anniversaries are thrown in here at the end: this could be you! You could be hobbling up there to receive your crystal paperweight for thirty years of service. At year thirty-five, your paperweight has a clock in it. This could be you. Watch and remember.
7:47am - Slideshow... if they can figure out how to simply connect a laptop to a projector and if the viruses with which they infect the entire network haven't made it impossible to run Powerpoint. Graphs... stats... "... n% under the goal..." We're doomed.
"Next quarter, right?"
8:15am - Guest speaker. This morning's guest speaker was a police officer who spoke about new trends in fraud and theft. Moral of that story: they're faster, smarter, and more creative; we're doomed.
"Buck up! Go team!"
This is where it got interesting this morning. During the ending speech meant to keep solidarity and employment pride soaring, in the ironic face of a completely hopeless and routinely superficially-themed staff meeting... booming, industrial techno falls heavily from the Cool Animator Dudes above us.
I heard it; Demon heard it; but everyone else pretended not to. It was obvious that they were having a better morning upstairs than I was downstairs. I imagined they were having a staff meeting too, but there staff meetings kick off their mornings with a Quake LAN party, an early-NIN soundtrack, 'sage egg McMuffs, and Bawls for some real gut rot.
The juxtaposition of pathetic silver linings and pseudo-inspirado pep talk accompanied by a far-off rave, was wonderful. Ampliphied in my head, it was perfect.
Score one for Cool Animator Dudes.
Part Two
INT. Office Building shared hallway - Outside of the communal bathroom
Mason exits the bathroom and pockets his DS. His morning gut rot, to which he added the largest, most-promising piece of birthday cake he could find, and coupled with a McDeez lunch of three dub-chee-burgz, had escalated his status into a suitable misery. Having just dropped off his misery and failing to solve a Puzzle Quest session, he heads back towards his department at Zen Bank.
A door in the hallway swings open as Mason walks by. A Cool Animator Dude walks out, talking on a cell phone.
The Cool Animator Dudes with whom Zen Bank shares a building are just flaunting it now. Two more small episodes today were sobering reality checks to just how awful corporation jobs are.
Zen Bank had an all-employee staff meeting this morning, like we do every two months. Here's a run-down of one of these artifices of corporate importance:
7:30am - I walk in no earlier than I need to be and fill a plate with mini-muffins, cinirollettes--anything--and a styro cup with scorched-earth coffee. Why? Because the pain from the subsequent gutrot and lava-flayed mouth is a more welcome feeling than the upcoming forty-five minutes of pretending to like each other and pretending the banking world isn't being hit hard.
"Not this early in the morning!"
7:35am - Mini-muffins and cinirollettes decimated; flayed skin hanging from the roof of the mouth. Let's get this over with.
"Generic weather comment!"
7:36am - Birthdays! For the people who have been attending these meetings for decades, this event is exciting. Each employee whose birthday lands that month or the next gets to reach into a plastic pot full of ping pong balls. Everyone is granted a half-day of Paid Time Off for their birthday, but if they pull out a ping pong ball with the month or day of their birthday written on it, they get a full day of PTO. There's a wild card too: a orange ping pong ball for another chance at a full day!
"Competitive saying left over from my high school football days thirty-five years ago that will somehow inspire someone to pick the orange ball!"
The trolls and zombies love this part of the meeting because it's the only one left up to chance. The rest is dictated by the dooming reality of statistics, trends, and some other third thing that resembles the worst episodes of the Twilight Zone--not worst-chilling or worst-thought-provoking, but worst-campy, -produced, or -cheesey.
"Playful ribbing about your golf swing!"
Anniversaries are thrown in here at the end: this could be you! You could be hobbling up there to receive your crystal paperweight for thirty years of service. At year thirty-five, your paperweight has a clock in it. This could be you. Watch and remember.
7:47am - Slideshow... if they can figure out how to simply connect a laptop to a projector and if the viruses with which they infect the entire network haven't made it impossible to run Powerpoint. Graphs... stats... "... n% under the goal..." We're doomed.
"Next quarter, right?"
8:15am - Guest speaker. This morning's guest speaker was a police officer who spoke about new trends in fraud and theft. Moral of that story: they're faster, smarter, and more creative; we're doomed.
"Buck up! Go team!"
This is where it got interesting this morning. During the ending speech meant to keep solidarity and employment pride soaring, in the ironic face of a completely hopeless and routinely superficially-themed staff meeting... booming, industrial techno falls heavily from the Cool Animator Dudes above us.
I heard it; Demon heard it; but everyone else pretended not to. It was obvious that they were having a better morning upstairs than I was downstairs. I imagined they were having a staff meeting too, but there staff meetings kick off their mornings with a Quake LAN party, an early-NIN soundtrack, 'sage egg McMuffs, and Bawls for some real gut rot.
The juxtaposition of pathetic silver linings and pseudo-inspirado pep talk accompanied by a far-off rave, was wonderful. Ampliphied in my head, it was perfect.Score one for Cool Animator Dudes.
Part Two
INT. Office Building shared hallway - Outside of the communal bathroom
Mason exits the bathroom and pockets his DS. His morning gut rot, to which he added the largest, most-promising piece of birthday cake he could find, and coupled with a McDeez lunch of three dub-chee-burgz, had escalated his status into a suitable misery. Having just dropped off his misery and failing to solve a Puzzle Quest session, he heads back towards his department at Zen Bank.
A door in the hallway swings open as Mason walks by. A Cool Animator Dude walks out, talking on a cell phone.
posted by Mason @ 8:59 PM
2 Comments:
At 3:10 AM,
Mitch said…
Sad :(
At 11:13 AM,
Stefan said…
I was there, and it was horrible.
Post a Comment
<< Home