Nor would I be thrilled to be told that, because the company was downsizing, rightsizing or scaling down, I was part of an involuntary force-reduction. I really don’t care that my company is reshaping and streamlining, and that, in order to manage staff resources, a focused reduction is taking place, and I’m one of the workers being transitioned out. Just fire me, please!
I read somewhere that apparently one company’s senior management didn’t understand the fuss about this issue. After all, they said, all they were doing was eliminating the company’s employment security policy by engaging in a deselection process in order to reduce duplication.
P.S. By the way, when those deselected people begin to look for new jobs, they won’t have to be bothered reading the want ads. Those listings are now called employment opportunities. Makes you feel a lot better, doesn’t it?
EUPHEMISMS: What Do You Do for a Living?
American companies now put a great deal of effort into boosting their employees’ self-esteem by handing out inflated job titles. Most likely, they think it also helps compensate for the longer hours, unpaid overtime and stagnant wages that have become standard. It doesn’t.
However, such titles do allow an ordinary store clerk to tell some girl he’s picking up at a bar that he’s a product specialist. Or a retail consultant. If it turns out she’s a store clerk, too, but her store uses different euphemisms, then she may be able to inform him that she’s a sales counsellor. Or a customer service associate. And, for a while there, they’re under the impression that they actually have different jobs.
These are real job titles, currently in use to describe employees whose work essentially consists of telling customers, “We’re all out of medium.” Nothing wrong with that, but it’s called store clerk, not retail consultant, and not customer service associate. Apparently, stores feel they can charge more for merchandise sold by a customer service associate than they can for the same junk sold by a clerk. By the way, if a clerk should be unhappy with his title, he can always move to a different store, where he may have a chance of being called a product service representative, a sales representative or a sales associate.
And I hope you took note of that word associate. That’s a hot word with companies now. I saw a fast-food employee mopping the floor at an In-N-Out Burger and—I swear this is true—his name tag said “associate.” Okay? It’s the truth. Apparently, instead of money, they now give out these bogus titles.
At another fast-food place, Au Bon Pain, I noticed the cashier’s name tag said hospitality representative. The cashier. The name tag was pinned to her uniform. The people who sell these uniforms now refer to them as career apparel. Or—even worse—team wear. I had to sit down when I heard that. Team wear.
Teams are also big in business; almost as big as associates. In Los Angeles’s KooKooRoo restaurants the employee name tags say “team member.” At a Whole Foods supermarket, I talked to the head of the meat department about ordering a special item; I figured he was the head butcher. But his name tag identified him as the meat team leader. Throw that on your résumé. I guess the people under him would have been meat team associates. I didn’t stick around to ask.
So it’s all about employee morale. And in a lot of companies, as part of morale-building, the employees are called staff. But it’s all right, because most customers are now called clients. With those designations, I guess the companies can pay the staff less and charge the clients more.
I’m not sure when all this job-title inflation began, but it’s been building for a while. At some point in the past thirty years secretaries became personal assistants or executive assistants. Many of them now consider those terms too common, so they call themselves administrative aides.
Everyone wants to sound more important these days:
Teachers became educators,
drummers became percussionists,
movie directors became filmmakers,
company presidents became chief executive officers,
family doctors became primary-care providers,
manicurists became nail technicians,
magazine photographers became photojournalists,
weightlifters became bodybuilders
and bounty hunters now prefer to be called recovery agents
And speaking of lifting, those retail-store security people who keep an eye on shoplifters are known as loss-prevention managers. Still more to come. Later.
Schmuck School: Call Now!
Why not be a schmuck? A licensed, practicing schmuck. Or, if you qualify, a CPS, a certified public schmuck. It may not seem like it when you look around, but there’s actually a shortage of schmucks in America. As a result, there’s big money in schmucking. The average schmuck earns $28,000 a year, plus benefits. And there are openings for schmucks in every field: The government is run by schmucks; big business is run by schmucks; and the retail field is crawling with shmucks. And, more and more, people are becoming independent, freelance schmucks on their own. Call the Schmuck Technical Institute today and get our free booklet, Hey Putz, Be a Schmuck! Most people only manage to be schmucks at parties, but here’s your chance to become a full-time, year-round schmuck. Give us a call. Don’t be a schmuck, be a schmuck.
IN THE FUTURE:
• The human life span will be extended to 200 years, but the last 150 will be spent in unremitting pain and sadness.
• No one will take drugs, but people will still buy them and conceal them from the police.
• Children will be required to attend school only when something comes up in conversation they do not understand.
• All people will speak the same language, but no one will speak it well.
• Science will develop exotic flowers capable of producing music. Most of these plants will be exploited by record companies.
• All farming will cease and the land will be used for loitering.
• Although people will not keep pets of any kind, someone will still occasionally step in dogshit.
• A race of people living in the center of the Earth will be discovered when one of them comes out to buy a sunlamp.
• Miners will exploit the ocean floor, and, when trapped in a mine, the wives who gather to wait at the entrance will be forced to tread water.
• A team of astronauts will attempt to harness a comet and never be seen again.
• The human body will develop fins and gills, and beach property will increase tenfold in value.
• Man will learn to control the weather with a large hammer.
• A time machine will be built, but no one will have time to use it.
• At birth, religions will charge people an initial fee of $50,000 and then pretty much leave them alone.
• All the knowledge in the world will be contained on a single, tiny silicon chip which someone will misplace.
• People will be born with just enough money to last until they get seriously ill.
• The speed of the Earth’s rotation will increase and everyone less than five feet tall will be flung off into space, including Paul Anka.
• The sun’s light will diminish until it is the equivalent of a forty-watt bulb, and people with highly developed squinting skills will have a survival advantage.
• Every part of the human body will become replaceable, but all parts will be back-ordered six months.
• A utopian society ruled by women will emerge, and there will be peace and plenty for all. However, many men will still act like macho assholes.
• People will change clothes every six minutes but still never be quite happy with their appearance.
• Cities will be built under huge glass domes which, in time, will be completely covered by graffiti.
• Chickens will operate on gasoline and, surprisingly, many of them will get good mileage.
• Genetic scientists will develop vegetables too big to be transported and they will have to be eaten right at the farm.
• The insane will no longer be housed
in asylums; instead, they will be displayed in department store windows.
• The oceans will dry up, and people will find things they dropped in the toilet many years ago.
• There will be no doctors or medicines of any kind and everyone will be really sick.
• Eventually, it will no longer be necessary to forecast the future, because time will disappear and everything will happen at once.
DIG THIS!
Whenever we go into some country we’ve bombed, burned and occupied, we always find mass graves full of dead people who were killed by the deposed dictator before we got there. And everybody in the United States acts like they’re real surprised and disgusted. But when you think about it, what’s a guy supposed to do with all those bodies after he’s killed a couple of thousand people? Dig a separate hole for each one? Put up little markers with their names on them? Get real, for chrissakes. The whole idea of killing a couple of thousand people all at once, in one place, is to save time. Besides, all the United States ever does is complain a little, take a picture and then leave. So what’s the fuckin’ difference?
FALL DOWN, GO BOOM!
You know what I find interesting? Land mines. Here are a few great statistics. Listen to this:
There are 340 different types of land mines made by a hundred different companies. Every day—that’s every day—roughly six thousand fresh mines are placed in the ground. Right now, there are 110 million land mines in seventy-two countries; and every twenty-two minutes, one of them explodes. Seventy-five mines explode every day, and each month seven hundred people are maimed or killed. That’s twenty-six thousand people a year. Don’t you find that interesting?
Mines cost only three dollars to make and to put in the ground. But they cost a hundred dollars to disarm and remove. If you tried to remove them all, it would cost $33 billion and it would take eleven hundred years. They cost three dollars apiece, and they last indefinitely. Wouldn’t it be nice if other products could make that claim?
Here’s another funny statistic: In Cambodia, one out of every 236 civilians is missing a limb or an eye from an exploded land mine. Cambodia now has thirty thousand people with at least one missing limb. And they still have 4 million mines in the ground.
It makes you wonder whether or not some unlucky, one-legged Cambodian guy has ever stepped on a land mine with his good leg. I’ll bet it’s happened. I’ll bet anything there’s some guy in Cambodia who has hit the lottery twice.
I tried to think of what would be the most entertaining way of setting off a land mine, and I decided it would be to land on one while doing a cartwheel. Wouldn’t that be weird to see? Makes you wonder if the high-school cheerleading squads in Cambodia keep mine detectors handy.
These are the kinds of thoughts I have when I’m sitting home alone and things are slow.
Be a Doctor: Act Now!
Be a doctor in just three weeks! Yes, thanks to our accelerated learning program, you can be a doctor in just three weeks—and you only have to study twenty minutes a day. Or become a dentist in just one afternoon. Don’t like your present job? Don’t fit into the current job market? Be a doctor. Or a dentist. It’s easy. Call now and we’ll include a nursing course for your wife. In fact, we can make your wife a nurse over the phone. Call Accelerated Medical School now! Don’t be an asshole. Be a doctor.
WHO KNOWS?
A: “I don’t know. Or at least I don’t know if I know. And I don’t even know if I care to know if I know.”
B: “I don’t know what you mean.”
A: “You know, I mean I don’t know what I mean. You know what I mean?”
B: “What do you mean you don’t know what you mean? I don’t know what you mean.”
A: “I mean, you know, I don’t know.”
B: “You don’t know? You mean that?”
A: “I don’t know.”
A CONTINUING NEWS STORY ALL IN ONE PLACE
Chicago, May 1: Police announced today they have found evidence of a murder-dismemberment. In a North Side Dumpster, they have found a right arm, a left leg and the eyebrows of an adult white male. Police say the eyebrows are bushy and had recently been plucked. According to spokesmen, the search for additional body parts will continue.
May 6: Here is further news on that North Side dismemberment. Police have now found a set of blond sideburns, a lower lip, two matching buttocks, a middle finger, a knee and two and a half grams of armpit hair. As yet they have no identification, but sources say they’re glad that at least it’s still only one person they appear to be finding.
May 12: More on the dismemberment story: The police theory that they were dealing with only one body was shattered today when they discovered forty-four male nipples in a vending machine. Twenty-six of the nipples have hair, eighteen do not. One of them has a nipple ring inscribed LONNIE AND MARIE. They have also come across a belly button, a calf and several hundred warts, all found in a Hooters parking lot. Lint from the belly button leads police to believe the navel’s owner was wearing a plaid shirt. The investigation continues.
May 23: Here is the latest from the North Side: Police are now puzzled as to just how many bodies are involved. Today they found an Adam’s apple, a hunchback, six heels, a pair of un-matching nostrils, a large bag of freckles, two dozen additional belly buttons, a blond goatee, half a neck, and a suitcase full of knuckles. They say all the knuckles have recently been cracked. Cannibalism may be involved, as police have found a rib cage that shows traces of barbecue sauce. More later.
LETTER TO A FRIEND
Dear Manny,
It was great to see you at the hospital last Sunday. You looked good and sounded very positive about yourself. Each time I visit, I can see how much you’ve improved. I will say, though, it was a lot more fun when you were really fucked up and couldn’t remember anything.
Sincerely, Arlo
Krellingford’s Restaurant: Cooking Tips
Here are today’s cooking tips from Krellingford’s Family Restaurant: Hamburger meat that has become slightly hardened by sitting at room temperature for more than nine days can be perked up by soaking it in a mixture of gasoline and varnish remover. Soak the meat overnight and leave it in the sun for several days. Be sure to add a lot of extra-hot spices to offset the gasoline taste. Then try to put the meat to use immediately. By the way, food prepared this way should never be cooked over an open flame.
Here’s another valuable cooking tip: You can prepare a delicious stew with just a volleyball, an old fatigue hat and six gallons of bathwater. Put the ingredients in a big pot and cook for thirty-six hours, or until the volleyball is tender. Serves twelve. Excellent with broccoli or corn. Try it over the holidays when the people you serve it to are people you don’t see too often.
That’s it, folks. Remember, these cooking tips are brought to you by Krellingford’s, the home of the Ham and Cheese Caramel Corn Flake Surprise. Why not drop by and take a chance? No one lives forever.
UNCLE D’ARTAGNAN
Uncle d’Artagnan was known as a fancy dan, because he circumcised himself with pinking shears. His wife, Velveeta, the only woman ever to go down on Newt Gingrich, claimed that to the very end, d’Artagnan wore a golden tassel on his penis. He once told me that as a young man he caught the clap from one of the Doublemint twins and gave it to the other on the same night. He was a lot of fun. He could make his cat shit by pointing the TV remote at it and pressing the VOLUME button. His hobby was falling to the floor in hotel lobbies and pretending to have a stroke. Eventually, he was beaten to death with a cello by a classical musician he befriended at a juice bar.
UNCLE TONTO
Uncle Tonto had a tough life; intercourse with a pelican is not an easy thing to live down. He drank excessively. One time he was so hungover he had to consult a cottage cheese carton to determine the approximate date. At parties, he was the designated drinker, his preference being crème de menthe, Sterno and goat droppings. When stopped and tested by police, he usually set the Breathalyzer on
fire. Refusing to drive when he was sober, in the mornings he rode to work on an electric floor buffer, claiming the one drawback was the time he wasted traveling from side to side. He was sentenced to ten years for defecating in a cathedral, but was released immediately when the warden felt Tonto was lowering the prison’s standards. After his release, he hitchhiked through Pennsylvania where he was beaten to death by a buggyload of Quakers.
UNCLE JUDAS
Uncle Judas, a man smaller than life, never had a heyday. He peaked in third grade. Not only did opportunity fail to knock, it had deliberately thrown away his address. His existence was so boring he once proudly showed me his neighbor’s parking space. In an effort to improve his life, he decided to sell his soul; unfortunately, he sold it on eBay and was never paid. He didn’t accomplish much; his autobiography was entitled Whaddya Want from Me? One thing he did take pride in: He was one of the few men who, at the age of eighty-five, could still remember the names of all his dentists. He died on the feast of St. Dismas, after mistakenly eating a bag of after-dinner mints before lunch.