Comment On Representative Line: Spreading the Holiday Jeer

hahaha nice :D raising the morale ftw!

Hey! I'm not celebrating Thanksgiving Day today but that's because I celebrated it last month!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving#Thanksgiving_in_Canada

Thanksgiving today? Hmmm... ok, I'll go a little hunting tonight to get a chicken. Or was is a chick I wanted to look for? Hmmm...

 

boss don't have balls

New Expense Policy: No heating, No lights, No weekends, No salaries

that would rise profit!

> New Expense Policy: No heating, No lights, No weekends, No salaries
> that would rise profit

you forgot: no quitting time, no office (work from home), no computer (bring your own, but you must install a 24/7 work control software that you bought yourself, together with the needed webcam and mike/speakers)

like the capcha says: perfection! ;)
(Btw: that captcha is easy to circumvent. There is software out there that can read such simple types of captcha.)
 

Similar thing here so you may  have guessed what I mean to do about it - and my Indian trainees are not yet ready to replace me.

Alex Papadimoulis:

For those of you stuck at work today, or in one of those 191 countries that don't celebrate Thanksgiving Day today, or -- *gasp* -- actually reading this from home while on holiday, here's a Representative Line that should get you in the holiday spirit. It's the subject of an email sent by the CFO to Mike and the rest of the company ...

It was the perfect motivator for the rank and file and, naturally, came only a few weeks after the CEO's email congratulating everyone for record Q1 through Q3 earnings.

Happy Thanksgiving, all! Tomorrow: Coded Smorgasbord

As WTF worthy as this is, I must say that having worked at a company that was the exact opposite (until the bubble burst), I can see why they might change their policy.  When I started at this company, they were spending hundreds of thousands on Christmas parties, launch parties (for products no one bought), and customer entertainment.  They were literally partying the company's cash away.

Then the bubble went pop and the layoffs starting.  I lost track of the actual number of rounds of layoffs at 7, but I'm pretty sure it made it into double digits.  Spending pretty much stopped except for required expenditures.  Yes morale dropped, but the company survived.  I'd rather have a job than a Thanksgiving party...

Now, I don't know if this is the same situation, but it could probably have been handled better. 

Both in USA and Japan today everybody is celebrating Thanksgiving Day. Americans are thanking Japaneese for all this amazing Nissans and Toyotas and Japaneese thanking Americans for Herosima and Nagasaki :P

No employee celebrations today here in my country

saludos amigos

kimos:

Hey! I'm not celebrating Thanksgiving Day today but that's because I celebrated it last month!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving#Thanksgiving_in_Canada

Me too, but any excuse to have a Tofurky is good enough for me. Bring on the pumpkin pie!

And with one hand they giveth

with the other they taketh away

 

...your soul that is 

CAPTCHA: hacker (as in with an axe...postal style) 

Grimoire:

Alex Papadimoulis:

For those of you stuck at work today, or in one of those 191 countries that don't celebrate Thanksgiving Day today, or -- *gasp* -- actually reading this from home while on holiday, here's a Representative Line that should get you in the holiday spirit. It's the subject of an email sent by the CFO to Mike and the rest of the company ...

It was the perfect motivator for the rank and file and, naturally, came only a few weeks after the CEO's email congratulating everyone for record Q1 through Q3 earnings.

Happy Thanksgiving, all! Tomorrow: Coded Smorgasbord

Then the bubble went pop and the layoffs starting.  I lost track of the actual number of rounds of layoffs at 7, but I'm pretty sure it made it into double digits.  Spending pretty much stopped except for required expenditures.  Yes morale dropped, but the company survived.  I'd rather have a job than a Thanksgiving party...

Now, I don't know if this is the same situation, but it could probably have been handled better. 

Methinks that the record Q1 and Q3 profits were to indicate that it was a different situation than yours. Might have worked better if the CFO explained that such parties could not be written off as expenses and would have to count as taxable income for all the employees regardless of attendance. Then after making the tax-man the bad guy, the CFO could present the situation as a choice to the employees: no celebration or employees foot the bill.

Sometimes I think a company ought to have an internal policy prohibiting CFO and CEO from sending out emails to the troops. They are high level executives that make profit-or-bankrupt decisions for the companies and face some stark and unforgiving financial realities. As a result, they need thick emotional skin to survive such stresses while sensitivity training is a bit of an optional extra. I remember one company I worked for where I would want to quit every time I read an email from the CFO or CEO. For a time I was deliberately ignoring the emails they sent out to the company so I could focus on my work.

At my current company messages from on high often come from a senior manager (presumably with sensitivity training) speaking on behalf of an exec. Then again, maybe the reason the messages from on high don't cause so much morale loss is because they are along the lines of "the office will be closed at 3pm tomorrow so everyone has enough time to make it to the Christmas party". Or mabye it is not co-incidence...

OneFactor:

Sometimes I think a company ought to have an internal policy prohibiting CFO and CEO from sending out emails to the troops. They are high level executives that make profit-or-bankrupt decisions for the companies and face some stark and unforgiving financial realities. As a result, they need thick emotional skin to survive such stresses while sensitivity training is a bit of an optional extra. I remember one company I worked for where I would want to quit every time I read an email from the CFO or CEO. For a time I was deliberately ignoring the emails they sent out to the company so I could focus on my work.

At my current company messages from on high often come from a senior manager (presumably with sensitivity training) speaking on behalf of an exec.

Where I am, the CEO started off with good business sense except for an attitude of "people are replaceable".  Following a few incidents of HR manager telling him "you can't just say XYZ!  Say it like this..." , he allowed the HR manager to write all-staff memos for him, then he'd forward the email to All Staff.  He eventually learned how to do this without making it look like a forwarded email, but by then people knew what was going on.
Since then the HR manager position has disappeared, and CEO is handling memos quite well these days.

Anonymous:

(Btw: that captcha is easy to circumvent. There is software out there that can read such simple types of captcha.)
 

That's nothing, check out the "captchas" used by tikiwiki:

http://tikiwiki.org/tiki-editpage.php?page=SandBoxDev

http://tikiwiki.org/tiki-random_num_img.php

That's right, just 5 numbers with slight vertical offsets. Talk about easy to defeat...
 

easy to defeat for a program. but still unable to pass for a blind. maybe they took the saying to the heart: keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.

No Thanksgiving here, don't really know how much it's important to American people but... eh, you can celebrate just about anything, any day, everybody brings something in to eat or drink, and there you go! I tend to think that companies do not _have_ to endorse exceptional events like that (though I appreciate when they do). Besides, it's much more enjoyable when everybody comes with their small, but personal contribution (well, I like to cook, maybe that's why :-)).

Has anyone heard of a Turducken? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken) I hadn't until today, but it's a boneless Turkey, stuffed with a boneless duck, stuffed with a a boneless chicken.

 
Apparently, this is a standard American thanksgiving meal. I'm a Canadian and have never heard of it.

 

--doc0tis 

We here in Australia are not celebrating Thanksgiving.  Instead, we have an even better arrangement going at the moment - it's called "The Ashes".  This is when we all pretend to work for 5 days, but instead we're really watching the cricket on our USB TV boxes.  We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing.

Anonymous:

We here in Australia are not celebrating Thanksgiving.  Instead, we have an even better arrangement going at the moment - it's called "The Ashes".  This is when we all pretend to work for 5 days, but instead we're really watching the cricket on our USB TV boxes.  We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing.

 

Aussies, Work.  Kind of a contridiction isn't it! -;)

Anonymous:

We here in Australia are not celebrating Thanksgiving.  Instead, we have an even better arrangement going at the moment - it's called "The Ashes".  This is when we all pretend to work for 5 days, but instead we're really watching the cricket on our USB TV boxes.  We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing.

We have this "The Ashes" in the UK too, but it's different over here - we all pretend to be ill for 5 days so can't go to the office, but instead we're staying up all night watching the cricket and sleeping during the day. We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing. ;-)

You lot had a good first day, but I have an inkling Harmy is going to get himself together today...

... and then came The Letter. The final expense policy announcement that should turn the company into history.

Expense Policy: No coffee 

swordfishBob:

Where I am, the CEO started off with good business sense except for an attitude of "people are replaceable".  Following a few incidents of HR manager telling him "you can't just say XYZ!  Say it like this..." , he allowed the HR manager to write all-staff memos for him, then he'd forward the email to All Staff.  He eventually learned how to do this without making it look like a forwarded email, but by then people knew what was going on.
Since then the HR manager position has disappeared, and CEO is handling memos quite well these days.

So this CEO wasn't treating people very well, he had enough sense to realize that he needed to treat people better, and he had enough sense to learn from the HR manager how to do it. Then he fires the HR manager who outlived his/her usefuleness by teaching the CEO how to treat people better?

I guess the moral of the story is: people are replaceable, but do not let anyone know that you believe this. Or maybe it is this: feed a CEO and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and you have outlived your usefulness to him.

OneFactor:

Grimoire:

Alex Papadimoulis:

For those of you stuck at work today, or in one of those 191 countries that don't celebrate Thanksgiving Day today, or -- *gasp* -- actually reading this from home while on holiday, here's a Representative Line that should get you in the holiday spirit. It's the subject of an email sent by the CFO to Mike and the rest of the company ...

It was the perfect motivator for the rank and file and, naturally, came only a few weeks after the CEO's email congratulating everyone for record Q1 through Q3 earnings.

Happy Thanksgiving, all! Tomorrow: Coded Smorgasbord

Then the bubble went pop and the layoffs starting.  I lost track of the actual number of rounds of layoffs at 7, but I'm pretty sure it made it into double digits.  Spending pretty much stopped except for required expenditures.  Yes morale dropped, but the company survived.  I'd rather have a job than a Thanksgiving party...

Now, I don't know if this is the same situation, but it could probably have been handled better. 

Methinks that the record Q1 and Q3 profits were to indicate that it was a different situation than yours.

While you are probably correct, he actually said record earnings, not record profits.  They could have received recording earnings while still losing money hand over fist, and needing to cut back on expenses.  Once we got a CFO who knew how to control spending, things did settle down.  We never did turn a profit.  I left over a year ago, and just recently they had their best quarter ever, where they only lost $75k, which is really not too bad considering a typical quarterly loss is around $0.8m to $1.5m.

The company I currently work for makes a nice little profit.  Nice bonuses too.  :) 

Anonymous:

> New Expense Policy: No heating, No lights, No weekends, No salaries
> that would rise profit

you forgot: no quitting time, no office (work from home), no computer (bring your own, but you must install a 24/7 work control software that you bought yourself, together with the needed webcam and mike/speakers)

like the capcha says: perfection! ;)
(Btw: that captcha is easy to circumvent. There is software out there that can read such simple types of captcha.)
 

This is nearly as good as the letter saying "The rumours are true, there will be a reorg and downsizing in two months. The management can't tell yet who are the employees involved but we ask everyone to work as if nothing was going to happen." (And I'm not making this up.)

(BTW: captchas can also be circumvented by pr0n.)
 

Skroog:

Thanksgiving today? Hmmm... ok, I'll go a little hunting tonight to get a chicken. Or was is a chick I wanted to look for? Hmmm...

Just make sure you got the right one before going to bed with it, hmmkay? 

And we are thanking the JI for 9/11. wtf.

Anonymous:

We here in Australia are not celebrating Thanksgiving.  Instead, we have an even better arrangement going at the moment - it's called "The Ashes".  This is when we all pretend to work for 5 days, but instead we're really watching the cricket on our USB TV boxes.  We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing.

I work for an ISP and in the summer the alpha test period of our new IPTV platform just happened to coincide with the World Cup. (Strange enough, but not everyone in the office was happy when I yelled "Yes, Timmy has banged it in!" when you equalised against Japan. Anyway, my boss was.)

Gobbles, the physically challenged turkey. :)

Anonymous:

Has anyone heard of a Turducken? It's a boneless Turkey, stuffed with a boneless duck, stuffed with a a boneless chicken.

Happy Thanksgiving, Doktor Frankenstein! Ein fröhliches Erntedankfest!

Anonymous:

... and then came The Letter. The final expense policy announcement that should turn the company into history.

Expense Policy: No coffee 

Caffeine consumption can increase a person's productivity by 70%.

This statistic was brought to you by JOLT Cola, America's most powerful soda.

You know its sad, there are people out there who can't read them, yet the machine already can... perhaps someone should make a portable CAPTCHA reader?

Alexis de Torquemada:

Caffeine consumption can increase a person's productivity by 70%.

This statistic was brought to you by JOLT Cola, America's most powerful soda.

True, as long as you define "productivity" as drinking more soda... :P

CAPTCHA: shizzle me whizzle dizzle! Ick...
 

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

We here in Australia are not celebrating Thanksgiving.  Instead, we have an even better arrangement going at the moment - it's called "The Ashes".  This is when we all pretend to work for 5 days, but instead we're really watching the cricket on our USB TV boxes.  We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing.

We have this "The Ashes" in the UK too, but it's different over here - we all pretend to be ill for 5 days so can't go to the office, but instead we're staying up all night watching the cricket and sleeping during the day. We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing. ;-)

You lot had a good first day, but I have an inkling Harmy is going to get himself together today...

... or not. Ha, another wide first ball :p
 

Holy captcha: batman 

We have this "The Ashes" in the UK too, but it's different over here - we all pretend to be ill for 5 days so can't go to the office, but instead we're staying up all night watching the cricket and sleeping during the day. We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing. ;-)

You lot had a good first day, but I have an inkling Harmy is going to get himself together today...

You guys (both of you) have it way too good. Here in the US there's boatloads of nus Indians, for whom where most of these darn matches are during the night, you don't get any excuses because your bosses are never going to be watching these games, no cable/satellite service carries the telecast so you pay thru the nose every series, or end up watching on a piddling monitor.

And then India makes all of 93 runs chasing 249 ...

Anonymous:

Has anyone heard of a Turducken? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken) I hadn't until today, but it's a boneless Turkey, stuffed with a boneless duck, stuffed with a a boneless chicken.

Apparently, this is a standard American thanksgiving meal. I'm a Canadian and have never heard of it.

 

--doc0tis 

Turducken

 

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

We here in Australia are not celebrating Thanksgiving.  Instead, we have an even better arrangement going at the moment - it's called "The Ashes".  This is when we all pretend to work for 5 days, but instead we're really watching the cricket on our USB TV boxes.  We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing.

We have this "The Ashes" in the UK too, but it's different over here - we all pretend to be ill for 5 days so can't go to the office, but instead we're staying up all night watching the cricket and sleeping during the day. We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing. ;-)

You lot had a good first day, but I have an inkling Harmy is going to get himself together today...

even if Harmy does come right (can't get much worse than the 1st ball!) England are really missing Jones, and i suspect when they come out to bat, Vaughn : (

as a Sri Lankan ex Kiwi living in Perth, last year was the best year of my life : D

the pitch is looking good though, i'm still the optimist, thinking they can make it to 500... 

Anonymous:

We have this "The Ashes" in the UK too, but it's different over here - we all pretend to be ill for 5 days so can't go to the office, but instead we're staying up all night watching the cricket and sleeping during the day. We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing. ;-)

You lot had a good first day, but I have an inkling Harmy is going to get himself together today...

You guys (both of you) have it way too good. Here in the US there's boatloads of nus Indians, for whom where most of these darn matches are during the night, you don't get any excuses because your bosses are never going to be watching these games, no cable/satellite service carries the telecast so you pay thru the nose every series, or end up watching on a piddling monitor.

And then India makes all of 93 runs chasing 249 ...

... and an effigy of an Aussie gets burnt ; )

i thought with Pro Cricket and whatnots, it was starting to take off there a bit?

FWIW, quite  a few of the Champions Trophy matches appeared as torrents in quick time? 

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

We here in Australia are not celebrating Thanksgiving.  Instead, we have an even better arrangement going at the moment - it's called "The Ashes".  This is when we all pretend to work for 5 days, but instead we're really watching the cricket on our USB TV boxes.  We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing.

We have this "The Ashes" in the UK too, but it's different over here - we all pretend to be ill for 5 days so can't go to the office, but instead we're staying up all night watching the cricket and sleeping during the day. We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing. ;-)

You lot had a good first day, but I have an inkling Harmy is going to get himself together today...

 <ot>

so you guys can get away with being "ill" 5 days a week, for 6 weeks?

btw, any idea whats up with the severe lack of bouncers? i would have thought that would have been the first thing they did to JL. at least they are going after Lee's body a bit. 

real nice to see Freddy leading from the front.

</ot> 

For a real wtf, I know a IT Company that sent their 100 or so employees to Amsterdam for their christmas party....

Anonymous:

For a real wtf, I know a IT Company that sent their 100 or so employees to Amsterdam for their christmas party....

 

That's not so strange. I know a lot of those companies. Most are from the Netherlands, though.

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

We here in Australia are not celebrating Thanksgiving.  Instead, we have an even better arrangement going at the moment - it's called "The Ashes".  This is when we all pretend to work for 5 days, but instead we're really watching the cricket on our USB TV boxes.  We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing.

We have this "The Ashes" in the UK too, but it's different over here - we all pretend to be ill for 5 days so can't go to the office, but instead we're staying up all night watching the cricket and sleeping during the day. We get away with this because our bosses are doing the same thing. ;-)

You lot had a good first day, but I have an inkling Harmy is going to get himself together today...

You could hardly call it a celebration now could you? It's _almost_ enought to make me glad I live in a country where I can't watch it.

 

donazea:

as a Sri Lankan ex Kiwi living in Perth, last year was the best year of my life : D

the pitch is looking good though, i'm still the optimist, thinking they can make it to 500... 

Nice. Do you speak spanish?  

Anonymous:

(Btw: that captcha is easy to circumvent. There is software out there that can read such simple types of captcha.)
 

Doesn't matter. When did you last see spam here? Spammers would much rather hit sites like blogspot and generic movable type blogs, with enormous userbases (and friendliness to spam).

Anyway, spammers could defeat far more complex captchas if they wanted: http://sam.zoy.org/pwntcha/ (yes, there's a distorted goatse down the page, I'm sick of pussies complaining about it)

It just isn't economical, nor is it economical to offer free porn or other rewards in exchange for captcha-breaking, nor is it economical to pay people to break them all day: http://petmail.lothar.com/design.html#auto34

> (Btw: that captcha is easy to circumvent. There is software out there that can read such simple types of captcha.)
...and yet it seems to work well enough to keep spam off the list.

Anonymous:

Skroog:

Thanksgiving today? Hmmm... ok, I'll go a little hunting tonight to get a chicken. Or was is a chick I wanted to look for? Hmmm...

Just make sure you got the right one before going to bed with it, hmmkay? 

 

Damn, I should have read your post earlier... I was wondering why this chick had so much feathers on her head...

Hmm, the real wtf is that the ad is longuer than the post itself..

Anonymous:

Has anyone heard of a Turducken?

 

I've heard it mentioned. Trouble is my brain always breaks the word down at what's probably the wrong point. Turd - uck -en. Which doesn't sound like something I'd want to eat at all.... 

Captcha thingy: creative. Which might account for the way I interpret things.  

 

WIldpeaks:

Hmm, the real wtf is that the ad is longuer than the post itself..

 You sign, and my boredoom, forme me to randowmly post images.

There are good one for Mentats. 

A atreides mentat:

 

A ordos mentat: 

At last, someone who knows the classics :-)

Translation:

 Do a good job and get payed, do an EXCELENT job and get fired.

 

Oxumoron captcha: poprocks

(hey its fun, now i know why you people do it.)

 

Anonymous:

Has anyone heard of a Turducken? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken) I hadn't until today, but it's a boneless Turkey, stuffed with a boneless duck, stuffed with a a boneless chicken.

 
Apparently, this is a standard American thanksgiving meal. I'm a Canadian and have never heard of it.

 

--doc0tis 

I'm Canadian, and yup, have heard of it, and eaten some!  My family did it for Christmas dinner a few years ago, when we had a horde to feed.  Bought the thing pre-assembled from a deli.  Took forever to roast though, about 14 hours, since it's so dense.

And oh yeah, between each layer of meat, is stuffing.  Yum.

The result was reasonably tasty, but probably not worth the effort.  Had to try it at least once though :)