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Thursday, May 20, 2010

Today’s Conference Call is Being Held Today

Thanks, everybody, for dialing in for today’s call. I know you're all terribly busy, and we have a lot to cover; so let’s get started, shall we?

First of all, thanks for calling in. I know you’re busy.

Second of all, everyone’s busy, so it’s incumbent upon us to use our time wisely.

And speaking of the use of time, let me just take the next 20 minutes of this half-hour call to tell you just how excited we here at Acme Grommets and Sprockets are to embrace the new fiscal year.

Excited? Why the word hardly covers it. We’re thrilled, absolutely thrilled to have survived the strain of last year.

Any questions? No? Then I’ll continue.

Excited! That’s this year’s byword: Excited. You can have your talent, your dedication, your education, your strategy, and your years of experience. None of that means anything without excitement! Why, we’re absolutely giddy with the discovery of how excitement plays into business. We’re planning celebratory potlucks, having coffee cups made, and generally just vigorously patting ourselves on the back with all the, yes!, excitement we can muster.

Among the exciting discoveries made recently is one that led to our replacing the word “teammember” in all our marketing material. Turns out “teammember” is not really a word and requires hyphenation! But, with the recent de-hyphenation of old reliable “co-worker” – now spelt “coworker” – we have its replacement. A number of you have pointed out that you’ve never orked a cow a day in your life, and ha! ha! that is just the kind of humor we like to see spread, thickly, over the carpeted floors of Acme Grommets and Sprockets.

Of course the need to replace the word “teammember” with the word “coworker” is wreaking havoc on our printing budget for the year, since we’ll be replacing all materials using the word “teammember”. Your supervisor will be in touch with you as to how that will affect your hoped-for pay increase this year.

It is not up to me to relay that information.

All of this, of course, has led to a general slow-down in the generation of buzzwords and we’ll be forced to re-use last year’s words, including “raising the bar”, “synergy”, and “reinvent the wheel“. Hopefully we can get that under control in time for next year’s budget.

What’s that? Our time’s up?

Another fruitful meeting!

Any questions? No? We’ll wrap it up then and end by saying that, as always, your cooperation, awareness of the crummy job market, and fear of change is relied upon here at Acme Grommets and Sprockets.

Now go forward, and do good work.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good News! I finally switched to de-hyphenated coffee, because I was just too damn excited about orking the cows every morning...

Yes-sir-ee-bob.

Pearl said...

This is why I love you, Sweet Cheeks. :-D

Jon said...

In France we have to borrow all the business buzzwords from the English / American language because the ideas so seldom translate easily.

Then there follows a long arguement about whether "re-engineering" or whatever is masculine or feminine, by which time it is time for lunch. By the time THAT is over the Academie Française has weighed in to block the use of another non-French expression and we just carry on as before.

Oddly, this approach actually works quite well and France has that highest productivity of any of the G8 nations including Japan.

I've never been quite sure what to make of that.

Simply Suthern said...

Meeting sounds un-exitingly familiar.

I'm sure you have been asked this before but I missed the answer. Is your company Motto "At Acme we put rockets on everything"? Or is that a different Acme that the Coyote uses? Did they merge with Spacely Sprockets?

Bill Lisleman said...

I'm just busy with excitement.
Do they have a surplus of teammember coffee cups to off load?

Plentymorefishoutofwater said...

You write so well about the life many of us lead. And so prolific as well. So glad (or should that be excited) I found your blog.
*Plentymorefishoutofwater - One Man's Dating Diary*

Pearl said...

Here at Acme Sprockets and Grommets -- or is it Grommets and Sprockets? -- we are excited about reporting to you that while the over-arching themes are fairly accurate, the details are wildly exaggerated. And that we make both sprockets and grommets and that everything -- including lunch -- comes with a rocket.

And I really should check into having some coffee cups made. A combination of inside humor and pathetic.

As for whether or not "re-engineering" is masculine or feminine, I don't know what to tell you there. But I will tell you that our Paris office -- and yes, we really DO have a Paris office! -- is delightfully productive and responsive. You can't get a meeting with them in August, but the other 11 months out of the year, they're very easy to work with.

Which is, of course, exciting. :-)

Green-Eyed Momster said...

I needed that little boost of excitement! Thanks for sharing today's conference call! Too bad I have the day off because I could really be excited about going to work after reading this post but I'm going to be a lazy bum and lay in the sun instead!

Hugs!!

Jon said...

Very exciting! And, of course, we have a huge appitite for sprockets over here on account of all the bicycles, something about which the whole of France gets terribly excited.

I'm so excited I may have to go and drink beer.

Anonymous said...

In addition to coffee mugs, I'd like to see something in a key-ring. One that has a little light on it in case I'm dark and drunk and can't find the lock. Also, I think you should bring back the kind of rain-hats that they used to give away at funeral parlors. You just don't see those anymore and it's just a darn shame. Ditto with shoe horns. Just the thought of it is getting me so excited that I need to lie down and rest now. The thought of free "merch" does that to me. Cheers! TOWP

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

How the hell can I go forward when all I can think about is how exactly does one 'orker' a cow. I would speculate but then if I am wrong and bring it up in polite conversation I will look like a dofus. Then again I can't 'google' it at work because if it IS what I THINK it is, I will get fired for looking up Bovine porn at the office....AGAIN! I am sorry. I need the references.

furiousBall said...

my most hated phrase in businessspeak?

"it is what it is."

really? that's what it is? it? brilliant.

The Retired One said...

oh, Pearl...you nailed it! I can recall many many like meetings and seminars with a thousand flavor-of-the-month buzzwords that CEO's used when we got new Administration. It was all we could do not to roll our eyes at one another during those meetings....!

Joanie said...

I'm glad we don't do meetings where I work, at least, not at my level (peon)

Argent said...

I think motivational mousemats (mouse-mats?) are the order of the day, too. Most hated buzzword: "going forward, we will do x...". Why not: "from now on" or "in the future". If our company made phone books it would print them in numerical order.

Unknown said...

This so reminded me why I'm glad I'm retired. I was required to attend a weekly conference call that was even less exciting than this one!

Nancy/BLissed-Out Grandma said...

I've always hated the unhyphenated word coworker, but until now I never realized it was because of the implications of orking.

Anonymous said...

Pearl,
I see you have quite a few pearls of wisdom. I must admit, I'm jealous of your volume of comments, I've been blogging for six months and can hardly inspire one comment per posting. But, then again, you have a lot more followers. You are very funny, keep it up. I'm at www.lgreport.blogspot.com. Stop by sometime!

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

Been there done that spent my last 2 working years in that meeting! and OMG I am so glad I'm retired.

Vanessa Rogers said...

your meetings sound as productive as ours!!