E-mail from Head Office

[Boozy]

E-mail from Head Office (very heavily paraphrased):

Dear Retail Peons for Whom We Feign Respect:

We realize that you just spent the entire month of January painstakingly preparing for inventory on February 1st, and that most of you had to be at work that Sunday morning for 6 am, which happened to be Superbowl Sunday, so you were trying to count wine at the same time as serving countless hordes of shoppers, because we refuse to close our stores for nary an hour, even for something so important as end-of-fiscal-year inventory.

However, we are going to ask you to repeat the entire process again on March 1st. Something got screwed up on our end. The accounting department forgot to carry the "1" or some such bullshit. So every single store in the entire company must start over from scratch.

But good news! Your wine allowances are now available for you to take home. Given your terrible wages and working hours, the promise of free wine is the only reason that anyone would remain in such a miserable job. On some level, we must understand this, or we wouldn't be giving you jack-shit.

Of course, we are very concerned about the "economic climate", and as a result, you will all be receiving two bottles instead of your usual 6. Everyone needs to tighten their belts during this difficult time. And of course, by "everyone" we mean "you". The company is actually poised to post record sales in fiscal '09, and trending patterns indicate that this will continue. So we executives at Head Office will still be getting our bonuses, which will be heftier this year due to all your hard work - and because of the cost savings we've made by cutting your wine allowances. Is that great team work, or what?

Yours truly,

The Executives

[SG15Z]

As I've said before...somewhere:

Death to Corporate!!!1!11!elevnty!!1!!

I love how they cut hours yet our CEO and board members make more money than last year. No cuts for them.

[Bandit]

And the C*Os always wonder why shrink tends to grow....

B

[RetailWorkhorse]

...bottle of Merlot, STAT!

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

You should so get a job as corporate letter memo translator, your BS to English filter is phenomenal.

[Erin]

Was the wine any good, or was it mostly vinegar?

[Boozy]

They always give us the good stuff.

So it could always be worse. I'm betting next month it will be.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

This looks like fun. As a matter of fact, I got a letter yesterday. I real important one because it's on company letterhead and all that happy horseshit. Here is what it says (paraphrase):

Dear Replaceable Cog:

As you know, earlier this month we ganked your annual merit raises and two of your personal days. As we have now finished the 2008 fiscal year, it is apparent our sales suck donkey dicks. As a consequence, we expect our sales in 2009 to suck even more donkey dicks. This of course is not due to our various business decisions such as bringing in higher-end, more expensive kinds of merchandise as the economy has slowly slid into the shitter. Nope, this is because you, Replaceable Cog, have not done a good enough job of talking people into extra crap they can't afford, don't need or don't want.

Due the resulting donkey dick suckage of our anticipated 2009 sales plan, we're going to take more from you. Effective February 1, 2009, you can kiss all of your personal days good-bye now.

As I have said before, we need to make some sacrifices now in order to protect the bonuses, raises, perks and personal time of the vitally important people at the General Office who make the Clearance Swamp tick. And by "we", we of course mean "you." Sure, we did lay some people off from the GO, but only the janitorial staff, who isn't so important.

Our strategic initiatives are working, even though their impact is being muted by the difficult operating environment. The aforementioned is just some BS we tell you so you won't think the company is sliding into Chapter 11, at least not yet. We are making these hard choices because the CEO wants a Mercedes Benz instead of his crappy BMW.

Just be happy you have a job. We are a soulless private investment firm who would have no qualms about liquidating the company and casting you into unemployment.

Thank you for your understanding and support. We couldn't care less, you miserable wretches.

President/CEO Or Something

And speaking of inventory, this year our inventory is going to be held on a Friday night. Friday nights are busy and usually we have a one or two-day sale going on Fridays.