One Little Radioactive Spill and Everyone Goes All Erin Brockovich

The uproar over the little mishap is not helpful and it is unfounded. Not the mishap, but the uproar. Well, mishaps aren't helpful either, thus the name. It suggests that something happened that wasn't supposed to happen, or, something happened in a way that it was not supposed to. Hell, I'm off track. Anyway....

On Monday, Crock headquarters was notified of an incident that occurred at our distribution hub in Funkhouser, Illinois. Without going into details, the incident resulted in the spilling of a small amount of liquefied Uranium 238. Does that sound scary to you? Well let me ask this; are you a uranium expert? Are you a nuclear physicist?

If the answer is "no" to these questions, we respectfully ask that you shut your mouth about it. As stated in our press release, "the general public was never in any real danger." What part of that statement is unclear?

Although you probably have the ability to understand the statement and the common sense to accept it, it appears that many people do not. They're all in a tissy about radiation poisoning (whatever that is), and so-called "contamination" of the air and water supply in the greater Funkhouser metropolitan area. They say the risk of certain cancers, birth defects, and other adverse health impacts will linger for years to come.

First of all, uranium 238 is an isotope found in NATURALLY OCCURRING uranium ore. It only has a half-life of about 4.5 billion years in its natural state. This was liquefied, so it's half-life is less than 4.2 billion years. We have "safend" this stuff by 300 million years.

Secondly, we only spilled eight gallons of the stuff. That's not even enough to power The State of California for 27,000 years. We spill more than that on purpose during retooling.

Finally, the stuff was completely cleaned up in five minutes. Our trained staff, namely Herb Petersondalehofferdorf, former sanitation engineer and bowling team captain at the Funkhouser facility (may he rest in peace), followed emergency protocol and immediately grabbed a roll of paper towels. Not just any paper towels. We use Bounty, the quicker picker upper. When Herb realized that one roll wasn't going to cut it, he ran to grab a second roll. When he got back to the site of the spill, he found that some nice foreign men in weird full-body costumes had rolled up their sleeves (figuratively) and were actively gathering the spill into nice metallic containers.

Herb died a few minutes later of natural causes, but before he did he told us not to worry. He said the cleanup was complete and the material was being shipped to Iran so it wouldn't be a problem for us any longer.

I don't know about you, but I feel more comfortable believing the last words of a dying janitor than all these mad scientists and witch doctors. The other six employees at the plant didn't even get sick*, why should an entire metro area be worried?

There is nothing here to worry about. The problem has been contained.....in nice metallic containers....and shipped to Iran. I think they use it for fertilizer or hot sauce or something. Some damn fine salsa, I'm told.
*As of this post, none of the employees of the FDH have reported to work since the incident and their families have been calling wondering if they are working late....since Monday.
On a side note: we are now hiring at our Funkhouser Distribution Hub. All positions. Flexible schedule, competitive pay, excellent benefits package including health insurance, 401-K, danger, mystery, and intrigue. Interested individuals should post questions and qualifications on our facebook wall.

Accountant Eaten by Spreadsheet!!

I tried to warn him but he wouldn't listen. I told him that I make a mean spreadsheet. He insisted that the only way he could prepare my taxes this year was for me to send him the information in a spreadsheet.

Now, he's gone forever. Taken by the meanest spreadsheet ever created. As we mourn the loss of our corporate accountant, Wendell C. Ventriliquismith, we remember the good times. We recall how his face used to light up when he talked about numbers. We remember how he used to run out of his office at 12:01am April 16th and down a gallon of Chivas Regal, bust the bottle over his head and pass out for six weeks. We're gonna miss that.

Now, for what got him. It was a thing of beauty. 134657 rows. 27842 columns. Color coded. Massive overlapping formulas and interlocking tables. Hidden data. Elaborate marcos with thought translation which enabled the user to think of data and it would instantly appear in the proper fields. I embedded an application that doubles as an electric razor and another that seizes the building environmental control system and matches the weather inside with the weather outside (it rained in Wendell's office yesterday). I even included an earth-friendly feature that turns Carbon Dioxide into bubblegum for the kids. It made time travel possible. My favorite was the formatting of the cells in row 90443. That's the one where dollar signs look like little snakes that whistle the tune of "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran. But that's not what got our buddy Wendell. Apparently he tried to copy and paste within the spreadsheet, which is a big no-no. It briefly altered the fabric of space and time, creating a tiny tear in the universe just long enough to vacuum poor Wendell from his ergonomically-designed accounting chair and into the void forever.

While we're saddened by the parting of our wonderful bean-counter, we cannot prove that he is actually dead and he was volunteering to do my taxes so this is not considered a work-related death. Therefore we do not have to reset the "Days Without a Work-related Death" scoreboard. It will remain at 21. If we make it through today, it will be a new company record of 22 consecutive days without a work-related death. Congratulations everyone!

BTW - we now have an opening in the accounting department.

Introducing the New Coordinator of Sticky Removal

Perhaps you will recall the job opening created a while back after Ghordo Whipple successfully navigated his way into my office without an appointment, but did not have as much success on the way out. If you don't remember, please review.

Finally, after hundreds of interviews, we have found our man. He possesses the exact skill set we were seeking in a replacement for Ghordo. He's reserved and a little creepy. He has the comb-over and a mustache. The lenses of his glasses are at least as thick as his eyebrows. His skin is shiny and he smells like pastrami and beer. He is a self-starter who is able to work unsupervised (although probably shouldn't). He is an accomplished trash sorter and a very talented broomsman.

Please join me in welcoming Mr. Reavis Cantalou, our new Coordinator of Sticky Removal. The Janitorial staff is now complete once again. I look forward to complete sticky abatement within the next week to ten days.

That Sure is a Fancy Resignation Letter There...Now Get Out!

Just a quick announcement:

Ghordo Whipple is no longer working here. He waltzed into my office yesterday, didn't even speak to Sue on the way in (somehow managing to miss the rotating knives), and handed me what he called a "rezination letter". It was a post-it note with sharpie markings that read:

1 the Lottery. not werkin no mor.

Needless to say I did not accept this resignation. I told Ghordo that it did not meet the standards of excellence that we apply to ourselves and everything we do. He agreed, so I fired him.

He didn't miss the rotating knives on the way out. Funeral arrangements are being made.

Now we may have a problem. This is the second person killed on this property in less than a week.

The good news is; there is now an opening for a new Coordinator of Sticky Removal. It's an entry-level janitorial position.

Job Opening No Longer Available - You Snooze, You Lose

At this time I would like to announce some personnel changes:

The position of Director of Spork and Bendy-straw Supply and Demand Monitoring has been filled. Congratulations Wynnie Shoop, on your promotion.

Since we like to promote from within (we believe in "coaching up, or coaching out") the position vacated by Wynnie will now be filled by Samuel Sams. Congrats "Sam squared" on becoming the new Regional Ambassador to Those Afflicted with Tonsillitis.

Finally, to fill Sam's vacated position, a new hire from the outside, Shiny Bitch is now the new Coordinator of the Properties of Atomic Particles in a Vacuum. We all need to help Shiny as she takes on this very important role with the company. Her job not only helps keep us at the top of our industry, but it helps assure that the laws of physics do not suddenly change and cause us all to become specks of dust in geosynchronous orbit around the hole that used to be the earth.

Keyword: Accountability

Sometimes, in business, undesirable situations arise seemingly out of nowhere.

One example of this is the recent conundrum created here at headquarters with regards to plastic utensils commonly know as "sporks". It seems that most people prefer either a spoon or a fork so no one really uses them. There had been a box of these things in the break room for several years. Little did we know, the new guy in R&D uses sporks regularly (he's a big fan of cole slaw). After a month or so of his spork use, the supply in the break room ran out. He told the assistant to the HR Director that we were out of sporks. The assistant in turn told the HR director who then went to work on the process of getting more sporks. Much to her surprise, our Corporate structure did not assign this task to anyone. There is NO ONE IN CHARGE OF SPORKS!!

Should we, as founders of the company have been able to foresee the need for assignment of this responsibility? How did the original box of sporks get there...and shouldn't whoever put it there be the one to replace it? Or should the person who used the last spork have to replace the box?

Quite a Pickle.

I pondered for many seconds about the dilemma. I thought about stopping this writing here and making it a P.T.B.F.O. (see prior posts) but then, it hit me! I recalled a term from my days as a rank-and-file nine-to-five working stiff. "Accountability". You must define the roles and responsibilities of each employee. You must give them the tools to live up to those responsibilities. And you must hold them accountable when they do not live up to them.

This lead me to the decision which I decided when I thought about trying to chose one of many (or two of a few) solutions to the problem regarding the aforementioned sporks. I created a new position.

At this time I would like to announce an opening for the position of Director of Spork and Bendy-straw Supply and Demand Monitoring (I added bendy-straws in there because I love the damn things). We seek to promote from within. The position will report directly to the Vice President of Minor Disaster Avoidance. The VP of MDA will now have the added role and responsibility of ordering more Sporks and Bendy-straws when needed.

Please send resumes and reference letters (use the proper template please) to:



Director of Spork and Bendy-straw Supply and Demand Monitoring
c/o Crock, Inc.
921 Director of Spork and Bendy-straw Supply and Demand Monitoring Drive
Pork, NH 20010


....or simply email to me