Sunday, December 03, 2006

Idiot Savant

My employer, Virtucon (An Evil Corporation™) is seeking to tap the creativity of humble peons like myself, by encouraging us to share new product ideas on an internal Wiki. “Do You Have the Next Billion Dollar Business Idea?” asks the lead article on the company intranet, breathlessly.

Curiously it omits the obvious follow-up, “If so, are you retarded enough to hand it over to us for free?”

What kind of morons do they take us for? They hired us specifically for our low cunning and total lack of scruples. Anyone actually coughing up a freebie on this site would be sacked on the spot for breach of contract. Oh no, I’m not falling for that one again…


Employee of the Month and friend, yesterday.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Similar outrages my way.

Must be the winds of our times.

Anonymous said...

Just for laughs, why don’t you recommend your senior managers undertake some intensive
training. Months of hilarity will ensue as your department gets
kaizened
to death. Self serving managers will prosper in a world of clichĂ©s like “worlds best practice” and “Continuous improvement”. You may even get a T-shirt for your excellent suggestion. Possibly even a promotion as those around you are driven insane and leave a path of job vacancies for those dedicated to 6-sigma greatness and the dead-wood who just can’t leave.

Anonymous said...

That's it. No more linking from me.

Ivan the Terrible said...

Been there, done that, got the CSSBB, rodw - and there are precious few laughs to be had...

Pat said...

Very short sighted of them not to at least offer a prize. Someone I know won a few hundred pounds for suggesting that office staff switched off computers etc when not in use.

Thomas Pauli said...

I think my score forbids me taking part in this.

Anonymous said...

Pssst, Pi, isn't that little Dustin Hoffman there, next to Tom? Want to have a pop at 'im?
Go on, there's nobody looking...call him a 'lying Jew' or something.

Ivan the Terrible said...

Does the phrase "needless provocation" ring any bells with you, Snoopy? Let's play nice, shall we?

Anonymous said...

I tried saying what I thought once, when three wise men were soliciting opinions; found out later HR took my document as a basis for their own contribution, but never even thanked or acknowleged me.

I let'em struggle on their own now. My light shall not be hidden under bushels.

Bushels of what, I've always asked myself?

Desargues said...

The Commies used to have this sort of gung-ho ethics of cooperation and creativity in the working place. It is well known that modern capitalist corporations are the bastions of authoritarianism, so it wouldn't surprise me to find out they occasionally behave like communists.

As you point out yourself, it would be utterly foolish to proffer any actually profitable ideas, unless you've patented them first. As it is, if you wanna secure some brownie points for yourself as a helpful employee of an essentially Kafkaesque institution, why not suggest they switch to FedEx shipping and save themselves some money; or introduce the Konica Minolta Bizhub, to streamline shit -- you know, bland, ineffectual inovations like that.

Or, if Vertucon has any sense of humor, they could adorn their cubicle farms with huge banners that say, "Is This Good for The COMPANY?". Black humor, that'd be.

Anonymous said...

All Stakhanovites should be rounded up & shot. They make the rest of us slackers look bad...

Ivan the Terrible said...

I have a sneaking suspicion that the NKVD ended up doing exactly that in the late '30s, Rob. Not that they put it in those precise terms, of course.

Anonymous said...

Sol, you incomparable loon, you stick out like a flake in an ice-cream cone. Instead of provoking Pi, who has zero interest in your obsession, why not migrate to one of the many blogs devoted to it?

Anonymous said...

Snoopy,

Why so insecure?

Not everyone hates you. Just try to act like a grown-up.

Anonymous said...

I've been AWOL.

When my father worked for the McDonnell Aircraft, he had to sign something saying all his ideas were theirs, and, if he left and subsequently patented something, they would own it.

That's why McDonnell and now Boeing own a "fly by wire" patent for model trains, my father cooked up in the basement. Evidently, parts of it went into the F-15.

Cheers.