A Look Into The Not-Too-Distant Future
As a writer, which is clearly what I am, I will one day, after graduating from college with my pristine and immensely useful English degree, be writing words in exchange for money and/or services. Using my abilities as one who has heard of the English language, I will write and write and write and then people will pay me for it. This is how capitalism works: Immediately after college, I will find a well-paying job and move into a large house with gargoyles and pool attendants, because that's economics. I've been thinking lately about all the jobs that are available to writers and what kinds of things I could actually do with this degree. At my current job, which in no way reflects my talent at putting a word next to another word, we sell bagels to people who buy bagels. But this, of course, is not sufficient. We have to have an air about us, a personality which reflects our desire to serve our loyal customers, ie we need to invent terribly trite phrases to adorn each of our products in order to cover up the fact that we are sinister, bloodthirsty corporate vampires here to eat your finances and drive the poor out of their homes. It's fun! All the little dancing chefs have cute little hats and say things like "Bagels are #1... to eat!" and every time a new product is unveiled, some faceless copyist plops a delightful saying to go along with it: "Our new 'Awesome-Great-Yum-Time In The Sun' Chicken Sandwich will have you saying, 'Gee, I just spent a reasonable amount of money and have now eaten!'" And everyone smiles, because we all realize that this company is our friend, and they would never hurt us. All their products are our friends, and those smiling, carefree go-getters which prepare them for us are ready and willing to do whatever it takes for you to make the 2 minutes and 15 seconds you spend in their store the best 2 minutes and 15 seconds you've ever experienced. I started thinking about how someone in the company has to write all the little phrases adorning products and invent the corporate personality. That, one day, could be me:
BAGEL BONANZA CORPORATE HANDBOOK
by Petey the Bagel Platypus (as related to Jack Spencer)
Welcome to our team, cadet! You are now a proud member of BAGEL BONANZA, the nationally recognized and revered FUN place of FUN business! Here at B.B. (that's short for BAGEL BONANZA!), we have a simple philosophy: We sell bagels to customers in exchange for American dollars! We've lived by this humble belief since the first day T. M. S. Ribaldian-Bonanze opened his first BAGEL BONANZA in 1882. Remember forever these words, spoken by the man himself: "Cheese costs 79 cents extra". Chisel this sacred mantra into your mind as we have chiseled it into the side of each of our [insert current amount of locations] locations worldwide!
Rules are a funny thing. Some say they're meant to be broken. We couldn't agree more! That's why we here at BAGEL BONANZA have no rules, just simple guidelines! (Actions performed outside of guidelines are grounds for termination as well as violent removal from the premises). So here's our oh-so easy guidelines, which you shall read back to us after having committed them to memory:
REGULATION #1: Smile!
Put a smile on that puss! No frowns in Bagel Town! Our customers do not come to us to hear about how your alarm didn't go off or how your mother has cancer. Awful thoughts have no place in our sterile food kingdom! Be sure to project yourself in a way befitting of our founder, T. M. S. Ribaldian-Bonanze, who, in 1754, fell from six consecutive cliffs while bird-watching, piercing his face on the rocks below until they formed a disturbingly transfixed smile upon his battered and bloodied face! We strive to put make our own faces as positive as his, and have chiseled a picture of our founder into the walls of all of our locations, to remind everyone that sometimes all it takes to make this world a better place is to come into some restaurant and see people pretend they don't hate their job.
REGULATION #2: Conversate, conversate, conversate, and conversate!
This may look like four regulations at once, but its really just the same word written four times! We cannot over-stress the importance of engaging in inane, meaningless chatter with customers. They didn't just come in to our restaurant to eat, they want to chat with you about the weather and their co-workers! All of our customers are, at heart, lonely, sad little children yearning for menial exchanges of words to prevent them from taking their own lives. That's where we come in! When making someones bagel, try using one of our patented conversation-starters to get things going (directed for in-store use only, attempt to utilize the following for conversations out of work settings will be grounds for termination and severe shame within the community):
- "Gee, there sure is some weather out there today!"
- "Hey, your shirt reminds me of a brief and innocuous anecdote involving my pet and/or mother!"
- "Don't you think sports are just fantastic? I have watched them."
- "Yum! You've sure ordered a winner! What are your feelings?"
- "Some days the gun won't let me take it out of my mouth! I mean, hey, bagels."
It's easy! Not to mention FUN! Oh, no wait. But it is easy. We don't want people to leave our establishment thinking we've been ungracious hosts. Just put on a smile, a fresh face, a compliant attitude, say all the right things, and close your eyes and think of England!
---------------------
I could easily affect the voice of some warm, pleasant bagel aficionado, type up a couple hundred words and leave with corporate blood money. I could be the faceless representation for the company with little qualm, cuz I would be able to write the bullshit instead of have it sifted upon me. Then I wouldn't have to smile. "Here's your fucking copy boss. Growl growl growl." Someday somebody is going to give me money for doing this shit. Why can't it be now?
Oh yeah. Because my writing is as yet incapable of being without the sewage-like bile behind it that has made it what it is. Oh well. Maybe I can write CD reviews or something.
BAGEL BONANZA CORPORATE HANDBOOK
by Petey the Bagel Platypus (as related to Jack Spencer)
Welcome to our team, cadet! You are now a proud member of BAGEL BONANZA, the nationally recognized and revered FUN place of FUN business! Here at B.B. (that's short for BAGEL BONANZA!), we have a simple philosophy: We sell bagels to customers in exchange for American dollars! We've lived by this humble belief since the first day T. M. S. Ribaldian-Bonanze opened his first BAGEL BONANZA in 1882. Remember forever these words, spoken by the man himself: "Cheese costs 79 cents extra". Chisel this sacred mantra into your mind as we have chiseled it into the side of each of our [insert current amount of locations] locations worldwide!
Rules are a funny thing. Some say they're meant to be broken. We couldn't agree more! That's why we here at BAGEL BONANZA have no rules, just simple guidelines! (Actions performed outside of guidelines are grounds for termination as well as violent removal from the premises). So here's our oh-so easy guidelines, which you shall read back to us after having committed them to memory:
REGULATION #1: Smile!
Put a smile on that puss! No frowns in Bagel Town! Our customers do not come to us to hear about how your alarm didn't go off or how your mother has cancer. Awful thoughts have no place in our sterile food kingdom! Be sure to project yourself in a way befitting of our founder, T. M. S. Ribaldian-Bonanze, who, in 1754, fell from six consecutive cliffs while bird-watching, piercing his face on the rocks below until they formed a disturbingly transfixed smile upon his battered and bloodied face! We strive to put make our own faces as positive as his, and have chiseled a picture of our founder into the walls of all of our locations, to remind everyone that sometimes all it takes to make this world a better place is to come into some restaurant and see people pretend they don't hate their job.
REGULATION #2: Conversate, conversate, conversate, and conversate!
This may look like four regulations at once, but its really just the same word written four times! We cannot over-stress the importance of engaging in inane, meaningless chatter with customers. They didn't just come in to our restaurant to eat, they want to chat with you about the weather and their co-workers! All of our customers are, at heart, lonely, sad little children yearning for menial exchanges of words to prevent them from taking their own lives. That's where we come in! When making someones bagel, try using one of our patented conversation-starters to get things going (directed for in-store use only, attempt to utilize the following for conversations out of work settings will be grounds for termination and severe shame within the community):
- "Gee, there sure is some weather out there today!"
- "Hey, your shirt reminds me of a brief and innocuous anecdote involving my pet and/or mother!"
- "Don't you think sports are just fantastic? I have watched them."
- "Yum! You've sure ordered a winner! What are your feelings?"
- "Some days the gun won't let me take it out of my mouth! I mean, hey, bagels."
It's easy! Not to mention FUN! Oh, no wait. But it is easy. We don't want people to leave our establishment thinking we've been ungracious hosts. Just put on a smile, a fresh face, a compliant attitude, say all the right things, and close your eyes and think of England!
---------------------
I could easily affect the voice of some warm, pleasant bagel aficionado, type up a couple hundred words and leave with corporate blood money. I could be the faceless representation for the company with little qualm, cuz I would be able to write the bullshit instead of have it sifted upon me. Then I wouldn't have to smile. "Here's your fucking copy boss. Growl growl growl." Someday somebody is going to give me money for doing this shit. Why can't it be now?
Oh yeah. Because my writing is as yet incapable of being without the sewage-like bile behind it that has made it what it is. Oh well. Maybe I can write CD reviews or something.
posted by MC Harv at 2:31 PM
1 Comments:
shouldn't it be B.B.!
Post a Comment
<< Home