Every Party Has A Pooper and….

the pooper is me. Well, it’s me if it’s one of those “rah rah” employee meetings designed to boost morale and make us happy about our place of employment. I think I got tired of those ice-breaker, let’s be nice to everyone, kind of meetings about 5 minutes into homeroom in the 5th grade. Unfortunately the people that run large companies seem to think that everyone finds these type of shindigs endlessly entertaining no matter how many years in a row we are forced to do them. In junior high school and high school it was usually in health class at the beginning of the year when we were forced into these fake friendship rituals. Then in college at some residence hall/dormitory function during the first few days we were forced to do some silly kind of self-disclosure/where are you from kind of game. Then when you enter the work world they either force new employees to get to know each other through a workplace Pictionary equivalent, or your department has to go meet some other department from your company. What always astounds me is the people, who despite having advanced far into adulthood, continue to seem endlessly enthusiastic at these pep rallies. Don’t you just love the games where you have to put a post it note on your back or forehead and guess what it says based on how everyone talks to you? Then there’s the social rejects who seem to take pride in answering the rhetorical questions that the corporate dancing monkey asks us at these ridiculous, time wasting torture sessions. “Everyone, can anyone tell me one way to make our customers feel welcome when they enter our place of business?” Inevitably some dope who still derives their self-esteem from the approval of others raises their hand like Arnold Horshack, “Ooh! Ooh! Pick Me! I know the answer! It’s smile. We can smile at them!” I imagine that if I ever go to heaven I’ll probably be forced to sit through one of these rituals during my first week. St. Peter will say, “Can all our new angels tell everyone their name and one thing in life they did to deserve to go to heaven?” Man is God going to be pissed when I roll my eyes at this.