Springtime Memo

Happy Spring, everyone.

The days are getting longer, the nights becoming shorter, the weather seeming warmer, the dog crap underneath the snow on our yards looking soggier, and even Leon's getting laa-aaa-aargger. So why is everyone so grumpy? Well that's an easy answer, and we all know it.

The economy sucks.

We can all do our part, however, and there are three sure-fire ways to improve your attitude as well as the economy:

1. Buy a Snugee. So what if it's a backwards cape and you look like Obi-Wan Kenobi? You get a free reading light, for crying out loud!
2. Stop watching the news and reading the newspaper. The dow was down to under 7000? I didn't realize that. AIG? What's that? I feel better already.
3. Recycle. To those of you who still think going green should only be for Kermit the Frog, you are now in the minority. Even though in reality the thugs who run the public works most likely throw your glass and plastic into the same landfill as your baby's diapers, it's a nice thought, so do it.

And speaking of recycling, I thought I would dig up something I wrote a little while and amend it to entertain you. After all, if you take my advice of not reading the newspaper, you have to read SOMETHING!

So here goes...

A few years back I had to write a memo to the sales staff of my company about some new policy that I really didn't understand but was "going to be implemented immediately" and thus had to be "effectively communicated to the salesforce". The memo had something to do with, um, I
don't really know. As I have learned over the years, when I don't totally understand either something that I'm supposed to document or write and then send out to a mass audience, I just write it up with some big words in efforts to confuse the hell out of the people reading it so that I can say that I did the memo "as requested". It usually works, unless I'm asked about some of the contents to the memo, and then I respond with a curt yet effective "please refer to the memo
for further elaboration on that." Then I hide under a blanket and hope everything magically takes care of itself on its own. So as I was writing this memo, all I could think of was that I'm turning into some "Lumburgh" persona from Office Space. Of course I say this as I stare at my oversized coffee mug and I'm thinking of asking some people on my team to come on in on Saturday. Umm... yeahhhh. Stop it!

I could be writing much more effective and more relevant memos if sent to the correct audiences. In fact, if my job was indeed "memo writer", and at one point it was, I would make the following memos to various people:

-- Memo to our new President: When you have a down day and it seems like everyone is against you and you're doing a lousy job, it may pick you up to remember who your predecessor was, and that a lousy job was sometimes considered an improvement.
-- Memo to our First Lady: You bring a touch of class to the White House, which is nice, however no one really cares about what you're bushes you're planting in the white house lawn. In fact, we elected your husband to forget about the bushes that were there.
-- Memo to the people concerned about athletes taking steroids: I couldn't care less if these people got sick and died from steroids. I cheered every home run and 100 mph fastball strikeout, and will continue to do so. Unless they are a friend of mine or a family member, go ahead and let them kill themselves. Sox tickets are $85 a pop for the good seats and you better believe I want to see a slug-fest rather than a suicide squeeze bunt winning a game (note: I actually saw that game last year where the Sox won on a bunt and I will admit that it was pretty damn exciting).
-- Memo to people who think that athletes are overpaid: If your boss came to you at work and asked if you would accept a 300% raise, would you say no? This is America. If some idiot wants to pay someone to stand on a small hill and throw an object 60 feet and 6 inches while someone tries to hit the object with a large wooden stick, and pay them tremendously more than someone who actually does something productive for a living, let them pay for it. And congrats to those people who get that kind of money.
-- Memo to the makers of Pabst Blue Ribbon: 99.999% of the people who buy your product couldn't care less about what kind of award that beer won nor even think that the beer could ever win an award to begin with. What blue ribbon could possibly be award to PBR besides "cheapest beer"? Just stay cheap.
-- Memo to the other non-microbrew beermakers of the world: Besides the 0.002% of the population consisting of those folks who brew their own beer, no one could give two craps about the quality of the barley and whatever "hops" are. College kids funneling beers or using their key to make a hole in a can of your fine beverage wouldn't know the difference between good and bad barley and hops anyway. And those more mature don't choose your beer because of the "cold filterization" or the fact that the family who owns the beer has been growing their barley for the past 100 years. They buy it because it's on sale. This isn't single malt scotch, you know.
-- Memo to Dunkin' Donuts: Cease all advertising immediately and use the money that is otherwise spent on commercials to go back into your business and make my large coffee under $2 once again.
-- Memo to SUV drivers: Just because your leather-seated 12 mpg SUV is larger than most cars and has that cute "4X4" button does not mean that if there are several inches of snow and ice on the road does this allow you to drive 80mph while talking on your phone. This is why most of you end up off the road flipped over. Think about it-- while dropping off your kids, you still take a left hand turn from the right lane, so there is no right given to you to speed on ice and snow.
-- Memo to A-Rod: When someone breaks a mirror, superstition is defined as seven years of bad luck. You have seven years left on your Yankees contract. Think about it.
-- Memo to people who drive the speed limit or slower in the left hand lane on a highway: The speed limit sign unofficially applies to the right lane only. When you begin to form a parade in back of you, move to the right please.
-- Memo to Geico: You have passed the point of being considered an alternative for car insurance by most people I know since I believe that public sentiment is, "if I DON'T use Geico, the extra $20 or so per year that I would save is money well spent if it eliminates those caveman and that stupid roll of money with the eyeballs. Done deal!"
-- Memo to Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft (X-Box): The average human being has 5 fingers on each hand. Kindly remake your controller to have less than the 12 buttons on them and to make a command for a character in your games do something like "run" or "jump" not require having to hold down two of the buttons and then tear a ligament in your finger to press down another button or two. See, "Joystick, Atari."
-- Memo to those who invested with Bernie Madoff: Be thankful that there is no fine print in this memo like the fine print on whatever you signed with him that you apparently didn't read. Also, his last name should have sent off all sorts of bad vibes to you. It's like finding out your daughter has a date with a guy Howie Feltersnatch.
-- Memo to the makers of bottled water who sell their water for $1.59: Congratulations.
-- Memo to CBS and FOX: While watching football games, the average viewer actually finds it annoying rather than entertaining to hear your paid announcer say something like "So now it's 3rd and 5 on the Patriot's 10 yard line... don't miss tomorrow's 'King of Queens' when the cute woman says something witty to that fat guy... Brady spots a blitz and throws quick over the
middle..."
-- Memo to the companies who's customer service greeting says something like "this call may be
recorded for training purposes": Rather than using my call to train others, how about training the people who answer phone calls in a classroom using the scenarios they should know before taking my call?
-- Memo to me: Write shorter notes. This is getting ridiculous already.
-- Memo to all of the people who are reading this: I'll try and write them a little more frequently, and lot shorter.

Happy March Madness,
Mike