Author: jerome

Frederick tripped over the the extension cord on his way to the exit interview, bringing down a small lamp to the sound of lightbulbs smashing on the office astroturf.

This was it. This was quitting, at its noisiest. The exit interview was going to leave no decibel unturned.

He had previously placed whoopee cushions on the chairs. He had turned the conferencing system up to full volume. He entered the room to the sound of his own air horn.

If they thought he was going to go quietly, they were sorely mistaken.

He had worked out loud almost his entire career, now was not the time to be on mute.

During the meeting, the heated conversation could be heard from across the street. This was despite the industrial strength acoustic foam on the ceiling and each wall. It ended, as one would expect, with Frederick storming out the room and slamming the door behind him.

As one last act of defiance, on his way out he pressed the fire alarm in the elevator.

CollabSystem Inc (NYSE: PRDY), a leading vendor of collaboration systems worldwide, today announced the departure of several key executives. Among those racing to the nearest exit were long-time CTO William Gregory, the acting CFO, COO, CIO, and various mid-level executives. In keeping with CollabSystem’s talent retention strategy, they have all served out their 25 minute notice periods and won’t be returning from their tea break. They are all understood to have received significant sign-on bonuses at various well-known professional services firms.

“William and his team have been instrumental in increasing the total addressable market for CollabSystem”, said Eric Schwartz, CEO. “As soon as another competitor entered the field, they were always the first to give them plenty of room to grow. We thank them for their outstanding service, and look forward to outsourcing our strategic direction and new product development to them and their new employers shortly.”

In a final e-mail to all staff, Mr Gregory pointed to the many accolades that CollabSystem received over the previous 4 months and mentioned the tremendous career development opportunities that were available to those who were staying on. “See Gerald from the mail room? He’s about to become CIO. His only previous experience with computers was in 1992 when he unplugged a network cable and unsuccessfully attempted connect his telephone.” Gemma, who was unaware that all company e-mails aren’t private DMs, replied to all “what’s a telephone? [shrug emoji]”

CEO Eric Schwartz recently denied that he was looking to move on himself, citing a board directive for better succession planning. “Even though the 5-4 decision was close, the board has spoken – they don’t want to fly by the seat of their pants anymore. They want a plan, even if it’s not any good.” Reasons for the board schism are unknown, but a recent insider pointed to some board members being less than impressed with CollabSystem’s ability to deliver on the company’s vision of ‘world peace’. “We pay a fortune promoting our CEO’s mediocre musings on YouTube to create the impression of ‘thought leadership’, but is there any less peace in the world? I doubt it!” a disgruntled board member was recently overheard grumbling.

The former CFO, COO, CIO, and several sales executives issued a joint press release on their departure:

We are categorically not leaving because of any board-level rift. Some of our closest friends serve on boards.

Our decision had nothing to do with them taking away the coffee machine on level 2, the lack of cream biscuits in the kitchen, and the flickering fluorescent light above Jeff’s desk. And it has absolutely nothing to do with many years of undervaluing our contributions.

We would also like to put an end to any speculation that recently vested stock options may have in any way influenced our decision to move on. Any shares were held at arms length in a Cayman Islands entity, which was at all times under the control of a shady lawyer with a registered postal address in Delaware. You’ll have to ask him about the shares, and we’re pretty sure he’ll say “no comment”. Not that we ever had any shares. Hypothetically speaking, even if CollabSystem shares made us a fortune, we wouldn’t have bought a private island, corporate jet, major league baseball team, or Swiss chalet.

We all decided, independently of course, that this was a time in our lives to explore new opportunities, practice mindfulness, and grow professionally. It was purely coincidence that all seven of us made the same decision last Tuesday at about 2:17pm. We will look back on our years with the company fondly, and wish everyone well.”

Dear Frank,

Thank you once again for purchasing CollabSystem’s analytics product, CollabaLytics. Your eye-watering invoice is attached. Yes, all those zeros are correct.

We had meant to present to your executive team about their use of enterprise social, but we no longer believe that to be necessary.

Below is your CEO’s network map. We don’t need to remind you that this is a pretty dismal performance in a network of 87,000 employees.

As you can see, explaining the diagram won’t take long. But we do have some questions about how he ended up following you. That connection was made with Firefox for Linux, and as far as we’re aware, your CEO struggles at the best of times to use his Windows PC or iPhone. Coincidentally, you post exclusively using that same version of Firefox for Linux.

So where did the money go?

A very good question. 98% of the number-crunching for your network, which you are paying for in this bill, was spent analyzing Grant from Accounts. He is by far your most prolific social networker. As an accounts payable trainee, we think it’s truly admirable that you’ve spent SO much money mapping Grant’s cat photo posts. Carbon neutral, of course.

We do have reservations about turning Grant’s experience into a case study. While privacy is absolutely our number one priority, running Grant’s messages through our sentiment analysis tool wasn’t pretty. You may wish to have a quiet chat to him about his opinions about his manager’s rampant favoritism, but you didn’t hear that from us.

If you can’t afford to pay the invoice, please call your Customer Success Manager to organize a payment plan.

Thanks,

Jerome.

Despite recent research proving beyond doubt social media’s calming effect on geopolitical and racial tensions, CollabSystem is not convinced and is launching a campaign to equip as many people as we can with HandBaskets.

Helena Basquette, CollabSystem’s head of wicker weaving, described the move as a reaction to the non-eventful world of social media:

It used to be that Twitter was a place of bullying and outrage, a wild west of bots and hate speech. People have wised up to that and now simply ignore it. All I see these days are random acts of kindness towards minorities and the underprivileged. There’s so much compassion, it’s enough to make you feel ill.

HandBaskets will be distributed at yoga studios across the country, starting tomorrow.

What’s a HandBasket?

A HandBasket is a basket, typically made from a sustainable crop, which can be used to transport groceries and other items. It was first invented as an alternative to the single use plastic bag, which has effectively been eradicated worldwide.

CollabSystem’s HandBasket takes the functional and turns it into a powerful weapon against progress. Unlike regular handbaskets, Helena has incorporated hidden compartments for mace and tinfoil hats to protect against assault and mind control. What looks like an unassuming effort to save the planet from plastic waste is actually a self-contained defense arsenal. HandBaskets sold in Montana also have a compartment for an open carry firearm (batteries sold separately).

Each HandBasket comes complete with two tinfoil hats, one for you and one for a friend. Random HandBaskets also come equipped with tiny hats, suitable for infants and children. Please fit your own hat before assisting others.

Each HandBasket also comes supplied with your own PPH (personal portable hell) in the form of an inbuilt wireless speaker with an eternal subscription to satellite talk radio.

A Return to Doomsday

It is hoped that the widespread use of HandBaskets, particularly by comfortable middle-class citizens of wealthy countries, will bring about a return to the traditional polarizing effect of social media on the world. Not longer can people support altruistic and humanitarian causes without being shamed by their neighbors. Not to mention, they’ll probably be on the receiving end of some HandBasket pepper spray.

Once CollabSystem injects some hate speech on social media through HandBaskets, nothing can stop this snowballing out of control and bringing about a return to untruth, deception, schadenfreude and bigotry that Twitter was originally designed for.

If not, we’ll have wasted a lot of money buying baskets from sweatshops in developing countries.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia.

For those who can’t afford a CollabSystem Vault, we recognize you’re between a rock and a very hard steel door. While some companies that invented universally beneficial technology have given it away for free, our private equity backers have vetoed any further giveaways. With that in mind, we’ve taken the dubious moral middle ground and created a second-best alternative for the cheapskates.

Whether your company hasn’t got the time to read our PCI-DSS compliance statement, or you just can’t afford the eye-watering cost of CollabSystem Vault, the new Data Doomsday Clock is for you. Specifically designed for companies with an advanced understanding of risk management and mitigation strategies (yes, surprisingly that’s you!), the Data Doomsday Clock gives a precise estimate of the date and time when your precious customer data is next going to be sold on the dark web.

After all, risk management isn’t just about eliminating risk. In business we know we have to take calculated risks. When you introduce a new product, you’re taking risk. The product might sell, it might not. Just ask the Pinto team at Ford, they were the masters of risk management. If your company has the sophisticated understanding of risk management that we think you do, your primary response to any sort of catastrophe will be “our Twitter account was compromised, we’re on hold with tech support and our call is very important to them”.

As we all know, data breaches are not a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’. Traditionally it has been difficult to pinpoint the exact circumstances when your impenetrable security measures will fail. With all the will in the world, some idiot stuffs up the whole system with something like the Heartbleed Vulnerability. It wasn’t your fault, and you can’t even blame your most trusted technology partner for those.

Data Doomsday Clock eliminates 98% of that vulnerability by providing you with an alarm clock which is precisely tuned to the exact time when your system will be compromised. This takes all of the unknown unknowns from the equation. Rather than sitting at your desk waiting for that day to come, you can relax on a Caribbean Island safe in the knowledge that your next data breach won’t occur for another 15 days, 6 hours, 47 minutes and 23 seconds. Or 21 seconds by the time you read this.

As a foundation customer, you will be exempt from a barrage of “special offers” to upgrade to CollabSystem Vault, the frequency of which only increases as the clock nears zero (as does the price). In fact, as one of the first 10 customers of Data Doomsday Clock, CollabSystem will even guarantee that your systems will be compromised at the specified time. Trust us.

In response to overwhelming demand for Collaboration Bingo, CollabSystem have launched a ready-to-use pack to make it easier to play than every before.

The pack includes:

• 13,843 x Collaboration Bingo Cards (printed on 10gsm pre-curled baking paper)
• 1 x Announcer Microphone (compatible with most emergency evacuation systems)
• 1 x Bingo Button

The Bingo Button is an engaging way to alert everyone in your organisation that they’ve failed in their attempt to administer CPR to your otherwise lifeless collaboration agenda. The person who pressed the button is clearly the only person who has the mandate to use the word “innovation” in their job title, at least until the next major restructure.

We only include one button because we assume you’ve pre-arranged the winner of Collaboration Bingo. If you haven’t rigged the game, then to create the illusion of fairness we can temporarily supply you with an additional 13,842 Bingo Buttons to place strategically next to each Bingo Card. Take it from us, it’s much easier just to pick the winner in advance.

Along with Collaboration Bingo, we also offer Collaboration Battleship, where your CTO and CMO fight it out to torpedo the SS Disruption in a sea of otherwise hopeless initiatives.

Sick of those personality cards handed out at every leadership seminar? Modern workplace tarot was always going to end in disaster. We always knew Trevor in accounts was an introvert. Surely?

Now you too can own your very own set of Cards Against Collaboration, the game sweeping conferences and other ridiculously-priced-sponsorship-opportunity-events around the nation.

The person who most recently reset their password to their payroll system goes first.

Then someone takes a beige collaboration card and places it in the middle of the table.

Each person then completes the sentence with a fuchsia-coloured panacea card. The colour combination is guaranteed to make anyone’s eyes bleed.

Hilarity then ensues. Amusing combinations such as:

Collaboration is … when we stop pushing the revolving door and a change champion runs headfirst into the glass with a full tray of coffees.

Innovation happens when … Felix, an otherwise well-trained dachshund, answers nature’s call on the fake grass in the innovation lab.

The winner of each round is the person who’s combination convinces the CEO to launch a new initiative.

Cards Against Collaboration is available in-store and online from all good innovation labs.