BEETHO!
In Burroughs “Western lands†he describes a type of Assassin who is trained to act on the mention of a specific word “beethoâ€. An Assassin would ingratiate himself into the company of his intended victim or victims, and at some point a visitor would yell “beetho!†which would subliminally activate the assassin and cause him to kill everyone in the room. The beetho caller would yell his magic word and bugout quick lest he be among the chosen.
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So many times, I wish this were not fiction. So many times I want to walk into a roomful of people and yell “BEETHO!â€. And today may be no different.  When management sends you an invitation to a “Company gathering†and then gets pissed off when everyone declines, and then makes the gathering mandatory, that is a surefire way to raise morale. Definitely. Yeppers.
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“Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves”
One of my favorite, and most timeless plaques to hang on the wall.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Companies do some odd things in an effort to improve morale. Once at my current office management brought in a business analyst (freshly minted from Harvard business school) who looked over our operation to see what the problem was. Anyone with any brains (which apparently excludes people with BAs in Business from Harvard) could have TOLD you the problem, we had three assholes in the office who couldn’t get along with anyone, most especially each other. So her (did I mention the BA was a black female, checking off two EEO boxes) big idea to improve morale was (drum roll please) Bagel Fridays. We were to take turns on Fridays buying a couple dozen bagels with fixings for everyone in the office, because being forced to buy food for people you don’t like is a sure fire ™ way to improve morale in the land of rainbow-farting-unicorns.
We finally got a new manager who actually SAW the problem, fired two of the three assholes, the third of whom got religion and decided to stop being an asshole less he also become unemployed. Morale improved.
Funny how that happened.
Our still-wet-behind-the-ears VP of Administration is all pissed off at the rest of the folks in the DC office because none of them want to decorate or celebrate. Because of that, I’m surprised the CEO hasn’t made a proclamation of mandatory holiday celebration yet.
The fact is that nobody wants to celebrate or decorate because none of them can stand the new VP.