Some businesses send out daily emails with quotes that are supposed to motivate the employees to…make more money for the shareholders or something, I guess. Sometimes, they create a myth that some high-level person (like the CEO) picks out every quote. Most of the time, these are the kind of forgettable schlock that goes on motivational posters. Sometimes, however, they are so inappropriate that they cause ripples of gallows humor for days.
“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. -Benjamin Franklin”
That might be nice for a school or artists’ colony, but it’s the opposite of what most of us are paid to do at this heavy industrial resource extraction company.
“I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep. -Talleyrand”
Is megalomania covered by our insurance?
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. -Colossians 3:23”
Maybe it’s not megalomania if the boss is, in fact, God.
“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.-Russell Baker”
Seemingly inoffensive, but this was sent the morning they unexpectedly laid off 10% of the workers.
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you.-Carl Sandburg”
Nice thought sitting at your desk at 6 AM.
“Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death. -Omar Bradley”
Are they trying to tell us something?
Then, the following day we get:
“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t being said. -Peter Drucker”
What wasn’t said, in this case, was that they were firing some of us the next day.
Today’s took the cake, however.
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap. -George Bernard Shaw”
Holy shit. I know that I only exist for the glorification of others, but do they have to rub it in?
I beg you, good Dopers, to share yours.
