Calming the Waters

INTEROFFICE MEMO

Here at the People's Independent Telephone Syndicate (the PITS), it has come to our attention that the current economic downturn has fueled a blaze of nervous rumors. These signs of anxiety are dispositively affecting our efforting of recurring filings, non-pre-existing ratings, ongoing cost-cuttings, and several other "ing" things. And that is affecting our never-ending planning meetings, shortening them more oftening, to the point that management is dangerously close to having to actually work. So in our efforts to be "all about our people," your management team from the PITS hereby addresses each of the following rumors.

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• We are keeping our internal phone system. We are NOT replacing it with Team-color-coded Dixie cups and string.
• Sales & Marketing is NOT introducing a new hard-sell campaign, code-named "Capiche?" and employing the catchy slogan "If you ever want to see another dawn, call us. Now."
• The Pizza Man, that enterprising guy who sets up each Friday with lunches for sale, is NOT a covert stringer for the Democratic party, attempting to seduce PITS employees with cheap, government-subsidized meal plans.
• Jury's still out, though, on the Wednesday Church Lady.
• There is NOT a pending decision to shore up corporate morale by introducing mandatory "Hokey Pokey" sing-alongs at our monthly Voice of the People meetings.
• The new ceiling-mounted sound baffles in Customer Service are NOT secret email monitors, and they are NOT the reason you got caught spending 6 work-hours surfing You-Tube.
• There is NO current plan to collect all the forgotten jewelry from the ladies' restrooms and melt it down into a golden calf as an offering to the relevant Senate investigating committee.
• Our competition has NOT offered to buy all the out-dated furniture in the basement, with the hopes of harvesting network logins that everybody has taped under their little keyboard slide-out thingies.
• We are NOT planning to replace our entire network with any kind of nanotechnology, including anything going by the cute name of Teeny Little Computers (TLC).
• Smoking, though highly discouraged, is still allowed in our standard, clearly-marked designated areas, many of which are less than 60 miles away. In these designated areas, smokers may continue to enjoy smoking, however that works. They just aren't allowed to exhale.
• It is NOT true that Bob, our bailout-appointed personnel manager, is a spite-filled evil spawn of the devil. Bob's condition is a cultivated behavior, not an innate genetic defect. Bob is an honor graduate of the acclaimed Coldbreath University, he holds a degree in Creative Personnel Redundancy Management and, as a small child, had his Empathy gland removed. Bob deserves the exact same level of respect that you would grant anyone else that you might like to hit with a pointed stick (see "How To Greet Your Co-Worker" in the employee manual).
• Members of management often take vacation in the summer, as do we all. They are NOT ducking out for job interviews, they are NOT responding to Federal indictments, and they are NOT forging birth certificates in order to enter the Federal Witness Protection program on a family discount plan. However, in the spirit of open disclosure, it must be said that one senior exec is a bit overdue with her parole officer, and our CFO is on an extended Caribbean quest to reconnect with his inner child.
• The idea of us relocating to a windowless, upper-story floor in the local paper mill is, simply, quite silly, and will not even come up for discussion unless we discover more al fresco lunch options near the mill's location.

As you can see, we are still the company that is "all about our people." We are still the PITS. And we anticipate absolutely no staff reductions, relocations, cost savings or untraceable warehouse fires, prior to our 2PM meeting. If you have any further questions or concerns, please briskly rub the arcane little lamp in the main lobby and invoke Bob.