What In The Fuck Is Going On, Part II
Periodically, I receive an email in my company inbox about an upcoming activity or service that has been organized as a little departure from the typical day-to-day here. I once wrote about Kayce Smith's baby shower, which spawned the first blog of this nature, linked above. But yesterday, every single employee received this email in their inbox:
In-office table massages for everyone. In a back room, by the couches, next Tuesday.
This… this is what the doctor ordered? Midday sports therapy massages for our gimpy, overtrekked squad of outdoor enthusiasts? Ah yes, I recall KFC complaining about neck soreness from pitching over the handlebars of his 12-speed mountain bike last Saturday. Says he was lucky to land in that thicket of gooseberries or else who knows how many bones might have broken! After all, his skeleton shares the structural integrity of that Baltimore bridge that went down like a rack of loaner trombones. It certainly wouldn't take a container ship to liquify his entire bone structure, so let's start his masseuse on a 4-out-of-10 intensity and work up from there.
I dug a little deeper. There are two options from which to choose:
Sports or compression. If you're Klemmer, which one you going with? Sports massage requires "rocking" which incurs the risk that his serrated shoulder blades will tear the fabric of their massage table to absolute smithereens, and don't think for one second he can expense that damage in this post-Penn world. But if he goes compression massage, we risk the masseuse throwing in the towel, throwing up her breakfast, and running out screaming. For soothing the sore muscles of a shirtless Klemmer before noon on a Tuesday requires the cold, heartless detachment inherent to grave robbers who exhume corpses beneath a shrouded moon and rip baubles and heirlooms from desiccated appendages.
Plus, there is zero chance they have a face donut small enough to keep his spine on plane.
I appreciate the effort to offer fun perks and cool opportunities for our employees to get excited about. A month ago, they actually brought in a guy who could do your Global Entry interview and processing, and that was incredible. I didn't need it, of course, as I've had global entry for years. Heck, if you have any plans of traveling internationally and you don't have global entry, you're probably someone who doesn't have EZ Pass in your car and still pays highway tolls with loose change from the cupholder. In other words, you'll be dead early because life requires software upgrades, folks. There is NOTHING worse than stepping off a nine-hour return flight from Copenhagen and having to wait in the regular citizen/Ellis Island family processing line, where they check your scalp for lice and then your gums for periodontitis without swapping out for fresh gloves.
But most of the time, when someone here tries to apply typical business integrations or special activities to this place, it's like seeing a hamburger on a sushi menu. We are not some mid-rate insurance brokerage based out of a soulless industrial park off the Garden State Parkway. We don't need, or want, birthday recognition, company picnics, or introductions to the new guy. I think I speak for most of us when I say this place is a great place to work because of the work itself. I highly doubt we're attracting major talent thanks to the DIY pottery class we're running in May.
Instead of a free table massage, you know what we could really use? An actual doctor. How about a board-certified, highly-generalized internist from a local urgent care who will give us the once over to make sure we're not infecting each other with whatever people get from eating strictly Chic-fil-A. I've heard of that Doctors Without Borders program; is the Barstool office too far gone even for them? How about the Red Cross? Christ, I'd even take a missionary with a CPR cert who insists we earn our circumcisions through a group recitation of Galatians.
I'm sure I'm the asshole for this. But if we're trying to add some team bonding around these parts, let's start with the basics: mandatory happy hour where you can't go home until you've drunk at least three units (exemptions will be made for addicts). Maybe a bring your pet to work day where we mate the two most attractive dogs and bet on the litter size O/U. Haircuts from a legit barber, fingering tutorials, Ayahuasca retreat in the gambling cave? I can do this all day.
Until then, let's make sure we're all aware these massages next week are ending professionally. Not happily.