Leave It To Lemurs

Did you hear the one about the guy in Iowa, name of Dave Steward, who got fired from his job last fall because he had the temerity to post a cartoon on the bulletin board in the employee break room? He has been quoted as saying that he was attempting to "boost morale for the employees." A fine goal, to be sure ... only thing is, he was caught on tape and this was the cartoon in question:

The story reminded me of the fact that in my day I have worked for some lawyers who, to compare them to lemurs (whether sober or inebriated) would be a backdoor insult to the animals.

I think it's really neat that Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, the comic strip in question, heard about the plight of Dave Steward and went to bat for him by writing the whole story into the strip. The result was an episode where the boss asks: "Do you think drunken lemurs are like managers?" To which poor feckless Wally answers: "No. Some lemurs can hold their liquor."

It has been my personal experience that while an abstemious lemur will generally be reasonable, a lemur in his cups quickly loses perspective and is likely to take umbrage a bit more hastily. So you have to really be careful. Scott Adams must know this too because he had some advice for Dave Steward: "Stick to Garfield. Nobody ever got fired for loving lasagna." Likewise Dave Steward had some advice for employers everywhere: "You need to have a sense of humor."

I agree with Steward. A funnybone to a human is like a femur to a lemur ... you need one or you're going to fall facedown in the dirt. Even though apparently in some situations you can get fired (or at the very least, excoriated) for having a sense of humor, it's a chance I'd be willing to take.

My daughter Audrey once attempted to boost the morale of her fellow employees by making the office coffee extra-strong in the morning. Aided and abetted by one of her colleagues who, like Audrey, didn't see the point of drinking joe unless you could trot hamsters across the surface, Audge got into the habit of using two pre-measured packets of coffee per pot instead of the prescribed single packet. As you can imagine this made the coffee pretty stout, and I guess it was putting unwanted hair on the chests of a few of Audrey's co-workers.

One with a hall-monitor complex (or maybe hypertension) decided to strike back. A hand-lettered sign duly appeared in the break room above the coffee maker: One Packet Of Coffee Per Pot = Happy Employees.

Audrey and her cohort laughed uproariously when they saw the sign and happily dumped a packet of coffee apiece into the basket before flipping the switch. (They made a second pot using only one packet and labeled it as such, and even made a pot of low-octane. Caffeine-o-phobes, keep your shirts on.)

Because there's no camera in their break room, neither Audrey nor her friend have any idea who, by the next morning, had altered the sign by scratching out the words One Packet Of Coffee Per. Now there's someone who knows the value of a sense of humor.

Comments

[Voyle]

"The story reminded me of the fact that in my day I have worked for some lawyers who, to compare them to lemurs (whether sober or inebriated) would be a backdoor insult to the animals."

LOL! What a comparison: lawyers and lemurs. I would have thot a better comparison would have been lawyers and doves. Everyone knows lawyers are peace lovers.

(They want a piece of the settlement, a piece of the verdict, and most of all, a piece of the other side.)

Or so I've been told.../smile

[Jenny]

Oh no! An esquire among my readership! Forsooth! LOL! You are the definitive exception to the rule, my friend. I actually enjoy working with lawyers; that's why I do it. Ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of them are excellent folks who truly know the value of a dollar. If I were one of your number this would be my motto: "Presumption of your innocence commences with remittance of my retainer."

[Dave]

Thank you for the support. I felt it was a huge overreaction at the time and even more so now!
I'm the "man fired for dilbert"

[Jennifer]

It's an honor to have you read, Dave! It was indeed an overreaction but I have a feeling better things are in store for you. God bless.