The Church in a Nutshell

In a modern office tower, high above the enervated city, and far away from the complaints of disgruntled and annoying customers and local managers, sit the council of company executives.


"Sales are down. Profits are down. Bums in seats are down..."


"Easy there Denny. Why so negative? We're doing a great job!"


"Listen Toby, the data on our new menu is here as well. Since we switched from certified beef to artificially flavoured vegan patties, no one seems to be buying them. I mean, especially not our loyal customers. And I don't blame them. The patties are awful."


"Loyal customers can go to the soup kitchen where they belong! All they care about is the way it was. We need to be relevant. The loyal customers don't know what's good for them. The leader of our company said so! Are you accusing him?"


Denny slunk back into his executive leather chair. Better to remain silent. True, things will never change with silence, but standing up to Toby, Warren and Stoopie is career suicide. Those three always seem to be favoured. Like that time they got caught sending money as a payout for spitting in some burgers. Just a harmless spit they said. Instead of being disciplined they were promoted. Yes, best to stay silent.


Just then Chief Executive, Mr. Stoopie, arose and, with a hint of trembling in his voice, began to speak:


"So... about this issue of feeding customers poison, well, food laced with poison... more like maybe just a bit of harmful chemicals, probably not anyone's fault, uh that's all... um, people are mad. I had a manager at one of my stores burn the poison, sorry, chemicals publicly. I chased him out of town, that son of a..."


"It was all about careerism," jumped in the recently retired executive, Mr. Warren. Mr. Warren was one of those executives who retire but never really leave. Like an unwanted guest. One might even say the word 'cancer' would describe the position. "It was careerism that made so many of our employees lace the food with pois, er, chemicals."


By now Denny's head was hurting. Careerism? He wanted to speak out again. Remember Vinnie? What happened to him when he spoke out? Let's just say he never flipped another burger again. Not that he would mind. Flipping artificially flavoured vegan patties is something Vinnie would've rather avoided.


 "So where do we go from here?" stammered Mr. Stoopie. "We need a strategy. It's not like we can stop our employees, or managers, from lacing food with chemicals. I mean, we can be there for them. But they're people too, right? How does stopping someone build bridges for our company? Pardon my wit, but we are a company that accompanies"


"That's why we attack those attackers!" triumphed Toby. "We accuse them of accusing!"


"Here Here!" - Chimed in Warren, Stoopie and several other executives.


"Now," continued Toby, "about those plummeting profits, lawsuits by customers, restaurant closures, negative media attention, and overall distrust amongst the public... I motion that we give ourselves a raise."


Here Here!" - Chimed in Warren, Stoopie and several other executives.

Photo Credit: Drawception