Satire

Drinking The Cool Aid To Actually Avoid Corporate Punishment

Try Not To Get Any On Your Shirt

Recently, okay yesterday, two writing friends of mine offered suggestions that they’d like to see something from me about two different topics: drinking the cool-aid, and corporate punishment.

So without further ado… oh wow, that’s probably an egregious statement coming from me, right?

With me, there’s always further ado.

Okay, let’s try this. Without much further ado, and thanks to suggestions from Paul Myers and Timothy Key here are my thoughts (jumbled, non cohesive, way out in the stratosphere, and mostly out of my butt) on drinking the cool-aid and avoiding, a term coined by our very own Kevin Buddaeus, corporate punishment.

See? Like I said, much further ado.

Let’s start with drinking the cool-aid. It’s sweet, can be sour, but mostly sweet, and when chilled goes down the gullet providing thirst-quenching satisfaction. Of course, if you’re a power drinker like me, that much sugar in your system will probably make you run around the house naked (remember, shelter-in-place being the operative phrase here) screaming at the top (or the bottom if you’ve learned to yell from your diaphragm) of your lungs, “Oh yeah, I’m the cool-aid man/woman!”

I will say this. Since my last episode, my darling wife is forcing me to drink plain water.

But what she doesn’t know (because the only stories she reads are my Henry James series) is that I’ve found another source of cool-aid. Ha! The jokes on her. Even though she took those almost saccharine sweet powders, those perilous parlays of precious precociousness away from me, all I have to do is come down to the office and turn my computer on.

After the boot (I know why they call it — boot — by the way. Yes I’m that old.) up sequence, I just navigate to Illumination and as the Germans always say viola! Cool-aid by the liters.

I get to read about other writers who love to drink the cool-aid as much as I do. I am privileged to get the opportunity to read stories after stories about writers helping other writers. I witness daily the exponential and organic growth of Illumination and get all jiggy inside as I succor that cool-aid, drinking my fill of the mission statement and buying into the message.

How sweet, how sensuous, such a sexy lithe body of work, gesturing at me coyly with the most attracting come hither look…

Uh, sorry, folks, where was I?

Oh yeah, cool-aid. So if you’re like me and always thirsty for more cool-aid because your kidneys have maxed their limits on filtering sugar out of your blood, you have a choice here.

Either you can cut back on your cool-aid intake by not reading and writing so much on Illumination, or you can start drinking unsweetened cool-aid.

I’m just going to continue drinking the sweetened version of Illumination cool-aid. Hey, I’ve got two kidneys, right?

Now there’s another type of cool-aid I’m not really that fond of, but I have been expected to drink it, and I used to make a show of drinking it all the time…to avoid corporate punishment.

All I will say about drinking the corporate cool-aid is you need to be careful and not get any on your shirt. That sh*t stains like h*ll. In fact, you can never get the stain of corporate cool-aid off your clothes after that.

When you wear that same shirt to work (five days in a row because the washer broke), everybody points at it thinking, “there walks a company man/woman.”

Even when you’re not.

You know the punishment I’m talking about folks.

Corporate punishment is like when the entire company zigs left, but you want to zag right, and you get hammered because you’re now perceived as not being a team player?

Or those times when you’re expected to attend a business function after hours, and you tell everyone you’ll be there then sit at home with your wife laughing at all the “Where in the hell are you?” texts on your work phone?

Yeah, those types of corporate punishment.

Corporate punishment goes hand in hand with drinking corporate cool-aid folks. You gotta at least make a show of drinking it to avoid the punishment, but the drinking of it is punishment enough. Especially when, in your humble opinion, it’s become toxic as h*ll.

Think Jim Jones toxic.

If that doesn’t make you want to think for yourself when someone hands you some corporate cool-aid expecting you to take your turn, nothing will.

And since I’ve made mention about drinking the Illumination cool-aid on two separate occasions, I at least feel I should clarify. I’m drinking Illumination cool-aid because it’s probably the best d*amn drink on the market today. I like the direction, I understand and believe in the message, and I’m willing to drink it all day long.

Now the corporate cool-aid? Not so much. In fact, I stopped drinking that crap years ago. And now that I’m working from home it’s entirely possible they’re never going to see all those shirts and pants I unfortunately stained with their ungodly amalgamation of corporate punishment cool-aid.

As a matter of fact, nowadays, I don’t have to wear a shirt and pants at all.

I’m thinking this sundress will do just fine.

Thanks So Much For Reading

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