Haiku Roundup

I've been getting quite a bit of haiku sent to me and I've been slacking about getting it up on the site...I'll keep adding them to this post in the hopes of catching up:

If management style
Is what you seek, look outward
None lies within you
--Oregon Boy

When there's nothing left to say....

Ten years of that crap
and I finally just quit.
'Bye, my fat boss said.

-Thanks, JT. Good luck in God's Country. You'll do great. Also, save me a beer.

Western Haiku

So my boss, Leona Helmsley, is really ranting about the budget. It's March and already things aren't looking so good. She spent hours reaming me out yesterday because my personnel budget is in the red. It's in the red because she came up with a month-long project that requires one of my part-timer contract employees to work in the field. They'll be working full-time for the duration, but now Leona is pissed because those work hours have to come out of my budget, and they don't exist. Each week, I'll just get further into the budget black hole. To pay for this employee, who usually works one day a week, I'll have to cut three others for a minimum six-week period, all because she couldn't find funding for this special project. And whose fault is all of this? You guessed it, me. The middle manager chump. It makes me want wo wax poetic:

I see your mouth move
but all that I'm hearing is
blahdy-blah blah blah

my boss has her 'crew'
they meet and walk side by side
ass clowns on parade

But, enough of that. I've got some great Western Haiku, sent in from JT, who lives and toils in the Great Northwest. These are true works of art...I think you'll agree:

Heads nod as boss talks.
Brown nosers all see his point.
Yes, they all agree.


If I had a belt,
I'd have something to tie the
dynamite onto.


The table zombies'
eyebrows lift in feigned surprise:
The numbers are up?


Revenue streams up,
but circulation is down.
Hostages still stable.

New Haiku

So, it's March....and I've got some haiku that helps ring in the new month. The following comes from Charlene K, a former newspaper person who is now a professional writer and editor in New York City. So you know these have to be good:

Black suit, high heels, pearls
all i hear is bark! bark! bark!
Eat me, control freak!


This one falls under the category of "Maybe you should take a day off or something".....

You are my boss but
I really wish you were dead
because i hate you

Thanks, Charlene!

Exceeding expectations

A lot has happened in the past month...new baby, lots of excitement on the home front, and plenty to do at work. Not much time to haiku, but I've got a couple more by way of New York:

Corporate slave chains
are not our destiny, friend.
Stick it to the man!

and:

Doughnuts here are free
But not, I'm afraid, are we.
Don't touch my glazed!

Yesterday, a colleague (let's call him Michelangelo) and I were talking about a planning meeting we'd had that just had ended a few minutes before. In the meeting were my immediate boss (Gerald Ford) and his boss, (Condaleeza Rice), plus a handful of other top-level managers such as myself. Let's call them a cabinet. So Gerald Ford starts the meeting by asking managers to do a run-down of projects and timelines. Everything goes well until Condy hears that some projects might not happen because it's the weekend and we don't have enough staff to cover. Several of us get dressed down in the meeting, and told by her that "I can't believe what I'm hearing. These are employees. They don't get a choice. You can order them to work." At this point, a fellow manager drew a picture of a doghouse, and put the intitials of each of us inside it to illustrate her point.

Later, after the meeting, Michelangelo tells me his secret for survival in a capricious environment such as ours. "I keep out of the doghouse," he tells me, "by never exceeding expectations." Then, he walked away, not even a trace of a smile on his lips.

I can't really add much to that. So simple, so profound. Now I'm learning. If I can just deaden myself to the point that nothing bothers me, me and Condy'll get along just fine.