Dire Straits provided a motivational tune with 'Industrial Disease', and the right-hand side of the anagram reminds you why going to work and doing your duty is an important step toward self-actualisation.
Warning lights are flashing down at Quality Control.
Somebody threw a spanner, and they threw him in the hole.
There's rumours in the loading bay and anger in the town.
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down.
There's a meeting in the boardroom. They're trying to trace the smell.
There's a leaking in the washroom. There's a sneak in Personnel.
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze.
Goodness me - could this be industrial disease?
The caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post.
They're refusing to be pacified; it's him they blame the most.
The watchdog's got rabies; the foreman's got the fleas,
And everyone's concerned about industrial disease.
There's panic on the switchboard; tongues are tied in knots.
Some come out in sympathy; some come out in spots.
Some blame the management; some the employees.
And everyone knows it's the industrial disease.
The workforce is disgusted, downs tools and walks.
Innocence is injured; experience just talks.
Everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees
That these are "classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze".
On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse.
Philosophy is useless; theology is worse.
History boils over; there's an economics freeze.
Sociologists invent words that mean industrial disease.
Doctor Parkinson declared: "I'm not surprised to see you here.
You've got smoker's cough from smoking, brewer's droop from drinking beer.
I don't know how you came to get the Bette Davis knees,
but worst of all, young man, you've got industrial disease.
He wrote me a prescription. He said: "You are depressed.
But I'm glad you came to see me to get this off your chest.
Come back and see me later. Next patient, please!
Send in another victim of industrial disease."
I go down to Speaker's Corner. I'm thunderstruck!
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks.
Two men say they're Jesus - one of them must be wrong.
There's a protest singer singing a protest song. He says:
"They wanna have a war so they can keep us on our knees.
They wanna have a war so they can keep their factories.
They wanna have a war to stop us buying Japanese.
They wanna have a war to stop industrial disease!
They're pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind.
They wanna sap your energy, incarcerate your mind.
They give you Rule Britannia, gassy beer, page three,
two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease."
Meanwhile, the first Jesus says "I'd cure it soon:
abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons."
The other one's out on hunger strike; he's dying by degrees.
How come Jesus gets industrial disease?
See www.despair.com. Among the demotivation posters are:
POTENTIAL
Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up.
DESPAIR
It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black.
MEETINGS
None of us is as dumb as all of us.
HUMILIATION
The harder you try, the dumber you look.
Cartoonist Scott Adams says:
"Any good strategy will seem ridiculous by the time it is
implemented"
"People are idiots."
"Be careful that what you write does not offend anybody or cause
problems within the company.
The safest approach is to remove all
useful information."
The Dead Kennedys' Jello Biafra states these reminders to workers:
"Do not attempt to think, or depression may occur"
"The number one enemy of progress is questions."
"Use only the drugs prescribed by your boss or supervisor."
"SHUT UP! BE HAPPY!"
"Obey all orders without question."
Depressed? Don't be. Read these statements showing reassuring corporate wisdom, and prescience in government...:
"Spam will be a thing of the past in two years' time."
- William Gates, a few years ago
"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levee."
- The US President discusses Hurricane Katrina
"We never learn..."
- Wells Fargo Chairman Dick Kovacevich
As he issues his engrossing, down-to-earth address on day one, your new manager / chief executive is sure to beseech you:
"We need to harness the idea synergies in leading-edge
user-centredness, choose coherent target sets as a hardy e-visionary,
conversate in a zero-echo manner, and engage other entities as
aggregates - and thus see one another as 'go-to' mindshare
engineers.
Sustained wide-ranging harmonisation sends coherent ethos messages
to soothe customers. In the end, these show, steer, or redefine
strengths, so they synthesise shared success, which in the end co-creates
community, hones syntheses, eases assessage, and monetizes ROI.
There's no 'I' in team, so, as the strategy-owners, we need
to stand together and work harder as the house who engineerizes tomorrow
today."
Management consultant David Brent (a.k.a. Ricky Gervais) sees it this way: "Too much thinking makes Jack a mental case. Yeah. That's what turned Stephen Hawkings mad, too much thinking."
Yet there's hope. When you _do_ think, "[k]eep your ideas to yourself, and make 'em work for you. Maybe set up a rival company".
He notes: "Rule number one: When looking for a job, it is easier to find a new job when employed than when not [...]. If you're looking for a better job [...] spend all your time e-mailing new employers, [...] send out letters willy-nilly saying 'I'm sick here [...]'. They've exploited you; get 'em back."
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