April 2016-Freethinkers Anonymous planned to celebrate its twenty-first year with the party theme “If This Blog Were A Person It Could Now Drink” with the subtitle “Except In Britain Where The Drinking Age Is Eighteen and Germany Which We’re Pretty Sure Has No Drinking Age And Could Someone Check To See If Wikipedia Has A Section On World Drinking Ages?” When the ordered banner arrived it read “If This Blog Was A Person It Could Now Drink”. An ugly riot broke out in the editorial department and left everyone in a subjunctive mood.
May 2016-Staff were reminded that last year’s annual report was delivered late. A committee to write each annual report a year in advance has been formed but so far has been unable to meet due to scheduling issues.
June 2016-After multiple all-staff meetings and outside consultation a company-wide vote was held. Employees unanimously agreed that founder and CEO Christopher Waldrop should take a shower. Please.
July 2016-The Annual Report has stopped loading due to a long-running script.
August 2016-
Judge El: Only three contestants remain and I’m very excited to announce our celebrity judge. His comedies are still controversial for being so explicit and for satirizing major figures. He included numerous specific details about his time and where he lived and yet the messages remain timeless. He lived in Athens from around 446 BC to 386 BC. Please help me welcome…Aristophanes!
Aristophanes: κωμῳδοδιδασκαλίαν εἶναι χαλεπώτατον ἔργον ἁπάντων.
Kevin (#teamhashtag): This guy comes out in a toga and my first thought is, it’s all Esperanto to me.
Judge Nine: Aristophanes, will you please do the honors of announcing the winner?
Aristophanes: ἀλλ᾽ ἀνδράρια μοχθηρά, παρακεκομμένα.
Kevin (#team#): I am such a Greek geek. This is so exciting to me. I can’t believe we’re being judged by a major playwright of ancient Greece and the master of Old Comedy.
Aristophanes: ἡμῶν γὰρ ἄνδρες, κοὐχὶ τὴν πόλιν λέγω.
Judge Backspace: Congratulations Team Ampersand! Unfortunately, Kevin, that means you’ve been typed out.
Kevin: (#team@) When I got my first computer, a Commodore-64, it really was a £ sign. Go figure.
September 2016- Management announced an end-of-summer plan to find the best local milkshake. A staff project team was formed to list local milkshake places, to consider how to limit the definition of “local”, whether precedence should be given to places that mainly serve ice cream and desserts over burger and fries joints, and one flavor versus several. After the plan was developed, reviewed, submitted, prorated, amortized, finalized, and approved management announced the funds would be used to just buy a new blender.
October 2016-After much consideration staff agreed that vampires, zombies, aliens, ghosts, miscellaneous monsters, and even werewolves have lost their ability to scare and that therefore the theme of this year’s Halloween party would be “Math Teachers”.
November 2016-A subcommittee decided that the preferred office doughnut would be the creme-filled kind. While there were strong opinions in favor of the custard-filled and even jelly-filled ones the deciding factor was that the creme is whipped with air. And that’s gotta mean less calories, right?
December 2016-As a holiday bonus the building was kept open around the clock so staff could fulfill their requirement to work overtime without pay.
January 2017-The company shareholders passed a series of resolutions including “We’ve got reusable bags in the back of the car, let’s remember to take them in the store” and “What exactly are we doing here?”
February 2017-Everyone in the office received a Valentine’s Day card except Kevin.
March 2017-Facing a sudden backlog in work and reviewing an overall decline in productivity during the previous year all staff worked together to produce this year’s annual report titled Seriously, Gang, All We Did This Year Was Get Chris To Take A Shower?
Staff were then sent to cover the World Croquet Cup in Montevideo.
April 2017 – Is the video uploader racist?
‘The uploader has not made this video available in your country’ – so no Kinks for me then. Could this be raised at the next Annual General Meeting?
And if you mention Mxxx’s Txxxxxx’s again, I won’t be able to read your posts any more because I scare easily. I could never watch Welcome Back Kotter in case they showed a Mxxx’s Txxxxxr. Once I had to switch over to The Exorcist to calm myself down.
Thank you for sharing your Annual Report. It has highlighted one very important issue for me though; it appears you may not be taking the whole Anuual Report thing very seriously.
And regarding the donut issue, please bear in mind that in some countries, such as the UK, most offices are only allowed plain dry biscuits (cookies). And as we are currently in the process of going back to the feudal system, the lords of the manor may not let the peasants have breaks any more and even plain biscuits (cookies) will become obsolete.
YouTube won’t let you watch the video for “Do It Again” by The Kinks. In Britain. That seems like some seriously multilayered irony there.
And it seems to be true in offices everywhere that if they have anything at all they have dry biscuits, although most don’t have anything at all. Maybe a water cooler.
Britain has been through so much lately they should at least give you custard creams, or maybe some of Mr. Kipling’s exceedingly good cakes.
Once again, the annual report made me laugh out loud. January is pretty much my life, and some of the others are eerily similar to what happens at the secret agency I work for. Damn the absurdist beaurocracy.
As strange as it might seem I think bureaucracy makes sense, or at least serves a purpose. Even people who are blessed with an abundance of common sense and want to do the right thing need guidelines. It’s when the guidelines stop being guidelines and become roadblocks that it’s a problem.
Even though I am well over 21, in support of your blog, I will drink. However not over the last few days because of the election in Ecuador. Why you would have to be sober to vote or digest an annual report is beyond me. Here’s to another successful year!
And here’s to a bright future for Ecuador, although no matter where you are I think a drink or two is the appropriate post-election response.
This is my annual report.
2016 /2017
Christopher’s blog is the creme of the crop.
It’s being able to combine your comments that make for a bountiful harvest.