You know what happens when you don't make quota...

Dear Congressman,

We all have our pet peeves about our bosses or our co-workers, but this case I found from 2007 really ranks up there as a "hostile" work environment.

Prosper, Inc. is a company that provides, and I quote, “executive-level coaching for individuals, the education and hands-on experiences they need to achieve their personal and professional goals.” Sounds to me like this is one of those companies that sends out someone to individual corporate seminars that involve the famous falling backward exercise while your co-workers catch you. Yawn....

But these guys managed to spice things up. Meet J. Christopherson, a supervisor at Prosper. JC was named in a lawsuit by a worker who sued them. Mr. Christopherson had unusual motivational techniques to get workers to hit their sales goals. For example, Mr. Christopherson has been accused of the following:

If you did not make your sales goal, it is alleged that JC would draw a mustache on your face with a permanent marker. Or as an alternative punishment, you would come back to your desk to find you no longer had the privilege of the use of a chair. Also, the use of a wooden paddle to bash on the desk of unsuspecting slackers was another popular method of drawing attention to deficiencies in selling abilities.

But it appears Mr. Christopherson went into overdrive in the great ideas department of his frat house mind to come up with the motivational exercise that got him and Prosper, Inc. sued by an ex-employee.

Yes, Mr. Christopher is alleged to have gone "Dick Chaney" on an employee. I will allow the court filing to tell the story:

On May 29, 2007, Mr. Christopherson asked for volunteers for a new motivational exercise. He offered no explanation to his team members regarding the nature of the exercise. In his search for volunteers, Mr. Christopherson challenged the loyalty and determination of his team members. Mr. Hudgens volunteered to be a part of the exercise to prove his loyalty and determination. Mr. Christopherson then led his team members to the top of a hill near Prosper’s office. Once on the hill, Mr. Christopherson ordered Mr. Hudgens to lie down, facing up, with his head pointed downhill. Mr. Christopherson ordered other team members to hold Mr. Hudgens down by his arms and legs. Mr. Christopherson then slowly poured water from a gallon jug over Mr. Hudgens’s mouth and nose so that he could not breathe. Mr. Hudgens struggled and tried to escape but, at Mr. Christopherson’s direction, the other team members held him down. After concluding the exercise, Mr. Christopherson instructed his team members that they should work as hard at making sales as Mr. Hudgens had worked at trying to breathe.


Folks, you can't make this stuff up.

So next time you are upset at your boss for some petty reason or other, remember, you could be working for Mr. Christopherson...

Will you be my Valentine?

Dear Congressman,

As you battle the liberal agenda on the Hill, I thought I would take the time to peruse the stories of the world to see if there is anything of interest.

I think I found it...

Courtesy of the BBC World News:

Malaysia tiger mauling stopped by wife with soup ladle

A man has been rescued from a near-fatal attack by a tiger in northern Malaysia by his wife. She entered the fray wielding a wooden soup ladle at the tiger - which fled.
Tambun Gediu, now badly lacerated and recovering in hospital, had tried hitting the tiger away in vain and says his wife saved his life.
Wildlife rangers plan to track the tiger and send it further into dense, unpopulated jungle in the the northern state of Perak.
"I was trailing a squirrel and crouched to shoot it with my blowpipe when I saw the tiger.
"That's when I realised that I was being trailed," Mr Gediu said after surgery.
The tiger pounced not far from the Gediu home in a jungle settlement of the Jahai tribe.
Mr Gediu had tried climbing a tree to escape the animal, but was dragged down by the tiger.
His wife, 55-year old Han Besau, rushed out of the kitchen on hearing his screams and used the kitchen implement to good effect.
"I was terrified and I used all my strength to punch the animal in the face, but it would not budge," the New Straits Times newspaper quoted him as saying.
"I had to wrestle with it to keep its jaws away from me, and it would have clawed me to death if my wife had not arrived."


Now, normally on Valentine's day we exchange cards, go to dinner at a nice restaurant, and catch the latest hit movie at the local theater. I personally am not familiar with anyone who's Valentine's present was being saved from a hunger tiger by your wife with a wooden ladel. This sounds more like a scenario for a new version of the board game CLUE then it does a real life event. But according to the BBC, this did happen.

To quote Eddie Izzard... "well done"...

And happy Valentines Day to the rest of you, whether you are ready to fight a tiger for love or not.

On this day...

Dear Congressman,

Today is February 13, 2011. In history on this day, the following events were recorded (courtesy of History.com):

The Catholic Church started proceeding against an Italian Astronomer named Galileo Galilei on the charge of heresy. It appeared that Galileo thought the earth revolved around the sun, and the Church disagreed. The Church won.

In 1945, Dresden, Germany was a nice place to live on the morning of February 13, but by the evening was a firestorm of death as RAF bombers turned it into a living hell, killing over 35,000 residents.

In 1689, William and Mary were proclaimed sovereign rulers of England, restoring Protestant rule in place of the Catholic reign of Mary's father, James II. This proclamation included a "Bill of Rights" for the people of Britain, a precursor to the 1789 version that amended the US Constitution 100 years later.

And nearer to my heart, on this day two years ago in 2009, my mum passed away in the early hours of the morning after a 5 year battle with cancer. Melody and I were aware the night before we left her that it would probably be the last time we would see her alive, as she had been non-responsive for over 24 hours as she concentrated on just breathing. My brother had flown into town a day before to join the vigil with my sister, my wife, and myself over those last few days. So she been attended to by the people who she loved the most when the final days came, and we got to be there for her to make her as comfortable as possible.

Two years have passed and I still think of her every day. She had battled cancer before in the early 1990's, and had beaten it back with the same strong will that she tackled every problem in her life. After the diagnosis of a stage 4 re-occurrence in 2003, I would talk to her every day on the phone, carving out time to see what was going on in her life and give her the lowdown on mine. Saturdays were generally reserved for going over to her condo and vacuuming, as the cancer had spread to her bones and made this task difficult. Afterward we would go out to eat at a nearby restaurant, calling Melody to join us if she was in the area and available. Many a good and bad story was shared at these festive tables.

Beginning in 2006, we would plan an annual vacation to Emerald Isle, North Carolina. We would always rent a cabin directly on the beach, allowing us to drink our coffee watching the ocean as we tried to spot the dolphins swimming along the shoreline in the morning sun. We would invariably lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Zarape, and then follow up with a family dinner that we would cook at the beach house.

So with the many memories and good times I was able to share with my mum, I feel very blessed that we were able to squeeze so many years of living into such as short span. Thank you for being who you were, mum.

I love you.

Superbowl mania

Dear Congressman,

It appears that another NFL season has ended with the Green Bay Packers edging out the Pittsburgh Steelers on a cold night in Dallas. This annual "carnivale americana" went off with very few hitches, unless you were one of the 400 holders of $900 a seat tickets that were denied entry to the game by the Arlington Fire Marshall, and then it really sucked sitting deep in the stadium watching the game on a flat screen TV as you could hear the roar and rumble of the crowd above you.

But for us Cincinnatians, the ultimate outcome of any game against the Pittsburgh Steelers is a loss. For those who are unaware, Cincinnati became an NFL team in 1968 and has always been in the same division as the Steelers, providing a red carpet to a perennial two-easy-wins-a-year for Pittsburgh when they met Cincinnati in the home and away series that are an annual part of NFL division rivals. In fact, I think it would not be beyond rational thinking that the citizens and fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers owe a debt of gratitude to Bengals owner Mike Brown for continuing to field a team that provides a platform to base a winning season on year after year. But as a Bengals fan since their inception in the late 60's, there is a definite basis for hating the Steelers as they devour my team year after year.

Now don't get me wrong, this is not a slash the tires, curse the fans, kick their pet dog kind of hatred. This is a "damn I am so jealous I want to puke" hatred. After all, the Bengals will a draft a player regardless of their previous criminal record or very apparent attitude problems while Pittsburgh gets rid of trouble-causing thugs, to the point that they almost traded their Superbowl proven quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, earlier this year after his alleged off-the-field escapades with assaults on drunken young women. So even though I hate the Steelers, I like hating the Steelers, and don't want them to change anything they do to be as good of a team as they are, as this is the type of team I want my Bengals to be.

Only not as hated as the Steelers...