For those of you that don't know, i work at Home Depot. Yeah, yeah... laugh it up. Anyway, it's a pretty fucking sweet job - if by pretty you mean really & by sweet you mean ram-ass. Management at this place seems to have their heads so far up their ass, the slogan there should be: "Colon, it's what's for dinner!" Let's just say they seem to have a people-skill deficiency there. In recent weeks the morale of the Depot team at store #2721 has been a little low. This might have something to do with the large cylindrical object that management has been inserting into the asses of the hourly employees on a regular basis of late. Or actually, i should say associates. We're not employees, we're associates! We wouldn't want anyone to feel they're low man on some sort of corporate totem pole - even though you have to get permission from 3 different managers just to wipe your ass.
So, needless to say, it was time for an emergency store meeting. Now, what conspired at this meeting was some of thee most disturbingly funny, yet hauntingly scary things... EVER! First of all, the meeting starts. Everyone gathers around. Management buys pizza as a peace offering for fucking everyone over. Everyone sits down. Etc, etc. Then this big meathead manager that works there, who, by the way, has the personality of a carrot, proceeds to totally destroy my sense of, if i may quote a Led Zeppelin song, What Is And What Should Never Be. He gets on this small ladder (which, by the way, eerily resembles a Hitler podium) situated in front of the "congregation" and proceeds to say, or should i say SHOUT, this - word for word:
"Alright everybody, we're going to start this meeting off with the Home Depot cheer.
Give me an H! - [congregation: H!]
Give me an O! - [congregation: O!]
Give me an M! - [congregation: M!]"
(I'm now omitting some of this due to the pain it is causing me just typing it out, but you know where this is going.)
"What does that spell?!? - [congregation: Home Depot!]
What does that spell?!? - [congregation: Home Depot!]"
To answer the question that i know is now stewing in your mind right now, "Yes." This DID actually happen. Luckily, i was sitting beside another part-timer who is equally unimpressed with this bullshit "team concept." We just looked at each other, like, "What the fuck is going on right now?" And then the meeting continued. Yes, it actually kept on going after this. You would've thought that time would have stopped and we would be sucked into a vacuum and transported to some alternate dimension, where we'd have to live out the rest of our lives in Dante's 3rd ring of hell, doing the "Home Depot Cheer." But no, the meeting did go on.
The meeting was your fairly normal "customer service" & "employees are important" & "team concept" bullshit. Management basically telling us why they were fucking us in the ass and then explaining how them continuing to fuck us in the ass is necessary for "the good of the company." About the only good thing that came out of the meeting was that they told us that, if the store meets its sales goal for the year, then everyone gets a bonus. This set up another intense moment of un-clarity later in the meeting... because then, at the end of the meeting, this ratty little manager gets up on the ladder and, excited as hell that he is part of the Home Depot team, proceeds to lead us in this cheer:
"Give me a B! - [congregation: B!]
Give me an O! - [congregation: O!]
Give me an N! - [congregation: N!]
Give me a U! - [congregation: U!]
Give me an S! - [congregation: S!]
What does that spell?!? - [congregation: BONUS!]
What are we gonna do?!? - [congregation: BONUS!]"
To answer your question, again, "Yes." And not only did all this happen, but there were actually people there, even part-timers, that totally bought into this shit. Abso-fucking-lutely un-fucking-believable. After the meeting i just walked around in a daze for a while. I wasn't sure what was going on. I was totally discombobulated. Did that just happen? Did i just see all that conspire? I felt like i was on a bad acid trip. I just could not fucking believe what had just happened. Looking back on it now, i should've went out into the parking lot and danced a jig. Either that, or i should've stuffed my nuts in a snow bank. I really don't have an ending for this. What else is there to say, really. Hide the women and children, cos i think this shit actually goes on at other corporations. God save the Queen Mother.
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