The Recruitment Process: Recession Profit Strategies #3

Understanding the current economic situation and the US unemployment rate of over 8%, many of you will be entering the job market, if not already in it. Before we get to the lighter side of this story, always remember: The choice is yours. Picking the wrong job can be more disasterous than having no job at all. That said, the following story regarding the recruitment process may more fully illustrate the point:

A guy dies and St. Peter tells him he gets to choose between Heaven and Hell? And the guy says, "What's up with that?", and St. Peter sez, "Well truth is we can't decide what to do with you. In your life you did some good things, but you did some bad things also... I know you took care of the wife and kids and got em' through college, but you were sleeping with your secretary and pilfering money from the company for your coke habit, so God said...to let you decide."

"Well, that seems fair", the man replies, "let's take a look."

The first stop on the tour is Hell. They descend in an elevator in a long dark shaft but strangely, just like earth, as they descend deeper it gets cooler instead of hotter. As the doors open up the man is greeted by the view of the most beautiful casino he has ever seen. Long maroon velvet curtains drape the bar and tables and Dean Martin is , Martini in hand, singing with a piano and a sax player and Louie Belson on drums. It's positively fucking charming. Everyone is in black tie and the women are fabulous. The man is handed a complimentary cocktail and ushered to the Devil's table under a great chandalier. He speaks with the Devil for a few minutes with all the questions about hell a man might have, based on what we hear on earth, and the Devil says, "Oh, that rot. You know those PR bastards. God's got a million of em and they do a real blackwash story on this place. I need to look after that more". The man agrees and finds the Devil to be a perfectly likable fellow. He bids him farewell and hopes to see him again.

The next stop is Heaven. As they exit the elevator, the man is greeted by a pastoral scene of upscale American suburbia. The sun shines, hills roll, birds tweet, dogs chase boys on bikes riding down the street throwing newspapers at porches, and the sound of a couple of guys mowing their lawns can be heard as the milk truck rings his bells with the freshest delivery of the day. It's positively fucking charming. The women all look like June Cleaver and the men like Cary Grant. The man meets God as the Lord is pulling himself out of the pool at the country club after a couple of laps. "Let's drop into the 19th hole for a Manhattan and talk a bit, shall we", the Lord asks him. "Sure, sure", the man replies.

"So whaddaya think?", asks God to the man. "What's it gonna be? Heaven or Hell?"

The man stumbles for a second but regains his composure and addresses the Lord in a straightforward manner. "Well, your excellence, if it's all the same to you, may I be perfectly honest?"

"Of course, my son", the Lord replies.

"What you've got here in heaven is just positively fabulous. I mean, everybody looks so happy and the dogs are cute, and whatever...but to tell you the truth, Hell didn't look so bad at all. I mean shit, uh, shoot... Dean Martin's there and that's not so bad is it?"

"Oh, that Deano", the Lord chortles, throwing his head back in a cheerful chuckle. The man continues, "... so all-in-all, I just think I'd fit into Hell better and in that way everybody will get along better for eternity".

"It's your choice", the Lord says to the man. "Peter", he yells, "give him Hell!"

On the next trip down the temperature is rising so quickly that by the time they arrive the man has taken off his tie and is sweating profusely and begging for water. The doors open. Burnt corpses are dragging themselves across the floor with large steel balls chained to their legs as the curtains burn and screams of agony can be heard for miles. The piano collapses in a heap of ash. The Devil arrives, cloven and carrying a Satanic pitchfork as he laughs evily amidst the flames "Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha", he echos into the hollow chambers of the deepest darkest catacombs of the forgotten.

The man is shocked! "Devil", he says, "what happened to the casino? The cocktails? The beautiful women? Dean Martin?"

"Jeeziz kid", the Devil replies, "Whaddidja stay in the same job yer whole friggin' life?

Before, we were recruiting you. Now you're on staff!"

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to Hieronymous Bosch for the illustration of "Hell" and to the ,"Crazy Deranged Fools" group on Facebook for encouraging both fortitude and humour in the face of uncertain odds.

For more Recession Profit Strategies click below:

#4 Rubber Stamp Post-It Note Business Cards
#2 Saving On Employee Costs
#1 Falling Economy

For more in Political Satire and Satire see:

White House Party Crashers Board Plane Loaded!

Pope Prays For Embattled Putter's Promiscuous Pecker: Tiger Woods Pardoned

Obama Sends 30,000 Troops to Tiger Woods' House!

Obama's Puppy in Rehab After Just a Week

Recession Profit Stategies II

Recession Profit Strategies I

Bush Surveys Presidential Disaster Area

MENSA Endorses McCain/Palin

Putin Hot As Hell Over Palin

SNL Palin/Hillary Open

Cheney Delivers 1 Billion in Aid to Georgia

Obama Splits Ticket - Boots Biden

Belgian Prime Minister Quits Over Budweiser Purchase

Obama Brandishes a Bud for the Bubbas

American Foreign Policy Since WWII

America Overseas - Citizen Mekong to the Rescue

Joyeux Noël - Perspective XVII: The Little Things X

This Christmas week began with 2 half-hatched eggs (a Vietnamese delicacy of partially developed chicken embryos in shell), a mix of rice cakes and eggs fried together served with spicy sauce, mint leaves and an avocado shake. Frogs were served the next day at a streetside restaurant and were a meal I had been so looking forward to. As a young man, my parents had introduced a tradition to me of being able to choose any restaurant of my liking for my birthday meal each year. My choice, every year that I can remember, was the Plantation restaurant in Moline Illinois. The Plantation was a grand old mansion that had been the residence of Willard Velie, creator of the Velie automobile and maternal grandson of John Deere. By the mid 1960s the home had been sold a number of times and converted into a restaurant with different cuisine themes in different rooms - Continental in the main room, French in the Library and a sort of tea and crumpets affair on the terraces in the daytime. But my favourite, an American phenomena at the time, was the Polynesian affair in the cellar, popularized by the Trader Vic's chain in major cities but represented at the Plantation in Moline, Illinois as the Tahitian Room. In that room they had bamboo tables, grass huts - just two of them, and a piano bar, where wanna-be Dean Martins could sit around the piano and sing if they liked. The huts were known to book months in advance and so at a very young age, maybe eight, I learned to coax my mother to call the Tahitian Room plenty early, so that we were always assured of having a hut for my birthday. I thought it was exotic. But that was only the beginning of my annual birthday adventure. I can't imagine that the frog legs were much of a big seller at the Tahitian Room; in the Plantation restaurant; in Moline; Rock Island county; on the Mississippi; in the Illinois corn fields; in the United States of America; on the Continent of North America, in the Western Hemisphere; on this Earth; in the Solar System; in the Universe; in the mind of God or the mind of Thornton Wilder, pictured above - but they were my favourite menu item in our town and the one reason I had so looked forward to enjoying a pair on the street here in Saigon this Christmas. It was not my birthday, but it seemed like it could have been. For the record, my particular frog didn't exactly have the legs of a Calaveras County long jumper - they were a little skinny - but the idea was the same and I loved it. Shopping for food in Saigon around Christmas is really no different than anywhere else - they are nearly out of everything. The staff at Veggies, the expat hangout for psuedo gourmet stuff, were pretty much out of cheer when I arrived and had had their fill of crabby foreign housewives looking for Christmas goose, foie gras or bread pudding and gave me appropriately crabby service. Finished is the English word the Vietnamese use when they are out of something or just don't have it and it was used repeatedly to respond to my request for smoked cheddar, cocktail onions and a number of other things I thought would spruce up my holiday diet. The onions were for my Dean Martinis. I left with a stash of Coleman's mustard at a 50% discount and an over-priced slab of Gorgonzola. Quite happy I was, even at that. The Frost/Nixon film was my Christmas Eve cinematic fare at a local mini-cinema followed by Batman Returns on Christmas day itself, presumably because it's plot is situated around the holiday season and features penguins. Funny the way HBO programmers see things in Asia - "Let's see, we need a Christmas/cartoon/action film with snow". I had also seen a film a few nights previous that was a documentary on the child molestation scandal in the Catholic Church. An interesting programming choice as well this season, it was quite convincing and a bit sobering to say the least. I was raised Catholic and although I saw through the iconography and politicization of the faith at a reasonably early age had not ever really come to see what was going on behind all the mythologized mystery. This film saw to that. The hymns of the church drew me in off the street on the evening of Christmas day itself and I spent a few minutes at the rear of the naïve to reflect amongst the 12 stations of the cross and other - to anyone else from any other religion - bizarre imagery cast upon the parishioners. If they could get young people to believe in all of that, there was no telling what a kid might believe as he grew up in this most surreal of faiths. Interesting that the main barrel vault of a Catholic church is called the naïve, achitecturally, which is also the base of the word naiveté. I had a nice Christmas anyway, taking my time to have just a few simple pleasures and enjoy just a few minutes. The family sent emails - there was plenty of Christmas spam on Facebook - and even a few good wish texts on my phone. Phat called and rushed me to a local pub so he could deliver my Christmas card. Phat is the man who handles my visa. And then home to the gorgonzola and a glass of Shiraz. Christmas in Vietnam. Mmmmerry.

For more on the "Perspective" or "Little Things" series, click below:

My Morning Wake-Up Call - Perspective XX: The Little Things XII
We'll Have A Gay Old Time - Perspective XIX: The Little Things XII
"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI
Joyeux Noel - Perspective XVII: The Little Things X
Lunch With Obama - Perspective XVI: The Little Things IX
One Motley Crue On The Bus Today - Perspective XV: The Little Things VIII
Attraction vs. Conversion: How To Power Your Blog - Perspective XIV: The Little Things VII
A glass box full of deep fried chicken heads - Perspective XIII: The Little Things VI
Seoul Searching - Perspective XII
He Would Have Shot Me 40 Years Ago - Perspective XI: The Little Things V
Chomsky on Colour & Sleep - Perspective X: The Little Things IV.2
Running With Scizzors - Perspective IX: The Little Things IV
Henry Miler II - Perspective VIII : The Little Things III.1
Henry Miller - Perspective VII: The Little Things III
Big Brother - Perspective VI: The Little Things II
This Carnival of Life! - Perspective V
The Art Walk - Perspective IV: The Little Things
Bentley #5 - Perspective III.2
Bentley vs. Vespa - Perspective III.1
Bentleys Invade Vietnam - Perspective III
Death Of A Colleague - Perspective II
Perspective