Sorta Like Dilbert
Working at Powercom was filled with many adventures when it came to company relationships and management of details that were to be attended to by almost every employee, in order for the business to run as smoothly as possible.
Each employee had a modus operandi when it came to certain procedures. The phrase I like to use for some of this is, “the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing.” And I might add that what the right hand knew about how to do it may not have been known, appreciated, or regarded as necessary by the left hand.
According to the top management (the right hand) at Powercom, the term for taking short cuts (by the left hand[s]), resulting in a domino effect of problems down the line, was called “horking.”
There are many definitions of the word “hork”, most not related to this particular use; but in the urban dictionary, this one fits the best as the “official” urban slang definition pertaining to the Powercom situation: “Horked: To be out-of-whack; to be destroyed; to be completely unworkable” (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=horked). When used at Powercom, the long-term, snowball, molehill-to-mountain effect of something so seemingly small at the outset, brought a special meaning to the word that could only be understand by those experiencing it.
Because I spent good portion of my day ensuring that the bookkeeping system was in proper running order, I wrote a number of email memos about the protocol that the president and I believed would result in the fewest problems down the line. Usually it was a response written in the bitter aftermath of horking. Upon reflection, I now know that these emails served more as a mode of self-expression than they did as a request for a change in employee behavior.
In hopes that employees (guilty or innocent) would actually READ the emails I sent (which, to this day, I still doubt), I would try make them at least a little interesting. My way of adding interest to written information was not to add to the email any National Geographic text, experimental research data, or the stuff of ancient science reel-to-reel films, but to throw in some humor – something that might encourage the reader to proceed forth to the next word in hopes of discovering something else to catch them a little off-guard.
Here follows one of my attempts to influence the left-handers in the office. By the way, I am left-handed, so I am not discriminating against anyone, lest I discriminate against myself. I knew full well that anything I directed to any employee at Powercom was likewise directed to myself, owing to the very likely reality that I was the only one reading it anyway.
When I speak of “it” in the following quote, I am referring to the protocol that I was writing about in that particular email.
Please note the following and abide by it for the benefit of Powercom and all of its employees, including yourself, even if you do not believe it is necessary: DO NOT HORK IT.
WE DO NOT LIKE HORKING. IT MESSES UP EVERYTHING WE ARE DOING. IT CAUSES HEADACHES, NOSEBLEEDS, HERNIAS, ULCERS, AND ATHLETE’S FOOT.
DO NOT HORK…
…unless you do unintentional, self-inflicted horking. In this case, you will be required to fill out a forgiveness request form, which you must submit to the Office Mom within 30 years following the commitment of said horking. Upon receipt of this request, the Office Mom will return to you a response to your request within 30 years following the receipt of this request. Once you have received the response to this request, you will then be asked to attend a company review in order to defend your request in light of the response, after which the review committee will deliberate the request within 30 years following the end of the review. The results of the committee’s deliberation will then be submitted to Molly Koehler within 30 years following the deliberation. Molly, if she is still alive, will then return these results to you within 30 years following this decision, after which you have 30 years to file a rebuttal, which will result in the enactment of the same process as delineated above. By then, the world will have come to a fiery end and we’ll all be floating around with wings and playing harps. Or at least some of us will. Or maybe a couple of us will. Oh, well — let’s all practice wielding our pitchforks during lunch break.
Obviously, if this memo was read, the information contained therein was too complicated and lengthy for potential horkers to read, comprehend, or, if read indeed, to be taken seriously, considering that the consequences of horking would be postponed for up to and at least 180 years.
I guess that’s why those emails didn’t work.
Maybe you, too, will read halfway through this post and give up. By then, it won’t matter. The consequences will not reverberate into the future some 180 years, although you never know. As far as I can tell, we won’t be around to care.
All I offer now is one final word of advice to you, which you are welcome to interpret in any way you wish:
DO NOT HORK.
……unless you do unintentional, self-inflicted horking. In this case, you will be required to fill out a forgiveness request form, which you must submit to the Office Mom within 30 years following the commitment of said horking. Upon receipt of this request, the Office Mom will return to you a response to your request within 30 years following the receipt of this request. Once you have…..
Oh what the “hork”!!!!! LONG LIVE HORKING!!!!!!!!!
Uncategorized | mertz524 | 
May 9, 2009 12:48 pm
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