The Damned Company
by
Elliott D. Rosewater
and
W. J. Galt
Copyright FOG INK 2010
Published by FOG INK at Smashwords
Published by
FOG INK
Fields of Gold Publishing, Inc.
P. O. Box 965
Brentwood, TN 37027
Copyright 2008 by Fields of Gold Publishing, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or manner whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact FOG INK.
ISBN: 978-0-9746296-5-0
Edited by Eli Stein
Content Editors: Amy Neftzger and Shannon Walker
Proofreading by Karri Wilkinson
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to individuals, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Sins of Organizational Structure
Sins of Organizational Propaganda
Damned Company Job Descriptions
Toil is in the nature of work. However, for some of us the work environment extends beyond uncomfortable and into the realms of hellish. In fact, because we live in an imperfect world even the most perfect of corporations contain elements of Hell.
You may have noticed that the source of a hellish work environment is often due to either people or policies made by people. So what happens when these people die? Are their corporate sins simply forgotten? I can attest that they are not. I have taken a journey of magnificent proportions into the afterlife and have seen what is to become of the incompetent, inconsiderate, and overbearing.
What you are about to read may horrify you and is not for the weak. However, it is for the benefit of corporations everywhere that I write. The realms of the damned are overflowing, and yet they continually expand to hold more and more. My goal is to share the knowledge I have gained and hopefully teach others not to pass down the road to the Damned Company. My name is Colleague. This is the record of my journey.
Chapter One ~ Lobby Level: Limbo
I don’t exactly know how I lost my way. I had just finished a power lunch on one of the busier avenues downtown and was walking to the subway when something happened. I can’t say precisely what it was, but what I remember next was a swirling dream of hurried pedestrians, honking taxicabs, and frustrated commuters shouting expletives at one another. The next thing I knew I was in the lobby of the Damnation Corporation and to this day I still don’t know how I got there.
“Name,” requested the large ogre at the reception desk without looking up. In my confusion, I didn’t immediately respond and she repeated her request in a nasal monotone. I walked slowly towards her.
“Name what?”
“Your name.”
“I am Colleague,” I finally answered her. “Where am I?”
“Do you have an appointment?” I still didn’t know where I was, so I hardly knew whether or not I had an appointment.
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully.
“Have a seat,” she instructed me. She still had not seen my face, and I’m glad of it because I’m not sure that I wanted to look into her eyes. She was fearfully large and green and covered with pustules that appeared on the brink of erupting at the slightest provocation. Her voice and mannerisms were zombie-like. Whether she became this way after years of working on the job or she was hired because of it I didn’t want to know. I only knew that she terrified me and I was eager to move away from her.
I glanced around the circular lobby and then sat down on a small leather chair. The walls were starkly white with paintings of flames neatly placed every four or five feet. There were people everywhere who looked as if they had been waiting for a very long time. I was studying the irritation on the face of a well-dressed woman who was leaning against the wall underneath a no smoking sign when I heard a distorted but very loud mumble.
I turned towards the noise but could only make out a rippling shadow. It was the type of shadow that water casts when light deflects upon its calm surface, but there was no water anywhere in the lobby. My attention was drifting back towards the other lobby guests when the mumbling occurred a second time and it sounded somewhat like my name. I stared at the rippling shadow in disbelief.
“Colleague,” the shadow called to me gently. “Are you human or hologram?” I asked nervously.
“Neither,” the shadow replied. His voice was becoming clearer the more I concentrated on it. “I was once human, but I am now nothing more than a ghost of what once was.”
“What do they call you?” “Teamwork,” he replied.
“Teamwork?” I gasped, failing to conceal my surprise and excitement. “Teamwork, I have studied you in business school. I know all about you and how you brought success to those who followed you.”
“Not all who claimed to follow me were true followers,” he cautioned. “My theory was preached but the application was often faulty and intended for the wrong reasons. By using my name some have shared the burden but selfishly kept the glory. These I speak of are now among the ranks here.”
“Where is here?” I seized the moment to ask the question that had been on my mind since I arrived in this odd location. “Where are we, Teamwork?”
“This is the Damnation Corporation,” he stoically answered me. “We commonly refer to it as the Damned Company. Welcome to Corporate Hell.” As he spoke these words I began to understand why he was merely a reflection: solid Teamwork could not exist in Hell.
“Teamwork, who are these others?” I eagerly asked. I was grateful to be finally getting some answers and Teamwork seemed to have the knowledge to satisfy me.
“We are in the Damned Company lobby and those around us are in limbo. They can not yet be admitted to the Damnation Corporation, and some may never be admitted. These here have come for many reasons. Some are applicants endlessly waiting to hear whether or not they will be employed. They will never hear a definite yes or no, and the ogre at the reception desk will provide no information of value. They are stuck waiting forever.”
“And the others?” I asked with interest.
“Those others are friends and family members waiting to meet a loved one for lunch or for coffee. However, those for whom they wait will never be able to meet them. They are consumed by their positions at the Damned Company and have lost any sense of time. These people here will wait endlessly for something that will never come to pass.”
I looked around at the faces. Surely someone must have heard Teamwork say that they will be waiting forever, but no one left. They all stood impatiently looking at their watches and tapping their toes just as they had done since I arrived. In fact, no one heard or noticed anything beyond their own situations. It was as if the voice of Teamwork was inaudible to them all.
“A few of those here in limbo are sales professionals who are waiting to see if the Damned Company will purchase their wares. They, also, will continue to wait forever without any answer.”
“If a sales professional has no answer, isn’t that a form of Hell?” I asked with some caution. After all, I wasn’t sure if it was wise to question anything in Hell.
“The forms of Corporate Hell are many,” Teamwork responded politely. “If you would like to journey through them I will go with you and be your guide. The hallways of Hell are dangerous. You will need someone who knows the way to instruct you so that you do not become ensnared, yourself.”
At this point my curiosity had the better of me and I was eager to learn more. Upon reflection I should have thought more carefully, as I had no concept of the horrors I was about to see. Although I am glad of the knowledge I gained from this journey, I don’t know that I will ever be able to purge from my mind any of the nightmarish scenes from Corporate Hell.
“Please show me the way and teach me,” I implored of Teamwork.
“Let us take the elevator to the first level,” he replied. I followed his floating, rippling image towards the polished brass elevator door at the far end of the lobby.
“Teamwork, is the entire Damned Company structured in a circle like the lobby?”
“Yes and No. The lobby is circular to reflect the nature of corporate logic,” he answered. “However, each level of the Damned Company is made to look perfectly square to give the illusion of equality and fairness to those imprisoned. Those inside believe that if the length of their walls are equal that the punishments are also equal.”
“And the punishments are not equal?” I could not hide my surprise.
“Punishments vary in magnitude and are suited to fit the crimes,” Teamwork explained. “Not all sins are alike in terms of the pain and misery caused among coworkers. The most grievous sinners on each floor are punished in the corner offices,” he continued. “I would advise you to stay out of those at all costs. The staff members are not particular about the recipients of punishments. They may easily torture you along with their victims. If you do wander into one of these offices I advise you to hide your integrity at all costs. The corner offices are the most sinister and perilous places for anyone with integrity.”
As the elevator door opened a bell sounded. However, instead of the lighthearted ding of a traditional elevator bell, this was a sonorous funeral chime. I felt my entire skeleton rattling with the noise as I stepped into the elevator. I glanced at the operator but had some trouble focusing on her because she was luminescent and beautiful beyond anything I had ever seen.
“Good afternoon,” I said politely as I squinted in my attempts to look at her. She replied back to me, but just as I could not immediately understand Teamwork when he first appeared I could not make out any discernible words.
“It is always a pleasure to see you,” Teamwork said to the radiant woman. “Honesty, please meet my friend Colleague. Would you mind taking us to the first floor?” Honesty said something in response to Teamwork, but I still could not understand her words, nor could I gaze at her brilliant lips as she was speaking. “No, Honesty. Colleague is not staying. This is just a guest tour.”
My pupils had adjusted to the light of Honesty enough that I could see her hand clearly. It was petite, well-formed, and elegant. I watched her pull down on the brass lever marked “despair” and the elevator door closed. She pushed a button labeled “pains of inconvenience” and to my surprise the elevator ascended. I looked at Teamwork.
“Shouldn’t we be going down?” I asked in confusion. Teamwork chuckled before responding.
“A common mistake,” he answered. “People seem to think that rising higher in an organization is a positive thing. In Corporate Hell, the higher you go the more grievous the sins. In fact, the floors of Hell are organized so that the lesser sins are punished on the lower floors. Those residing on the upper floors have almost no chance of ever being reformed enough to make it back down to the lobby level and over to Corporate Purgatory.” The elevator stopped and Honesty pushed the brass level of despair upwards again to open the door. Teamwork stepped out first and I followed him. I tried to look back at Honesty, but the darkness around me made it even harder for me to look at her.
“Will she come with us?” I asked Teamwork.
“No,” he replied in a serious tone. “Honesty has no place in the hallways of the Damned Company. She will ride up and down the elevator shaft which gives the illusion that she is present, but she can never cross the threshold.”
I watched her light collapse into nothingness as the elevator door closed. I could not see at all when I felt Teamwork grasp my hand and we moved forward into the first level of Corporate Hell.
The stench was overwhelming, but unidentifiable. It contained hints of rancid animal fat, stewed Brussels sprouts, rotting corpse, burnt eggs, and acetone vapors from a nail salon. This is as closely as I can describe it because I have never smelled anything quite like it on earth. It burned each time I inhaled and I covered my nose with my hand. The motion was a reflex, and Teamwork noticed it immediately.
“The more time you spend here the more you will get used to it,” Teamwork stated reassuringly. I could not see clearly in the darkness and aside from a distant lowing sound I noticed little else aside from the stench.
“What is it that terrible smell?” I asked.
“Sin,” he replied gravely, “and failure.” He paused for a moment and then continued. “The stronger the sin or the failure, the more putrid the smell. You will find the odor becoming more dense as we ascend into the higher levels.”
“Is there anything that can be done to protect us from this horrible smell?”
“Unfortunately, the aroma of sin penetrates everything around it. Sin is not particular and has little regard for culpability. The odor attaches to everyone and everything. So when one individual sins or fails, the entire organization reeks like a dung heap. The Damned Company contains the stench of sin and failure from thousands and thousands of organizations.”
“So I’m going to smell like this place when I leave here?” I was terrified. There was no telling how long the scent would stay with me.
“Not if you use the Outplacement Services correctly,” Teamwork assured me. “They will make your transition to the mortal world smooth and leave no trace of the horrors you leave behind.” I made a mental note to remember the Outplacement Services when the time came for it. Without this assistance I would surely be ruined both personally and professionally.
Teamwork handed me a perfume sprayer. I must add here that I’m not sure from where he retrieved it. One of the things I never quite understood about Teamwork was the way that he continually, and often unexpectedly, met my needs and made the journey more pleasant than it otherwise would have been.
“What is this?” I asked as I attempted to read the label, which appeared to be written in a strange script.
“It may help you to cope with the smell,” he replied. “It won’t actually get rid of it, but it will provide the illusion that it has vanished.”
I eagerly misted the liquid all over myself from head to toe. As I stood in the darkness feeling quite damp I tried again to read the label. The letters were now clear. In neatly typed block letters the label read “Temporary Success.” When I attempted to give the bottle back to Teamwork, he told me to keep it.
“You may need it more often than you realize,” he assured me. “How are your eyes adjusting?” he then inquired. I looked around briefly. Thanks to the misting of Temporary Success I was impervious to the stench around me, and I could concentrate on the visual spectacle before me.
“My eyes are adjusting. I am beginning to see a bit,” I answered. He nodded as he took my hand and led me forward. The firm hand of Teamwork was reassuring in such a dark place.
I concentrated on the sights and tried to make out the shapes of the obscure figures in front of me. The more I stared, the more accustomed to the darkness I became. I could see that we were in some type of office with rows of cubicles that extended into infinity. Unidentifiable vermin were swarming everywhere, but none would pause long enough for me to focus on any shapes. The dim lighting had the unexplainable ability to cast large shadows that swept across every surface, and there was the illusion of darkness upon darkness.
The distant lowing I had first heard was becoming slightly louder, and I began to notice it was coming from multiple sources, like a herd of cows. I was wondering which of the vermin made this noise when I noticed a series of popping sounds that caught my attention. It was the static, hissing sound of thousands of bug zappers working on a swarm of insects.
I turned towards one of the sources of the frantic noise to see a woman with a large aluminum tennis racket standing in a cubicle. The woman spent most of her time desperately swinging the racket at lightning bolts that rushed towards her from every direction.
I looked up at the source of these lightning bolts to see several well-dressed men sitting elegantly along the top of the cube walls. They were gaily popping the lightning bolts into the air and serving them towards this woman at incredible speed. To further complicate her situation, more than one server would launch at the same time. It was an unevenly matched tennis game that hardly seemed fair. However, while the woman was frantic, these gentlemen seemed to be having a wonderful time.
“Who are these happy men?” I inquired of Teamwork.
“Those are not men at all. They are demons.”
“I had no idea that demons dressed so well,” I commented with astonishment. I admit that I had the tendency to think of demons as men in little red suits with pointed tails.
“Demons can take many forms. They can appear as male or female and always dress appropriately for the occasion.” Teamwork explained further, “In fact, I have found most demons to be quite vain.”
I gazed again at the unfortunate woman who was forced to play this unholy game of tennis. If she didn’t hit the bolt hard enough to make it over the side of her cubicle, the bolt would circle around and attack her again. Any of the bolts that she could not successfully deflect with the racket would sting her and she would scream each time. As the lightning touched her bare skin, words would be momentarily seared into her flesh as if a red-hot iron had branded her. I watched the words scab over and then fade away.
“The mail!” she cried as tears poured from her eyes. “The mail - it hurts!” It was obvious to me that she could not pause in her defense to speak to me, so I posed my questions to Teamwork.
“Why is she being attacked by lightning?”
“That isn’t lightning. It is email. She is being punished for the sin of not returning emails,” he explained. “Those who failed to return emails during their earthly lives must spend eternity learning how to return email messages promptly.”
I was appalled at the magnitude of the punishment for what seemed to be an insignificant crime. After all, most of us have forgotten to return an email once or twice. “It looks very painful,” I commented.
“It is,” Teamwork agreed wholeheartedly, “Yet it is no more painful than the hardship she caused those who were waiting for her to respond to their emails. Some lacked information that she could have easily supplied and as a result decisions were delayed or poor decisions were made based on incomplete information. Other individuals were unable to perform their job duties to their maximum potential and were not given appropriate raises or advancement. Her negligence cost those she ignored their careers and livelihood because she felt that she was too busy or too important to return an email. Now she has no choice but to return emails for all of eternity.”
I watched the woman frantically swatting the racket in every direction. She appeared to be exhausted, but she didn’t dare rest.
“Don’t you burn me!” she screamed at the flashes of light shooting towards her. As she closed her mouth an email landed on her lips and seared its message into them.
All I could read was the bold font “must be done by Friday” before she twisted in agony and turned away from us.
Teamwork led me farther into the rows of cubicles. We walked past numerous individuals returning emails with their tennis rackets and screaming uncontrollably whenever they missed one and it burned a message into their flesh. These temporary tattoos left me with the queasiest feeling. Eventually we moved beyond the email attacks and into a row of cubicles where everyone was covered up to the top of their heads in what looked like translucent, gelatin blocks. Once again there were well-dressed demons sitting along the top edge of the cubicles. These demons were conjuring the gelatin blocks from nowhere and listlessly dropping them on top of the victims’ heads. The blocks were about the size of a piece of paper, but much thicker in depth. The gelatin substance was accumulating inside the cubicles and filling every inch of space. I watched people bobbing up above the blocks long enough to gasp for breath and then sink down miserably into the murky chunks.
“Is there something in those gelatin cubes that is making those people sick?” I asked. My first thought was that these individuals were being punished for doing Jell-o shots at work. I wondered if the blocks of gelatin that covered them were so full of alcohol that they were being poisoned by their chosen method of pleasure.
“Those are not gelatin cubes,” Teamwork corrected me, as he often did. “Those are emails.”
“Emails?”
“Yes. We are still in Email Hell.”
“But I thought the lightning bolts were emails.” As I was voicing my confusion, a group of demons stretched out a large gelatin email blanket and guided its descent over the top of one of the cubicles. The victim was tightly sealed into the sea of emails and was clearly suffocating. I studied the blanket carefully to see the translucent writing across the surface. After some concentration I finally made out the text. It read: You have exceeded your limit and your mailbox is full.
“Emails take many forms in the afterlife,” Teamwork explained patiently as we watched the individual in front of us take his last breath. “These individuals are being punished for flooding others with needless and senseless emails. As a result, they are suffocating and drowning in their own email messages. Once they have died of email asphyxiation, they are regenerated and the slow torture of drowning begins again. The cycle has no end.”
“They actually die?” I was partially amazed and partially horrified. “How can this be?”
“These people do not pass from life into death and are not born from a mother. They are passing from one burden to the next and are born from the wasted time that can no longer be retrieved. It’s a very painful process.” He paused as a nearby victim screamed promises never to thoughtlessly forward emails again. “Being born in Hell is infinitely more painful than being born on earth,” Teamwork continued once the screaming faded. “That’s why so many of them struggle to stay alive under the pressure of the email. When you’re born again in Hell you experience the pain of 1,000 kidney stones passing simultaneously. It lasts for hours and only ceases when the migraine and hemorrhoid phase kicks in. Anyone in this circle of Hell would be wise to avoid dying as much as possible.”
“Migraine and hemorrhoid phase?”
“Demons view simultaneous torture at both ends as a form of poetry. In fact, the demons take pride in their ability to create hemorrhoids. Each one has a signature method.”
I was dumbfounded. As I began to ponder this awful form of poetry, I was abruptly brought back to the situation by the gruesome, howling noise of another email death. As the victim succumbed to email asphyxiation I couldn’t help listening to the haunting cries for mercy. “I will eat Spam and not send it!” he cried desperately. “I’ll think before I send! Please - don’t let me be born here again!” His last kick into the gelatinous chunks pushed his head up against the sealing blanket, but then he fell below the surface. When his head appeared again a short time later he was begging for more headaches and fewer hemorrhoids.”
“Demons never bargain,” Teamwork sighed. “So, if you ever think that one is willing to do so, my advice is to flee as quickly as possible.” With that bit of wisdom we moved on.
The sins of email are many and we passed by them all. I watched the flames of abusive and emotionally charged emails burning but never consuming their victims. I watched blocks of capital letters screaming into the ears of those who always typed in capitals. I stared in horror as long emails slowly grew and crushed their victims underneath their weight. Still others in Email Hell were cursed into pulling cumbersome attachments across the floor only to have more attachments added to their burden and their journey increased. I made my way through the chaos of recalled messages chasing down the senders who were fleeing in terror. One of the most gruesome things I saw in that place was someone being tickled to death by emoticons. I am now sometimes afraid of going to bed at night for fear that I will dream about the man’s face as he expired under the terror inflicted by that little yellow smiley face.
Email Hell is a vast cavern of pain. So much was there to see that my ability to recall the horrifying events of that place may be called into question. However, I consider it a blessing if I have actually forgotten anything that I saw.
We arrived back at the elevator and I was never so glad to see the light of Honesty than at this moment. As the brass elevator doors spread wide and Honesty illuminated the corridor, I inhaled her warmth deeply. It was quite a refreshing change from my recent experience.
Chapter Three ~ Meeting Hell and the Journey to Get There
Teamwork conversed with Honesty on our short ride between the two floors. I confess that I had yet to hear her voice clearly, but certain words were beginning to sound familiar to me. In addition, by shading my eyes slightly I was able to gaze upon more of her arm as she moved the lever of despair. I could only see the sleeve of her gown, but it was elegant, to say the least.
When we landed on the second floor and Teamwork said goodbye to Honesty, I once again watched her light fade with the closing of the elevator doors. I looked around and it appeared that no one else noticed the brilliance of the light that had faded.
“Do they miss Honesty when she leaves?” I asked Teamwork, “In such a dismal place I should think they would be grateful for any glimpse of her brilliant light.”
“They neither see nor recognize Honesty when she appears to them,” Teamwork replied. “It’s often as if she didn’t exist here at all.”
“It does seem odd to have Honesty in Hell,” I admitted as I thought about it.
“But her light is the only thing that will allow the employees to see themselves clearly in the mirror of reflection and bring repentance. Without repentance no one can have any hope of moving from one of the higher floors to the lower floors or even to be transferred to Corporate Purgatory.”
“That does make sense,” I agreed once he had explained this to me.
As we began making our way from the elevators we soon came across what appeared to be a hostage situation. Demons dressed in fatigues were running back and forth in front of a door, pausing only long enough to hiss into the walkie-talkies they carried with them. Through a small window I could see the faces of panicked individuals screaming for a pen or anything with which to write.
“Why are they so desperate for a writing utensil?” I asked Teamwork as he moved me along.
“The individuals trapped in the kitchen are being held hostage until they purchase fundraising items from the demons. These fundraisers are for many worthy causes, such as the Damned Company Youth Orchestra, the Demon Scouts of Greater Hell and its Subsidiaries, Hellish Anti-charities, The De-salvation Marines, Animosity International...” He continued to list the worthy causes for quite some time when I finally interrupted him.
“But why are those people being held hostage?”
“Because when they were on earth they pressured their coworkers into supporting their own causes and fundraising efforts. Now they are hostages of fundraising without any hope of release. They can never agree to purchase anything that the Demons are selling. Every time these prisoners grasp onto a writing utensil to sign the agreement, the utensil suddenly melts in their hands. They are trapped and have no means to bargain for their release.”
“If these individuals are being held hostage in the kitchen, where are those who committed sins related to the kitchen? Those who drank the last of the coffee without making a new pot or those who made messes or left dirty dishes in the sink?” I asked Teamwork as he pushed me along.
“In the pigsty of course,” he answered, as if it should be obvious.
“Are we going there?”
“Of course not. You’re having enough trouble with the stench in here. I wouldn’t dream of taking you to the pigsty. It will be bad enough when you see the policy makers.” He paused to look at me with concern. “I’m not sure that you could survive the trip to the pigsty.” We hurried past the kitchen and I tried not to look back. “How are you doing? Do you need to refresh yourself with some Temporary Success?” My nose was becoming more sensitive again, so I nodded as I atomized myself. Considering how long I had already been in the Damned Company, I was pleasantly surprised at the effectiveness of Temporary Success. I highly recommend it.
Just as we began walking, I once again heard the ominous lowing sounds. I strained to see from where it was coming, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
“The sound,” I said as I motioned my hand slowly through the air all around me. “I have been hearing it everywhere since we arrived on this floor. What is making that wretched lowing?”
“What you are hearing are the souls of those who treated employees like cattle by packing them into close quarters and small cubicles.”
“What is the purpose of the noise?”
“They are attempting to talk. However, since they treated people like cattle during life, they are doomed to walk and talk like cattle in the afterlife. They groan and moo and never understand why no one follows their directions.” I accepted the explanation, but I felt that there was something more to these haunting sounds. This was beyond ordinary mooing.
“Is that anger I hear in their tone? It sounds dreadful.”
“Sarcasm,” Teamwork explained. “Neither in life nor in death did they know how to appropriately express their frustration, and they are doomed to roam eternally as sarcastic cows.”
It gave me a chill. Cows, as you may already know, do not express sarcasm well. Their sarcastic intonation gives one the impression that they are in pain. Since I had known many individuals who were otherwise very fine people but who had treated others like cattle during my earthly life, this was disconcerting for me. After all, space limitations are a common enough issue with growing corporations. I could hardly see the reason for punishing those whose occupation requires them to stuff people into cubicles like sardines in a can of oil.
We walked through endless rows of cubes. I watched demons hovering above the cubicles play a whacking game whenever a victim stood up. It reminded me of the arcade game called “Smack a Mole” where moles randomly pop out of different holes and the object is to hammer the mole back down as quickly as possible.
“On earth these people could not remain sitting still for very long and often wandered the office hallways looking for others with whom to engage in conversation,” Teamwork explained when I asked about it. “They lacked the ability to stay focused on their own work for any length of time. Now they are forced to remain in their own cubicles or the demons will slap them down with the Hammer of Self Control.”
After what seemed like ten or fifteen minutes, we arrived at a series of conference rooms. Teamwork did not hesitate at the door and we entered immediately. Several individuals looked up with undisguised hope as we appeared, but Teamwork shook his head to indicate that we were not there to rescue anyone.
I looked around the long oval table at the faces of the men and women seated there. Across the length of the table a huge feast was spread, containing everything I could image. The meats included roast beef, roast duck, fried chicken, and fish of every kind. There were salads, breads, fruits and vegetables covering all the remaining space. Along the walls there were tables piled with a plethora of desserts: custards, puddings, trifle, cakes, pies, tarts, candies, and cookies of various kinds. This was no small feast, yet no one was eating. At the front of the room next to a flip chart was an opera singer belting out an off key aria.
“Aside from the quality of the singing, this hardly looks like Hell,” I remarked in amazement. “The meal looks fabulous!”
“It would be quite delightful if you enjoyed the singing because the more you eat the longer the solo will last.” With that explanation I suddenly understood why no one was enjoying the feast, although everyone at the table appeared to be hungry.
“How trying,” I remarked aloud. “What sins brought these people here?”
“These people scheduled long meetings without purpose,” Teamwork replied. “They forced their coworkers to attend meetings for the sake of meeting, and with no greater purpose than to be the star of the show and have a captive audience. Their punishment is now to sit in front of equally tiring entertainment.”
“Does the singer ever stop?”
“Yes. Only when the poetry readings begin. Most demons are amateur poets and love to recite. You will also find their Hellish Haiku posted on the walls throughout the Damned Company.”
“Demonic poetry?”
“Yes, but I don’t recommend their work.” As Teamwork stopped speaking I recalled what he had said about the demons creating hemorrhoids as a form of poetry.
“I shall try to avoid it,” I assured him. “And were these individuals managers?”
“Many of them were project managers, but the others come from a variety of occupations. During their earthly lives they scheduled frequent and lengthy meetings to keep projects on task, and at the same time they viewed themselves as the star of the show,” Teamwork replied. “And while a little meeting time is a good thing, too much can poison the work environment like a bad opera singer who can’t leave the stage.”
Teamwork led me from this meeting room into another one. My ears were grateful for the silence when the door of the first meeting room closed. As Teamwork opened the next door I saw a vast expanse of graveyard with conference tables scattered throughout the grassy areas. The conference tables were empty and surrounded only by chairs. Across the lawn the tombstones were elegantly carved with pictures or statues and they were arranged in neatly spaced rows.
The place reminded me of the European graveyards with paved walking areas and a park atmosphere. It was well tended, as I could see by the hundreds of caretakers who were raking leaves, weeding flowerbeds, and cleaning the gravestones. I saw what appeared to be a small herb garden along one the paths.
“What are those herbs?” I asked.
“Fallacy Weed,” he replied. “Meetings have the perfect soil for cultivating them. The reinterpretation of meeting events is a great fertilizer, so the plants continue grow quite large even after the meeting ends. When the plants get to an appropriate size, the seeds are harvested and sewn in earthly corporations.” I nodded and then took another look around. I appreciated the beautiful scenery and quiet atmosphere of the place.
“What a well manicured graveyard,” I remarked in admiration. “I might enjoy spending a little time here to relax.”
“Indeed, it is very carefully groomed since those who buried these ideas are forced to tend the graves they created.”
“Ideas?” I looked more closely at the gravestones. Rather than names, the stones read such things as “provide headphones instead of white noise” and “training seminars with a free lunch” and “outsource billing operations.” Underneath each one of these titles was the name of a corporation and a date.
“We are in the graveyard of buried ideas. These are the ideas that were suggested during meetings but were ignored or never investigated fully to determine actual feasibility. Some of these ideas were good and some were not, but none were given a chance before someone buried them just long enough for them to die. Now they rest peacefully here.”
On the far side of the lawn a gathering was taking place. Teamwork and I stood there solemnly and watched the funeral procession of a newly deceased idea. There was a lot of ceremony, although I’m not sure that I understood it all. The flip charts explaining the idea were carefully folded into a triangular pattern before being placed upon the lower end of the coffin. Next, an official wearing white gloves took a memory stick and loaded upon it a slideshow spelling out potential savings and expected revenue. The official burned the memory stick, placing the ashes on the opposite end of the coffin from the folded flip chart. After this ritual was complete, one of the caretakers slowly dug the grave into which the idea was lowered. It was a perfect rectangle.
“How long will these caretakers stay here?” I asked.
“Until they actually dig up one of the ideas they buried to give it full consideration,” Teamwork replied. “Those who fail to contemplate the merits of buried ideas are doomed to tend to the grave of their creation. In one way or another, these individuals must acknowledge what they had forsaken.”
“What a sad way to go.” I confess that I wasn’t sure whether I was talking about the buried ideas or about the caretakers doomed to tend the graves for all eternity.
We left the cemetery and went into the next conference room. As he opened the door he cautioned me to brace myself for what I was about to see. However, no matter how much Teamwork cautioned, the Damned Company never ceased to surprise me. This occasion was no different.
My view of this room was brief, but I’m attempting to sketch it as closely as possible so that you can gain an adequate understanding of the grotesque spectacle I saw there. The conference table was in the center of a very large room surrounded by what I can only describe as total meeting disorder. Crying babies screamed phrases such as “I make pee pee!” as they smeared their excrement across the table and fixtures. Cats were crawling everywhere, stopping only long enough to fight amongst themselves or claw the furniture. Intoxicated teenagers were shouting lewd comments at the speaker while two aggressive men dressed in leather from head to toe fired up their motorcycles to begin a race around the conference table. What looked to be several hockey teams were fighting in the far corner. Blood was everywhere. A woman at the front of the conference room stood next to a projector screaming in a frantic tone, “I need everyone’s attention right now! We are off-task! Let’s not forget the agenda!” “This is where we put the taskmasters who rigidly followed protocol,” Teamwork explained before he quickly shut the door. “Chaos is highly contagious, so it’s best if we don’t spend much time inside the room.”
Other conference rooms contained individuals who could no longer voice their own opinions, since they had spent their entire earthly lives trying to sway meetings towards a particular decision. While these people wanted to disagree with a comment or decision, all that would come out of their mouths were phrases such as “I completely agree” and “You could not be more right!” Demons stood by calmly insulting these individuals who had no choice but to pleasantly agree to the Demons’ abuse and accusations.
I also witnessed what appeared to be some type of Voodoo ritual in one of the meeting rooms. The scene was gruesome and I’m fairly certain that there was a sacrifice. The room was dark, lit only by candles, so I couldn’t see well. In fact, I’m glad that my vision was obscured because I’m afraid of the horrors that were taking place there. When I asked Teamwork about it later he told me that it was a strategic Sales and Marketing meeting.
In still more conference rooms individuals were turned into speakerphones and could only broadcast the words of others. They would grab at their own tongues in frustration when they opened their mouths to speak and the thoughts of others came from their lips. I also saw meetings where the equipment would fail at critical moments to punish those who had preferred technology over human contact. In these cases the projector or copier would scream out for a hug and demand affection before moving onward. One fax machine demanded to be taken to dinner in an expensive restaurant as well as to a movie before delivering a mission critical fax. “You don’t love me!” The fax machine wept, “You only love the things I give you. I feel so cheap!” It gave me chills to see it.
The worst thing I saw in Meeting Hell was also the last thing that I saw there. The room was darker than the parts of Hell I had seen up to this point. It was a very quiet room where every whisper echoed and distorted into a mangled haunting chant. Teamwork pressed me up against the wall as dark, slimy creatures oozed across the floor around our feet. The black slime would spin itself up into tall, willowy fingers that groped around the room. With the aid of Teamwork, I eventually left this room untouched.
“What are they?” I asked Teamwork as I listened to the mangled echo haphazardly bounce across the room.
“Liquid negativity. These are all the negative and snide remarks that these individuals made during meetings. Each individual here is hunted by a monster of his own creation. The demons save these remarks in filing cabinets down in the boiler room. Over time all the negative remarks a person has made melt together into a liquid monster that will seek to consume and destroy its creator.”
Teamwork stopped talking as I watched one of the victims in this conference room trying to escape the touch of a monster. “You would need to pay someone to buy that,” the monster whispered to the victim in that haunting echo. I watched the slimy fingers stretch higher and grope towards the victim’s head as the victim let out a small giggle.
“I never said that,” the victim announced in triumph as her giggle turned into the laughter of a madman. “You’re not my monster. You can’t hurt me!” The victim laughed the whole time that the monster consumed her, but maybe I mistook crying for laughter. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference in the Damned Company.
“They never remember what they said,” Teamwork sighed as he led me out of the room.
“Has she been released from the torment?” I asked hopefully.
“Hardly. She will pass through the monster’s system and will come out the other end. I assure you, when she returns to the room she will not be laughing like this until she loses her sanity again. The monster always takes the sanity first because it magnifies the torture that is to follow. Negativity never gives up: it seeks until it destroys.”
To this day I have trouble whenever I’m in dimly lit rooms that echo. Subways and public restrooms often bring back these memories quite vividly. I try to avoid them at all costs.
Chapter Four ~ Sins of Organizational Structure and Silos
When the doors opened I looked out to see a long, forbidding hallway, and I was fearful about leaving the elevator. It reminded me of the kind of hallways in nightmares that seem to continually stretch and expand as the person is running down it to escape something horrible. There was no lobby or entryway on this floor, only this extensive, dark tunnel. As we stepped out of the elevator, Teamwork pulled a lantern from his cloak. He turned to me and said, “Welcome to the third floor, the hellish home of Silos and Organizational Structure.”
Fighting claustrophobia, I strained my eyes to look around. As I took a few steps forward I felt something scratch my arm. It was a branch from one of the tall hedges that made up the walls on this floor. They were thick, overgrown, and comprised of a type of thorny shrubbery unknown to me. They had branches that reached almost to the ceiling that were covered with fat, thorny leaves. Something resembling sausages hung from the branches every ten or twenty feet. I couldn’t tell if these sausages were growing on the bushes or if someone had placed them there as ornaments. The leaves on the shrubs were so dense that it was nearly impossible to see between them at all. If the sun had been shining on the other side, I would not have been able to see it.
“How on earth did these hedges get here? How did they grow?” I asked Teamwork.
“Well,” he replied with a knowing chuckle, “remember that we’re not on earth. We’re in Hell. Things are very different here.” As he spoke these words I had a sudden insight. I recalled a trip I had taken to visit the great palaces of Europe.
“Is this a maze?” I guessed aloud.
“Yes, of course,” he replied. With this realization, a new fear gripped me and I didn’t want to move. While I was no expert, I had read enough classic literature to know that the center of the labyrinth is not always paradise.
“If this is a maze, how will we be able to find our way successfully through?” I asked with apprehension.
“Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly, “I’ll lead the way. Just remember to stay in the center of the path.” We took a few steps forward when he paused again. “Ignore the posted organizational charts,” he added. “They’re worthless, and they won’t lead you out of the maze. They only lead to more silos. Follow me please.”
We began to walk down the maze corridors. I thought I saw one of the sausages blink as I walked past, but I quickly decided it was my imagination. I looked down at the floor often to make sure that I was on the path that Teamwork had spoken about. I was surprised at the things I saw on the floor there. Most surprising to me was that there in the middle of the dirty industrial carpeting and overgrown hedges was a well-manicured trail. The thick grass felt like a soft, silk carpet under my feet. The path was neatly trimmed with a border of perfectly placed stones, polished to look like river rocks. In-between the rocks and the grass was a parallel border of small blue flowers that reminded me of blooming flock in spring. It was all perfectly manicured like something in a fairy tale. “Someone went through a lot of trouble to create this path,” I commented.
“Indeed,” Teamwork replied. “It’s the Mission Statement.”
“You mean we’re walking on the Mission Statement?” I could not conceal my amazement.
“Why are you surprised? All companies have a mission statement. The Damned Company is no different. In the beginning, most companies take great care and pride in their mission statement. However, as time passes, companies lose the momentum to maintain the Mission Statement, and different parts of the organization begin putting more work into their own departments or silos. After a while, they completely lose sight of the mission statement. You will begin to see this neglect as we progress through the maze.” We walked a bit further before Teamwork stopped again. “I must warn you,” he cautioned, “as we get further and further into the maze, demons may try to talk you into entering their silos. Don’t do it. They will make it seem as if walking off the path is the easiest, but that’s exactly how people get trapped in the maze forever.” I wondered how bad a silo could be. After all, silos are useful for farmers storing grain.
“If all you need to do is follow the Mission Statement to get out of the silos, then why don’t people go back to it in order to find their way out?” I asked.
“Once people are in silos the Mission Statement disappears from view, and prisoners only see the paths within their cells. This is the real danger: silos have a blinding effect. Silos only value themselves and the work they do, and they fail to see the contributions of others in the Damned Company. Each silo believes their work is the most important and that the company could not exist with out them.” Teamwork paused to hold the lantern close to my face as he studied my expression. The air seemed colder as he looked at me earnestly and said, “Colleague, this is very important.” I nodded to indicate that I was listening closely. “If you lose sight of the Mission Statement and you become lost in the maze, it will be nearly impossible to find your way out. Once a person is lost, every way that seems right to the person will only lead the individual back into the silo from which they came. It is the paradox of Silo Logic.”
He lowered the lantern and we walked along in silence for a bit. There were a few turns, but we came across no dead ends like you would normally find in a garden maze. Strangely, I also noticed that there were occasional signs marking the way. These signs read things like Success this way and Larger Profit Margins Ahead. As we turned a corner I saw another sausage blink, and I couldn’t help being startled. I took a step backwards and Teamwork paused with me.
“It blinked!” I exclaimed. “It has eyes!”
“Of course it does. That’s a sausage silo.”
“A what?” The words sounded ridiculous to me.
“It’s a sausage silo,” Teamwork repeated and then continued to explain. “Occasionally there are individuals who not only think that their department is the most important in the organization; they believe that their job is more important than all other jobs. Those people develop an individual silo. When they die, they are encased within their own exaggerated sense of self worth and hung up here in the maze. A silo of one is known as a sausage silo because the souls trapped inside their self-absorbed egos look like sausages. Have you noticed a faint resemblance?” he asked.
The truth was the silo looked so much like an authentic sausage that I took it for one. What I had thought would make a nice sandwich turned out to be someone else’s self-absorption. It was frightening to consider. “Yes, I have noticed the similarity,” I replied politely, not wanting to admit my mistake. After this discussion we continued along the path in silence. As we walked deeper into the maze the small flowers bordering the path had become much larger. They were billowing over the stones like little brilliant blue clouds that had settled from a pleasant sky.
“These flowers are beautiful,” I remarked with an appreciative tone.
“They are called Accomplishment,” Teamwork informed me. “They smell like Honeysuckle.” As I looked at him I noticed that he appeared more solid than before. I had the feeling he was less transparent as we walked on the Mission Statement and this, for some reason, warmed me. It was a very secure feeling. I was still admiring the solidity of his form when he paused at a lovely row of red flowers that resembled roses. “This flower is called “Hard Work,” he said with a smile. “And over there,” he said while pointing to yellow flowers favoring lilies, “is Recognition. When these are grown together they create the smell of Success.”
I glanced around at the beautiful colors that grew in this darkness and the floor didn’t seem like Hell at all. It was like an English garden at a country estate.
“I still don’t understand. This path is so clearly marked and the road is beautiful. How do people get lost?” I inquired. As he reflected on my question, Teamwork’s expression became more somber.
“When the Mission Statement isn’t well maintained, the Weeds of Destruction grow and the Bugs of Discontentment devour all the blooms,” Teamwork explained thoughtfully. “It’s a lot of work to maintain the Mission Statement. While many can build the path, not many are able to maintain it. It often happens that the Underachiever Weed starts taking over the Hard Work flowerbeds. The Resentment Beetle starts eating the blooms off the Recognition flowers. Not to mention the swarm of Busybody Bees that are always attracted to the sweet smell of Success. Pests are always drawn to Success.” As he spoke his face looked somewhat pained. It was as if Teamwork remembered some past regret, but he suddenly came to himself and added sternly, “Those bees have quite a sting, you know.”
He was admiring the flowers again when something in the garden caught his attention. “Look over here, do you see that?” he asked as he pointed. I looked down at a group of Accomplishment flowers and in the center of the bed was a hideous yellow pompon flower that looked like a Dandelion on steroids. I leaned down to take a closer look when Teamwork yelled, “Don’t!”
But it was too late. As soon as I got a whiff of the flower, I fell backwards off the Mission Statement and onto the filthy industrial carpeting. The smell of rancid meat and human waste seemed to be clinging to the air around me. I was alternating between gagging and dry heaving from the waves of nausea rolling over my body. First, I covered my nose and mouth with my hand, afraid of vomiting at any moment. Then I broke out in a cold sweat and for several moments I laid there on the carpet with my eyes shut trying to breathe without inhaling the stench.
Slowly the nausea subsided, and while I felt weak and shaken, I otherwise seemed to be okay. My relief was short-lived, however, because when I finally opened my eyes everything was dark. I began to panic. I was surrounded in blackness with no sign of Teamwork’s lantern.
I looked in every direction, but I could not see so much as a shadow. I frantically crawled on the floor moving my hands across the small, hard loops of the carpet attempting to grope my way towards the Mission Statement. As I fumbled around in my blindness Teamwork’s words began to haunt me.
“Colleague, this is very important, if a person loses sight of the Mission Statement the person will become lost in the maze and it is nearly impossible to find the way out again.”
I crawled in every direction looking for the Mission Statement, but I could only feel the industrial carpeting. I realized if I kept moving about in the dark, I was going to become even more and more lost, so I stopped. I tried to think rationally, but I wondered if Silo Logic was affecting me. I determined that using reason would be my only hope. In order to ground my thoughts, I reviewed everything that Teamwork had said. The more I thought about his words, the more I understood that I couldn’t find the Mission Statement by myself.
“Teamwork!” I called into the emptiness around me. “Teamwork, please help me!”
I sat for what seemed like hours with my knees tucked into my chest. Every few moments I would again call out for Teamwork and hope. I tried to concentrate on what I had learned in business school, but I realized that I had been arrogant. The sweet smell of Success had given me a sense of invincibility. I felt very ashamed as I sat alone in the darkness and realized my vulnerability to all the trappings of the Damned Company.
I can’t say exactly how long I was there because I had no sense of time. When I finally saw the first glimmer of that soft glow coming towards me, I felt relief. The ball of light grew larger as it came near and I thought that I recognized my companion’s face.
“Teamwork!? Is that you?” I shouted hopefully.
“Yes.” His voice was faint. As he drew closer to me I saw that he had become translucent again, like a vapor, and I could see right through him.
“Oh, thank goodness! I thought I lost you!” I exclaimed.
“Colleague, are you okay? Can you stand?” His voice radiated with warm concern.