The Hungry Ghost

I need a vacation.

Running a vast, global empire is taxing. All of my peers – Martha Stewart, H. Lee Scott, Jr., Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Dick Cheney, just to name a few, take vacations. The task of keeping track of new team members, all of which I personally welcome to the company, wears me out. In the last year alone, I have nearly tripled the workforce and word from H.R. is that I should expect unprecedented growth in the coming years. Currently I employ and look after a whopping three billion souls, so trust me when I tell you, there are a lot of crappy resumes I have to read. Oh, I need a vacation!

Before I start my pity-party, let me first give you a little history. My name is Luc, and my company is, as I have previously mentioned, a vast and rapidly growing global empire, of which I am proud to say I am the sole owner. I started my business after disagreement with my former employer, and with few exceptions, my business has outpaced and even surpassed his. Sadly, he and his employees do not welcome my success, and they spend copious amounts of time and money spreading vicious rumors and malicious disinformation about my operations and me in particular.

Now, as I said, there was a falling out. I acted badly, he yelled, I quit, he said I was fired – everybody experiences this at least once in their life. I thought that was the end of the story, but NO! He had to go and get all juvenile on me. I hadn’t expected him to be so vengeful — he claims, publicly, to be the forgiving sort. Oh, was I wrong! To understand how betrayed I felt, you must first know that I am a sensitive guy, always giving, expecting little in return – I wear my heart on my sleeve. Trust me, the badmouthing hurt at first, I mean it cut into me and it hurt like hell. I internalized everything, took it personally. At first, I was afraid. I was petrified. I kept thinking I could never live without him by my side. But, I spent so many nights thinking how he did me wrong. And I grew strong. And I learned how to get along. Now, years later and after much therapy, I have learned to take the barbs in stride, using what I can to my advantage and ignoring what I can’t. I am not bitter… most of the time.

Before I was able to find inner-peace, I succumbed to the negative pressure and I agreed to allow a visitor in for a tour. He was chosen from a lottery and it was my hope that he would see that things were not really so bad. In fact, I had anticipated that he would become a champion for my cause and help dispel the rumors. Unfortunately, it was a PR blunder.

First, I foolishly allowed a new-hire to host the tour. (Poor Virgil, he never quite recovered and still blames himself to this day.) Second, I had not counted on a few bad-apple team members to taint the barrel; complaining, wailing, and moaning, “The hours are too long,” “It is too hot in here!” “It is too cold down here!” “The ventilation is poor.” Bla Bla Bla. The whole incident tarnished my image further, cost me millions in lost revenue, and forced me to make labor concessions – like implementing a break policy for senior staff and increasing the ‘private’ spaces in H.R. But, I like to think I learn from my mistakes and since then, I no longer allow guest visitors, especially writers. Those people are bad news and besides, we have enough of them on staff already. I digress.

Now, because of my blunder, you may already be familiar with my companies and what we do, but allow me to refresh your memory. The name of my Company is Inferno Enterprises, LLC, and I split up the business as follows: the parent LLC, an offshore Corporation, and 10 upper-level divisions. Each division is a separate company, with separate missions, policies and products and all report directly to me. To help make things simple for you, I have included a high-level flow chart below, which should enable you to visualize how everything is organized.

(Note: The call center is outsourced and reports to Limbo Enterprises. We find this helps drive down costs while maintaining maximum hold times.)

At first glance, you might think that everything is easy; unfortunately, nothing ever is. For liability purposes, (I employ more than 500 million lawyers) and tax reasons, (300 million accountants) several of the companies have lower division companies reporting to them. Malebolge, Inc for example, has 10 such companies and nearly 1 billion team members. Minotaur Recruiting has three and is charged with the monumental task of ensuring the boiling blood in the River Phlegethon doesn’t clot. At least twice a century this happens and it can take millions of staff weeks to clean it out, creating a logjam of souls all the way down to Purgatory Resorts. It is all so exhausting.

Today started off badly. I know, I am the boss and I make millions, but humor me here. The idiots in H.R. went on a recruiting mission to Hollywood a few years back and hired far too many Flatterers. Now, because of poor planning and failure to follow the business plan, we have a shortage of shit for them to wallow in. This is causing a revolt with our existing team members and now I must temporarily move many of the new-hires to Cocytus, Inc. so they can chill out in the frozen lake until we can negotiate a better price from our shit suppliers. Were you aware that the cost of human excrement has increased 200% in the last decade? I just found out and I am not one bit pleased. It is called forecasting and hedging folks – how many times must I repeat myself!

OY!

Shortly after hearing of the shit shortage, a news article came across my desk. Below are a few variations of a lead story that caught my attention:

Vatican panel condemns limbo to eternal dustbin: An advisory study, approved by the pope, concludes that unbaptized babies may go to heaven after all. –Los Angeles Times

Closing the doors of limbo: Theologians say it was hypothesis – Catholic News Source

World Briefing │ Europe: Vatican City: Pope Benedict XVI Closes Limbo – New York Times

What the hell! A hypothesis? Somebody forgot to include me on that memo! To say that I am livid is an understatement. I am – *this* — close to unleashing a swarm of locusts on all of Rome – or better yet, an earthquake. Center, find yourself – breathe. I must not allow myself to play into their hands. I’ll be back to explain my position later – I need to schedule time with my yogi. I need to calm down before my acid reflux kicks in.

Copyright© 2007 Mark B. Papale All rights reserved