n'est pas

Mark's latest out-of-office autoreply:

I�ll be in Southeast Asia dealing with my garment factories.

It would seem that my half-brother Nguyet Billows (same father different mother) has let the family garment factories miss their quotas for the third straight quarter and it is time for me to throw my weight around. It appears the workers in my factories have been goofing off like children rather than working like them. The person I blame for this ordeal is the head foreman Binh Hai. It is his negligence that has let my factories dissolve into a large pile of manure that poses as a factory making shirts, but instead only makes more piles of manure with Hilfiger labels on them. I would expect this kind of carelessness from a five year old, but Binh Hai is almost ten. What is doubly disappointing is that he has been employed at my factory since the age of four: his nimble Laotian hands making everything from Air Jordan sneakers to Gap cotton chinos. But an example must be made. He�s going to have to go.

Because of Binh Hai�s managerial incompetence, the children in my factory have begun a strike and have made the following demands:

Demand #1: A five-cent raise in pay. (That�s more than double what they get already. Screw that!)

Demand #2: That the workday be reduced from 18 to 16 hours (you want to work bank hours than go work for a bank you little brats! Until then suck it up.)

Demand #3: The windows are to be open in the summer. (They were obviously painted shut for a reason you evil munchkins, so don�t mess with them!)

Demand #4: The doors to the factory are to no longer be locked during work hours. (Those doors are locked to keep them protected from things like, I don�t know, wild angry monkeys and pissed off snakes.)

Demand #5: No more leg shackles. (Now wouldn�t that defeat the purpose of having leg shackles? Idiots.)

Demand #6: We are to no longer be forced to worship your likeness as a God. (I give you jobs and a purpose. Without me you�d have nothing. Now if that doesn�t make me a God, I don�t know what does?)

Honestly, it�s as if they criticize every freaking move I make � �we don�t want this� � �we don�t want that.� For crying out loud, they act like those 4th graders in Pennsylvania I had mining coal over summer vacation. This constant complaining is enough to drive me nuts. And you know what really gets under my skin? All those people who go on and on about how children are our greatest natural resource. Well you know what? That�s a load of crap. Do you know how many kids you have to burn to heat just one house? Well I lost count, but trust me, it takes a lot.

Now lets get back to the matter at hand, the strike at my factory. First off, I haven�t gotten to where I am today by bowing down to the ridiculous whims of my employees. I know for sure I can break this strike. How you might ask? Well fortunately, if there�s one thing I have learned about Southeast Asia it�s that cigarettes solve most every problem. One pack of smokes for each kid and these demands will be forgotten the moment they light up. However, if they refuse my gracious appeasement I have no other choice than to break-off negotiations and replace them with toddlers. Sure it takes two or three toddlers to do the work of one kid, but they work really cheap: usually for stones with smiley faces painted on them. And yes, I am fully aware the toddlers will decrease efficiency, but I figure with what I save in hourly wage, it�ll work out all the same.

I�ll be back as soon as I restore capitalism to the Far East. I should be done by Tuesday.