A Nice Welcome Back UPDATED
[Usually a story or a joke is not worth if it needs Rashi and Tosvos to be understood. This post falls into that category. It occurred to me that many people who are not privileged to work in corporate America might not undertand this post. So, I've added a footnote]
I have now been in Israel for over three weeks, my longest stay since I spent a year at Hebrew University 30 years ago. The first 13 days were vacation and I've been working in our Tel Aviv office since last Tuesday.
On Monday I received an invitation (i.e., summons) to attend breakfast on Friday morning with the new president and CEO of my firm's US operation. Since I was scheduled to arrive in the U.S. on Friday morning, this necessitated changing my flight from the 1 a.m. into JFK to the 12 a.m. into Newark. I will take a car directly into the city, find a minyan so that I can say Kaddish and get to the breakfast.
I have no idea what the breakfast is about. I sent an email to my direct boss asking him if he knew what the breakfast was about and whether he knew anyone else who would be attending. He responded, "No idea, but if you get there and Cathy _______ (the head of human resources) is sitting at the table with him, keep walking."***
d'oh!!
***When one gets fired in corporate America these days (lo aleinu), he gets called into a meeting with his boss and someone from human resources. The boss does the firing in two minutes then leaves. The HR person takes over and gives the corporate shpeil (severance, outplacement, COBRA, etc). This is done to avoid fistfights between the fired employee and the boss and to prevent the boss from saying really stupid things that will end up in a deposition in a lawsuit filed by the fired employee against the company. Walking into such a meeting is like being told by the NFL assistant football coach that "Coach wants to see you. Bring your playbook."
[Usually a story or a joke is not worth if it needs Rashi and Tosvos to be understood. This post falls into that category. It occurred to me that many people who are not privileged to work in corporate America might not undertand this post. So, I've added a footnote]
I have now been in Israel for over three weeks, my longest stay since I spent a year at Hebrew University 30 years ago. The first 13 days were vacation and I've been working in our Tel Aviv office since last Tuesday.
On Monday I received an invitation (i.e., summons) to attend breakfast on Friday morning with the new president and CEO of my firm's US operation. Since I was scheduled to arrive in the U.S. on Friday morning, this necessitated changing my flight from the 1 a.m. into JFK to the 12 a.m. into Newark. I will take a car directly into the city, find a minyan so that I can say Kaddish and get to the breakfast.
I have no idea what the breakfast is about. I sent an email to my direct boss asking him if he knew what the breakfast was about and whether he knew anyone else who would be attending. He responded, "No idea, but if you get there and Cathy _______ (the head of human resources) is sitting at the table with him, keep walking."***
d'oh!!
***When one gets fired in corporate America these days (lo aleinu), he gets called into a meeting with his boss and someone from human resources. The boss does the firing in two minutes then leaves. The HR person takes over and gives the corporate shpeil (severance, outplacement, COBRA, etc). This is done to avoid fistfights between the fired employee and the boss and to prevent the boss from saying really stupid things that will end up in a deposition in a lawsuit filed by the fired employee against the company. Walking into such a meeting is like being told by the NFL assistant football coach that "Coach wants to see you. Bring your playbook."
posted by MoChassid @ 8:59 AM
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