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Breaking the News to See What's Inside! |
| Volume 2 Issue 3 | ANNUAL (none of your) BUSINESS ISSUE | July 2004 |
| CURRENT ISSUE | ARCHIVES | ADVERTISING | SUBSCRIPTIONS | WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE? |
BUY THIS ISSUE Healing a Bipolar World Reagan Recalled 20 Years too Late, Recall "Symbolically Important" Greenspan Pays Off Federal Debt President Charged with Sailormongering US & Chinese Leaders Summit Up Alaska State News: Libertines Think Tanked Plan to Avoid Federal Tax Larry, Moe Still Miss Curly Fairbanks Peace Activits Held in Domestic Assault Senator Plans Sex Change Analysis & Advice: Dr. Geyges Advises: Dr. G's Guide for the Perplexed |
NEW YORK - A growing number of top US corporations are subcontracting their phone assistance and support services to the Bushmen of Africa's Kalahari desert. What seemed like a publicity stunt based on the president's family name, has been turned into a lucrative venture, and it is not surprising to find the motive force behind this success is maverick consultant Phil Feerich [see “Dow Chemical Patents 3,497 Adjectives or Adverbs”Issue 1.3]. The consultant’s company, PhilFee Inc., invested heavily to launch the operation, paying to lay phone lines through the 160,000 square miles of pristine Kalahari, as well as finding and funding customer handlers versed in the Bushmen's peculiar language--one fraught with dental, alveolar and palatal clicks--who could train the Bushmen to provide telephone assistance. With Americans horrified by the giant sucking sound made by jobs being syphoned off by Indians (and despite a presidential commitment to quell concerns: “I prefer, you know, to call them Native Americans… And they are, after all, our ancestors…”), Phil Feerich has developed his African adventure and has been reaping the rewards that far outweigh any generated by outsourcing to India. “These guys are great!” exulted Bandwidth Unlimited CEO Magnus Pelf in a recent interview. “There is no way you can understand the Bushmen or they you, so there's no pretense of customer service. And to top it all off, these guys don't have a clue what money is, so we don't even have to pay them for getting all these whining callers off our backs!” Bandwidth PR representative, Ray Kinvedoh, quickly interceded: “The Bushmen are dedicated to providing the highest levels of service to customers, and we reward them handsomely for their efforts.” Research has uncovered that the recompense for the Bushmen is great, indeed. The corporate trainers explained to them that when the phones ring, it's spirits from the afterlife calling to see if it is safe to come back to haunt the Kalahari. The spirits try sounding pleasant and hopeful; the only way to keep them at bay is to make them as unwelcome as possible. “You should see the Bushmen’s faces light up with satisfaction when customers scream through the phone line,” says corporate trainer Don Ghettit. “They know they have saved their villages from visitors of the netherworld.” Not only do the Bushmen provide corporations with savings by accepting this unconventional in-kind payment, but they also save money with calls that are two to three minutes shorter than an average national service call. “We suspect,” says Ghettit, “that all the clicking they make with their tongues leads callers to believe there is a problem with the line, and they hang up.” Interestingly, in a recent poll, callers rated the Bushmen’s phone assistance 5% better than US service centers’ help. “I didn’t follow what the guy said,” explains Condy Byer, “but he sounded pleasant, so I just sent the hair-curler back for a refund.” Another customer fawns: “Great service! My printer was shot, so this guy at the help desk starts giving me the computer code to make it work. I write it all down, and next thing, I'm tapped into the Pentagon computers.” Outsourcing to the Bushmen of the Kalahari has been so successful that it is spreading like wildfire across the corporate savannah, and in the process, earning Phil Feerich not just a fortune, but political clout. “The word got around in the corporate circles,” says an unidentified assistant to the maverick consultant, “about Phil working with the Bushmen, and suddenly the big Republican corporate donors were lining up to retain his services and earn his favor.” It seems outsourcing has reached its apex; it also appears that customer complaints have never been so heeded as when they are vented into the wide open spaces of the Kalahari. |
 President Charged with Sailormongering SAN DIEGO, CA - In April 2002, Greenpeace activists peacefully boarded a ship to bring attention to its cargo of illegal mahogany imported from Brazil. Two years later, the organization stood in court in Miami charged by the Department of Justice of Sailormongering. This 1872 law, only ever used twice, was designed to protect ships from unscrupulous brothel owners who boarded ships to flaunt their strumpet-wares before the ship came into port, in order to get a jump on the competition. It is unclear why the Bush administration should use an essentially socialist law aimed at protecting small competitors from healthy predation and a non-level playing field, but sources in the Justice Department say the administration was incensed that Greenpeace was using this strategy for securing market share without seeking pecuniary gain, something tantamount to heresy. However compelling the logic behind the suit, it was never tested, as a Miami activist judge threw the case out for insufficient evidence. It should also be noted, however, that it would have been hard to equate Greenpeace activists clambering aboard a ship to unfurl a protest banner with prostitutes trying to lure young uniformed men with her wanton wiles. The same can not be said, however, about a vessel-boarding incident a year later, this time involving the Bush administration. On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush landed in a Navy S-3B Viking jet on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Media documented extensively how the president shook hands and “draped his arms around” the soldiers and sailors. He roused the men, who were longing for a friendly face, a warm welcome, a taste of home. George Bush praised their courage, their fortitude, their virility, and the men responded with cheers and effusive applause. “They clearly were taken by the president,” said political analyst Otto B. Kwyet. “These are men who have been in hostile territory for months, in inhuman conditions, clearly starved for affection. Their survival depended on adhering to a rigidly controlled military way of life, so now they were looking to cut loose, party, go wild. This was the men’s state when the president boarded their aircraft carrier, and he clearly saw his duty was to do what he could to make these brave warriors feel good.” Surveying all the photos of soldiers crowding around the president, law expert Sue Pine-Vesgui said: “I'm not one to dust off laws that have remained unused for 100 years, but the Sailormongering one seems to be tailored to this case. You have boarding a ship before it can reach port; you have trying to influence the susceptible men in uniform; you have the dazzling, choreographed show; you have keeping the competition at bay, or on the other side of it; and as for the sexual part… What was it they put in there? Was it a banana?” White House legal experts took a brief hiatus from drafting numerous national security treatises--from asserting the legality of using the rack to break foreign students who fall short the full-time, 12-unit course load, to putting war protesters in iron maidens--in order to accuse Ms. Pine-Vesgui of treason, sedition, liberalism, defection, apostasy, degeneration, massive violations of national security and, of course, terrorism, before returning into their fink tanks to develop a legal rationale for subjecting her and her ilk to boiling oil baths and fingernail extraction. Generally, though, legal experts agree that Sailor-mongering fits the case like a glove. “These brave young men enjoyed themselves and went a little crazy,” says Connor Lye, Chief Ethicist at the American Lawyers' Association. “But tomorrow they'll wake up with a mighty hangover to discover they can't get medical care, that the administration has cut their benefits, and that they have to chip in to bury their comrades. They will recall the wild party with the president and realize they really got, if you'll pardon my Uzbek, screwed.” |