If I Started Talking to My Best Friend the Way I Talk to Myself

Girl, look, I know your presentation about the floor setup didn’t go as planned—what was with the trifold science fair display? What year is this? How old are you?—but that’s fine. Don’t even worry about it. I have the perfect idea to get you back on top—your retail space will be THE place.

 

You know what will make your bosses forget about the whole thing and reconsider your proposal? A sheet cake. But not just a mass-produced store-ready run-of-the-mill sheet cake—no, a sheet cake the same size and shape as your open-plan office with a point by point rebuttal in company-colored icing. How can they say no when they’re literally stepping into a sweet counterpoint?

 

Okay, okay, Deborah has diabetes and a custom sheet cake of that size can get pricey. Those are fair criticisms—no, I don’t think you’re a wet blanket. I don’t even think you’re a damp one! Maybe you’re a little moist around the edges, but I can work with that. We just have to get you comfortable with getting out of your comfort zone.

 

We’ve already established speaking isn’t your strong suit, so why not a demonstration—but, here’s the kicker, they don’t know it’s a demonstration. It’ll really put them in the customer’s shoes if they’re suddenly lost in a Kafka-esque maze of bureaucracy and absurdity. All you need to do is come in early and stack the desks into a labyrinth with no exit. Your coworkers will walk around it ad nauseum—their only instruction will be a haphazard sign near the entrance that reads “Please scan name badge when you reach the end.”

 

Plot-twist: There is no end. It never ends. Your coworkers either starve to death or concede that your idea to organize the store for customer convenience is a superb, humane idea.

 

So… you’re telling me you don’t think experiential evidence will help your case? Okay, girl, now you’re beginning to sound like a real soppy blanket. I don’t think you’re even trying to work with me here—do you even want to streamline the customer’s shopping experience? Do you even care about liberating the consumer from this capitalist nightmare? Why don’t you want to seize the means of production and topple the bourgeois that has made prisoners of us all—and worse, make us want to become slaves to our own commodities?

 

Jesus Christ—I feel like I don’t even know you anymore. It feels like you’re more interested in “progressing your career” and “getting a sales bonus.” You’ve forgotten your priorities, your responsibilities to society at-large. You’re literally killing me—don’t EVEN try to correct me on the use of “literally.” It’s called HYPERBOLE and is a rhetorical device to emphasize a point, you fascist.

 

Oh, and you look like a corpse when you wear yellow. It’s not “fun” if you’re an ambulating cadaver. Donate your yellow garments, girl.