First there was the shot heard round the world. Then came the sucking sound heard round the world…

This Tuesday morning the work week started like most any other. And by that I mean, of course, hating myself and wishing I had the guts to … well, a little self-censorship can occasionally be a good thing. ‘Nuff said.

We were in the factory going about the business of selling our piece of shit widgets. It was gloomy.

Suddenly the phone rang and the boss took the call…

It was obvious that something was up. Soon the boss was panting like a bitch in heat, even more than he normally does. A big fish was on the line!

Eventually he hung up the phone and let out a holler. “I just made a $20,000 sale!”

I glanced over in disgust just long enough to see that his eyeballs were gone. In their place were spinning green orbs, pulsating, glowing and looking a hell of a lot like dollar signs.

The boss was gone, yo.

As always when customers were involved, there was some urgency regarding the order. In fact, they needed it like yesterday. Just like always. My failure to plan is your emergency. Typical.

Due to the figures involved, the boss couldn’t wait to lick their hand and give them every consideration. Remember – This is the all-knowing, all-seeing magical boss of intelligence who makes the Wizard of Oz look like idiotic mold found on top of pond scum.

Long story short, he devised a plan that was pure genius. Genius!!!

It went a little something like this:

Step One – Skip the step where we accept payment before shipping product. Remember, these customers were in a hurry.

Step Two – Spend all day working on the order, trying to keep up the appearances that you can actually follow through on what you said you’d do. Forsake all other tasks and customers who are suddenly irrelevant.

Step Three – Ship everything you can scrape together out the door.

Step Four – Payment magically comes, somehow, later.

The boss explained his ace up his sleeve here. If they didn’t come through with the payment as promised, he’d simply call UPS and recall the shipment. Oh, it sounds so damn easy in his fantasies.

The package was shipped. It contained about $14,000 worth of stupid, piece of shit goodies that we sell. Hey, it’s a living.

The next day the payment call didn’t come in as promised.

The boss waited another day then leapt into action. Suddenly the customer became hard to get a hold of and didn’t return calls. But still he held off on recalling the shipment.

On Thursday the window of opportunity on the shipment closed. The product was now in their grubby little fingers.

And then, today, the shit hit the fan. Oh my. I’m so surprised. Who could have foreseen this? Certainly not a blubbering idiot like me that depends on the boss to tell me how to wipe my own ass.

How did the boss spend his day? Crying about transaction fees on a $14,000 credit card charge. At two or three percent it worked out to be about $300. You see, the customer had to cancel the order but the credit card processing companies still keep their cut. Man, no pig in the history of the universe ever squealed so damn well! You’d think they wanted one of his kidneys or something. Actually, scratch that. He would have actually given one of those up to save the money from his own damn mistake.

That’s assuming, of course, that we eventually do get paid and don’t have to eat a $14k loss on this deal, which I feel is still possible. He was moaning a little while ago about how the customer had “lied” to him.

He spent all day long on the phone schmoozing banks, credit card companies, processing centers, and also the customer. He thinks he’s so damn smooth with his sickening little “aren’t I funny” giggle. Ugh. All he did was beg for other people to fix his mistake so it wouldn’t cost him personally. I thought it was really cute how when things didn’t go exactly his way he’d drop his fake nice person persona and turn on them in anger. Ha ha ha ha ha!

And he really squealed some more when getting schooled on how funds were on hold, refunds would have to come from his business checking, etc. That means he has to shift $14k of his own money around to cover this mistake for about a week. “I have the money,” he wined, “but I don’t want to do that!” If he was three years old holding his wubbie and stamping his foot it would have been sublime perfection.

This post is a hatchet job but I don’t care. I just wanted to share. I love working for intelligent people.