4 Internal Memos That Revealed Weirdly Embarrassing Problems
Internal memos are like the family secrets of bureaucracies. Some are boring and tame, and others -- like if your parents share a grandparent -- should never see the light of day. The following memos are on the incest side of the embarrassment scale.
PayPal Employees Want Nothing to do With PayPal
Whether you use it or not, we can all probably agree that PayPal has made buying sex toys and porn subscriptions without credit cards a tiny bit simpler, which by itself sort of justifies PayPal's existence. Unfortunately, the people who work there don't agree. In February, the president of PayPal sent an alarming internal memo to all his San Jose employees chastising them for not being PayPally enough.
"You want us to start locking our accounts for no reason whatsoever?"
Among his accusations: They were not installing the PayPal app, not bothering to remember their PayPal passwords, and not hacking into company Coke machines to force them to accept PayPal. You read that right; PayPal's president's idea of company enthusiasm translated into straight up vandalism.
President P. Pal (that's his name, right?) ended the letter by reminding the employees who weren't enthusiastic about PayPal that they should hit the road, oblivious to the fact that being enthusiastic about PayPal is on par with being enthusiastic about Ticketmaster or scabies.
British Commander Has Had It Up to Here With Sandwiches
In a move that couldn't have been Britisher, Major General James Cowan sent a scathing letter of etiquette instructions to soldiers stationed at Bulford Camp in Wiltshire, England. Complaint #1: sandwiches. No more sandwiches for soldiers, because Major General Cowan was fucking sick of seeing people eat with their hands.
Complaint #2: fork placement. For this we just have to quote the letter: "The fork should always go in the left hand and the knife in the right." Not too bad, right? But then he goes on to say: "The knife and fork should remain in the bottom third of the plate and never be laid down in the top half," which is the part of the letter where everyone wishes they had been deployed to Iraq instead.
"You think I won't force you to eat hummus with a fork? Watch me."
Aside from prohibiting all finger foods, Cowan also takes a stab at spousal etiquette, claiming that husbands and wives shouldn't sit next to each other at public gatherings, because it "displays a marked degree of insecurity." And for grammar? Cowan reaffirms that writers should stop using pompous language, acronyms, italics, and abbreviations, because it makes the reader fucking "exhausted," guys, jeez. If anything good will come out of any possible conflict in Ukraine, it's keeping this guy from banning offensively folded napkins or whatever.
Canadian Erotica Channels Aren't Broadcasting Enough Canadian Porn
Earlier this month, the Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications Commission issued a broadcast notice to Canada's three erotica channels -- AOV Adult Movie Channel, XXX Action Clips, and Maleflixxx -- reprimanding them after they had requested to renew their licenses. (Sadly, Canada does not have an adult channel named LumberjaXXX.)
Hockey has a loophole, since the lack of penetration technically makes it soft-core porn for them.
The CRTC had to review the request, because apparently the three erotica channels had performed "instances of apparent non-compliance" to the CRTC's guidelines. How so? They failed to reach the required 35 percent Canadian content, meaning erotica channels in Canada are required to feature 8.5 hours of Canadian-made porn per day, and none of the three erotica channels were doing it. This is smashing news for all the unemployed Rob Ford impersonators out there.
The Queen Is Really Sick of the Police Sticking Their "Sticky Fingers" in Her Royal Nuts
Last December, a scandalous phone-hacking trial involving the royal family and Buckingham Palace littered British headlines. During the many subsequent trials, one particularly hilarious memo from back in 2005 was revealed. Apparently, the queen was really fucking pissed that the palace officers kept eating her royal nuts.
"Don't worry, Your Majesty. We still have plenty of deez."
"Deez what?"
The best part was how she figured out they were doing it. The queen has a longstanding order for staff to leave various nuts out in bowls for her to nibble on, because it turns out Great Britain's royal head is actually a squirrel. But when she noticed that her nuts were disappearing, she started marking the bowls to see when the levels dipped. It turns out it was when the police were around. So the queen sent a memo to the palace officers and reminded them to "keep their sticky fingers out." God save the queen. And her nuts.
The third part of XJ's epic science-fiction novel is out now on Amazon. The first $0.99 novella can be found here, with Part 2 out here. Or leave a review and get a free copy! Poke him on Twitter and follow him on Facebook.
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