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The People's Cube Solicits Humor Services to Gov't

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Drudge posted the following headline:

HELP WANTED: Dept of Treasury seeks contractors for 'power of humor'.. 'Have the ability to create cartoons on the spot'....

The link leads to Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD).

FedBizOpps.gov wrote:Humor In The Workplace
Solicitation Number: RFI-BPD-09-0028
Agency: Department of the Treasury
Office: Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD)
Location: Division of Procurement

Added: Jul 09, 2009 11:28 am

This is a sources sought notice and not a request for quotations. The purpose of this announcement is to seek qualified contractors with the capability to provide presentations for The Department of Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD), Management Meeting with experience in meeting the objectives as described herein.

The Contractor shall conduct two, 3-hour, Humor in the Workplace programs that will discuss the power of humor in the workplace, the close relationship between humor and stress, and why humor is one of the most important ways that we communicate in business and office life. Participants shall experience demonstrations of cartoons being created on the spot.

[ .... ]

So we thought to ourselves collectively, isn't this a perfect opportunity for the People's Cube? Could we solicit our services as a Party Organ to the progressive government? Who is better equipped to fight office thoughtcrime by means of humor and satire?

Chances of a positive response are zero. But if we make an offer and receive a negative response, we can post it here on the Cube.

The proposal may include the following topics:

- Gov't bureaucracy: a gift that keeps on giving
- How to advance socialism and draw government salary at the same time
- How to make friends in high places and irritate the class enemy
- The correct way to denounce your coworker
- Party purges: increase your importance and get rid of nerds that make you look bad
- Dos and dont's of an effective show trial
- How to demand entitlements
- Agitation and propaganda at the workplace
- Telltale signs that your colleague might be a conservative
- Redistributing OPM (Other People's Money)
- A workshop in unanimity: decide what to have for lunch by open vote
- Correct methods to ration the consumption of beets by the proletariat
- Bootlicking at the workplace: keep it to yourself or make it public?
- How to please commissars above you by kicking peasants in the beet fields

This is our idea.

The next step is to make the actual solicitation, but we don't know how to do it and are also tied up with some other projects. Will there be any volunteers who know how to do this and can speak for the collective? (Publishing the real names and addresses here is not necessary).

To your shovels, comrades!

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Humor, like any other human attribute, can best be provided by the government, and I am confident that the participants in the two, 3-hour sessions will be as sidesplitting as a Rosie O stage show when they are shipped back into the cube farm.

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Human attribute? Really? You're not being speciist, are you? If you have an attribute, how can you deny it to other life forms on this planet? If animals don't find something funny equally with the humans, then it's not really humor. But if humans, animals, and plants find something equally unfunny, that means we have found a common denominator that would suit everyone equally, and that must be universally accepted humor template. We mustn't look beyond that.

You next assignment, Comrade Betinov, is to read Bill Maher's jokes to your cat and see if it laughs. If after three days the cat is not laughing, try to perform it before a tree. If the tree fails to respond, your humor must be good enough for government employees and/or redistribution to the masses through gov't services.

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In order to relieve stress at the workplace, all employees shall be provided with one-size-fits-all template of originality and must stick to it in order to be funny in a correct, inoffensive manner. Everyone's funniness shall be measured during next year's job evaluation, so pay attention! And don't let that stress kick you on the way out! You may now laugh. I said laugh! See? What a bunch of stressed-out humorless drones! I make a joke - you laugh. Not difficult. But no, you can't even look happy without your boss's direction! That's why we must spend government money to relieve your stress and make you understand that when your boss thinks it's funny, you laugh!

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Comrade Red Square, The Department of Treasury has already won the bid by the posting of said position.

We are also in possession of a speciist attribute for the funniest comrade of all, Wandering Sykophant:


Furthermore the prime candidate must posses these attributes:

-castration complex
-sycophantoliness
-abilitousenvious
-classopia
-sexanemia
-grievancitus
-resenterbation
-ideocriouspostmoderni
-borglust

The prime candidate has been profiled in this composite:
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You next assignment, Comrade Betinov, is to read Bill Maher's jokes to your cat and see if it laughs.

Little problem with this one, Red. Just as I was starting page three of Maher's opus, Fluffy spontaneously combusted.

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Comrade Bentinov, I'm sorry to hear of your cat, those Maher jokes should come with a People's Warning Label. I'll bring it up at the next committee meeting in the factories, that's what the commissar of people's training aids is for, or at least part of my duty is.

As for helping with the submission, I'm sorry Red, I can't help you there.

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I wouldn't bother with submitting anything. For one thing, for some strange reason, they canceled it. But, apart from that it was rigged from the get-go:

Humor In The Workplace Solicitation Number: RFI-BPD-09-0028 wrote:Responses to this request must be submitted no later than 2:00 p.m. ET on July 6, 2009 and may be submitted electronically to [email protected] to the attention of Angala Zoller.

FedBizOpps - Humor in the workplace

The deadline ended before the July 9 2009 request was issued. Something funny was going on there; maybe they brought humor to their office by seeing who would respond and what that response would be?

It's like a Dilbert cartoon where Catbert the evil head of Human Resources devises a plan for humor in the workplace - his humor at everyone else's expense.

Too bad they canceled it - Ted Rall thought he was a shoe in.


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Senator Quashes Treasury's Bid for Humorist

The Bureau of the Public Debt has apologized for attempting to hire a cartoonist.
"A recent procurement request for information (RFI) seeking a training consultant to aid managers has been canceled," the agency said in a statement. "The RFI did not represent an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars, and we regret the early steps taken on this effort."


Obviously this highlights the need for more government oversight. Obama needs to appoint a Humor Czar.

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I'm waiting for some Democrat to come out and say the whole thing was meant as a joke and neocons are so stupid they don't know a joke when they see one, etc. I'm rather surprised the Democrat who "quashed" it didn't say as much.

Otherwise, I wouldn't be surprised if the funds allocated for this came straight out of the stimulus package.

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I knew when I got back to my puter, Red Square would be all over this one.
LMAO!
Shame on the humorless bureaucrat U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) for spoiling what would have otherwise been a real paying job for The People's Cube!!!

As history repeats itself, I'm reminded of the glory days suffering under President Carter.
Then as now, the media swooned over Carter wandering the White House in a cardigan sweater suggesting we should all lower our thermostats to save the planet.

18% home loans, skyrocketing credit card interest rates, and 13% unemployment which Obama's administration has yet to topple, produced a Public Relations wonk for Carter's administration named Hodding Carter.

Image Shown here with a smiling but not laughing:
Image Evidently and appropriately , Hodding subsequently produced a book about sewers.
Witty, anecdotal, and thoroughly entertaining, Flushed not only chronicles the long and notable history of plumbing, but follows Hodding Carter's travels and travails as he casts his own Roman lead water pipes inspired by the writings of Pliny the Elder, descends into the sewers of London, installs a state-of-the-art Japanese toilet in his bathroom, and fearlessly tries to understand everything about this most underappreciated pillar of civilization.


Review:
"Hodding Carter has enough charm to fill a toilet tank, and I don't mean the new 1.6-gallon low-flush. No one else could make me laugh heartily while reading about the miraculous lead pipes of ancient Bath (which Hodding tries to replicate in his yard and nearly destroys his marriage and many of his brain cells). Thanks to Hodding, I know the most amazing things: medieval moats were cesspits, the original bio-warfare! Roman latrines were set up for conversation! The Great Stink of 1858 was conquered by an engineer whom London then thanked by naming a sludge barge after him! Got to love it all." Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Spook
Review:
"If you're going down the drain, you need an expert guide, a life-plumber, if you will. Reader, Hodding Carter is your man. He's studied toilets, sloshed through metropolitan sewers around the world, and built his own pipes based on ancient Roman techniques. Carter is unfailingly good company throughout this genuinely underground history. And unlike a real plumber, you can get him when you need him — right here, right now." Will Blythe, author of To Hate Like This Is
to Be Happy Forever

My point was...and some of you may remember, this stone faced dead panned monolith distributing information to the press corps was so tired and tedious it became THE entertainment.
Sorts like watching coyotes feed on carrion.

One of my first experiences in agitprop, political satire and lampooning was when one of President Carter's conservative foes suggested balancing the out of control debt might be possible by holding a "Make Hodding Carter Laugh Contest"
IIRC...I spewed my first Burger King over my girlfriend's blouse indicating I was more interested in politics than sex back then.

If the treasury department is unwilling to open it's doors to employment of cartoonists after first opening the doors to cartoonists should this not be the Mother of All Camel Noses Under The Tent?

Let's start a "Make The Treasury Department Laugh Contest!"

Instead of collecting winnings, participants would experience a reduction in their tax obligation based on the laughter exhibited by IRS agents.

Rather than limit the contest to bona fide cartoonists every America taxpayer would be eligible provided they meet the requirements that a candidate for POTUS must meet prior to holding the highest office in the land.
Namely:
Produced a long form birth certificate,
Establish 14 years consecutive residence in America
Explain about passport paradox travel to Indonesia and Pakistan (If any. Impossible if cartoonist is to seek a tax reduction from the contest)
And proof you live near and engage with home grown unrepentant terrorists.

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I DENOUNCE BETINOV!

Betinov, a blatant speciist has revealed his true colors. Let facts, although always a formality, be submitted to a candid collective...

Ivan Betinov wrote:Humor, like any other human attribute, can best be provided by the government, and I am confident that the participants in the two, 3-hour sessions will be as sidesplitting as a Rosie O stage show when they are shipped back into the cube farm.

If he proves unresponsive to Red's compassionate efforts to reeducate him, I think it'll time for the train ride.

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I remember hearing Yakov Smirnoff once worked for the Soviet Department of Humor. I'm not surprised to see us imitating even that.

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Comrades,

Comradette Margaret has the most fascinating tidbit, personally: terminate Change™ before announcing Change™. No matter how you look at it, that is truly the new and improved version of Change we all voted and revoted for.

World opinion is what counts when determining US policies, so let's consider what Ayatollah Khomeini once said in 1979:

"There are no jokes in Islam.
There is no humor in Islam.
There is no fun in Islam.
There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious."

Comrades, progging is serious business, er, redistribution, diversity, submission, or something serious!

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Serious work, Comrade_Tovarich. By the way, was the underscore there from the beginning?

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Comrade Commissar_Elliott,

Yes, always an underscore, if you mean in my name. I've gotten in the habit of making sure my computer file names have underscores instead of spaces: simplify, simplify, simplify.

When it comes to underscores, and underachievers like Comrade-President 0bama (CP0), I'm seriously serious.

But in keeping with this thread, might we not refer to National Lampoon's Vacation, which does, I believe, contain the quote (or something resembling): "We're going to Wally World to have fun, damn it!" That feels progressive: laugh when told to (and to whom to direct your ridicule) or else.


 
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