Town Hall For the American Corporate Pig
Oink, oink my little worker!
Welcome, little sow! We’ve heard you asking for more transparency and clarity around our recent restructuring, and it’s very simple. You need to ask more questions! Snuffle a little louder with your concerns! We can’t just tell you anything. Then you won’t feel like you’ve earned it!
Besides, we’re too busy prancing around the paddock to bother.
You’ve worked at this company for, like, three years, right? So you should know that when we say: “we’re going through a restructuring period and that means a lot of uncertainty for all of us,” we mean: “we’re going to cut a bunch of jobs, so start planning for layoffs, swine.” If you still don’t know your job is at risk, that’s your fault.
Oh, okay, you’re actually asking questions. Well look, your questions of “Why are you doing this?”; “When will the amorphous ‘this’ happen?”; and “how will ‘this’ affect me” are just too vague to answer. Even if we knew the answers. Which we don’t. But that’s not the point, Piglet. It’s your job to integrate all the different elements of our business.
See, you need to hunt down our plans like a truffle pig. Use this time to investigate the rich scent of gossip. Sniff around corners, perk your little pink ears to water cooler chit-chat, and figure out when to insert your porky self into the conversation and get that informational fungi. Did you know that truffle pigs can identify truffles three feet underground? So a bit of corporate espionage should be nothing for you!
Oh my god, you’re still asking questions? Look, Pork Pie, I think you missed the point of high school. That’s where you’re supposed to learn your place at the bottom of the barnyard. Us C-Suite executives are the popular animals–the horses–and we didn’t gain that popularity by “asking questions” or “doing the work.” We learned that we copy off the dorks, claim their work as ours, and when that doesn’t serve us any longer, shake our shiny manes to attract attention.
Another thing you should have absorbed in those formative years: that you’re down in the muck, eating our second-hand slop, and working to clean what we left behind before being led to the slaughter. Stay in your lane, Oinks.
Alright, even we can see you’re upset. So take some of these apple skins and cost of living raises. And, because we’re generous, we’ll let you in on a little secret: the real trick to elevating our popularity is to mock the try-hard hogs and make everyone else laugh. That’s what the management books call “a sense of camaraderie.” You could give it a try, if you weren’t so spotted and dirt covered. Don’t mind that we’re rearing up to kick that dirt on you. You know that without us, this farm would be an absolutely horrible place to work.
Okay, I see a lot of hands raised. We did not actually prepare to answer questions, we focused on the dressage portion of this presentation, so this town hall is over. We gotta wipe your mud off our Louboutin hooves anyway.
Rebecca Silver is a Chicago writer and stand-up comedian who tells jokes about her failures, family, and fear of late stage capitalism. She has been published in publications like Belladonna, Slackjaw, and Greener Pastures. You can find her on stage, on Instagram, or on Medium.
