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In This Issue

• What To Do With Books
• Craigslist Finds New Ways to Disturb
• Ovary Mining: Profit In Your Pants
• Letters to the Feditors
• Experience? Uh, no
• Sitting On Babies?
• The Internet = Porn. Porn = The Fed. Logically...
• "Which Came First, the Chicken or the Dregs?"
• Hey, Athletes! Need a Team? Call Me Ishmael.
• Hot Sex? Meh. Mock Interviews? Ooo Yeah, Baby.
• Swipe, Suffer, Suffocate
• From The Desk of Lee "El Cuisinart" Bollinger
• Practice Protectionism in the Bedroom
• Living at the Speed of 2.99x10^8 m/s
• Sensitivity Training Averts Termination
• Congrats, You're Fucked
• The Hierarchy of Columbia
• THEY Watch

An office is a difficult place to work- all of the hubbub and brou-ha-ha can give even the most seasoned vet a serious case of the Mondays. Adding to this confusion is the variety of backgrounds, races, etc. of your co-workers. If you want the most productive and friendly workspace, you’ll need to learn how to deal with all of this diversity and difference. Come, let’s take a walk down the fun, interesting, and, most importantly, politically correct path of workplace sensitivity.

    You might be asking yourself, “Michael, what exactly is workplace sensitivity?” Workplace sensitivity is the act of loving and respecting the many differences that make your office the interesting place that it is. Some people will look at all this variety and dislike it, but they are wrong, not entitled to have any opinions, and the bile that they spew is tantamount to Hitler’s “Big Lie.” You don’t like Hitler, do you? Well, Hitler never practiced workplace sensitivity. Neither did Stalin, Pol Pot or Rosie O’Donnell. I like to think, though, that we could have avoided WWII, the Cold War, the “Killing Fields” of Cambodia, and CBS’s “Riding the Bus with My Sister” if these tyrants had just attended my mandatory three-hour Wednesday morning workplace sensitivity lectures. Golly, that would’ve been great, don’t you think?

    The first thing that to learn in my workplace sensitivity course is that you must appreciate everyone’s differences. If someone is too conservative in your office to accept another person based on their sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc., they should be fired ASAP. There’s no room for fucking hate mongers in your office.  Or is there? Because you hate diversity and workplace sensitivity? I didn’t think so. Next, an important area to focus on is language. For instance, if you have an employee of color working around you, don’t refer to him or her as “black” or “African American;” use the more sensitive “Descendant - of - West-African - Kidnapped - by - the - Portuguese - and Subsequently - Wrongly - Sold - into - Slavery - Where - S/He - Toiled - for - Years - and - Once - Freed - Faced - Massive - and - Unwarranted - Oppression Americans,” or DWAKPSWSSWS/HTYOFFMUOA for short. There, doesn’t that make everyone feel just a little bit better?

    Another problematic area is diversity within diversity; that is, small subsets of minorities that are unique in and of themselves. For example, you wouldn’t want to confuse Puerto Ricans from San Juan and Puerto Ricans from the nearby village of Quebradillas, would you? No, because that would make you a bigot. But to add some clarity, let’s practice the naming techniques with these minorities of minorities. For example, long dead are the days where you could call homosexual Americans “gays,” “poufs,” or “faggots.” We have many new terms for every single subset of the gay community. Note: arrow indicates the change to a more sensitive, understanding term.

Gay men and women > homosexual americans

Men who pose as homosexuals but are straight > faux-mosexuals

Men who pose as heterosexuals but are gay > heter-faux-sexuals

Women who came out as lesbians but went back in the closet > hasbians

Men who came out as gay but went back in the closet > yestergays

People who have made no particular decision one way or another about their sexualities, not that they should be forced to or anything > peoplesexuals

    There, don’t we all feel a little more accepting now? Learning these minority-sensitive labels is an important step toward fostering understanding and caring in your workspace. In fact, we have provided a whole set of labels for office managers and employees that everyone should look into memorizing. But remember, labeling people is wrong, because that places them into tiny subsets that might be inaccurate or racist rather than bringing us together in a great, homogenous mix. Confused? That means you’re a racist and you need to pay more attention to workplace sensitivity.

    Think of your workplace as a big box of Crayola crayons, with hundreds of different colors. (Of course, “colors” is an insensitive term; we prefer “eye flavors”). All of these crayons are working together to achieve a similar goal. Here are some tips for achieving workplace unity.

    Try to celebrate each other’s differences by having theme days where you dress up in the clothes or native garments of your co-workers’ lands, or try serving delicious ethnic-based food in your company break room. Chanukah’s just around the corner? Light candles with Mel Goldstein from Legal. Chinese New Year? Get Lewis Chang to order some delectable dim sum takeout in his native language. For Judy Watts from accounts receivables’ birthday? Get every one on the floor a wheelchair to see what her life as a paraplegic is like.

    See, appreciating diversity is fun! And anyone who doesn’t appreciate diversity is a Hitleresque bastard who will be terminated at the end of this course. Oh, but wait, let’s not use the word bastard in a derogatory way; Jim Weighborough from HR was born to two drunken, out-of-wedlock parents. And we love and respect his diverse upbringing.  So remember, keep it sensitive! Or else…