Growing tensions between owners and staff at PTTBT exploded three weeks ago into a flurry of legal challenges and a website-wide work stoppage order, culminating with an eight day office sit-in by staff writers. In a series of events that go beyond even Bill O’Reilly’s worst nightmares, staff writers responded to what they called their management’s “War on Christmas”.
The troubles began December 7th, when Assistant Manager Jeff Blunt lodged a complaint with the PTTBT offices’ decorating committee, regarding the nature and extent of the Christmas decorations in the staff offices.
“It was getting to where some of us couldn’t get work done. Between the strings of flashing lights criss-crossing the office walls, the shiny silver trimming hanging off most ceiling areas, the bells attached to every door and phone, the Christmas music blasting through the office PA system on an endless loop, and the mechanical Santa Claus in the lobby that bellows loudly every time its motion sensor is set off, it was becoming somewhat challenging to clear my thoughts and meet my work deadlines.”
Writers disputed Blunt’s claim that former entertainment editor Dylan Hope was strangled by garlands while trying to send a fax, suggesting they only put the tinsel and popcorn strings around him afterwards because the corpse was “a real downer”.
“Obviously, Blunt is just one of those politically correct, godless heathen types. I mean, really, why else would anyone oppose any Christmas decorations whatsoever?”, says intern Jennifer Biggs. “Nobody was making him pay any attention to the office surroundings. If he really wanted to, he could have just closed his eyes, covered his ears, and gone about his desk work as usual.”
Matters took a turn for the worse when, on December 10th, the decorating committee petitioned to have the entire PTTBT website likewise decorated in their vision of Christmas spirit.
“We had to deny the website request,” says Blunt. “We did not feel that it was in the interest of retaining readership to have site content entirely replaced for a month with only large-font Christmas greetings on red-green flashing backgrounds. And we didn’t think site visitors would appreciate having a couple dozen pop-up windows appear, comprising each of the Twelve Days of Christmas and individual detailed bios of Santa’s reindeer”.
With the committee’s demands for the website not met, PTTBT owners were served with a lawsuit on December 11th by staff writers, seeking damages for religious discrimination, decorative harassment, and obstruction of gaity. The site owners promptly responded that same afternoon with a court-ordered work stoppage at the website offices, meaning no subsequent work could be done and no new stories could be posted until all was resolved late last week.
On December 24th, locked-out PTTBT staff writers dressed up in Santa Claus costumes and gained forced entry into the website offices, proceeding to chain and lock themselves to various office implements in the executive wing, and vowing not to leave the premises until management met their demands. A counter-offensive on the war on Christmas had begun. Much like most other wars, this war also appeared to have elements of spying and deception. To their credit, however, the writers stood their ground, even when tested by the innermost bowels of dirty warfare.
“Okay, so one one of the writers was a turncoat, and secretly spiked our catered Christmas Day food with large amounts of Ex-Lax. Since we were chained up to furniture in protest, there wasn’t much we could do about the laxative’s resulting effects.”
Although the shocking allegations by the writers have not been proven, records show that emergency paramedics were called to the scene early Christmas morning to treat several writers for prolonged acute incontinance. And since the opening up of the offices again this week, staff have confirmed the presence of a permeating odour from the executive offices, not unlike that of broken sewer pipes.
On December 28th, the fourth day of the protest sit-in, in what he claims was a good-faith action hoping to inspire a return to the bargaining table, PTTBT Assistant Manager Jeff Blunt approached the sit-ins with a ‘Peace Offering’ of a small bust of infant Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the peace offering was mistaken by staff writers for a miniature statue of ‘baby Buddha’, and promptly thrown out the fifth floor window by an as-yet unidentified staff writer, shattering on the street below.
“How were any of us supposed to know it was a baby Jesus? That was the last thing we would have been expecting to see. Naturally, at the time we thought that Jeff was just continuing his display of blatant hatred for Christianity, obviously rubbing salt on our wounds by bringing in to us a Buddhist statue”.
However, the shattered baby Jesus captured the attention of local authorities, who for the next four days surrounded the building in a tense standoff reminiscent just about any scene from any ‘Lethal Weapon’ ever filmed.
On January 7th, with the help of a professional mediator, exhausted writers, management, and authorities struck a deal ending all legal actions and withdrawing charges on all sides.
Staff writers say they were inspired to fight for their Christmas by popular network journalist Bill O’Reilly. “Now there is a man of valour and dignity, who has for years used Christmastime to selflessly push aside news on all those other far less important international wars and report on that scourge of our nation, the ongoing ‘War On Christmas‘”.
“I think PTTBT management know they’ve learned a lesson about messing with our deeply spiritual religious customs. After all, in the end we forced them to submit to our demands and post a Christmas message on the site. God, Bill O’Reilly, PTTBT staff writers, and Christmas have prevailed.”
To our faithful readers:
We are pleased to announce that, after intense negotiations, the lawyers and mediators representing the management and staff of PTTBT have successfully resolved all litigation and legal challenges surrounding the 2007 official website winter holiday message.
Effective immediately, all work stoppage orders have been rescinded, and all related lawsuits and charges filed by both parties are considered to have been settled out of court or withdrawn. The sit-in in our executive offices has likewise been peacefully disbanded, and no further criminal charges will be laid against any parties involved.
We would like to thank the following people for their services and assistance to staff members on both sides of our recent dispute, in no particular order of importance:
- The Law Offices of Shirley Grille
- Harvey, Cole, Wong, and Associates, Lawyers
- “Dunn-It-Right” 24-Hour Catering Ltd.
- Sheriff Jim Albright
- A & B Locksmith and Chain Removal Services
- Sam Wick, Professional Mediator
- King County Emergency Paramedics
- Lee & Son Furniture and Upholstery Repairs
With this trying period now behind us, we look forward to quickly returning to what we pride ourselves on, which is regularly delivering to you the highest quality of cutting edge ‘news’. Thank you once again for your patience.
And so, we would like to present to you our holiday message for 2007:
A Belated Message Of Suitable Intentions
The owners and staff of PTTBT would hereby like to extend to you and your loved ones a message, hereforthwith referred to as “the message”, that is suitability festive, reflective, melancholy, consoling, or benign in its intentions, as best suits your particular characteristics, beliefs, philosoph(ies), or absence of characteristic(s), belief(s), or philosoph(ies),
(i) whereby “the message” incorporates only well-meaning intentions for you to seek and foster only lifestyle choices that are deemed safe and suitable to your concrete financial, health, religious, cultural, and social circumstances,
(ii) notwithstanding that “the message” does not intend for you to willfully or negligently obstruct, encroach on, or interfere with the personal space, belief(s), philosoph(ies), characteristic(s), or absence of belief(s), philosoph(ies), characteristic(s) of any other parties or their own “message(s)”,
(iii) notwithstanding that “the message” does not intend to encourage, persuade, or otherwise lead you to engage in any actions that are illegal or perjurous in your given state(s) or jurisdiction of residence,
(iv) notwithstanding that “the message” carries no promises on behalf any any owners, staff, or associates of PTTBT and is not otherwise intended to be a legal contract or evidence of any future or past services or exchanges of products between owners, staff, investors, and associates of PTTBT and its readers,
(v) whereas “the message” is intended to concern the period of December 1st, 2007 to January 1st, 2008 inclusive,
(vi) whereas the owners, staff, and associates of PTTBT cannot be held responsible for any direct or indirect consequences of “the message” or its intentions,
(vii) whereas “the message” carries no guarantees, warranties, or redeemable cash value,
(viii) whereas PTTBT may chose at any time to nullify and revoke the intentions of “the message” as it may see fit,
(ix) whereas “the message” is intended to include, but is not limited to, members of the following faiths, religions, philosophies, and/or belief systems, and all sects and branches thereof: Mormonism, Judaism, Christianity, Pastafarianism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Atheism, Jainism, Sikhism, Scientology, Ayyavazhi, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Chondogyo, Tenrikyo, I-Kuan Tao, Caodaism, Jeung San Do , and all Quranic religions.
Dated this 7th of January, 2008.
First co-signee: Harry Kawaguchi (Union steward for PTTBT employees, North American Web ‘News’ Writers Union, Local 42)
Second co-signee: Jeff Blunt (PTTBT Assistant Manager)
Witnessed by (1st): Shirley Grille (The Law Offices of Shirley Grille)
Witnessed by (2nd): Stansworth Cole (Harvey, Cole, Wong, and Associates, Lawyers)
Just in time for the holiday season, the Parker Brothers company is announcing a major revamping of its flagship board game in a new release it is calling, “Subprime Monopoly”.
Whereas players in the original Monopoly earned money to buy and develop properties at fixed prices, in “Subprime Monopoly” players borrow obscene amounts of money to purchase overvalued properties with skyrocketing prices and borrowing costs.
“With the advent of the ongoing housing bubble and mortgage loan crisis, we thought the time was right to make some major changes to the rules of the game”, says Parker Bros. creative director Mitt Mason. Originally invented by Charles Darrow in 1935, Monopoly first became a huge hit in the middle of the great depression, and has since been played by over 750 million people. “It seemed somehow fitting that we change the rules now that property prices are falling nationwide, given that the game was first popularized the last time this happened in the 1930’s. And the way Americans buy and sell property has changed a lot since then. Who in America buys anything these days with money they have actually saved up, and who today buys property at a stable and reasonable price?”
While the goal of the original version was to end the game with the most money, in the revamped version all players finish the game broke or highly in debt, competing to finish with the least total debt and lowest number of foreclosures.
Rules updated
Players still move around the same classic Monopoly board buying properties and collecting rent, but with a few key differences. In Subprime Monopoly, the game is split into two phases. The game begins in the “Irrational Realty Whore” phase, during which every player must buy any unowned property that his/her piece lands on, regardless of price, and develop houses and hotels on every owned property to the maximum potential. Every time a player passes ‘GO’ during this phase of play, all property, development, and borrowing costs in the game double for everyone, while rent fees always stay absolutely the same. Players undoubtedly end up borrowing large sums from the Monopoly bank to finance these purchases.
After all players have navigated the entire board three times, the “Reality Sets In” phase kicks in, and the rules dictate that the bank stop lending money to players. At this point, it is not long before all the players can no longer finance their debts, and so property investments are foreclosed for pennies on the dollar. Finally, one lone player not quite yet in solvency emerges the winner of the game with a mountain-load of debt and a pile of properties that nobody else is left to buy.
“I don’t think I’m exagerrating when I say it really is fun for the whole family”, beams Mason. “There’s nothing that says 21st century America quite like a night of living beyond one’s means, destroying your credit, and happily following an investment ponzi scheme that is doomed to failure”. Indeed, Mason planned to call the game, “Housing Doom Monopoly”, but changed the name at the last minute in order to not be confused with a popular U.S. housing bubble commentary website.
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