Shake-up

There’s been another major shake-up at the Big Company.

This time, it wasn’t the peons who walked out the doors carrying their cardboard boxes – it was a goodly number of Big Shots.

Big Shot shake-ups happen at other companies all the time. Not as often as the peons would like, but they happen.

But not here. It’s not the corporate culture. Oh, every once in awhile, they’ll pick one off under the guise of an early retirement -- but not this many, not all at once. The Biggest Shot of all sent a clear message: "I’m not going to let this place go to hell any more, and I’m not afraid to clean house, and I’m starting with you."

Wow. That’s actually … refreshing … like a cold drink on a hot day. On behalf of all my colleagues who walked out the door last year with only their cardboard boxes and their dignity, I applaud it.

The only casualty in the mix was someone who actually seemed like a pretty good guy. The peons liked him, anyway. People could talk to him and he actually listened to their ideas – he even took some of mine a few times. He wasn’t so full of himself that he believed he had all the answers. But that probably ended up being his downfall: he didn’t shake things up in his own house fast enough to suit the Bigger Shots. And for that, I feel a real pang of dismay for the guy. I liked him.

My sympathy is short-lived, however, when I picture the weight of the Golden Parachute strapped to his back as he walks out the door with his own cardboard boxes. I just hope it’s worth all the personal sacrifices he had to make to get to the rank of Big Shot to begin with, because you can be sure – he made them.

Ah, that’s today. The undercurrent of downstream implication will swell to the surface soon enough, and the glory of divine retribution, sweet on our lips momentarily, will inevitably turn sour.

I bought a lemon shake-up at a sandwich cart one time, and the guy was in the middle of shaking it up, when the lid flew off and it exploded in every direction, soaking him and me and other people waiting in line.

Innocent lemons were hurt.

Shake-ups are funny like that sometimes.