I'd like to introduce you to the Staff of our little blog. We have Director of Publications Mike Johnston; Head Writer Mike Johnston; Marketing Director Mike Johnston; Advertising Manager Mike Johnston; Mike Johnston is Director of Special Projects (print and book sales); and our proofreader and copyeditor is Miek Johnton. Mike Johnston is the Chief Researcher. Mike Johnston is in charge of product reviews; there's Bookkeeper Mike Johnston and our unfortunately somewhat surly and Aspergerish receptionist and secretary, Mike Johnston. Mike Johnston, the Comment Moderator, is overworked, but fortunately efficient enough (and dogged) because he likes his job. Finally there's our janitor, Mike Johnston (he's a crotchety, no-nonsense older guy and pooh-poohs the term "maintenance engineer" and others he considers euphemisms), who keeps the physical plant running and cleans the offices—reluctantly and with a poor attitude, it must be observed.
Because resources are limited, all of these staffers double up or triple up on duties at times. For instance, Mike Johnston is the one who monitors and answers email (he's really fallen down on the job lately—six hours behind if not eight, and where are those hours going to come from if he's going to keep up going forward?) and the same guy is also in charge of social media outreach (how long since TOP's twittered one freakin' tweet?!?).
So I have to say, not all of our staff members are very damned capable. Some of them aren't worth a rat's ass, frankly. Altogether, we're a motley crew.
I mention this because this morning, all of us are sitting around waiting for one of our least competent staff members, the IT guy, whose name is Mike Johnston. The guy is almost a joke. Unteachable. It's a tough market for IT professionals—everybody needs one and there's a constant shortage of good ones. A small shop like us doesn't even rate the top layer of the dregs. None of us here are pleased—when somebody is as bad at their job as he is it's hard to even like them—but you get what you pay for and we're stuck with the dunderhead.
So anyway, as the owner of the company, I became aware this morning that we haven't even had a @#$! backup in ten days. Not only was the IT guy not aware of it, he doesn't even know how to fix it. Good lard*—that should be about the most basic of his duties, shouldn't it? So while the rest of us twiddle our thumbs he has to hang on hold interminably with tech support and...whoops, gotta go!
Yours truly,
Mike Johnston
(Thanks to Dustin for the "proofreader and copyeditor" joke.)
*Irish for "Lord"...say it.
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Featured Comments from:
toto: "I know there are many people named Mike Johnston in the world. But to have only Mike Johnstons working in the same place, that's gotta be a unique situation. I take it the owner picked his staff on the basis of their names alone."
Mike replies: Careful, you'll get me in trouble with the EEOC.
Robert Roaldi: "What does Mike in HR say?"
Mike replies: He says HR is moving everyone towards termination. But secretly, so no one suspects a thing until Mike from Security escorts them from the building.
D. Hufford: "Maybe you should just get rid of the whole bunch and go it alone."
Mike replies: But think of how lonely it would be.
