FROM: The President
TO: All Employees
RE: New Year’s Resolutions

All of us here at the Schenectady Small Arms & Biscuit Co. are proud of our performance in the past twelve months. In a time of recession, our company weathered the storm and stayed on track, proving the wisdom of my illustrious predecessor Osbert Rutherford, who famously observed that, regardless of economic conditions, people would always be willing to pay for quality snack foods, and they would always want to kill each other.

It is therefore with considerable pride that I look back over the accomplishments of the year 2009; and, at the same time, with quiet confidence I anticipate even greater accomplishments in the year 2010, which, if I read my calendar correctly, is scheduled to follow the year 2009.

It is a time-honored tradition that forms part of the fabric of our great capitalist civilization that people should make “resolutions” for the new year: that is, that they should make certain determinations in areas in which they wish to improve, and then should do their utmost to live up to those determinations. However, the business of making these “resolutions” is often approached in a sloppy and unscientific manner, as not everyone has the time or (to speak frankly) the intellectual capacity to make effective new year’s resolutions.

As part of your Team Member benefits program, and at absolutely no cost to team members, the Human Resources department has prepared new year’s resolutions for each department, thus saving you the trouble of trying to come up with them for yourselves, and freeing you to concentrate on more pressing tasks. For example, I see by this schedule that the entire Customer Service department is resolving to spend at least two hours a day hunting for gainful employment, as the business of customer service will be outsourced to Dhaka beginning in February. And it appears that Shipping will be resolving to find a new girlfriend, so good luck with that, Shipping.

Please stop by Human Resources tomorrow morning to pick up your personalized resolutions. Your supervisor will log the resolution you have been issued and verify that it has been posted prominently in your cubicle, and at your next performance review you will be graded on your adherence to that resolution.

On behalf of the entire management team, I should like to wish you a very happy new year. My personal resolution, it appears from the schedule, is to write more memoranda, so expect to be hearing from me shortly.

With warmest regards,
J. Rutherford Pinckney,
President