To: All Employees
From: The President
Re: Ergonomics

All of us here at the Schenectady Small Arms & Biscuit Co., Inc., want to promote a productive work environment. I know that because I read it in a magazine in the dentist’s waiting room. My dentist has like a whole library in there, so every six months I get to catch up on my reading. So he had this magazine called Limited, the Magazine for the Smart Executive, and I thought, Hey, that’s me! And when I opened it up, the first article I came to was about this great new trend in work environments that makes them more productive, which it said is what everybody wants. A work environment is a place where people work. So like a job, but more environmental. This trend is called “ergonomics,” which looks like a big word, but it’s easy when you realize that it’s just made from two simple Greek words: ergo, which means “therefore,” and nomics, which means “stuff you eat.” I have no idea why it’s called “ergonomics,” because most of it isn’t about eating. But you should know about it, because it’s all about making the work environment better, and that’s what we all want.

I was only halfway through the article when the dental technician came to get me, but I got the gist of it. It’s basically about synergy, which is one of my favorite things. Last year for Boss’s Day my administrative assistant gave me a whole box of synergy. It looks like an empty box, but if you’re a smart executive you can see the synergy in it. Isn’t Mary Beth the best?

Anyway, the way ergonomics works is that you match the environment to the human beings who work in it. The article explained that people work better when the furniture around them matches the way their bodies are put together. It’s simple, really. Like, if you have to sit in a chair, that chair should have a shape that fits your body. And if you have to sit at a desk, then the things on the desk should be in the right positions for your arms to reach. The place you work and the shape of your body should fit together.

So when I got back to the office, I had Mary Beth do some numbers on that thing with the rectangles that she calls Extra Large (actually, she usually abbreviates it “XL”), and it turns out that it would cost a lot of money to make all our furniture fit our employees’ bodies. I mean, do you have any idea how many chairs there are just in the main building? So I said, “That’s a lot of money,” and she said, “Yeah, I suppose you’d think it was cheaper just to bend the employees around the furniture.”

See? This is why I say Mary Beth’s the best. I had her run the numbers (I don’t know why she kept saying “Please tell me you’re kidding” over and over again while she was doing it), and it turns out that her idea is surprisingly affordable, especially since my nephew Clyde is a chiropractor and he works cheap. So the immediate intent of this memo is to inform everyone to check your calendar to see when you’re scheduled for your upcoming appointment with Clyde. Together we can build the productive work environment that magazine says we all want.

With warmest regards,
J. Rutherford Pinckney,
President