Corporate Announcement: Changes at BaselessCamp Effective Immediately

Leaders lead loudly…

We’re a product, a service, a malleable construct and we need to remember that we’re always moving the goalposts and KPIs. It’s all about the lowest common denominator. And look, people are messy.

And we’ve had to make changes that feel like not quite a full version. And not quite like an update. What’s the word for when you have tons of bugs and ship it anyway — only because it benefits some of us and we make more money?

That’s where we are. An update.

We’re not all going to like the changes. Not everyone is going to be happy no matter how hard we try so we’ve decided… why bother? Let’s just not try. At all. Change that addresses more of us doesn’t work for some of us.

We just cannot please everyone no matter what we do and because it’s ‘not fair’ to everyone who isn’t marginalized, we’re abolishing HR and DEI teams immediately and replacing them with robots.

HR and DEI are messy. They make us feel bad. And we don’t like that. And since we cannot abolish just DEI — optics alone — we’re going to have to end all HR initiatives, too. It’s just too much emotional energy around people. Which is why robots are the perfect choice to replace admin people. We’ll have ‘benefits bots.’

Aldous Huxley wrote while incredibly high on psychedelics, “The question of the next generation will not be one of how to liberate the masses, but rather, how to make them love their servitude.”

We know we can’t make you love your servitude. I wish. We all want different things. Some of us want to not talk about uncomfortable things. Others want to discuss those things. We cannot all get what we want. Individual choices vary. And companies have to move forward while leaving some people behind..so that others can succeed.

So part of our changes include:

1. No more human conversations about relevant things people experience on our tool or at work. Sensitivities are at a spinal tap 11. Since we don’t have HR anymore, we don’t have time to monitor everything. We want you to bring your whole self to work, we just don’t want you to TALK about it. Not openly. It makes people uncomfortable to talk about real stuff at work. We want things to stay pleasant. Discomfort messes with the management distortion field. You can move those conversations elsewhere. It’s a distraction and waste of energy. Look, we’re sorry employees feel alienated at work by some employees and management; yet it’s not OK to actually talk about it at work. It destroys our ‘pleasant’ environment where leadership (aka mostly white men) doesn’t have to think about it.
2. No more company benefits that make you feel good about yourself. We want you to do the right thing and take care of yourself; we don’t want to know about it. Terry, we don’t give a crap about your spin classes so stop talking about it. And with our new profit-sharing plan, everyone participates equally in joint custody of our new dog, ‘profit,’ for a few days per year. No more poop in the office.
3. No more committees to do jobs we hired people to do. Bob, it’s your job to water the plants. You can’t just make up some dumb committee — ’The Eco Management Team’ — to do your work. And Linda, stop with the Environmental committee stuff to get out of writing that impact report. And Brent, STFU about the ‘loss prevention committee’ because your lunches get stolen. Kevin, stop eating Brent’s lunches. We know it’s you. We will publicly “disband” the inner sanctum council. Private meetings will still be held because we have our own handshake and own song. All moral issues will be decided by coin tosses in my office.
4. No more dwelling on the past. Except by management when it’s convenient. From time to time, we will randomly bring up irrelevant things as needed. We’re not lingering on decision-making; we’re going to charge full speed ahead without any DEI, HR or emotional “overhead.” Talking about social issues that affect our employees is draining.
5. No more 360 reviews. What a waste of time and paperwork. Moreover, these peer reviews are too nice, fun and make you feel too cushy. We’ll be introducing firing range — (aka ‘drive-by feedback’) — reviews instead. You’ll be blindfolded and read a bunch of stuff. Then, you’ll have to figure out who made the most outrageous comments and whether they have merit.
6. Remember what we do. We make stuff. We don’t want to get involved in social movements. Yes, some of them are important. They just don’t affect executives all that much. We have the luxury of not getting political because our existence as mostly white men isn’t politicized. People who look like us make the laws that are favorable to people who look like us. We recognize that not all of our employees have that luxury, and we don’t like having to think about that. Whatever horrible injustice is being perpetrated by this group or by that group (yadda yadda, I mean who even knows anymore?) isn’t our business. People should be responsible for dealing with their own injustices. Dealing with marginalization that affects your work? Well don’t bring THAT to work. Take personal responsibility and deal with it on your own time.

Is this change? Yes, and it is to allow us to move ahead without the emotional overhead of caring about the things that affect our employees. That frees us up to only be responsible for ourselves.

We should just trust each other to do our jobs without worrying about what affects others.

We can’t wait to get started with this new ‘update’.

(satire)

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I am a speaker, author, and comic. Founder of Keeping it Human, I help brands, leaders and teams use strategy, comedy and improv to unleash innovation and storytelling so employees and customers thrive. Sometimes I write funny about serious topics and seriously about funny topics. I laugh at business and make business laugh. My fave audience is my son, who laughs himself silly daily. I am @kathyklotzguest on Twitter and @klotzguest on Instagram. My book, “Stop Boring Me!,” is on Amazon.