The spectacle began as the Big Head, the man who runs the company, came to collect his prize, the fevered wet dream of a crazed meglomaniac. As his scooter came to a stop in the parking lot, the Big Head stood up and waddled to the microphone, basking in the glow of his own aura. A few steps in, the beaten-down boss of my boss, the 2nd in Command of the Company, picked the robe up from the floor and carried it behind the Big Head. In front of him sat the targeted audience of this show, the slickly dressed sales people and dealers we're trying to make sales and deals with. Shunted off behind them, beyond the ropes and scattered far to the right of the salespeople stood the employees of the company, called to attendance by the office PA. Behind the Big Head was most of his cars, around twenty bright yellow and red Lamborghini's and other fancy, flashily painted expensive imported cars whose names I've never heard of and all costing around half a million each. All of the cars came out of my poor, understaffed and overworked department's budget. One of my coworkers started adding up all the salary's of people we could have hired. I thought of how the salary that was promised me originally wasn't given to me, the first seed of bitterness that spread forth and led to my leaving. Unspoken by everyone, but thought off by all, was the memories of all the people recently laid-off and all the new cost-saving measure's now being put in place. When I joked to the Big Head's car bitch about how the presence of several boring plain old silver Beemer's were distracting from the other cars, he moved them into the background.

The Big Head began his speech, telling his audience about his new toy, his new race car. He told the Rocky-like story of how the car's team came from behind and won several big races this year. I wasn't moved, the inspiration of a driver driving faster than a bunch of other drivers in a car race clearly lost on me. He turned it over to the leader of the Race Team, telling his audience how the lesson's learned by the Race Car team are lessons we all need to know, words that are clearly meant for it's maximum go get'em-ness. The guy spoke about the races he won, about how great it was and how it was all owed to attitude and teamwork. Attitude and Teamwork- the motto of a company whose employees are mainly overworked, overstressed, and overbitter. "Whatever" and "I hate my job" are more like it. Does the Big Head really mean attitude and teamwork or does he mean kiss my ass and do what I want? I wonder what the meaning of it is when it's becoming more and more apparent that two of my co-workers, two friends, might be let go for no reason other than a nasty political spat fight, the maybe first-shot in a company wide putsch.

As it goes on, I imagine that inside the Big Head's head, the sky is sunny and cloudless, a magnificently beautiful day. I look up. The sky is dark and cloudy with ominous clouds looming right on the horizon.

I'm so outta there.