Chicago, IL- After another exhausting year, wrestling with insignificance in the butthole of corporate America, staffers sat at an annual five hour long post mortem meeting to dissect other post mortems that may or may not have occurred throughout the year. Goals that had been made and missed or never existed at all. Accolades being given to apparitions that appeared only once a project was complete. Proclamations on improvements to processes that are universally disregarded.

Four and a half hours of platitudes later, the morale of the room had inexplicably dropped. It couldn’t have been the content. It was never the content. One astute manager took notice and recalled something he had read in a management textbook from his class favorite class at University of Phoenix “Perceived intelligence: Doing a job you are unqualified for”. The book read: Employees often times require affirmation, whether verbal or reward based.

A sympathetic glimmer manifested in his eye, a compassionate grin on his lips. How could he have forgotten, Christmas was right around the corner and there had been no mention of any holiday bonus. “I know what some of you are probably thinking,” he said eyeing the room in gleeful anticipation “You’ve all worked very hard this year, and as a token of our gratitude,” several sets of hopeful eyes now rested on him, his strategy was working, “I’ll go ahead and stop the meeting now…give you a half hour of your day back…you guys deserve it,” he concluded, nodding slowly.

One employee threw up violently on the table and they exited in relative silence, a Christmas treat they wouldn’t soon forget.