An Interesting Approach - Internal Memo

In the form of an accidental leaked email - although it had my username interjected into the copy - the writers at Woot have continued to humor me as well as reminding me that they exist. Thanks for being FUNNY when you SPAM me - seriously! I would have not read the email - as I do for 99.9% of the spam I receive - had it not been cleverly disguised as a mistake. Good work!

Finally my obsession for cheap shit meets the immediacy it requires of the internet!


Enjoy for yourself:

WOOT, INC. INTERNAL EMAIL
STAFF EYES ONLY

Attention Woot employees -

We are now entering the final phase of preparations for the Woot-Off planned for midnight tonight. This is when we depart from our usual deal-a-day model and sell one product after another, offering a new deal as soon as the previous one sells out. For some reason, Woot members like apwired continue to have high expectations for this event. We must make every effort to ensure that they feel disappointed and betrayed.

All workers should be physically and mentally straining to make this Woot-Off a success, like every muscle in a wolf's body strains to capture and devour its prey. We expect total compliance with the following objectives:


Make sure the stables are thoroughly cleaned and the horses properly groomed and shod. As you know, Commander Rutledge prefers to lead us on horseback during Woot-Offs. Charge!
Customer Service department: all vacation requests for this week and next are approved. If you have not filed a vacation request, take one anyway.
The little green pills in the kitchen are there to keep you alert and working. Take as many as you need. Officially, Woot does not believe in the concept of "overdose".
Take at least one of our servers offline, just for laughs.
Go to the landfill and dig up some more Sansa media players. If you see any Digipro Graphics Tablets (and you will), grab those, too.
Place crap bags in company latrines so those orders can be "filled". To this end, the company will provide free lunch today from El Feo, the filthiest burrito joint in Dallas. Do your worst, guys.
Neutralize all negative thinking among our members. We simply cannot tolerate any more posts like "do not want" or "Woot-Off killer". If electronic means like word filters and IP bans do not work, we must reactivate the rapid-response teams to physically eliminate all threats to our reputation.
Last time, spot checks revealed that approximately 25% of products shipped are broken, incomplete, or excessively dirty. This is unacceptable. For this Woot-Off, defective shipments must make up at least 40%.
Remind SmartPost that there's no need to hurry on these orders. Prompt delivery makes our customers spoiled and argumentative. Let them learn humility and gratitude while they wait.

Above all, we must strive to make this Woot-Off even more tedious, disappointing, and lucrative than the last one. The employee who achieves the most toward this end will be rewarded with one brown Zune. Second place: two brown Zunes.

Forward into battle! Remember: to give one's life for Woot is glorious!

Larry Stalin
eCommerce eKommissar
Woot, Inc.

THIS EMAIL WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 90 SECONDS


BOOM!

Collared shirts and no more jeans? What happened to my high school?

Students of my hometown high school recently passed a new dress code forcing student to wear dress pants, with a belt, plain collared shirts and non-hazardous shoes. And all-black outfits are a no-no, sorry all you Mummenschanz performers. You’ll have to wear navy blue now.

Read along with me: http://www.pittstonarea.com/plan&policy/DressCodePolicy.htm

The further down the list I read, the more I am astonished. Can this be legal? This is a rural high school in northeast Pennsylvania, not Compton. And the rules appears stricter than I would expect to find on the Harvard campus. Someone must have peed in the school boards cheerios to have structured a dress code this stringent. Hell, I’m glad I graduated 20 years ago – before the term baggy refereed to zip lock bags.

I’ll have to stop by there this fall when I attend my high school reunion. I can only expect to find the student dressed like morons. I had to google “Henley Shirts” just to learn that I just bought one of these for myself in a turquoise linen. Still a trouble maker I guess! When I visit, I’ll be sure to wear my baggy camouflage cargo sweat-shorts and a logoed spandex “Fuck Me” t-shirt with the collar visibly torn off and my underwear showing below the shorts. And flop flops. It’ll surely wreak inside the school when as the globe warms up, the students are no longer permitted to wear shorts to school, for 90% of the school year.

Btw, I looked it up. Harvard has more leeway in attire on graduation day [ http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Academic-dress] than the children in NEPA. In looking for other high schools with strict dress codes, a top search result brought me to a news report where the students were arrested in Philadelphia last month after a fight broke out at the security check point – Bart Simpson tshirts are still a no-no folks!. [ http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080917_20_arrested_at_Sayre_H_S__in_melee_over_dress_code.html] Way to stimulate mental growth in our youth – send them to jail! You can’t even wear a PAHS shirt anymore as the only thing allowed on a golf or dress shirt is a 2”x2” logo – go team spirit! Go hide in the closet at home.

Only outlaws will be wearing sunglasses. Wow. And the use of the Internet is a privilege, not a right.