As we approach our year-end close, the various Booksquare departments are clearing desks and revisiting goals. The Department of the Obvious has realized she hasn’t presented anything to management this quarter (nor the quarter before — and we’d had a little talk about her productivity). What with raises and bonuses and the possibility of a cubicle with a view, she scrambled until she found something.
From her memo: “Publishers spent a lot of money every year trying to figure out what makes people buy books. They have focus groups. Sometimes they send spies into bookstores to observe buyers as they do whatever it is that one does in a bookstore (I believe it is mostly drinking coffee, but my expense allowance doesn’t allow me to know for sure). All that money wasted, and no conclusion. Until now.”
Very good memo, and while we laugh at the idea of allowing her to spend more of our corporate profits, she gets extra credit for trying. Even if it was Obvious.
