Bailey, Frost & Myrrh present
Our story opens with Dale French, Assistant Manager.
“We’re finished! Finished!”
Dale paces a fresh groove in the foyer carpeting of Bailey, Frost, and Myrrh. His eyes bulge more than normal, giving the appearance of deceased comedian Marty Feldman without the bi-directional gaze. The lone vein in his head pulsates with every stomp of his foot.
Today’s Cast Includes:
DALE FRENCH
Assistant Manager
MOLLY HOBBY
Administrative Assistant
LARRY
Purchasing Manager
GREG
Lead Salesperson
DOUG
Lead Computer Specialist
BRENDA
Customer Service
MOLLY
“We are not finished, Dale. We can absolutely rectify the situation. Just leave it to me.”
DALE
“Molly, you are in no position to fix anything!”
MOLLY
“How can you say that?”
LARRY
“Yeah, how can you say that?”
DALE
“Oh shut up, Larry!”
LARRY
“Oh shut up, Larry!”
Dale slightly foams at the corner of his mouth, burning holes through Larry with his big bright bulging eyes. Larry smiles back at him. Before an aneurism could occur, Dale turns his attention back to Molly.
DALE
“Because Molly. Number one, you’re not qualified, and number two, even if you were qualified, you are literally buried in other work.”
MOLLY
“Dale, I can do it. Let me help.”
DALE
“No… you can’t, Molly.”
MOLLY
“I’ll clear my desk and give it top priority.”
DALE
“Molly, I can’t even see your desk! I have no idea if you even have a desk. The only things anyone can make out in that pit you call an office are the forty-three projects you haven’t completed, and a blow-up Princess Sparkle air mattress.”
MOLLY
“I’m just a little behind.”
DALE
“And what’s the litter box for?”
Before Molly can answer, Greg strolls in the front door. The lead salesperson for Bailey, Frost, and Myrrh, he’s wearing his usual attire of Tommy Bahama jeans, Cole-Hahn loafers with no socks, a corduroy sport coat, and a band collar shirt with the top three buttons agape.
GREG
“Dudes and dudette! What’d I miss?”
DALE
“What’d you miss?”
LARRY
“What’d you miss?”
DALE
“Larry!”
MOLLY
“There was a mix-up in the parts that we shipped to Dr. Rabbit’s office last Friday.”
GREG
“Impossible, I had everything ready to go by 1:59pm on the nose thank you very much.”
DALE
“But there was a change in the order at 2:06pm, you moron! Where the hell were you?”
GREG
“T-C-B’in’ Daleo.”
MOLLY
“T-C-B’ing?”
LARRY
“Totally caught boozing.”
GREG
“Bingo! I can’t help it if I’m fast!”
DALE
“Fast? Fast?! Hey Jeff Gordon, while you were killing off the last few brain cells in that melon of yours, you ended up killing our biggest client!”
GREG
“Whoa! What are you talking about?”
DALE
“Those new parts that you were supposed to ship but didn’t ship were the precise parts Dr. Rabbit needed to test his new ‘Surgery Buddy’ electric scalpel. The old parts had a software glitch… a glitch that cost the good doctor his life.”
GREG
“What the hell are you talking about?”
MOLLY
“Sweetie, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Dr. Rabbit was so confident in his new machine that he said a chimp could do it. So he had his receptionist perform the surgery.”
GREG
“Excuse me?! What the…
MOLLY
“And instead of a routine laparoscopic procedure, the guy ended up with a ruptured spleen and no intestines.”
LARRY
“Pfft… no intestines!”
GREG
“Hey, this is not my fault! What kind of idiot would have a receptionist perform surgery on him?”
DOUG
“The same idiot responsible for eighty-three-point-two-seven percent of our total revenue for the year.”
GREG
“I thought we had back-up and redundancies, and redundancies for our redundancies.”
DALE
“We do. It’s called doing your freaking job, you waste of space! Thanks to you, this company will be dead before Dr. Rabbit hits the grave!”
DOUG
“I told you that we shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket, but no one ever listens to the smartest guy in the company.”
DALE
“Hey Doug, why don’t you go back to that computer-crammed hole you crawled out of and use your ‘it’ geeks to figure out how this even happened!”
DOUG
“It’s I-T, Dale! And this is not our fault! I told you we should have used HighOrbit months ago! An order entry, shipping and inventory process could have avoided this entire fiasco. We could have even put HR processes in place to help us track the sheer avalanche of reasons why going for a root canal is more pleasurable than dealing with you! Who knows, maybe HighOrbit can even come up with ways to streamline your upcoming firing!”
DALE
“If I’m going down, you’re all going down with me!”
MOLLY
“Boys! Boys! Please stop fighting! I know we can fix this! Can’t we get along?”
Just then, Brenda, the total lack of customer service representative, sticks her head into the room.
BRENDA
“Those fools couldn’t get along in a three-man parade.”
LARRY
“Three man parade.”
EVERYONE SHOUTS
“SHUT UP, LARRY!”
Life happens. Work happens. Mistakes happen. And apparently, some mistakes cost lives. Having reliable, efficient, and simple workflow automation in place for key processes like order tracking, shipping, inventory control, and yes, even HR, could have avoided such a catastrophe. Don’t be like the poor souls at Bailey, Frost, and Myrrh.
GREG
“Wait, does the boss know about this?”
MOLLY
“Not yet.”
DALE
“But it’s only a matter of time!”
LARRY
“Matter of time.”