I understand some of you are concerned. America’s newspapers have been shrinking as more and more readers turn to the Internet for news. But I want you all to know that with my purchase of The Washington Post, you need not fear for your jobs. Sure, my purchase marks the beginning of the end of online news for everyone but us; we’re also going to make The Washington Post the go-to-place for news in print. Though, I’ll probably rename it “The Jupiter” or “The Wooly Mammoth” or something else really, really big, but that won’t be for a couple of weeks.
There will, of course, be some other changes.
First, our Delivery Staff will be delighted to know they’ll be provided with company vehicles! No more tooling around in muffler-less Pintos, sending family dogs barking and skittering to the windows, waking whole neighborhoods at 3 a.m. You will, of course, need to get your A Class license in order to operate the new semi-trucks with which you’ll be provided. You’ll need the extra space, because along with our papers, you’ll be delivering a few other things, like toasters, books, shampoo, toys, coffee, pet costumes and vibrators disguised as back massagers. A stunning numbers of that last item, actually. We’re currently developing an environmentally conscious wrapping gel that bounces, so you’ll still be able to throw most items out of the window and into gardens or near sprinklers moments before they spring to life.
One thing you won’t be able to throw out the window is the actual paper. You’ll need to learn how to operate a crane for those, because Writers, not only are your jobs safe, we’ll be hiring! We’re adding a few new sections to the paper. In addition to classics like Politics, Entertainment and Sports we’ll be creating new areas like Gardening, Children, Self-Help, Crafts, Computers, Handwriting Analysis, Dentistry… the full list is on the two 256 gig flash drives provided in your “Introduction to Bezos” packages. You’ll also find a complimentary year subscription to Amazon Prime, but remember to cancel that before the end of that year or it will automatically renew on your credit cards, which I can assume Amazon has on file.
We’ll also be hiring new drivers to follow the other drivers and deliver the Opinion section, which might be slightly larger than the actual paper. These drivers will be responsible for gathering reader’s daily review and opinion cards. The opinion cards will help us rate stories going forward. Readers will also be able to return the news they don’t like for a full refund, though, in many cases, at their own expense. We’re not Zappos, for crying out loud. They bought The Chicago Tribune.
Printers, you’ll have longer hours, but that means more money in your pocket. Which reminds me; starting today you’ll all be paid in Amazon Gift Cards, which is the same as money only more fun.
Customer Service, each day it will be your responsibility to deliver each subscriber’s preferences to the Printers, so they know how many papers to print sorted by “New and Popular” and how many by “Average Customer Review.”
Customer Service will also be expanded to field readers’ Wish Lists requests. Readers will be able to suggest the news they’d like to read and our Customer Satisfaction team will do their best to make it happen. Remember, The Washington Woolly Mammoth is now the most customer-centric paper in the universe. If we need to arrange chance meetings between Katy Perry and Usher until they finally fall in love and marry, then that’s what we’ll do.
Oh, and last but not least, everyone gets a free Kindle Fire.
Welcome aboard!
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Amy! Primo post, man. This Emerson quote cam to mind while reading your words: “Is it not the chief disgrace in the world, not to be an unit; — not to be reckoned one character; — not to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the party, the section, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted geographically, as the north, or the south? Not so, brothers and friends,…”
So how long have you been WAITING to spit out that quote on a blog? You can thank me later. I too memorize great quotes, like this one, from Tupac:
Now I clown around
when I hang around
with the underground
girls that used to frown
say I’m down
when I come around
Gas me
when they passed me
they used to dis me
harrass me
now they ask me
if they can kiss me
Well, shoot…the only quote that comes to mind is Alice’s down the rabbit hole, “curiouser and curiouser” which is probably apt! With seven of my books up on Amazon I’m a “content provider”, a little different from when I was a print journalist for better than 20 years!
Love this!!!!!
This is terrific. You should send this to the Washington Post and see if they’ll run it.
Hey Phil, how’s my favorite HS blogger? That’s sweet of you to say, and the bonus is if they ran it, we could all build snowmen in hell! 🙂