Friday, March 13, 2009

I Discover The Chinese Grass-Mud Horse Is The Key To Maintaining Employee Morale In The Wake Of Corporate Bullshit.

It doesn't exist, this grass-mud horse. It's mythical. Like a unicorn. But like that imaginary animal, the grass-mud horse is magical as well. The key perhaps, to bringing down tyrannical regimes both communist and corporate. This night I discovered the power of the Chinese grass-mud horse for myself, and for the entire staff of the happy pill room. 

Wednesday's New York Times broke the story of the grass-mud horse for most of us in the west only last Wednesday, but evidently it has been quite the rage in the land of Mao for a couple months now:


Since its first unheralded appearance in January on a Chinese Web page, the grass-mud horse has become nothing less than a phenomenon.

A YouTube children’s song about the beast has drawn nearly 1.4 million viewers. A grass-mud horse cartoon has logged a quarter million more views. A nature documentary on its habits attracted 180,000 more. Stores are selling grass-mud horse dolls. Chinese intellectuals are writing treatises on the grass-mud horse’s social importance. The story of the grass-mud horse’s struggle against the evil river crab has spread far and wide across the Chinese online community.

Not bad for a mythical creature whose name, in Chinese, sounds very much like an especially vile obscenity. Which is precisely the point.

A little Googling reveals the obscenity to be "fuck your mother," which adds Chinese to the list of 3 languages in which I can say the phrase. It's the only thing I can say in Vietnamese without mangling the accent to the point that the Vietnamese person has no idea what I'm trying to get out of my mouth. (It's kinda like doo-MAH-may. The key is to think of it as flowing like "your mamma")

Government computers scan Chinese cyberspace constantly, hunting for words and phrases that censors have dubbed inflammatory or seditious. When they find one, the offending blog or chat can be blocked within minutes.

China’s online population has always endured censorship, but the oversight increased markedly in December, after a pro-democracy movement led by highly regarded intellectuals, Charter 08, released an online petition calling for an end to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.

Shortly afterward, government censors began a campaign, ostensibly against Internet pornography and other forms of deviance. By mid-February, the government effort had shut down more than 1,900 Web sites and 250 blogs — not only overtly pornographic sites, but also online discussion forums, instant-message groups and even cellphone text messages in which political and other sensitive issues were broached.

It was against this background that the grass-mud horse and several mythical companions appeared in early January on the Chinese Internet portal Baidu. The creatures’ names, as written in Chinese, were innocent enough. But much as “bear” and “bare” have different meanings in English, their spoken names were double entendres with inarguably dirty second meanings.

So while “grass-mud horse” sounds like a nasty curse in Chinese, its written Chinese characters are completely different, and its meaning —taken literally — is benign. Thus the beast not only has dodged censors’ computers, but has also eluded the government’s own ban on so-called offensive behavior.

BBBWWWAAAAHHHAAAAHHHAAAAAA......if I were Chinese I would be so all over the grass-mud horse. Naturally, I told my staff about it first thing this morning. It's the kind of oddball thing they've come to expect to hear from the Drugmonkey. They're actually very good about putting up with my oddball stories.

Then I looked over a memo outlining my employer's newest "bonus" program. Those of you familiar with my employer know that it has its own unique definition of the word "bonus." Specifically, "a program designed with criteria that are known in advance to be unattainable, thereby allowing management to make rank and file employees feel bad about their job performance"

Or criteria that can be changed. The last "bonus" program involved prescription transfers. Until they decided, after the "bonus" period ended, that it involved prescription transfers and a heretofore unknown percentage growth in prescriptions filled as well.

And now they were back. Not only thinking we're dumb enough to fall for their shit again, but topping off the shit cake with a layer of condescending icing:

I'm paraphrasing here, but it went something like, "$250 isn't much to you pharmacists, but it can mean a lot to your technicians and cashiers, so you need to be not so callous and get with the program, because you're not being fair to them"

"Grass-mud horse (insert DM's name here)" I thought to myself as I wadded up the memo.

It was at that moment that I was hit with mud horse magic. I called an impromptu staff meeting to explain the new Drugmonkey bonus program.

My DM was right about something for the first time ever. When you're single and making Pharmacist bucks, $250 is tip change. That's why the next time I show up for work, I will be carrying an envelope with $300 real cash money inside. The first pharmacy staff member who can work the words "grass" "mud" and "horse" into a conversation with a customer, in that order, gets the envelope. Tax free. To make it interesting, I'll be playing along as well. If I can do it, the envelope goes back into my pocket.

Cynicism was replaced with hope, apathy with sincere effort. My new bonus program was the talk of the pill room this day. I am the best manager ever. All thanks to the grass-mud horse.

In Tagalog it's putang ina mo.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are one 'crazy' dude. (I'm sorry I try not to be personal about comments on blogs to hit the issue, but this last post cracks me up.)

Anonymous said...

I disagree with you so often, but argument without hope of reconcilliation is pointless. However, I can't thank you enough for sharing this bit of information. Hilarious, pointed, and timely. Nice work.

pacalaga said...

That is the best bonus program ever.

Anonymous said...

Oh man. I can't tell you how much I love humor and games in the pharmacy. It almost makes being a tech enjoyable.
Sadly most at my store would not understand or love this as much as me.

Anonymous said...

I live in rural Northern Idaho, and believe me, I could easily work "grass" "mud" "horse" into a conversation with even the most senile old lady. I'm gonna have to run that bonus program by my boss and see what she says.

Anonymous said...

Putang ina mo, anak ng puta.

Stop stealing my catchphrases.

Chip said...

Sounds like car salesman spiffs-

If you can get a customer to climb in the bed of a pickup and jump to test the shocks- 50 bucks.

Get a female customer to lay on the ground and look at something underneath the car- 50 bucks.

Fun times, if you can get it.

Anonymous said...

doo mah may....so basically, do mommy (with and english accent)???

Thats awesome.

You crack me up and I totally wish you were my manager! Geez, I'd NO prob getting that out! With all the crackheads, xanax freaks, 'codonecrazies...coherency itsn't something I expect when talking to them.

Anonymous said...

Next customer who buys laundry detergent with their drugs: "I've heard that detergent can get out grass, mud, and horse stains!"

One sentence. $300. :)

Anonymous said...

In Russian, "Yob tvoyu mat"

Anonymous said...

If anybody's familiar with the movie Super Troopers - we actively replace the word "now" with the word "meow" all day, every day.

The best part is keeping a straight face while everyone else in the pharmacy that plays is cracking up.

It doesn't count when you do it to a patient whose calling to refill her otic drops, however.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like "Mah ben-tour gahn". Means to be intimate with one's mother in Hindi. ;)

Anonymous said...

{"...definition of the word "bonus." Specifically, "a program designed with criteria that are known in advance to be unattainable, thereby allowing management to make rank and file employees feel bad about their job performance"}

If I didn't know better I'd say you worked for ADT. Of course when management stopped getting their bonuses and caning us didn't work, they simply lowered their standards...I mean criteria, since lowering their standards isn't really possible.

Anonymous said...

So did anyone pull it off?