“Dear Valued Team Member: We Are Replacing Your 401K Plan with Powerball Lottery Tickets,” by Chris Eno McMahon

Jan 5th, 2022 | By | Category: Fake Nonfiction, Prose

Our Company is always on the lookout for innovative ways to keep your employee benefits current and competitive. That’s why we’re pleased to announce the following changes to your benefits package:

Retirement

Some of you recently brought it to our attention that the Our Company 401K plan wasn’t compatible with maintaining a lifestyle that includes food and housing. We took your concerns seriously and created a new plan that’s better suited to our needs as a company: We’re investing in State of Michigan Powerball tickets for every employee, every week of your retirement. The Michigan lottery payout topped $1.5 billion in 2016, and there could be an even bigger payoff in the future. This affords you weekly chances to live out your retirement in luxury. What’s more, all of your fellow team members will also collect their retirement benefit in Powerball tickets, so your odds of having a friend share their lottery winnings with you have never been better!

Sick Leave 

Sick pay and disability leave are virtually a thing of the past at Our Company, thanks to our state-of-the art Special Care Division (SCD). This facility provides a fully quarantined area and oxygen tanks at each work station to accommodate a broad spectrum of contagious diseases. Team members who would otherwise be recovering at home can now enjoy record-low levels of worthlessness. Those in our SCD report among the highest job-retention rates in the Upper Midwest. In fact, our proprietary door handles ensure that medically fragile team members couldn’t leave to take a sick day if they wanted to. 

Mental Health

Your mental health is important to us! That’s why we offer a 24-hour Confidential Telephone Support (CTS) hotline for team members requiring counseling in areas that can impact job performance. 

Continuing Education

For those wishing to advance at Our Company, we now offer on-the-job training. For a nominal fee, team members will be given the opportunity to provide live psychiatric phone counseling as part our innovative Confidential Telephone Support (CTS) hotline system. This system affords employees some of the most intensive and minimally supervised training available. 

Cancer

Cancer is a great concern to Our Company. The soaring cancer rates among Our Company team members (particularly those team members who come into contact with our proprietary door handles) have not been satisfactorily explained in any of our preliminary tests. The speculative nature of this cancer has necessitated that all future cancer treatments be classified as “Experimental Medicine,” thereby becoming ineligible for standard health insurance compensation. We strongly encourage all employees to prepare for a cancer event by starting a Cancer-Specific Health Savings Account (CSHSA) with our hassle-free payroll deductions. Unused CSHSA funds will be rolled into the Our Company CEO’s superyacht fund quarterly. 

On-the-Job Injuries

*Dismemberment

Everyone pays for dismemberment fraud. Our Company is protecting your hard-earned dollars by requiring that all on-the-job loss-of-limb claims now include three letters of witness testimony documenting prior possession and active use of said limb. After the documentation has been approved by the Accredited Dismemberment Committee (ADC), afflicted employees will be compensated financially and/or with premium coffee vouchers.

*Loss of Phalanges

Employees will be compensated for the loss of each finger or toe, up to a maximum of six phalanges. As verification of phalange loss, we will continue to accept credible eyewitness accounts in lieu of notarized witness statements. To head off abuse of the system, however, we have discontinued our policy of granting a full day’s paid medical leave for each lost digit. The loss of a single digit now qualifies the insured for an extended coffee break and a voucher for three free cups of standard coffee or two cups of premium flavored coffee including the use of stirrers. Each additional digit lost entitles the team member to a festive holiday pen printed with the Our Company logo.

*Other Losses

Losses of ears, eyes, knee caps and other body parts cannot possibly be individually itemized in a cost-effective and equitable manner. Therefore, with each substantive corporeal loss that does not otherwise qualify for compensation, team members will now be awarded a raffle ticket. A semi-annual drawing will be held in which ticket holders will have the chance to win a Nintendo Switch gaming system.

We trust that you’ll be as excited as we are about the modernization of your benefits plan. We have every confidence that you’ll soon win the Powerball Jackpot and update your Facebook status with photos of your new villa in Santorini. In the meantime, if you have any questions, concerns, or adjustment issues with your new benefits package, please direct them to one of the employee-care specialists on our CTS hotline.

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Raised in an underground house on a pig farm, Chris Eno McMahon is an erstwhile teen bride, PTO president, and Homemaker of the Year for the state of Michigan. She was recently published in Weekly Humorist, Points in Case, Jane Austen’s Wastebasket, and Little Old Lady Comedy. She’s currently enrolled in an MFA program and living with her family in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

 

 

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