---(from 2007)

I'm not using corruption in the correct sense according to Dictionary.com, but that's ok it isn't really my intent. Mind you there are some versions of the definitions there that I do think come close. For that matter those of you with an education greater than mine (read: 8th grade or equivalent) could probably find a better word.

So back to corruption. I was down in the lunch room in the building I work. There are around 250 people that have access to the lunch room. So we know off the bat, around 248 of them are slobs. The type of people that make a pig sty look, well, more like a lunch room then the actual lunch room in question here.

We used to have bottled water dispensers in the lunch room. Around ten of them as I recall. They are all gone now. For that matter they have technically been gone for weeks because the company stopped buying the large plastic jugs of water. Before you Stalinist types get on the band wagon about the bad company holding us down, wait, there's more.

We had the dispensers, we had the bottles and the bottles were sitting in the dispensers in a capacity that would yield a water-esque by-product if you pressed the magic white button with a cup underneath. That ended and for weeks all we had were the dispensers (sans the plastic bottles of semi-full water, as the French would say), collecting dust. Well, let me clarify, we had the bottles, but they were locked up in another room. We had the dispensers in the lunch room.

Yea, I know, get to the point

We stopped having the full bottles near the dispensers to be used because some moron tried to lift one up and put it in the dispenser and hurt his back (allegedly). Or it was the easy way to file a workers' compensation claim. But wait there is more. So Bubba hurts his back lifting the bottle of water and falls over. In the process Bubba spills some of the water, not a big reach of logic if you visualize the process as a youtube clip or something as he fell over with 40 pounds of water bottle missing its intended target from his back giving out.

Everyone panics. The police, the paramedics, the Action News Team, Human Resources and nine Workers' comp attorneys are called. For that matter, even OJ was asked to explain where he was when the water bottle fell on Bubba.

Bubba is taken away and now lives off of $1842 a month of disability pending his claim of negligence against the company.

Again, I digress. So some water spilled on the floor. After the mass exodus of all involved finally leaves the lunch room and the CSI team finishes their investigation, someone forgot to put of the little yellow sign that said Slippery Floor. So an hour later, Marge comes in thinking she can get some water from the ever full dispensers that the company put in the lunch room and slips and falls hurting her back as her ancient bones fell the two and a half feet to the ever waiting slick faux-tile floor.

Again mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together and the Action News Team is back for their investigation and nine workers' compensation attorneys are again called, drooling with every ring of their phone.

The company panics. Attorneys are called, consultants are consulted and the Bobs come in to evaluate "Is This Good For The Company"

In what seems like years later and hundreds of memos circulating over the company exchange server the verdict comes in.

It is determined that we cant have water lifted by an employee randomly. Water must be lifted by a designated and qualified manager that has taken a "Water Bottle Safety Lifting Test" and wears that strange fitting black Velcro bondage device that makes sure he doesn't blow a ball and cause a hernia in the extremely difficult Lift With Your Legs and NOT your back kind of thing.

So here is where the corruption part comes in. That qualified and tested manager goes out on stress leave a few days later. One would have to assume the pressure of being the only one qualified in a company of 250 to lift a bottle of water simply overcame him. I suspect we would all crack under such great pressure. The company has no disaster recovery plan. The consultants are gone, there is no one left to make a decision. The unthinkable has occurred, the seventh seal has been broken.

Fast Forward to yesterday (again). So they finally remove the empty dispensers that have been collecting dust. They remove the empty water bottles from before Bubba hurt his back and Marge slipped and fell fusing all vertebrae of everyone within two hexes on the map. The rust stains from spilled water from the metal feet of the dispensers can be viewed like the chalk outline from some heinous crime scene. The broken lids of water bottles can be viewed sitting behind refrigerators.

The water is gone. Sorrow fills the building. A time of mourning is scheduled.

But the good news is we have a locked storage room full of water bottles, well full of full water bottles to be exact and one unused black Velcro lifting aid thingy to prevent a designated and tested Qualified Manager from blowing out a ball if he were ever to lift a water bottle again.

Corruption just seemed to fit this one, not sure why.

But if I was going to digress, somehow this story reminded me of this drinking game in college and this chick that was a Bio-Sci major with red hair. But that's for another day.