Memos from Bear Cave: Man's Reach (Part 2)

This article is part of the Memos from Bear Cave series.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: February 25, 1980
SUBJECT: Quit Wasting Ammo

When I left all those loaded guns lying around the office, I didn't do that so you first-class buffoons could try and murder yourselves. Suicide doesn't help soup get made and it doesn't help Bob Hutch and his goons get dead. Since none of you are smart enough to figure out which end of the gun to point things at, I'm taking them all back.

And no, we won't be taking any time off to mourn the six gigantic idiots who offed themselves. Last time I checked, this nation doesn't honor quitters with business holidays.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: February 25, 1980
SUBJECT: Vandalism

Whichever one of you idiots had the gall to write "Soup Semper Tyrannis" on my office door better come forward. That kind of savvy copywriting is exactly what we need in our marketing department. I want that slogan on all our cans.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: February 25, 1980
SUBJECT: Marketing Department Update

Brad Buick came forward and admitted to the vandalism. I reassigned him to the marketing department, then fired the whole department for associating with an a rotten son of a bitch like Brad Buick. We don't need marketing. Our soups appeal to a large audience. We've captured almost all of the wife beater market and angry dads prefer our soups two to one. You can't buy that kind of success. You earn it by making the meanest soup the world has ever seen.

Now quit wasting time committing suicide and get back to work.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: February 26, 1980
SUBJECT: Great Job. Idiots.

Well, you did it. You idiots really did it. You allowed that idiot Brad Buick to show up, sit down and set himself on fire as an act of protest. Why not put him out? Why not drag his burning body outside where he won't disrupt work?

Thanks to your carelessness, half my building burned down. In particular, the half I still own. The only thing I managed to save from the fire was this memo machine and Bouillon, my beautiful dog, who was severely burned. There's not much left of him at this point, just a charred husk and a refusal to die.

Remarkably, the half of the building owned by Bob Hutch and his Man's Reach Soup Co. hooligans was spared. Something about fresh fire retardant paint he had put up when he was uglying up the place. Don't think for a minute I'm going to let him get away with this and don't think for a minute this means we're out of business. We've got half the soupyards, half a parking lot and four soup trucks I won from Roy Mallard over at Druid's Delight Soup. That's more than I started with.

I don't tell this story a lot, but I founded this company with little more than a dream. I got drunk one night, punched my first wife, blacked out for a few hours, came to and decided I wanted to start a soup company. By morning I had sold my first can of soup and married my second wife. If that story doesn't inspire you to work harder than ever, then I personally hate your guts.

Pick a truck, climb in the back and get to work. Just stay out of the nicest truck, because that one is my office. We're going to make this soup company great again.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: February 26, 1980
SUBJECT: Don't Start This Again

All employees are hereby PROHIBITED from using the bathrooms in the Man's Reach offices. I don't care of Bob Hutch himself agrees to wipe your ass. You DO NOT enter that building or give that man one speck of your bodily wastes. You're on my clock, so I own it. Manuel has placed a bucket in the shade between two of the trucks and I've instructed him to give me hourly reports about its usage and content.