So I got this new job at Applebee's, and I'm looking through the employee handbook. This causes me to wonder about the people who come up with this stuff.

When I worked at Staples, we had a company policy that was called CARE. This stood for "Customers, Associates, somethingsomething, Execution." I always loved that last bit, since the company did seem to stop just short of executing the associates. But anyhow, that's not the point. At Applebee's, our slogan is "Balance, Innovation, Guest driven, FUN, Teamwork, Results, Integrity, Passion for service." Yes, it spells out BIG FUN TRIP. BIG FUN (freaking) TRIP. Notice that they have to spell the FUN in all caps in order for it not to become BIG F TRIP, which makes no sense. Though I expect the "FUN" was a later addition, after management realised that "BIG TRIP" was a really stupid slogan for any job other than "acid tester."

It just makes me laugh to think that someone probably got paid more money than I make in an entire month to come up with the phrase BIG FUN TRIP, and then come up with any old words that fit it. And that he was too lazy to do that, and used entire phrases for some of it. And then couldn't think of anything for the FUN part, so just left it blank.

Actually, you know what? I bet they paid a whole group of people my annual salary to do that.