KYLE-AM .. Kyle In The Morning

By Michael Breckenridge

MENLO PARK, Calif. — While many companies plan summer picnics and softball games to boost camaraderie, creative organizations may choose more challenging or inventive methods of building rapport. The Creative Group, a specialized staffing service providing marketing, advertising, creative and web professionals on a project basis, recently asked 250 U.S. advertising and marketing executives to describe unusual team-building activities they have heard of or taken part in.

Those surveyed were asked, “What is the wackiest or most unusual team-building activity you’ve ever heard of a firm participating in?” Here are some of their responses:

• “Team skydiving.”
• “A group Segway tour.”
• “Line dancing on the beach in matching outfits.” 
• “We had to navigate a maze through a cornfield.”

Then again, misery loves company, which may have been the thought behind these next group outings:

• “We shoveled horse manure in a stable.”
• “We went camping 9,000 feet up and it rained for two days.” 

Some activities required employees to take a leap of faith:

• “People would fall out of a tree and hope their team would catch them.”
• “We created a human bridge to cross a small stream.”

“Teamwork and innovation are essential in the creative field, so firms are always looking for ways to enhance morale and spark the imagination,” said Dave Willmer, executive director of The Creative Group. “Because industry professionals are innovative, it’s only natural that their group activities sometimes stray from the beaten path.”

When choosing a fun group outing, for example, why go bowling or have a barbecue? KYLE-AM conducted its own survey of insane companies and discovered a harrowing array of death-defying team-building choices:

• “Our company baited shark-infested waters and then asked employees to swim naked to a floating platform half a mile out.”
• “The boss said it would demonstrate our company’s commitment to multicultural values if one of us ‘appeased the fire god’ and jump into a live volcano on our trip to Hawaii.”
• “I was part of a BASE jumping team who first had to stand waist-deep in a vat of cement. My pants fell off from the weight. Otherwise, I’d have ended up like the others.”
• “My girlfriend said her boss wanted to have a ‘Fear Factor’ contest that included kissing a live rattlesnake, eating poisonous mushrooms and something called ‘putting our heads together’ — with a bucket of superglue.”
• “My office brought in one of those money machines, except that for every dollar we caught, the amount was multiplied by ten and deducted from our paycheck. The money was supposed to be given to charity.”
• “We drew cards from a hat to determine what our team would do. My team had to set cars on fire in our competitor’s parking lot across town.”
• “My department head fired everyone and stipulated that if we divided into two teams and played tug-of-war across a swimming pool filled with sewage, the winning team could return to work with a 25 cent per hour raise.” 
• “Our company sponsored an enterprise-wide truth-or-dare contest. The winning entrant was dared to join a gang and go through the hazing ceremony.”
• “My office was divided into teams and had to act out scenes from pop songs. One of the teams used live ammunition to act out the scene from the Soul Coughing song Screenwriter’s Blues where lovers murder each other. It was very exciting.”

But the award for the most tragic company team-building event went to infamous call center conglomerate Telehell, Inc. in North Wackoff, Virginia. A fire broke out in the basement of the building. Following an employee productivity study last year, the fire alarms had been deactivated. Everyone stayed at their desks as the building became a towering inferno. By the time someone noticed flames and smoke coming up the elevator shafts and the stairwells, it was too late. Everyone broke the windows with office chairs and jumped to their deaths.

The sprinklers came on and put out the fire before the security camera tapes were consumed. Playing them back revealed the orderly participation of the employees in their last moments of life.

“I’m proud of what our previous team building efforts had accomplished,” Telehell CEO Jack Azwhol said. “When the going got tough, they worked together and remained cohesive and that’s really what team building is all about.”

By Robert Breckenridge

A concert hall brimming with enthusiastic fans of techno music had an unfortunate collision with a fan of a different genre - country. The concert was going very well until the sound system cut out altogether - plunging the hall into a chaos of cussing, a sweltering shower of swearing, and a cocophony of confusion. Technicians worked quickly to try and determine what had caused the catastrophic failure. They brought onstage a portable PA system so that the lead singer could calm the audience down before they began to walk out.

Amidst all this, one of the local hired hands hobbled on stage. The old, one-eyed man began a truly terrible rendition of a song whose only words were “country roads”, sung with a falling intonation each time.

He managed to warble out six measures before being yanked off stage by roadies. It was too late, though, as throngs of people began a stampede out of the auditorium.

Attempts to call the audience back in, even after the sound system had been repaired, failed, but the incident is not expected to affect future performances.

By Robert Breckenridge

SHERBROOKE, NOVA SCOTIA - Disaster struck the maple syrup pipeline that links Canada to Sweden early this morning at 3:14 am Maple Syrup Time (MST), cutting off the supply and severely affecting the morning breakfast in that Northern European country.

The pipeline was designed with pressure valves and safety cutoffs all along its length so as to prevent further damage from occurring. Canadian officials estimated a mid-morning solution to the problem. Radio news programs advised businesses and schools to expect late arrivals as families waited for the maple taps to resume flowing.

Lights came on in the parliamentary buildings in both countries as soon they received word that the pipeline had broken. Canadian and Swedish officials immediately dispatched Royal Navy repair crews to get the pipeline working as soon as possible.

Swedes sporting cloth napkin bibs, a fork in one hand and a spoon in the other and staring with quiet forlorn at one another at breakfast tables all across the frozen country hoped the Canadians would work quickly so they could enjoy their hotcakes and crepes in their time-honored fashion.

Michael Breckenridge contributed to this story.

By Robert Breckenridge

NORTH WACKOFF, VIRGINIA - Upper-level executives at Telehell, Inc., were dissatisfied with the fire marshal’s fire evacuation plan for their main headquarters. So they changed it. The original plan called for smoke detectors, fire beacons and emergency switches placed all over the building to be ready for potential disaster. During simulated fire drills, the beacons flashed brightly and sounded loudly. Employees fled for their lives.

“That’s a very negative situation,” commented Dean Asunder. “We didn’t like that. The stock price falls every time employees leave the building.”

Employee productivity, of course, fell to 0% while everyone was standing around outside.

The new plan calls for all fire equipment to be deactivated, so that the presence of a fire in the building doesn’t cause panic. After all, panic is bad, and people need to stay calm. Telehell executives put the new fire system to the test later yesterday afternoon when they torched the building.

The plan worked perfectly - employees continued to sit on the phone during the inferno. Their goal was achieved - 100% employee productivity during a fire.

Telehell plans on filing an insurance claim for three times the building’s worth and hiring a new staff of employees when they open their new headquarters later this spring.

Telehell plans to issue gift cards to those lost in the blaze.

Robert Breckenridge

Futures traders on Wall Street are waiting anxiously for next year’s hurricane crop. Buoyed by the unheard-of successes of Katrina and Rita, every moron is tossing his lunch money into the market, hoping to cash in big next hurricane season.

Meteorological experts at the Department of Agriculture are expressing doubt about the likelihood of an even bigger crop next year. “Bumper crops do not happen two years in a row. It’s just not going to happen,” said USDA Spokesperson George Schmecklebuster.

Commodities guru Daniel Coppershiner of the Mooncopper-Coppershiner-Shinerpenny Investments Group said that if Schmecklebuster was “really right about the crop next year then that means there’s going to be a lot of people having to come up with the extra hurricane to pay off the short call.”

In the event that the crop falls short of expectations, it’s likely to impact other related industries such as oil, casino gaming, and trailer parks.

By Robert Breckenridge

In a move that has Wall Street and the local real estate market flustered, local citizens are practicing what newspapers are calling “superstupidity,” the practice of feigning ignorance. Examples of this behavior include people continually asking directions to the restroom and how to operate the paper shredder. Full bladders are the order of the day and shoving a piece of paper into a slot requires additional instructions.

Superstupidity is taking its toll in the service industries as well - tow truck drivers are overwhelmed as the city streets are littered with cars out of gas. City Power officials say that the grid is teetering on the brink of disaster as every refrigerator door is left open and stove burner turned on. Air conditioners and heaters fight to cancel each other out.

Alzheimer’s patients are being discharged from local facilities with clean bills of health as no one can remember why they’re there.

I don’t know where the bathroom is, so I just wet my pants.

By Michael Breckenridge

Drug-induced paranoia caused “Phil Bert,” the anthropomorphic moniker of a filbert, to enter the mouth of a local squirrel and lead police on a wild chase through the park. A filbert is an edible tree fruit surrounded by a woody husk commonly found in local stores and kids’ stockings at Christmastime. The soft buttery flesh of the nutmeat is also referred to as a hazelnut.

“I am not a hazelnut!” Bert said.

The difficulties began when Bert was ejected from the squirrel’s mouth into a previously designated hole in the ground. “Obviously, this was a premeditated act by his accomplice, whom we are calling Joe Squirrel, pending further identification,” officer Dan Hossifer said.

A melee ensued as officers scrambled for Phil Bert. The smooth brown shell covered in a slippery glaze of squirrel sputum continued to evade a solid grip. Every squeeze of the nut ended in a messy squirt into the air from the officer’s hand. Upon apprehension, the officers noted that their quarry was not a filbert. It was a hickory nut, a much harder edible tree fruit surrounded by an iron-like dense wood casement. “Only a shagbark hickory bears a fruit this hard. We thought we were chasing a filbert. This hardened criminal of the tree world really shagged us,” Hossifer said.

“I would have sprouted next spring into every midwestern lawnmower’s worst nightmare!” the hickory nut said.

Officers attempted to use a Texas nutcracker to pry Phil Bert from its protective shell. The extreme hardness required use of a nine pound sledgehammer to break it. “That was one tough nut on crack,” Hossifer said.

By Robert Breckenridge

Emergency response dispatchers were alerted by residents of an apartment complex that loud crashing sounds and hysterical laughter were coming from one of the units there. Police and emergency medical personnel arriving on the scene were aghast at the situation. A 45 year old male was nearly comatose on the floor after overdosing on endorphins.

Police were unable to locate any of the drug remaining in the apartment to enter into evidence. They did, however, find a computer whose web browser was showing a website with humorous articles on it. “Endorphin exposure can be caused by reading funny or mirthful stories,” officer Dan Hossifer said. Medical personnel treated the man, whose name has not been released, for two broken ribs at a nearby hospital.

“Endorphin overdose is a very serious condition because it is extremely addictive,” Dr. Peter Ficken at Mercy Hospital told reporters. “The effect wears off quickly, requiring more and heavier doses with each exposure.” The reporters began to smirk at the doctor. Flustered, the doctor stammered, “This is no laughing matter.”

Michael Breckenridge contributed to this story.