Dear Mr P Nis,

After careful assessment of your request and consideration of the rather limp arguments you have used to justify your case, management regrets to inform you that your request for a rise has been rejected. We feel that although some of your arguments are valid, extenuating circumstances hinder management from giving you any more rises than you routinely receive, for the following reasons:

You rarely, if ever work a complete eight hour shift, and when you do you’re either under the influence of drugs or demanding to work during non business hours—such as the middle of the night after you wake up to go to the bathroom. You fall asleep after the briefest of work periods and have been observed nodding off on numerous occasions before the end of your shift, thereby forcing management to complete the task in hand. Furthermore, you do not always follow orders.

You refuse to remain in your designated work area and are often seen loitering around dark, dank places of ill repute. Just two nights ago you were seen attempting to gain unlawful entry to the company’s back door in the hopes of doing God only knows what, despite the fact that you have been told time and time again that the rear entrance is only used for putting out the trash. Underhand attempts such as these to drop your load in restricted areas are futile and waste valuable company time you should be spending elsewhere.

You do not take the initiative. You need to be constantly pressured and stimulated in order to begin work. When you do eventually finish a job—on those rare occasions you do not bugger off early before management is completely satisfied—you have the unpleasant habit of leaving your workplace rather messy, forcing us to either suffer an unclean environment or clean it up ourselves. Once you leave for the day, we don’t see you again until the next morning, usually before the office has even opened. This commendable ambition is appreciated and many in the company consider you a real go getter when the mood takes you, but unfortunately your spunk is often misdirected or fails to attain its goal at all.

You don’t always observe safe working practices, such as wearing protective clothing, as required by company regulations. Ignoring such rules leaves management wide open to a range of hazardous conditions, including many that could result in unpleasant discharges of toxic waste into the environment or even halt production altogether.

Your unpredictable temperament, coupled with your regrettable reliance on performance enhancing drugs means that your output is hopelessly unreliable at best and completely fails to meet management targets at worst. If that were not enough, many in management have long suspected you of terroristical activities, as you are constantly seen entering the premises carrying two suspicious looking bags.

However, management is prepared to overlook these shortcomings and demonstrate our appreciation of your employment. In short, Mr P Nis, we are willing to supply you with a few additional strokes of encouragement in lieu of a rise. We firmly believe that such positive reinforcement will lead to better and long lasting performance with no need for further encouragement.

Yours sincerely,

The Management
From Mike Hunt.
Senior Partner, Scrotum, Hunt and Scrotum.