Hostile Work Environment

It was bound to happen, and I'm surprised it took this long.  Weeks after our first ever live fire training hostage rescue with local SWAT,  I'm greeted with six hostile work environment suits.  Talk about ungrateful employees.  The process server's smug smile when she delivered the papers was maddening.  She had this look that said she had already judged me to be guilty.  That was a terrible way to end the week.  The worst part is that none of the disgruntled employees are complaining about any workplace issues, this is all about the bus incident.  That isn't even part of the workplace.  Maybe I can get these suits dropped on a technicality.

The legal department insists that I settle these suits as soon as possible.  They are concerned I won't have enough funds to continue utilizing their services if we get into a prolonged court battle.  The joke is on them because I don't have the funds to pay for their services to handle settlements.  I spent the defense fund on the purchase of the disco bus which is still stuck in impound.  In retrospect, the bus was not the sharpest investment I've ever made.  I have a way to turn that situation around though, but I need to figure out how to steal liberate it from the police impound first.  It is unreasonable to expect me to pay towing and storage fees when they took the bus despite my pleading to keep it as a promotional vehicle. The need for a police investigation seems to be more important than AcMo's needs. 

The profits from TGE™ sales are being divided between marketing and additional research and development.  The other various revenue streams I've created are not yet online and therefore aren't generating revenue yet.  Since the legal department will cease all work the moment I tell them I'm not going to be paying, I need to delay that announcement until after these cases are resolved.  I have a secret weapon in my fight against these legal battles:  a Law & Order Law Degree. I can't share the photo of my diploma because it has the kind of information on it that can get me sued, and I don't need any additional suits right now.  Perhaps if the situation goes well, I can remove AcMo's entire legal team, and replace them with myself.

While my L&O degree's focus was on murder cases, I think I've learned enough to handle some trivial workplace disputes.  The first thing I'm going to do is write negative performance reviews for the complaining six employees that will reside in their permanent files.  I think Larry is faking it anyway because he suffered from PTSD long before he started working at AcMo.  Now that I think about it, I should have been more sensitive to Larry's condition before allowing him to be bound and gagged on the bus.  That's my bad, so I will settle with Larry for sure.  He won't even get a negative report.  He's fired though.  I can't have litigious employees ruining the AcMo culture.

That leaves five more cases to handle.  This legal stuff is so much easier when you remove the legitimate lawyers from the equation.  I'm confident I can bribe Jerome and Lila with some of the TGEx™t-shirts we couldn't fix.  [We're close on solving the exploding problem.]  IF the shirts explode while they are wearing them, I'm covered because the fine print of their employment contracts has a clause that absolves AcMo of any liability when an employee is injured while using an AcMo product.

Now I'm down to a manageable three cases assuming the events unfold in the exact manner I think they will.  I could either hand these last cases off to the legal team, or I can use a routine interrogation trick to get one of the three remaining plaintiffs to turn on the others.  It may be as easy as offering the first one to fold a promotion.  We are running low on qualified test drivers due to various accidents, so that might be the right choice. 

I suspect Stacey will not budge since she has not once ever done what her supervisor has asked her to do.  She behaves like she owns the place, which as far as I can tell, she does not.  Mike and/or Rob will turn on each other/Stacey if I offer them free weekends.  Their work has been suffering the last few months, probably as a result of exhaustion, or some other problem that has no relation to AcMo business.   A little bit of discord would weaken all of the cases, and make my life a lot less troubled.  Manufacturing new and exciting products is more fun when the threat of a mutiny isn't hanging over your head.  Believe me on that.

AcMo hopes to resolve this misunderstanding with the least possible amount of money paid out to anyone.  If I can get through this without being forced into insolvency, I promise I'll replenish the legal fund, and I'll even continue to pay the malpractice insurance premiums, even though neither are good value for my money--they are even worse investments than the bus.