by Dave Barry
The beauty of this basic memo format is that it can even be adapted for sending personalized communications to your subordinates (“It has come to my attention that your wife, Edna, is dead.”).
In addition to writing memos, every month or so you should generate a lengthy report. This is strictly so you can cover yourself in case something bad happens.
Standard Format To Use For Lengthy Reports To Insure That Nobody Reads Them
I. SUBJECT. This is entirely up to you. If you follow the format, it will have virtually no impact on the rest of the report.
II. INTRODUCTION. This should be a fairly long paragraph in which you state that in this report, you intend to explore all the ramifications of the subject, no matter how many it turns out there are.
III. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: This is a restatement of the Introduction, only the sentences are in reverse order.
IV. OBJECTIVES: This is a restatement of the Statement of Purpose, only you put the sentences in a little numbered list.
V. INTRODUCTION. By now, nobody will remember that you already had this.
VI. BACKGROUND: Start at the dawn of recorded time.
VII. DISCUSSION. This can be taken at random from the Encyclopedia Britannica, because the only people still reading at this point have been able to continue only by virtue of ingesting powerful stimulants and will remember nothing in the morning.
VIII. CONCLUSIONS: You should conclude that your findings tend to support the hypothesis that there are indeed a great many ramifications, all right.
IX. INTRODUCTION. Trust me. Nobody will notice.
X. RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommend that the course of action outlined in the Discussion section (Ha ha! Let them try to find it!) should be seriously considered.
How To Write Letters
There are various types of letters you write in business, each requiring a different tone.
Letters To Customers Or Potential Customers
The basic idea here is to grovel around like a slug writhing in its own slime. For example:
Dear Mr. Herckle:
It certainly was an extremely great pleasure to fly out to your office in Butte last week, and even though I didn’t have the enormous gigantic emotional pleasure of meeting with you in person to discuss our new product line, I was certainly extremely pleased and grateful for the opportunity to squat on your doorstep, and I certainly do want to apologize for any inconvenience or blood-stains I may have caused when your extremely impressive dog, Bart, perforated my leg.
Your humble servant,
Byron B. Buffington
Letters To Companies That Owe Your Company Money
In these cases, you want to set a tone that is polite, yet firm:
Dear Mr. Hodpecker:
In going over our records, I note that you have not responded to our invoice of January 12, nor to our reminders of February 9, March 6, April 11, May 4, and June 6; and when we sent Miss Bleemer around to discuss this matter with you personally, you locked her in a conference room with a snake.
Mr. Hodpecker, we of course value your business, and we very much want to keep you as a customer. At least that is what I am trying to tell my two top collection assistants, the Bulemia brothers, Victor and Anthony. They, on the other hand, would prefer to keep you as a pet. They even bought one of those little cages that airlines transport animals in. To me, it looks just barely big enough for a cocker spaniel, but Victor and Anthony believe they can make you fit.
Expecting to hear from you very, very soon in regards to this matter, I remain
Sincerely yours,
Byron B. Buffington
P.S. Victor has a complete set of auto-body tools.
Letters Of Recommendation
You have to be thoughtful here. See, anybody can get a nice letter of recommendation written about him (“Mr. Hitler always kept his uniform very clean”). So most prospective employers tend to discount what such letters say. This means that to make any kind of impression at all, you must exaggerate violently.
Let’s say, for example, you’re writing a letter of recommendation for a good employee named Bob, and you tell the simple truth:
“Bob Tucker is by far the best foreman we ever had. He never missed a day of work, got along well with his subordinates, and increased our productivity by 47 percent.”
If a prospective employer saw such a ho-hum letter of recommendation, he would naturally assume that Bob was an arsonist child molester. You should spice up the letter with statements such as: “Working on his own time during lunch hour, Bob developed a cure for heart disease.” Or: “On at least three separate occasions, Bob sacrificed his life so that others might live.”
The Basic Rules Of Business Grammar
1. USE THE WORD “TRANSPIRE” A LOT. Wrong: The dog barked. Right: What transpired was, the dog barked. Even better: A barking of the dog transpired.
2. ALSO USE “PARAMETER.” Wrong: Employees should not throw paper towels into the toilet. Right: Employees should not throw paper towels into the parameters of the toilet.
3. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE PHRASE “TED AND” WITH THE WORD “MYSELF.” Wrong: Ted and I think the pump broke. Right: Ted and myself think the pump broke. Even better: It is the opinion of Ted and myself that a breakage of the pump transpired.
4. IF SOMETHING IS FOLLOWING SOMETHING ELSE, ALWAYS LET THE READER KNOW IN
ADVANCE VIA THE WORDS: “THE FOLLOWING.” Wrong: We opened up the pump and found a dead bat. Right: We opened up the pump and found the following: a dead bat.
5. ALWAYS STRESS THAT WHEN YOU TOLD SOMEBODY SOMETHING, YOU DID IT VERBALLY. Wrong: I told him. Right: I told him verbally.
6. NEVER SPLIT AN INFINITIVE. An infinitive is a phrase that has a “to” at the beginning, such as “Today, I am going to start my diet.” You should not split such a phrase with another word, as in “Today, I am definitely going to start my diet,” because it makes you sound insecure about it. It sounds like you know darned well you’ll be hitting the pecan fudge before sundown.
7. NEVER END A SENTENCE WITH A PREPOSITION. Prepositions are words like
“with,” “into,” “off,” “exacerbate,” etc. The reason you should never end a sentence with one is that you would be violating a rule of grammar. Wrong: Youse better be there with the ransom money, on account of we don’t want to have to hack nobody’s limbs off. Right: ... on account of we don’t want to have to hack off nobody’s limbs. Even better: ... on account of we don’t want to have to hack off nobody’s limbs with a chain saw.
8. AVOID DANGLING PARTICIPLES. A participle is the letters “ing” at the ends of words like “extenuating.” You want to avoid having it “dangle” down and disrupt the sentence underneath: There appear to be some extenuating circumstances. Hey! Get that participle out of here!! Ted and myself feel that these ...
Common Grammar Questions
Q. When’s it okay to say “between you and I”?
A. It is correct in the following instance: “Well, just between you and I, the cosmetic surgeon took enough cellulite out of her upper arms to raft down the Colorado River on.”
Q. What is the purpose of the apostrophe?
A. The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered signs to alert the reader that an “S” is coming up at the end of a word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT
PERSONAL CHECK’S or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM’S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand-lettered signs is that you should put quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in “TRY” OUR HOT DOG’S or even TRY “OUR” HOT DOG’S.
Q. When do you say “who” and when do you say “whom”?
A. You say “who” when you want to find out something, like for example if a friend of yours comes up and says, “You will never guess which of your immediate family members just lost a key limb in a freak Skee-Ball accident,” you would reply: “Who?” You say “whom” when you are in Great Britain or you are angry (as in: “And just whom do you think is going
to clean up after these elk?”).
Q. Like many writers, I often get confused about when to use the word “affect” and when to use “infect.” Can you help me out?
A. Here is a simple pneumatic device for telling these two similar-sounding words (or “gramophones”) apart: just remember that “infect” begins with
“in,” which is also how “insect” begins, while “affect” begins with “af,” which is an abbreviation for “Air Force.”
Q. I have a question concerning the expression: “As far as Fred.” I would like to know whether it is preferable to say: “As far as Fred, he always gets the hives from that spicy food”; or, “As far as Fred, that spicy food always gives him the hives.”
A. They are both preferable.
Q. What do they mean on the weather forecast when they say we are going to have “thundershower activity”?
A. They mean we are not going to have an actual thundershower, per se, but we are going to have thundershower activity, which looks very similar to the untrained eye.
Q. I think my wife is having an affair.
A. I wouldn’t doubt it.
Making Speeches And Oral Presentations
Most people, no matter how competent they are, break into a cold sweat when they have to speak in public. This is perfectly natural, like being afraid to touch eels. But once you learn a few of the “tricks of the trade” used by professionals, you find it’s surprisingly easy, and can even be fun! I’m talking here about eel-touching. Public speaking will always be awful.
There are, however, some standard techniques you should be aware of:
1. ACT VERY NERVOUS. A lot of inexperienced speakers try to act cool and confident, which is a big mistake because if your audience thinks you’re in control, they’ll relax and fall asleep. So you want to keep them on their toes. Have a great big stain under each armpit. Speak in a barely audible monotone. From time to time, stop in mid-sentence and stare in horror at the water pitcher for a full 30 seconds. Try to create the impression in your audience that at any moment they may have to wrestle you to the conference table and force a half dozen Valiums down your throat. After a while, they’ll start to feel really sorry for you. They’ll help you finish your sentences. At the end, if you ask for questions, the room will be as silent as a tomb. If anybody even starts to ask a question, the others will kick him so hard he may never walk again.
2. ALWAYS START WITH A JOKE. Probably the most famous example of a good opening joke is the one Abraham Lincoln used to start the Gettysburg Address. “Four score and seven years ago,” he said, and the crowd went nuts. “What the hell is a score?” they asked each other, tears of laughter streaming down their faces.
3. USE QUOTATIONS FROM FAMOUS DEAD PEOPLE. You can obtain these in bulk from Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, a book of quotations nobody is familiar with.
4. USE A PIE CHART. This is pretty much a federal requirement for making a business presentation. It has to have the words “market share.”
5. IF YOU HAVE TO SCRATCH SOMEPLACE LIKE YOUR CROTCH, DRAW THE AUDIENCE’S
ATTENTION AWAY FROM YOURSELF VIA A CLEVER RUSE. Like, you could suddenly point at the window and say, “Hey! What the heck is that!”
Now let’s see how you’d put all these elements together. Suppose you’ve been called upon to make a presentation to top management from all over the country to explain how come a new product, Armpit Magic Deodorant Soap, is not selling well. Here’s what you’d say:
“Good afternoon. A priest and a rabbi are playing golf. The priest hits an incredible shot, and ...”
(30-second pause)
“Staring at this water pitcher, I am reminded of the Bartlett’s familiar quotation by the ancient dead Chinese painter, Ku Kai-Chih, who said: ‘Of all kinds of painting, figure painting is the most difficult; then comes landscape painting, and next dogs and horses.’”
...
“But as this pie chart shows ... Hey! What’s that over there, away from my crotch!!??”
“Ha ha! My mistake. But as this pie chart shows, our ‘market share’ for Armpit Magic Deodorant Soap is not going to improve in a day, or even two days. It’s not going to improve until we figure out some way to make it stop causing the consumer’s skin to develop oozing craters the size of Susan B. Anthony dollars. Thank you, and you’ve been a wonderful audience.”
Chapter Six. Giving Good Lunch
When you’re trying to get a prospective client to sign a big contract, it’s a good idea to get him away from the formality of the office and into a relaxed dining environment that is more conducive to getting liquored up. But you must select the restaurant carefully: it could destroy the whole effect if his entree were to arrive in a colorful box festooned with scenes from Return of the jedi. No, you must select a classy restaurant, the kind with valet parking and dozens of apparently superfluous personnel lounging around in tuxedos. You can tell this kind of restaurant by its name.
Examples Of Classy Restaurant Names
Eduardo’s
La Pleuve en Voiture
Ye Reallie Olde Countrie Manour Downes Inne
Examples Of Non-Classy Restaurant Names
Booger’s
The Chew ‘n’ Swallow
Commander Taco
When you arrive at the restaurant, turn your car over to the youthful narcotics offender in charge of valet parking and promise him a large tip if he doesn’t drive it over any preschool children. Now go inside, where you’ll be approached by the maitre d’hotel (literally, “man who run de hotel”). He will ask: “May I help you?” They’re always making this kind of snotty remark.
This is where you get to show your prospective client that you have a great deal of savoirfaire (“five” dollar bills”). Hand the maitre d’ some money. Make sure the prospective client sees this; you might have to snatch it back and hand it over again several times, just to be on the safe side. Then say: “A table for two, my good man.” Wink at the prospective client when you say this, so he will realize that you are “slipping” the maitre d’ a little something” to “grease his palm.”
At this point, the maitre d’ may say something like: “But sir, it’s 11 A.M. and we don’t open for lunch until noon.” He is indicating here that he would like several more five-dollar bills. This kind of thing goes on all the time in classy restaurants. Give your prospective client a knowing elbow in his rib cage, then stuff several additional bills into the maitre d’s breast pocket and say: “Oh, I’m sure you can find a table for us.” Don’t quit until he gives you one.
When you are seated, your waiter will arrive with the menus and make the following three statements, all of which are required under the Federal Waitperson Control Act:
1. His name is Thad.
2. It will be His Pleasure to serve you.
3. Would either of you care for a cocktail.
(By the way, this is an ideal opportunity for you to make a witty remark, such as: “What, exactly, is involved in ‘caring for’ a cocktail? Do they need special food?” This will cause Thad to roar with approving laughter. Tip him $5.)
Now as regards cocktails: the days of the “three martini lunch” are long gone. In today’s high-pressure, brutally competitive business environment, you want a minimum of four martinis, and you want them before the salad comes. Order the same for your prospective client. If he balks, stress that you’re paying for them, but that he should not feel obligated because of this.
Now it’s time to examine the menu. This requires a great deal of concentration, because you no longer see the simple American menus you knew as a child. In those days, you’d mull over the menu for a while, then you’d say, “I’ll have the chicken or fish,” and the waiter would say, “Excellent choice,” and that would be that.
But the modern restaurant menu is much, much more complex, consisting of two or three dozen totally unintelligible items.
Don’t panic. Examine your menu carefully, trying not to let on to the prospective cli
ent that the only word on it you understand is “Menu” and wait for Thad to return with your drinks. Here’s what he’ll say:
“Today we are out of everything on the menu, but we do have some very nice specials. For our appetizer, we have an excellent Tete de Chou au Sucre Flambe, which is a head of cabbage covered with sugar and set on fire; we also have a very nice Poisson Sacre Bleu, which is a Norwegian fluke that has been minced into tiny little pieces, then defiled in lemon sauce and stirred until dawn with attractive utensils; we have a superb Coquille St. Jacques au Lanterne, which is a pumpkin stuffed with live writhing scallops; we have a traditional Merde aux Tuilles, which is of course a beef which has been chipped, served with a white sauce on bread which has been toasted; we have a very popular Papier du Oiseau dans la Cage, which is ...”
And so on. Thad will keep this up for maybe ten minutes, after which you should tip him $5 and tell him, “I’ll have the chicken, and my prospective client here will have whichever menu selection is the most expensive.” Stress to the prospective client that this will cost him nothing, as you are paying for it. In fact, it would be a good idea to reassure him on this point several more times during the meal, with such phrases as, “It’s on me” and “I’m paying for your food.”
After you’ve ordered from Thad, the wine steward will come around and give you the wine list. The correct wine to select, of course, depends on the kind of entree you order, as shown in this handy chart:
Entree
Correct Wine