'Atta-boy Zarkman

I know we just posted on this last week, but the Zarkman has been unusually busy recently, sending a more than the average amount of updates to Iowahawk. Yesterday he checked in to discuss his reaction to the memo he received from al-Zawahiri, which we all know now was just a plant from Chimpy McHitlerburton.

Anyway, I’m in the middle of Xeroxing some ammonia nitrate receipts Friday morning, thinking about what I needed to pack for the weekend family trip to Damascus, when I get another memo:

From: A. al-Zawahiri
To: All Associates
Subject: Mandatory Weekend Retreat

Oh fucking terrific. I popped my head up over my cubicle to see if Khalid had read it yet, and he just sorta looks up at me and rolls his one good eye.

Anyway, I call the wives on my cell and tell them to cancel the room reservations, and you can just imagine how big that shit went over. “You know the kids were really looking forward to the rides at Assadland,” “it’d be nice if you could occassionally be home to read them a bedtime surah,” “you know that roof is not going to thatch itself,” blah blah fucking blah.

A long story short, Zarkman's weekend retreat turned out to be the latest in cutting-edge corporate philosopy that employees of Wal-Mart and Target will recognize instantly. And, although poor Abu did not find the retreat nearly as exciting as killing children in Allah's name, he did enjoy watching the support he is receiving from the American media.

I guess the high point of the day is when the PR department showed some of our network media coverage from Satanland. That was hella cool, but then they had to follow it with fan mail from the some of the infidel websites, which was a complete buzz kill. Come on, man. Hitler had his Mussolini. The ‘Cong had their Khmer Rouge. Us? We get Michael Moore and a clown car of dipshits from Kos and DU.

Nobody really said anything, but at this point I think everybody was kind of depressed. If anything, the mood got even worse at the “Reward and Recognition Dinner” that night. Due to budget cuts, they didn’t even have gift cards this year – just some cheesy ‘I (Heart) Jihad’ coffee cups and Successories posters.

I have traditionally been an underdog kind of guy, typically rooting for the team with the lowest chance of success. With the thickness of the deck stacked against him, one can't help but feel just a bit sorry for the Zarkman. If they continue sending him teenagers with stumpy limbs, forcing him to stack cups with underlings, and honoring his efforts with cheesy coffe mugs, I will have no choice to start rooting for him.