Cost cutting

Based upon the business pressures we are now experiencing the following
concepts will be activated immediately.

The Partridge in the Pear Tree will be replaced with a much cheaper
Canary in a plastic tree. The Pear tree has never been as fruitful as
was anticipated.

The Two Turtle Doves will be split up and moved to different departments
after the now well publicised sexual harassment claims have been
settled.

The Three French Hens program will be scrapped. Egg production for the
French market was always well outside of our core business. No more
products aimed at the Easter market will be handled as research shows
that Easter shrinks our market share.

The Four Calling Birds will be replaced with a predictive dialler.
Although there is an emotional attachment to the Birds, they have proven
to not be nearly as effective as the new dialler. If the dialler does
not yield the desired results the telemarketing group may be outsourced
offshore.

As to the Five Gold Rings, it has been a well documented and strongly
supported directive that all phones must be answered within THREE rings
* no more. The five ring policy is far outdated and must cease
immediately.

The Six Geese are Laying program will be kept in operation although the
geese will be moved to the call centre as supervisors. This decision was
made after several agents were overheard talking about how much of a
goose their existing Team Leader is.

The Seven Swans are Swimming will all be offered redundancy. The swans
were brought on as a part of the 'Office Beautification' effort in the
boom time of the late 90s. They are an obvious luxury overhead that will
be replaced with a handful of goldfish (please do not feed the goldfish,
they are fake).

The Eight Maids Are Milking will move into a job sharing arrangement
with the reindeer groomers. Centralising all animal care into one group
should allow us to cut staff numbers by at least 6. New technology will
help this group deliver the daily elf milk ration direct to each
workstation.

In line with the recently released Occupational Health and Safety rules,
the Nine Ladies Dancing will have to be redeployed into the call centre
as their dancing could cause a nasty tripping accident. This directive
will not apply to Santa's private dancer Trixie, she will continue her
normal duties.

The Ten Lords a Leaping will be replaced by an email system. Santa has
relented and admitted that ten men dressed in silly clothes jumping from
desk to desk with messages may not have been the best use of company
resources. It should be noted that email is not to be used for
broadcasts to the entire North Pole unless pre-approved by Mary
Chrissymas.