Jobs to go, wages down, shit to hit fan unless
chickenisation increases
Chicken
chiefs in race for a smellier future
Workers at
Ptuj’s chicken plant will face wage cuts and redundancy without more
chickenisation of the town’s air supply, says a management report.
There has been
muttering going on for some time concerning the factory’s ability to maintain
optimally foul levels of fowl in the air supply to the town centre, with worried
residents reporting an “almost pleasant aroma a bit like gravy” and
occasional days with almost
no smell at all.
In a memo from
bosses workers have now been told public perception of the plant as a viable
agrobusiness depends on a vile honk.
Take that away, a
consultant’s report warns, and you could see people becoming uneasy and making
comments, such as “What are they doing over there, I can’t smell
anything?” and “I suppose these days in food companies they just muck about
in test kitchens and offices. In my
day we used to kill the chickens by biting them and then rip out the innards
with our teeth, as many as 800,000 before breakfast.
Those were the days.”
If the smell was
there before, and now it’s reduced or gone, obviously there is some
overstaffing, the report argues.
Vice-Chairman For
Nasal Dissemination Dr Janja Glaser said everything from professional
poultry poo sniffers to data on wind direction and river
temperature are used to ensure Ptuj residents are
not denied the benefits of a robust local smell.
“Independent
tourism research by psychologists at Glaser Laboratories shows that our smell is
the number one thing that sticks in people’s mind about Ptuj.
“In fact it
sticks to everything. Ptuj has such
a memorable atmosphere and it would be a tragedy if chickenisation were to
dwindle or stall, causing visitors to return a second or third time, wasting
valuable hotel space.”
There was no
evidence of widespread public opposition to chickenisation of public air, she
went on.
“Ptuj Postmistress Ida Glaser provided the following statistics for
the chickenised population’s mail for the year 2007.
"Threats
to kill chicken factory staff, 0. Envelopes containing doo-doo, 0. Threats
to interfere with products on sale, 0. Nasty
letters about animal welfare from some village girls wearing black clothes and
lots of eye makeup, 14.
"This tiny
minority proves the popularity of public air chickenisation.”
”With the
indoor smoking ban now in force and the growth in farting vegetarians we are
facing new challenges in municipal aromatization,” says the memo.
“There is a chance people will forget about us if they don’t receive
regular reminders.”
Staff at the
company’s offices, nowhere near the production plant, had themselves been
sometimes unable to get a reliable feeling that chicken manufacture was
proceeding at a normal pace, due to the odour deficiency.
Office
workers celebrated as Ms Glaser
unveiled a new scratch-n-sniff plaque in the lobby of the company’s offices.
Air is piped in across town directly from the vertically integrated crude
fat tank.
The plaque bears
the inscription ”Your olfactory luvs our ol’ factory!” a motto management
hopes will encourage office staff to stay in touch with the firm's core
smell-generating values, and reinforce their company loyalty, along with the
regular Polkapop piss-ups.
Approving the report unanimously,
the Board dismissed rumours that a dissenting member had claimed that cleaning up
pollution makes money, and had described the chickenisation program as unsavoury,
depressing and likely to make both the company and the town poorer and
unpopular.
Referring to
rumours of a Board split over chickenisation, a spokesman said that a person
was removed from a minor company meeting after a row about an inheritance and
that his wife, brothers and sisters, and parents, grandparents and cousins and
friends were no longer talking to him.
He was presently
recovering well at the Glaser Asylum for the Feeble-Minded.