Wednesday June 29th, 2011

The exercise:

Let's go with: the trend.

It appears as though the strawberries are on a downward trend these days - only 15 pounds out of this morning's harvest. I think we peaked at 22 pounds, which seems like a decent amount. We've certainly had no trouble selling them all, that's for sure.

We're going to be away most of tomorrow, will write more about that after we get back.

Mine:

Carl studied the charts his underlings had tacked to the wall, his hands clasped behind his back and a grim expression on his face. Things were not looking good.

Sales had been decreasing every month for the last eight years, and costs were rising steadily. Some quick mental math told him that if this trend continued the company would be forced into cutting staff before the year was out.

The stockholders would not be encouraged by such news. Times were certainly changing, but that was no excuse.

"All right people," he said without turning around. "Start throwing ideas out on how to turn this mess around. For the next hour, no idea is too outrageous. Let's buckle down and figure out how to sell more of our special edition, fifty pound typewriters!"

2 comments:

Greg said...

Hmm, Blogger seemed to be playing up yesterday morning, and this is the first time I've seen Wednesday's prompt despite checking throughout the day yesterday! I don't know if you commented on the haikus yet, as if you have it's not appeared so far :)
Hmm, Carl seems like one of those managers everyone was writing haikus about yesterday! And 50lb typewriters -- he needs to be selling them in hurricane country, surely!

The trend
My first is in birth, a springing to life,
My second is in marriage, when taking a wife,
My third is in fidelity, an enduring trust,
My fourth is in cheating, when hope starts to rust
My fifth is in death, of which we have no knowing,
My whole then is just the way things are going.

Marc said...

Greg - Blogger was definitely in one of its moods, and had no interest in allowing me to do much of anything. It appears to be back on its meds now though.

I really like your final line. I think it sums things up nicely.