Office party before the boss returns. - Image by Temel from Pixabay
A Modern Retelling of "The Golden Calf"
At StratosTech Inc., the CEO, Victoria Hale, was famous for her dramatic "vision summits." She would vanish with the board for a week at some seriously fancy mountain resort, eating very expensive exotic salads and drinking overpriced smoothies. They would start the brainstorming strategies for the vision of the next latest and greatest project for StratosTech Inc. while the rest of the company kept the lights on.
It was time for the infamous yearly summit to define the direction for the next year. This "vision summit" would include all upper management. They whisked off to the Virgin Islands for a two-week summit.
You know what happens when the cat leaves the house: the mice will play. Back at the office, middle management was left unsupervised. This only happens once a year. But this summit was extended to two weeks. Boredom and office politics can be dangerous.
For the first day or two, people stuck to their spreadsheets and Slack threads. The workload was light, with everyone waiting for the next big project. As day three rolled on, the marketing team had an idea:
"Everyone is moping around, bored out of their minds, so we have an idea; Let's have some fun, why not build a hype campaign around something… anything… to boost morale?"
Some of the outgoing employees in Product Support came up with a silly yet fun idea. They created an image of a crypto-influencer with perfect blond hair, strong facial bone structure, and piercing blue eyes. They named him BlazeCoinX.
What started as a joke had turned into an internal movement. Other employees jumped on the bandwagon, creating posters of BlazeCoinX and decorating their cubicles with them. The software engineers went to the next step and built a life-like cardboard cutout. It became so popular that they produced one for every division. Plus, to keep things rolling, they launched an internal hashtag: #InBlazeWeTrust.
As week two marched in, people were chanting slogans in the break room. Someone even crafted a massive golden NFT display in the lobby. HR was thrilled — "engagement's up 200%!" — and IT installed a BlazeCoinX price ticker on every monitor.
HR was the last to get on board with the fun. They prominently displayed the cardboard cutout of BlazeCoinX. Then they sent out a survey, "On a scale of 1-10, how much do you trust BlazeCoinX?" The response was an amazing 98%.
It was the last Friday of the summit. Upper management, the board, and CEO Victoria Hale had crafted a wonderful 10-point plan for the upcoming year. They celebrated that evening with a glorious dinner and exquisite wine. It was time to get back to the office and unveil their plan.
Murphy's first law: "If it can go wrong, it will."
CEO Victoria Hale came in very early on Monday, before anyone else. The incredible look on her face was priceless as she stared at the massive golden NFT display in the lobby. She wandered through the massive displays of posters. All the cardboard cutouts of BlazeCoinX had glowing neon lights shining on them.
Her face turned red. "I leave for two weeks with my trusted people, and what in God's green earth is this?!"
Bob Jones, the marketing manager, came in. Victoria looked at him like a wolf about to get its dinner, "What the hell is this!!"
His nervous reply, "We thought this would motivate people..."
She stopped him in mid-sentence, "Motivate?! This is a complete circus! You have just one job to do right now. Get the entire staff from all divisions into the meeting room, now! DO NOT TOUCH A THING!"
As the entire employee staff waited for her, Victoria met with upper management. They discussed the ramifications of this.
She entered the room, walking tall, determined. She turned to the employees, and the anger in her face was so strong that you could feel the steam coming out of her ears.
She spoke with a strong, stern voice, "This crap ends now!
She ripped a BlazeCoinX poster to pieces and placed it in a recycling bin.
"All posters and cardboard cutouts to the recycle bin, the NFT display will be deleted everywhere, that hashtag is banned, and if I hear the name BlazeCoinX, your next job will be, 'here's your order, ma'am.'"
And Victoria was not done. As the day went on, many employees — especially in mid-management — were handed pink slips.
The shame lingered with the remaining staff. The rest of the week was definitely not fun.
Thankfully, all the employees followed through, #InBlazeWeTrust was not found anywhere, and no one mentioned BlazeCoinX.
The StratosTech Inc. LinkedIn page posted "Now Hiring" and put up an ad on Indeed.
Meanwhile, the CEO shook her head, lightly laughed, muttering, "Next time I leave, I'm taking the Wi-Fi router and the color markers with me."
Based on Exodus 32
Synopsis:
When Moses went up the mountain, the people grew impatient and built a golden calf to worship. God's anger burned against them, but Moses interceded. This retelling highlights how quickly people trade purpose for distraction — chasing fads instead of staying faithful.
Tap to read the actual bible passage:
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