The Thing About Henry... (The Official DyeAddictRope Satire)

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Once upon a time, (because at DyeAddictRope we like bizarre fairy tales and satire ) a long-time, loyal customer ordered several different colored ropes from DyeAddictRope. When she received her package, she ooh’ed and ahh’ed at the beautiful new colors until she came to the stunningly variegated one in shades of blue called "Ocean."  While she was blissing out over the gorgeous combination of her favorite color, she thought, “Hmmm, that looks like a 30ft instead of a 40ft.”  She measured and sure enough, her rope was shorter than what she'd ordered. 

So, she messaged DyeAddictRope on social media and explained the mistake.

Immediately he promised a proper 40ft hank would be in the mail the next day.  He and the customer bantered back and forth though as she could be a bit of a brat sometimes, and knowing this customer well, he decided to have a little fun.  (Rope vendors can be such sadists!)  The discussion proceeded however, and the customer showed him a photo of a 40ft and a 30ft hanging side by side. 

“So, you got a 40ft,” Mr. DyeAddictRope said, pretending not to understand. 

“I had a 40, and liked it so much I ordered another 40 but got a 30 instead,” she explained patiently.

“But how did you already have a 40?  This is a brand new multi-color,” the owner replied, smirking.  She took a deep breath. “I bought the first one the day you announced it...” (she provided screenshots of the orders) “and when I got it, I wanted more, so I ordered a second one the other day.” 

Mr. DyeAddictRope was enjoying this already. “Well… I’ll send those pictures to our analysts to see if there is Photoshopping involved.  If he says no, we’ll check the sales log, but it may be a day or two. Then, maybe I’ll see if you actually ordered a thirty... maybe I’ll even make you prove you only got a thirty.  I don’t usually ask for proof, but maybe I should make you work for it...” he said, sarcasm dripping from his words.  His customers, this one in particular, were very fond of his usual one-day order-to-mail turnaround time. 

“Is my integrity under attack?” She replied saucily (she could give it back to him pretty well sometimes). 

“I’m not questioning your integrity; I’m seeing if there is a breakdown in communication between departments here at DyeAddictRope.  Sorry you’re caught in the middle of this, but we should have this resolved in a couple of days.”

The customer laughed, “Departments? How many staff do you keep chained up there, one? Two maybe? Now YOU'RE the one being a brat!” she retorted, smirking. 

“Not a brat,” (Mr. DyeAddictRope hated being called a brat) “and this may have to be investigated internally now; so it'll probably take a little longer to resolve what you’re saying was a mistake on our part.  As an FYI, we have seven main departments here.  First there’s the crew that gets the orders and then sends them to whichever department will fill the order.  In Rope there’s a Cutter, in Wax, Rings and Accessories there are Order Pickers.  The order goes to the Shipping Department with the pick tickets, and hopefully doesn’t involve anyone in the Production Departments.  Those guys are complete a**holes, but don’t tell them I said that.  And Procurement is a stuck-up bean-counting d*ck.  He and Accounting do not get along at all. The Photography and Web Design girls are in a different building because of the Wax Production crew, but you don’t want to hear any of those stories.  Oh, and we do have a mascot; he also helps with aftercare in the Rigging Department.  But no one ever talks to the R&D guys, those f*ckers are twisted!“

The customer’s head was spinning! Shaking her head in disbelief (albeit warranted), she continued reading. 

“We’ll get back to you as quickly as we can with this but it’s after 7 here and we just found out the bean counter didn’t pay the bill from the auditors (outside not internal crew) after the wax incident and the “taste this” debacle; again I can’t get into details because of the gag order - and surprisingly not something to do with those R&D guys for once - but it’s gonna take a couple days to get them paid and back to work. They said if they come in, it’s pay-per-day, per the auditor, up front.  So yes, you’ve opened up a big can of worms here and now the grounds and janitorial staff are pissed because now no one’s eating in the cafeteria; they’re all outside on the grounds and making a mess. It actually could be a while to get you some more rope.”

“Ooh but you haven’t heard the worst of it!  The U.S. office staff left two hours ago but there was a kerfuffle because the Untangling and Spooling folks have been behind with Ocean and Tilly’s Pastel Rainbow and they  just brought it over to the Cutter guys.  Since Henry is out there’s a huge mess about where we’re putting “more damn rope colors” on the spool carriers and the Cutters are pissed because their spool carrier upgrade is behind, because electrical is behind on the candle display and their upgrades, and because we’re moving the Untangling and Spooling crew out of the primary buildings.  And apparently Henry was the only one that got the memo about the new colors and charting for the spool carriers’ placement reset and he’s not answering his phone.  The bean counters want Procurement to hold off on the purchase order for the gear and supplies for the spool carriers’ upgrade and we found out he’s been cheating on his wife with one of the girls from Spooling; so Cutting get the raw end of this whole fiasco because they over-spent on the Untangling and Spooling girls’ new building (pretty swanky digs with bidets and paper towels, unlike the rest of the place that has the continuous towel on a loop machine (and we know why the bean counter won’t fork out for upgrades to that!).  Right now, the Fabrication crew is the only non-issue department, and that’s because they finished early on the new digs for Untangling and got a couple of days off.”

“Just when we thought we could get a plan together to fix this whole audit thing though, the wheels fell off the wagon – almost literally.  Transportation and Medical are fighting because their boss got a call from the Jamaican Health Department; apparently the whole Fabrication crew came down with the Jamaican clap (you’ll have to ask “Dr. Stick Up His Butt” what that whole issue is), so Transport and Medical are all “he said - she said” because none of the Fab guys got immunized to leave the country and Transportation wasn’t supposed to fly them down without medical clearance, so three cars are en route to the airport and will swing by to pick up Legal on their way to try and spring the Fab guys . F*ck it, must be a Monday.”

“Your rope may never get cut because we need Legal to sit in on the interviews for the auditors.”

A pause in the baffling storyline, and then…

“Well FML!  I’m going to stop answering the work phone now.  So… good news/bad news/we’re screwed news.  The Cutting crew just walked out because we found Henry.  He’d stowed away on the company Lear when the Fab crew changed their plans from Key Biscayne to Jamaica, and he took the girl from Untangling that the bean counter was fooling around with. They also found out that the scissors budget was slashed to get the Spooling girls theirs because they don’t want to share since they got their new off-site digs (remember the bidets?).  The bean counter is all up in arms because he’s being blamed for the whole Henry-Ran-Off-With-Untangling thing, and the entire budget for the spool upgrades went into the Jamaican fiasco. We won’t know anything for a couple of hours, if at all tonight, because all of Legal, Medical, and Transportation are now south-bound at 32,000 feet for Jamaica saying “we all got a stake in this” Jamaican clap ordeal and “who was supposed to inoculate who.?" At least Medical did take care of everyone on the plane (so we have that going for us). 

Unfortunately, Henry is the only one by SOP who can bring someone from Untangling and Spooling over to Cutting in case of emergency (we have all sorts of backup plans). The head of the Rope Department is pulling his hair out because most of his crew is now nowhere to be found (or locked up by the Jamaican Health Department) and someone in Web Design/Social Media screwed up the Birthday Sale and left it active through tonight which then went all over Reddit – they’re blaming BrokenDoll for that – and we’ve had more orders than expected after a sale because apparently the sale isn’t over now till midnight!  We’re going to need Security to bring in extra people for a few days while everything gets straightened out. I hope you’re happy with yourself!”

“And NOW we have to figure out how Henry is getting back from Jamaica since he was a stow away. It just never ends around here!“   (tale to be continued) 

The customer received the 40ft Ocean she'd ordered a blistering 2 days later and as she opened the package (because is there ANYTHING as wonderful as New Rope Day?) she laughed for another ten minutes straight, wondering how poor Henry was getting along.