And If They Ask You About The Christmas Bonus, Say You Already Got Yours

We have to admit that as our checkered career has developed more, well, checkers over the years, we have begun to expect that the professional world of supervisors, overseers and field bosses would hold no more surprises for us, having, in our view experienced about all that could be anticipated from whatever insane clown filled funhouse produces our overlords.

Then we read about Joshua Christopherson.

A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe.

OK, so our thought is if you work at a motivational coaching place, and you have to be tortured to get motivated, you probably haven't made the best career choice in the first place.

Former Prosper, Inc. salesman Chad Hudgens alleges his managers also allowed the supervisor to draw mustaches on employees' faces, take away their chairs and beat on their desks with a wooden paddle because it resulted in increased revenues for the company. "Well, that and kidnapping employees' children and threatening to sell them into the sex trade if quarter goals weren't met," said a spokesperson for the company.

Prosper president Dave Ellis responded that the allegations amount to "sensationalized" versions of events that have gone uncorroborated by Hudgens' former coworkers, most of whom are still heavily medicated.

The suit claims that Hudgens' team leader, Joshua Christopherson, asked for volunteers for "a new motivational exercise," which he did not describe; for which the tape self destructed; of which the Secretary denied any knowledge.

Hudgens volunteered because he apparently hasn't got the brains god gave a paper sack. Christopherson led the sales team to the top of a hill far enough away from the office so no one could hear screaming and told Hudgens to lie down with his head downhill, which he did because, well, like we said, no threat for the Nobel Prize in common sense.

Christopherson then told the rest of the team to hold Hudgens by the arms and legs while he poured water from a gallon jug over Hudgen's mouth and nostrils like the interrogation strategy known as waterboarding.

Let's see, "interrogation strategy known as waterboarding." Motivating employees. Ah, tomato tomahto.

Ellis said the exercise was a dramatization of a story in which a young man asks Socrates to become his teacher. Socrates responds by plunging the student's head underwater and telling him he will learn once his desire for knowledge is as great as his desire to breathe.

Wait. Socrates was in Sales?

"It was meant to be a team-building exercise," Ellis said. "Everybody was . . . involved and enthusiastic because, truth be told, we really don't like Hudgens that much anyway. Bit of a crybaby if you know what I mean."

"It's incredible to even suggest that he would put anyone under a level of discomfort," Ellis said. "Christopherson's a really nice, pleasant, polite young man. He's very dedicated and takes his job very seriously. And those rumors about all the cats in his neighborhood disappearing after he moved in are totally unfounded."