I received this email from an internal HP source; whose identity will remain
anonymous:  It quite long, but worth reading.  Please don't ask who sent
this to me, or for that matter who I am.

"How the Wench ---almost--- Stole Christmas"
[ Part # 1 of 3 ]

All us Whos
Down in Roseville
Loved HP a lot...

   But the Wench,
    Who lived just West of Roseville,
    Did NOT!

The Wench hated HP! And gave naught a reason, She found all its people and
culture displeasin'!  It could be her head wasn't screwed on quite right.

It could be she hated the word, "HP-ite".
But we think the most likely reason of all
May have been that the Wench just had no heart at all!

Now,
If all threatened treason,
To get her cut loose,
We'd give her just reason to hate all us Whos!
Send her right back to Lucent away from our town.
Go to each HP lobby and take her face down.
But dreams are for dreamers. Contempt she's beneath.
Us Whos have no hope. There'll be gnashing of teeth.

"They'll all vote their proxies!" she snarled with a sneer.
"Come spring we will merger! It's practically here!"
Then she frowned with her Wench-y lips nervously pouting.
"I must find a way to keep proxies from counting!"
For, tomorrow, she knew...
...If they'd dis'd all her ploys,
The Whos would vote out both the Wench and her boys.
And then! Oh, the joys! Oh the Joys! Joys! Joys! Joys!
The one thing she hated was JOYS! JOYS! JOYS! JOYS!
Then the Whos young and old, would stand up for a toast!
And they'd boast! And they'd boast!
And they'd BOAST! BOAST! BOAST! BOAST!
They'd pull out all stops for their fine who-wench-roast!
This was something the Wench couldn't stand in the most!


( Part # 2 of 3 ]
And THEN

They'd do something she liked least of all!  Every Who out in Roseville,
from Nancy to Paul, Would stand close together. True HP souls shining.
They'd stand hand-in-hand and the Whos would stop whining!

No whines! No more whines!
Then they'd shout, "HP's fine!"
And the more the Wench thought of no who-HP-whines, The more the Wench
thought, "It's not theirs; HP's mine!  "Why for almost three years I've put
up with them now!
"I must stop the proxies from counting!

"But HOW?"

Then she got an idea!
An awful idea!
THE WENCH
GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

"I know just what to do!" The Wench laughed in her throat.
"I know just how to stop each pathetic Who-vote!"
And she plotted and planned. "What a great Wench-y trick!
"I'll break the Who-spirit! I'll break it real quick!"
"All I need is a layoff..."
The Wench looked around.
But Who-layoffs were scarce, all the Whos were quite sound.
Did that stop the old Wench...?
No! The Wench simply said,
"Let the layoffs begin! But with no common thread!"
So she started to chop, and took six-thousand heads.
Then through her Wench-grin said, "HP Way is dead!"

THEN
She sold the trade rags
Some "Invent" propaganda.
She recited it rote,
Like trained cops with Miranda.

Then the Wench said, "Ante up!
"'Cause our profits are tiny."
Then she stole Who-vacation
And kicked some Who-hiney!


All their spirits were dark. Little screams filled the air.
All the Whos were all hoping that they would be spared.
But hope is a dangerous thing-so none dared.
"You can't stop me now!" The old Wench-y girl hissed.
"With Bill and Dave gone, I will rule with my fist!"
Then she jumped in the gutter with nary a flinch.
All CEO's did it and so did the Wench.
It's now common practice, a layoff or more.
Or maybe a dozen-or maybe a score!  Since all the Who-workers were facing
Who-cuts, They spent all their time covering all their Who-butts!
Then she said, "Re-Invent! Re-Invent till it hurts!
"Take all the Who-benes, take all the Who-perks!"
No Company profits the Whos would be sharing.
Replaced by the Wench's Who-Bonus-Red-Herring!
And then the Wench beamed she had one final prank.
Since nothing was sacred, she screwed each Who's rank!
Each Who had a number, Who-5 through Who-1.

That's how you rewarded a Who-job well done.  So the Wench took Who-ranks
and she froze them until, The Whos just quit caring and swallowed her pill.
They now sit around in Who-funk and Who-daze.

Without a Who-rank, there would be no Who-raise!

The Wench sneered a sneer, and she started to gloat, When she heard a loud
sound like a Who-proxy-vote!  She turned around fast and saw two ANGRY Whos.

Young Walter-Who Hewlett and Who-Packard too!

The Wench had been caught by these great Who-crusaders!

They looked out for Whos like two great Who-Ralph-Naders!  They stared at
the Wench and they asked her point blank, "Oh, How could you squander and
empty Who-Bank?"


( Part # 3 of 3 )
But you know, that old Wench was so smart and so slick.

She thought up a lie, and she thought it up quick!  "Why, you rude little
boys," the fake CEO lied, "I was just re-inventing lost Hew-Packard pride!
"By tossing out, throwing out, old HP gear.

"Including that droll HP-Way you hold dear."

But the fib fooled them, NOT! It was shallow and weak.

That Wench-y old Who was too far past her peak.  Her reign would be stopped
by the two founder's sons, Who leveled their sights on her Wench-y old buns.

Each son had retained
A Who-proxy-spin-doctor,
To un-spin the lies of that Wench-y concoctor.
They un-wound so quickly it really quite shocked her!

She lost all support
Of the Who-proxy-voters,
Who's nay-votes had turned them to Who-proxy-gloaters!

And
Cost her the merger
She fought to attain.

The Wench's
Great loss was
The Who's greatest gain!

It was quarter past dawn...
All the Whos, still a-bed.
All the Whos still a-snooze
When she packed up and fled.
She packed up her lies-filling two Gulf Stream jets Flew the heck out of
Dodge-leaving only bad debts.

Three thousand feet up! Her plane circled the valley.
Removed from her job by the Who-proxy-tally.
"Pooh-pooh to the Whos!" she was Wench-ish-ly bumming.
"They've made it quite clear that no merger was coming.
"They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!  "Their mouths will
crack smiles for a minute or two "Then the Whos down in Roseville will all
shout WAH-HOO!"
"That's a noise," cried the Wench,
"That I simply can't hear!"
So she paused and the Wench had to cover her ears.
But she still heard a sound rising far from below.
It started in low, then it started to grow...


The Whos were all Hooting
In Who vic-tor-y!
They had driven the Wench
Right on out of HP!

Every Who down in Roseville, the tall and the small, Had voted their
proxy-they voted them all!  They all stopped the merger from merging!

It FAILED!

The once-sure-thing Wench-plot had just been derailed!

And the Wench with her merger stopped dead in its prime, Stood puzzling and
puzzling about this Who-crime.  "They took all my power! My chutzpah! My
gall!

"They've left me with nothing to cushion my fall!"
And she puzzled three hours. Her puzzler was sore.
Then the Wench thought of something she hadn't before!  "If I just hadn't
treated the Whos like Who-hash" "We all would be rolling in piles of
Who-cash!"
And what happened then...?
Well...in Roseville they say
That the Wench's self-worth shrunk
Shrunk three sizes that day!
So she swallowed her pride, gave her tongue a hard bite, As she and her Gulf
Stream flew clear out of sight!

And back down in Roseville, all Who-pain had ceased.
And
...Carly the Wench...
Wasn't missed in the least!


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