One of my fondest memories of my Corporate Former Life is sitting at dinner with a flock of my cohorts and our clients, everyone having a conversation about the shiftless bums who were bankrupting the country by abusing Unemployment and Welfare, while we rang up a tax-deductible $1200 dollar tab of food and drinks. And why shouldn't the American Taxpayer reimburse us? After all, it's the cost of doing business.

And motivational seminars. Have any of you heard of the company in Pennsylvania that conducts Employee Motivation sessions on the Gettysberg Battlefield? Participants are taken to the site of Pickett's Charge, as an object lesson in what it means to be totally committed to an objective. In other words, just as the men in Pickett's Brigade were willing to face certain death with honor and bravery, the Sales Directors for Walmart should spare nothing in the quest to attain their double-digit sales gain for the year. Appalling and obscene.