The Naming of the Animals

Although guests, especially humans, are not generally permitted into the Parker Industries Ltd Physical Fitness Facility (open house receptions are the exception), a Squidoo reporter was given a tour of the Facility by none other than Parker himself. The tour was a far-ranging interview with the CEO.

"So, Mr. Parker sir, if I may call you that, here we are in the lobby of what seems to be a truly impressive, almost a temple I would say, commitment to the physical fitness of Parker Industries Ltd employees and retired employees.

I see some of the members lined up at what looks like a sign in desk, however there is nothing to sign. What is going on there?"

Parker:

"Sadly, although many of the animals are now fluent in written Animal and have picked up a great deal of English from their owners before they came to Parker Industries Ltd, some of the current employees and especially the older retired employees do not know how to write in either Animal or English.

So, we've installed a biometric scanner that recognizes the animals entitled to be in the Physical Fitness Facility by a combination of their eye characteristics and by paw prints, fin prints etc. All the animals seem very happy with it.

Once "signed in" you'll see the animals going off in various directions to perform the activities and exercises they prefer.

Squidoo Reporter:

Yes, I see that now. In fact, I believe I recognize Western and Best. They appear to be going outside into what looks like an open field. What do they do out there?

Parker:

We built a special machine for them that takes full advantage of the rather large field that adjoins our gym. The machine tosses bones in a random pattern and it is the dogs' job to fetch them and bring them back for reloading into the machine. Everything is timed, and as the dogs' fitness level improves the machine can hurl the bones farther with the expectation being that they will be retrieved in the same time that less fit dogs do for shorter distances.

Squidoo reporter:

That seems great for the dogs, but isn't that a rather inefficient use of space considering that Parker Industries Ltd doesn't have many dog employees, either active or retired.

Parker:

One of the things making Parker Industries Ltd so good is we think about things like that. The machine can hurl many more things than bones. Although it pains me a little to see perfectly good carrots being hurled onto the field, I have to admit that Hopkins is astounding in both speed and agility in retrieving the carrots.

He is one of the fittest rabbits probably anywhere and it is all because of the machine.

Or consider the bears like MarkUp. Those omnivores will chase after anything except once they get it, they eat it. They don't bring it back. Parker Industries Ltd has had a very good year, and even though there is some sensibility about animals eating other animals (incidentally you'll notice that I even call fish like Esmeralda an animal. We got that from humans who call each other animals all the time so I just decided to go with it) everyone is ok with the machine tossing out 1lb slabs of lox for the bears.

At first the bears wouldn't go more that a few feet to retrieve and eat the lox, but now they can really cover ground.

Squidoo reporter:

I hear something that sounds like running water from inside the gym. What is that?

Parker:

Lets go into the gym and I'll show you. (We go into the gym.)

See over on the left. That's called the slide of fitness. All the animals like the irony of the name. We built this for Esmeralda originally. See how on one of the water chutes the water is going from top to bottom as one would expect and you can see one of the bears happily sliding down it. No fitness gain there.

But look on the on the other side it turns out that there is no way to get to the top without either swimming upstream on a chute as Esmeralda has to do (think of
fish ladders ) if she wants to slide down or the bears have to climb the artificial tree we've planted in order to get to the top.

Like in the field, everything is timed and the faster one can make a loop the more fit an animal will be. Esmeralda couldn't even make it up the chute once when she started, but by working out with one of our trainers she has progressed to the point where she can do several laps with relative ease.

Squidoo reporter:

You mentioned trainers, and I see some other things in the gym that are not familiar to me. For example, what is that round cage that looks kind of like a ferris wheel?

Parker:

That wheel is like what humans would call a form of treadmill. We built the wheel because we got the design from a hamster that used to work here who swore by the wheel as they way he kept fit when he lived with humans.

Of course our wheel is much larger than what a hamster could effectively use. It was built initially for the dogs, but when we got the field machine the dogs refused to use the wheel.

Squidoo reporter:

So, does any animal use the wheel now?

Parker:

Yes, you'd be surprised, but AC for example is so powerful that even though he isn't very large, he can really make that wheel spin. He can go for hours on it. I'm sure he would be bored except that as you can see there are TV's all around the gym tuned to Animal Planet and wireless earphones are available for all the animals. I should qualify this by saying that on Monday afternoons we change the channel to a Fox affiliate.

Squidoo reporter:

I see a number of other machines in the gym and also what looks like free weights. What is all that equipment for?

These all have some human equivalent. That machine over there that looks like a nautilus machine was what Esmeralda used to build up her fin strength to the point where she could swim up the water chute.

I myself use the leg press machine for my hind legs. I'm a champion level standing long jumper thanks largely to that machine.

Squidoo reporter:

Wow, so is all this fitness paying off?

Parker:

Yes, the fitness program is paying off in very tangible ways. Absenteeism amongst active employees is down an extraordinary 40% from when we started the program.

Part of it is due, I believe. not only to the exercise but also to the blood tests that are run by a lab we bring in every six months. The cost to the gym members is nominal and they get good data on their health in addition to the fitness tests.

As for the retirees, this has been the most gratifying for me since I'm getting up in years myself. See that rabbit over there? In human years you'd guess he couldn't be a day over 5 years, but he's actually ten years old.

He and others like him have kept in good enough shape that the Parker Industries Ltd Retiree Health Care Insurance Program premiums were dropped this year by an average of 15%.

Squidoo reporter:
Do you have any advice for those not fortunate enough to have access to a fitness facility such as this one?

Parker:
Yes I do. Buy livestock. Get a cow. This will cut your risk of heart attack.

Squidoo reporter:

This is all wonderful stuff. You should be very proud of what you have done here at Parker Industries Ltd.

The End.

Hi. It's Parker again. I hope I didn't frighten the Squidoo reporter last week. I could tell it was apprehensive even though it holds a black belt. It refused to come onto the facility until I looked it straight in that huge eye and explained that we didn't allow Calamari on the premises.

There was a heated discussion last Thursday in the conference room which climaxed in the pelting of food. AC and Hopkins had a food fight with a platter of fried potatoes with tofu chorizo. Hopkins didn't go for our budget that is over eighty percent earmarks and a great hullabaloo erupted. Food is the way we cope with our aggressive tendencies on the job. (I also try to ensure that cubicle conditions aren't too crowded for my employees because I don't want breakouts of desk rage.)

The guest speakers at our big gathering this month were Johnson and Howard, black swans. These fledglings were delivered to our gates by transportation we arranged through Stuart Little. There were lots of rumors that the black swans originated from Europe. While we waited for their arrival, we got into the appropriate mood by consuming fortune cookies from Panda Express. The birds are from the Roubini school of economics and they presented a macroeconomic forecast for 2012.

It is my style of leadership to involve my staff in solving problems and to not have all the answers myself. A.C., our resident lizard, was on the ball during the question session. He darted out his tongue inquisitively and asked the visitors whether the corporate demand deposits might vanish down some financial rabbit hole.

The conference room has been designed to specification with plastic carpeting and plastic furniture and a hole in the floor that drains to the ocean. There are spigots on all four walls. At the conclusion of the meeting the cleaning crew comes in to turn on the hoses and we have a water fight. We are environmentally conscious, so we have a filter to trap debris before it is released.

Our human intelligence ("HUMANINT" in the spy trade) is pretty good. This is information obtained from human sources instead of through animal technologies. We have been watching THEM and over the years have incorporated some of the human language into our animal speech. I must tell you that our animal speech is often silent and we have the ability to understand nonverbal communications. The Japanese refer to this as Haragei , the art-of -the-stomach or visceral comprehension. Think of it as intuition or gut feeling.

Our ant managed to sneak into the Language Institute in Monterey (The DOD knows its stuff!) to gain competency in several of the human tongues. I understand that the human engineers are now trying to create remote controlled insects to do spying. They call these droning things Micro Air Vehicles. I am proud that our Parker insect spies require no remote operators.

You can hear the human word, 'champagne' at our Bored Meetings. That's where champagne flows in our designer fountain.

I myself have many sleepless nights thinking about the stash squirreled away for Parker Industries Ltd. Will it disappear in the Donnybrook of the Debt Limit Ceiling crisis aftermath? Or will it disappear in the oscillations of the Euro? I jitter and tremble when I try to parse the goings on in Washington D.C. My ears flatten and I chew the coffee table. ( I need to replace the living room furniture before my owners come back from vacation.)

I have been working out at the fitness facility to combat the stress and have been naming sheep. You think I must mean 'counting sheep'. I have hidden from my staff my inadequacies with arithmetic and my inability to get past NINES. ( Incidentally, my owners have scoped out NINES (near where the other Parker, the dog lives) and give it a both paws up. ) I can't do more than one digit at a time. So I just name the sheep instead of counting sheep. (If you scroll down, you can see that my inspiration is coming from across the Atlantic).

Sometimes I can doze off by listening to my Kindle read to me about Archimedes. 'Kindle' is another word our HUMANIT picked up. Another case of where we don't have an equivalent word in our language.

Also troubling me is the succession plan which I require for all Parker Industries Ltd senior managers. Hopkins is my Hare Apparent. However, 2011 has been the Year of the Rabbit but in looking forward 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. This would favor A.C. were anything to happen (God forbid!) to prevent me from assuming my CEO duties in Twenty Twelve. I don't intend for our A.C. from Barcelona to muscle out Hopkins. Esmeralda has been fishing around with the notion that she should be CEO. Don't even speak to me about the Mayan Calendar.

It's Parker again! I have to tell you that we got our LocalAnimalNetwork up and running thanks to our utility provider, the Road Runners, who came in from the desert to make a service call. So information is speeding to me and as CEO I can now access it in a timely fashion. It occurs to me that with the LAN available, we might do some classic business horizontal integration and start a tabloid for animal gossip. This idea really intrigues me as being soooo much fun.

Western informed me that he smelled an approaching rat coming from the direction of Paso Robles, California. A.C. and we got out from under our blanket of silence but we can't sense anything yet. Perhaps the rat is submerged under a water feature or it is still lumbering down Hwy 101. I sent Astoria out on a flyover to check it out. I warned her to stay out of the flight paths for LAX. If it is that particular Capybara who has been living in the water treatment plant then I am worried. I know it is 'cute' and that we need a rat, but I will not let it into the 'Swarm'. A big rodent like that (120 pounds) will squish us. And I suppose it wouldn't be 'nice enough' to have around the humans.

Our blanket of silence will be effective against the human attempts to penetrate our LAN. I need to explain a bit about how I got the idea from a phrase about the infamous cone of silence, and I apologize if I sound like I am lecturing.

The Cone of Silence from the Get Smart television series was a gadget intended to enable Maxwell Smart ("Agent 86") to speak to his boss, the "Chief", about classified matters. Smart would insist upon using the malfunctioning device which descended from above his desk to surround their heads, ostensibly a sound-proof shield. Comedy would ensue as the two men could not hear one another clearly, while bystanders outside the Cone of Silence could hear the Top Secret information and would be able to speak to them. The Chief would become completely perturbed and unhinged because the device was as useless as he had anticipated.

The Blanket of Silence which we have in our possession, however, works. When we animals are completely under it, not just wrapped in it for some sleeping, no one on the outside can hear what we are saying, including the IRS,ATF,DEA,CIA,FBI,MET,and DFG. All the alphabet agencies will not be able to discover what it is that Parker Industries Ltd does. ( I don't know what their problem is because I have gone public about my accepting only one dollar a year in CEO compensation and I have strictly abided by this.)

I apologize to Kempinski and Minerve and Marleybone that we are not using their wool for our blanket, but we wanted only the finest Ecuadorian alpaca from the Amazon. It was one of my most difficult decisions to select the blanket as I also was considering a Pendleton blanket, and I really covet one of those. Even Geronimo had one of these and generations of Parker cousins in Cascadia preferred the Pendleton brand.

Come and visit us once in awhile. Don't forget to take the poll about our names. And do see the recent photo of our annual Easter Open house.