Rhyme Rage
Lothian University Hospitals Trust in Edinburgh, Scotland, decided employees were stressed, so a stress counselor started sending all 3,000 employees an e-mail “poem a day.” Would-be poet Lynn Ogilvie then asked workers to tell her what they thought of her e-mails. “We have chosen haiku, as the poems are very wee, with the intention of creating a moment of pleasure,” she wrote. “Do these tiny poems create a moment of pleasure or irritation?” The hospital e-mail system almost crashed under the deluge of replies pleading for the poems to stop. “A big poem, A wee poem, Ah’m sick o’em!” wrote one. “Not a haiku, Does not scan, Just a plea from an overworked man” wrote another. So did the hospital cancel the scheme? No: administrators have warned the staff to stop complaining or they will lose their e-mail access. (Glasgow Daily Record) ...Well, at least now they know the source of their stress.
Available in This is True: Book Collection Vol. 9