i knew a guy who was working at a chicago weekly 'zine. his editors were always sending him out to do stories that could put a funny/interesting twist on the big story of the day, while humanizing it by including real stories about real peoples' lives.

anyway, one day his editor tells him to do a piece on all of the layoffs/the bad economy, but to, "find some of the really crazy ones, that'll make people laugh and give them a sense of perspective". and so he goes out and finds someone who's hr dept. hired off-broadway actors to do some severance meetings, but the actor didn't understand it was for real; and one where someone gets dumped, has their car stolen, house burn down, and dog run away on the same day; but then there's a story about the woman who's laid off , carrying all her stuff out in a box and gets an offer for an even better job on the way down in the elevator to the lobby, and the guy who gets laid off for improperly calculating the compressive strength of an aquacolumn.

and so he submits his story and his editor sends it back with the note: "make it more personal, more human"

and so he does, but it gets sent back.. he re-works it again and gets a similar note "make it more personal" and he tries a fourth time, pouring his heart into the story.

he submits it and it comes back ant he sees that there's a paragraph added on at the end:

"funny layoff stories even pop up in the news business from time to time. this reporter was actually assigned to write this article as a creative way of preparing him for his own imminent layoff."


-sorry, just had some free time during a conference call