four crabs going to montana

so the Pike's Place fish market of seattle has a motivational video. it seems to be aimed at the Who Moved My Cheese? market. it is about how throwing large dead fish at people can teach you the meaning of happiness through finding yourself.

no, really.

this is supposed to liberate you from the drudgery of your miserable fucking workplace and you're supposed to like Choose To Embrace The Attitude Of Finding The Fun In The Now. or something. this will in turn enable you to unlock your inner twentysomething stoner white dude working a low-skill retail gig, so that even when you are huddled in your cubicle on a rainy afternoon, poking at your cheerless container of lowfat yogurt with a plastic spoon as you stare at row after row of other cubicles full of others doing the same thing, you can think back on those retail workers, and smile as you recall their simple, warm, honest joie de vivre and zest for life and resolve to teach yourself to feel that enthusiasm and totally fail to realise that they, like every other retail employee you encounter in probably every transaction ever, were probably all faking it, because they're retail employees, and that's what they're paid to do, in addition to lifting heavy things and smiling ingratiatingly and pretending they're not as hungover as they actually are.

you are not supposed to do any of this by throwing fish yourself. they emphasised this point.

i'm not sure which is more appalling: that my employers chose to make me (and my fellow mostly-twentysomething, mostly-stoner, mostly-white low-skill retail employees) watch this video -- or that they paid $599 for this video in order to show it to us. because they did. the manager told us so. "because we really feel like it's worth it!" he said, without a hint of irony.