A luncheon meeting between departments discussing best practices for ingestive poisons was a big success, with all parties heading back to their cubicles feeling more positive about poison use.

“I was impressed with New Zealand grass scorpion venom,” said Paula Zich from the Security division. “I always thought it would have a noticeable taste, but I never tasted it in my potato salad. Now if you’ll excuse me, I only have a few minutes to find an antidote.”

Attendees were also introduced to Diofermicide, an industrial chemical (based on military defoliants) that incapacitates but does not kill the target. Several ninjas took the poison via the sorbet but were unavailable for comment.

Ed Fennem, the manager who organized the luncheon, said this was an opportunity for all ninjas to appreciate the art of ingestive poisons. “Decapitation always sends a clear message, but sometimes it’s the unknown death that generates the most fear and control. I’m glad employees had a chance to better understand the utility of these poisons.

"Also, I only invited workers who didn’t sign my birthday card that went around last month. So the meal doubled as a lesson in workplace etiquette.”

On the website for the Hotel Classico in Miami, Florida, visitors can view a panoramic image of the hotel lobby, including a beautiful fountain made from Italian marble. Visitors with the right knowledge can also spot seven Ninjalistics ninjas hiding in the area.

“Apparently this image was taken during the Feemark Food Services national conference two years ago,” explains D’Angelo Jackson, a tactical operations manager. “We had a contract to remove three employees who threatened to call OSHA for workplace safety violations or something equally stupid. Our ninjas must have been hiding in the lobby when the picture was taken.”

A visitor who looks closely can see ninjas hiding behind the front desk, behind a potted plant, in an air vent, behind a ceiling tile, inside someone’s luggage, and disguised as a guest’s pet poodle.

“That’s Kim [Mandrell, infiltration expert]," Jackson explains, "one of the tiniest people I ever met. Boy, can she disguise herself or what?”

Loss prevention is a cornerstone of cost containment. One of our webmasters sat down with Chief Loss Preventator Rob Steile to discuss how a ninja services company deals with this problem.

Q: What unique problems do you face working in a building filled with ninjas?

STEILE: Plenty! Ninjas are trained in concealment and subtle movement, so it's real easy for a ninja to steal pens, toner, empty three-ring binders, half-eaten birthday cake slices... all the stuff that people love to steal from their place of business.

Q: Is loss prevention the same as stopping employee theft?

STEILE: Yes and no. All theft is a loss, but all prevention is not theft. I prefer to call prevention “anti-theft,” because it implies, however indirectly, you are not going to steal or at least try to stop someone else from stealing.

Q: That doesn’t make any sense, does it?

STEILE: Let me give you an example. Sticky notes are the most commonly acquired target of employee theft. To prevent this, we sneak into the building at night, carefully avoiding security through our incredible ninjutsu skills, and take all the sticky notes. That way, no one can steal them.

Q: So … you steal things so no one else can steal them?

STEILE: Absolutely not! That would be stupid! We just remove objects a thief would want to take before they are taken. That’s called prevention.

Q: Does that explain why I can’t find my stapler, several USB drives, or my lunch?

STEILE: Let's talk about how much our Loss and Loss-Like Preventative Operations Program has saved the company. Did you know requests for office supplies have dropped 28% since we initiated this program?

Q: Seriously, where's my lunch? Have you Preventated someone from stealing it?

STEILE: This is an example of the educational outreach the LALLPOP operatives still need to perform within the company. Here, I'll show you how we do it. This particular outreach is called the Grip of the Hungry Hippopotamus. I like it because it reminds me of Hungry Hungry Hippos, which is a fun game, and because it paralyzes the target's respiratory system, which is also a fun game.

Q: Thank you for your time, Rob Steile! It was a pleasure! More power to you and your LALLPOPs! I mean it! No, really, I do! You can let go now.

Once again this November, Ninjalistics is helping a few lucky clients celebrate the true meaning of the American Thanksgiving holiday by granting them near-death experiences.

In the annual ritual, known as Operation Appreciation Stimulation, ninja operatives descend at random on unsuspecting clients who have used the company's services in the past calendar year. The operatives forcibly relocate the clients to undisclosed locations and present them with seemingly fatal threats. By removing the threats at the last possible instant and restoring the clients to safety, the operatives induce rapturous and seasonally appropriate gratitude.

"It's all about giving back to the customer," said Sue Hin Kim of the public relations agency Hill Knowlton, speaking for Ninjalistics. "The company wants to demonstrate that once you've hired ninjas, the relationship is ongoing and continues to yield unexpected returns."

"My holiday abduction was memorable," says corporate attorney Janet Bastich. While Bastich was picking up her young son from daycare, unnamed Ninjalistics ninjas seized mother and child and transported them to a remote, vacant warehouse. The operatives strapped Bastich to an operating table, she says, "and showed me various implements." They also presented the fate of her son as an inventive mystery.

"When they untied me and brought Jimmy in unharmed, I felt a tremendous rush," Bastich recalls. "I'd never been so happy to see him. I remember when plaintiffs won damages from my clients on some trumped-up consumer safety complaint, I occasionally saw them display that same exultation. But I had never understood it myself, until those [operatives] decided to [stimulate our appreciation]. My son's life is so much more precious to me now, since we survived that [celebratory ritual]."

Sometimes clients need time to appreciate these touching life lessons. In the aftermath of her liberation, Bastich, like a few other rare abductees, mistakenly tried to take legal action against Ninjalistics and its operatives. But she, like the others, quickly came to understand the inappropriateness of her reaction and dropped all charges.

The great majority of abductees still recall their lesson in powerful terms. "When I emerged after two weeks buried alive in that concrete spider hole, I felt reborn, magnificent," said corporate executive Arthur Vyktimm. "I knew the profound privilege merely to breathe fresh air, to feel warm sunshine on my face, to gaze up to the star-rich firmament and feel, as would a child, the unbounded grandeur of the Universe. After that, eating turkey with my family is just gravy, no pun intended. Thanks, Ninjalistics!"

Hin Kim observed that Ninjalistics operatives undertake the annual operation on their own time and at their own initiative, pro-bono. "Throughout the year, the ninjas note clients who need reminders to respect and appreciate all living things -- including, for example, ninjas. During the holidays, the ninjas remember, and they act.

"For our clients, it's a powerful lesson, taught the way only a ninja can teach."

(Hey, folks, Chuck Chockley here from the Ninjalistics New Media Marketing Initiative. Sorry I can't bring you my regular "Monday Chuck" column this week (Week 005 of the Thousand Weeks of Ninja: The Ninjalistics Entertainment Dominance Project™!). It seems a senior Ninjalistics executive lost an underwater-breathing contest this past weekend to an executive from Ninja Burger. As payoff, his successors have reluctantly ordered me to run this high-handed puff piece by one of those typically stuck-up Ninja Burger reps. Yeah, I know, groan time -- but at least it talks about the Day of the Ninja, coming up this December 5th! So just grit your teeth, read the darned thing, and I'll be back next week with my regular column. Keep telling it true! -- Chuck Chockley)

Recruitment, high employee turnover, and you: A Ninja Burger success story

Michael Fiegel

Ninja Burger, the world's only fast food restaurant run by ninja, was founded in 1954 at a moment in time when two great tides were sweeping the globe: the Cold War and the rise of Fast Food. With many ninja out of work after World War II, it became clear a niche existed for these skilled employees, and Ninja Burger attained some success delivering to high-profile individuals in high-security situations. So arose our now-infamous marketing slogan: Guaranteed Delivery in 30 Minutes or Less, or We Commit Seppuku.

As one might expect, this guarantee brings no shortage of risks. Given that Ninja Burger was only known to the elite we served -- presidents, dictators, generals and the like -- this necessarily left certain individuals out of the loop, such as security guards, guard dogs, police officers, and others who were often in possession of guns, batons, teeth, and assorted lethal weapons.

Needless to say, Ninja Burger has suffered from a high employee turnover, due mostly to casualties but also to significant defections and betrayals (to be expected when dealing with ninja). This latter has been exacerbated by the rise of misinformation propagated by such sites as Ninjalistics, Real Ultimate Power, and their ilk. The former's lack of historical awareness and complete disdain for ninja tradition (as well as their continued misuse of "ninjas" as the plural of ninja), and the latter's insistence that ninja wail on guitars and hang out with hippopotami, have done much to tarnish the reputation of legitimate ninja-run businesses.

Faced with these challenges, Ninja Burger has been forced to adapt, keeping to ancient tradition while also incorporating new marketing and recruitment efforts. These bolster morale among younger ninja and increase the influx of new employees to offset turnover from work-related fatalities.

The primary means of achieving our ambitious recruitment goals was the development in 2001 of a Ninja Burger website, which for the first time allowed individuals to apply to work for us online. The vast majority were not ninja, but with a slight lowering of the bar (from "Is a ninja" to "Can spell 'ninja'"), we were able to more than quadruple recruitment. Though the majority of these "non-ninja" recruits were lost in the line of duty, the numbers were in line with the overall turnover rate among trained ninja. The effort has been a net success, despite the fact that a significant number of website visitors -- perhaps used to the misinformation spun by rivals such as Ninjalistics -- have taken Ninja Burger to be some sort of farce. Outrageous!

To help promote our image further, our ninja marketers also explored nontraditional merchandising in line with that of other fast-food corporations: T-shirts and aprons through Cafe Press; a Ninja Burger roleplaying game with 9th Level Games and, later, aethereal FORGE; a card game with Steve Jackson Games; and more. This culminated with the release through Citadel Press in 2006 of our official Honorable Employee Handbook. (Due to a mixup with the publisher, the book is stocked in the Humor section).

Our latest effort has been the promotion of the Day of the Ninja, an annual holiday celebrated on December 5. On this day, we encourage individuals around the globe to increase ninja awareness by dressing up like ninja, acting like ninja, and spreading information about ninja via blogs, podcasts, photos, video, and other media. The resulting ninja education has a trickle-down effect which has further increased the success of our recruitment efforts. Since 2002, the Day of the Ninja has gone from a small effort to a global initiative involving tens of thousands of participants. In recent years, coordinated DVD and game releases have taken place on December 5, and traditional media outlets such as NPR's Morning Edition and G4 Television have covered the story.

Every December 5, we see yet another spike in applications, which allows us to substantially offset losses from early retirement, termination, and other employee life-modification events. With continued effort from the ninja community, the Day of the Ninja will push our live-to-dead employee ratio back into the black where it belongs.

For more information, visit the Ninja Burger website. To learn about the Day of the Ninja, visit www.dayoftheninja.com.

Ninja Burger is an equal opportunity employer and a trademark of aethereal FORGE. All Rights Reserved.

Michael Fiegel, a writer and game designer in Seattle, created Ninja Burger and the Day of the Ninja. He designed the Ninja Burger roleplaying game, wrote the Honorable Employee Handbook, and co-designed (with Jerry D. Grayson) the new RPG Hellas: Worlds of Sun and Stone.