January 2006 | Volume 1, Issue 1

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2006! Welcome to our new monthly Amalgamated Humor Newsletter, designed to keep YOU, the Amalgamated Humor employee, up to date on everything that's going on with our company. We hope you find this newsletter handy and informative and maybe it'll lead to better company communication (and therefore, fewer incidents like last month's casual dress day fiasco/riot).

ITEM: Thanks to all of you who participated in December's Adopt-A-Family for the non-denominational (Christmas) holidays. Your donations of food, toys, clothing, and cash really made a difference for one randomly-selected local needy family. In fact, we've already received a thank-you note from them! Here's what it said:

To the people at Amalgamated Humor, Inc.

Thank you so much for the gifts and donations to our family this Christmas. While some of the gifts have been confiscated by the police department since they turned out to be evidence they were seeking in relation to various crimes that you seem to have donated to us just to try to shake the trail of justice, the rest of them have really made our holidays brighter!

Our two little boys have never owned finer clothing than the many lovely velvet holiday dresses sent to us. The kids may grumble that they're not quite in style with what the rest of the boys are wearing, but I'm just thankful that they have A lot fewer holes in them than anything else in the cardboard box (another donation from you!) they keep their clothes in.

When we sat down to the lovely holiday dinner of canned creamed corn and the still half-full can of mixed nuts (we even found two cashews left!) you gifted us, I thanked the lord that we were so blessed that Amalgamated Humor, Inc. remembered us this year after laying off my husband over six years ago.

God bless,
Nancy _____

Give yourselves a pat on the back, everybody. You done good!

ITEM: The winner of last month's guess the number of ticks in Custodian Corbet Ferndander's beard contest was accountant Marty Lurnlin who guessed closest with 11 (the correct answer was 24!). Congratulations, Marty - YOU GET TO KEEP THE TICKS!

THIS MONTH'S EMPLOYEE HEATH TIP from Human Resources head Dolly Saunders: Did you know that standing up is more healthy than sitting? It's true! That's why, in order to keep our worker's healthy, we're considering removing all chairs from our office cubicles. What do you think, everybody? Ready to make a STAND for healthy living?

ITEM: While most of us have already celebrated the New Year, CHINESE NEW YEAR will be on January 29 this year (some people just HAVE to be different - HA HA, just kidding). In honor of the special day, we will be serving Kung Pao chicken for lunch and employees are encouraged to dress up like Ninjas (who I'm pretty sure are Chinese). Also, be sure to wish a Happy New Year to our sole Asian employee here in the corporate office, Lester Cheng (who I'm also pretty sure is Chinese).

THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: Co-president Mr. Brockie says, "let's make 1997 the year of Amalgamated Humor! Keep up the hard work, and maybe we'll have that money we need to start building that bunker to protect us from the giant earwigs from the moon who will be coming to enslave mankind in the year 2000!"