Despair, Inc. announces strategic partnership with the employees of Microsoft
DESPAIR, INC. ANNOUNCES STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH THE EMPLOYEES OF MICROSOFT, OFFERS FREE “DESPAIR CARE PACKAGE” TO BILL GATES
DALLAS, TX – October 29, 1998 – At first, E.L. Kersten couldn’t believe the data. Of the enormous flood of new customers of Despair, Inc., a shocking 8.5% of them were employees of Microsoft corporation.
But the data proved true. Employees of Microsoft were scooping up Demotivators(tm) products in enormous volumes. Kersten took immediate action, calling for a press conference at the downtown offices of Despair, Inc., where he announced to reporters:
“A beautiful thing is happening between Microsoft employees and Despair, Inc. A synergy. They are enormously wealthy and intelligent, yet overcome with cynicism, racked with feelings of self-doubt, acute boredom, or plain ‘I-just-won-the-lottery’ guilt, and this perfect combination of traits has sewn the seeds of a strong bond between our two companies…”
Kersten announced at the conference his decision to send an entire collection of company products to Bill Gates. It was important enough a task that Kersten put his own personal secretary of over 10 years, “Hey You”, on the job.
Kersten estimates his own personal fortunes will surpass Bill Gates within 8 months, adding, “Our explosive 3rd quarter sales growth is a testament to the sheer enormity of our market. Despair is an operating system that ANY human being can run, sort of a psychological JAVA. We write the products once, and any person can run them many times through their minds. Windows will not have an operating system that can run on the human brain until sometime in 2003.”
Microsoft president Steve Ballmer, when questioned about the announcement, stated, “Despite the appearance of a number of “Demotivators(tm)” posters and calendars within our offices, we have no formal relationship with Despair, Inc.”
Ballmer would not comment on rumors that Microsoft is developing their own line of anti-motivational screensavers with David Bowie called, “(We Could Be) Zeroes.”
Bill Gates himself did little to quash rumors that such a product might be in development when offering his common paraphrase of “no comment” to a reporter, “What are you some kind of idiot or something?”
Reporters at the press conference questioned whether this new relationship with Microsoft could jeopardize relations with longtime Despair, Inc. partner, Netscape.
“Absolutely not. As long as Netscape has that one-time Highlander III badguy lookalike Jamie Zawinski on staff, and as long as Jamie keeps that REALLY bad attitude, we think we’ll always have a home and friendship there.”
Kersten then added, “In the end, like most businesses, we measure the strength of our relationships in strictly financial terms, so whichever company spends the most money with us is our bestus-friend-for-all-time-forever-and-ever-and-for-all-time.”