SUMMARY OF THE STORIES IN CHICKEN SOUP FOR YOUR CORPORATE ASS

 

Chicken Soup for your Transnational Ass

 

Silam Paley is an entrepreneur from Cincinnati who bought a hospital in Seoul to transform it into a factory of board games. During a dinner at Darren Jakobsen´s house, a friend of him, he met Ward Callahan. They got on very well, they liked Tom Clancy, Nazi memorabilia and Vintage automobiles.

Ward decided to close down his factory in Midland, Cincinnati, which manufactured Scrabble games, and move it to Silam´s one in Korea, mainly because labour there was cheaper than in the States.

Meanwhile, the workers of the Korean factory wanted a pay-rise, but because there have less employee rights over there, the workers were fired and strict measures were put in place in the factory to avoid employees insurgence.

Employees boicot the plant and it was discovered later on that some of the Scrabble games were not up to quality because they were missing the letter E.

As a good businness man, Silam saw an opportunity out of this downside. He was to ask consumers to report any anomalies with the Scrabble game by post and thecompany would have to sort it by sending back the missing letters. The company then would have a database of consumer information that could be sold to marketing companies and make great profits out of it.

After Darren´s dinner, Silam began to have health problems and become forgetful and lost interest in making money.

 

Chicken Soup for your Rainforest-Bulldozing Ass

 

Young Li Kim is a Korean business man who bought the rights to a strech of rainforest in New Zealand to expand his business, but still felt that needed to computerized his operations. He thought his son Young Li Jr could help him in his venture, so Young Li Jr was sent to Cincinnati University to study Computer Science.

Young Li Jr shared a room at university with a history student that was hardly around, and he also worked in a research center. However, he did not make any friends and because he neglected his English lessons he started to fail his exams. 

He was about to be expelled from university, so he spent sleepless nights going without food and studying hard in order to pass his exams. He was in a very bad state when went wandering into the streets of a wealthy neighborhood mummbling and acting strange. A neighbour called the police and Young Li Jr was arrested out of his mind and with no documents.

 

Chicken Soup for your Animal Experimentation Ass

 

Victoria Washington was working in a lab of a research center when she fell ill, probably because of the chemicals she used in the lab, and had to stay home for three weeks. Being home had a positive side, she could spend more time with her daughter, who usually stayed at a day care center when she was at work, and also spend time with her son, who during her illness took well care of her. The negative side was tha she was afraid to loose her job if she did not return to it soon.

One morning she went to see her manager in the lab. That day a raccoon had scaped and was free around the building. She stopped to see her supervisor first, Janine, but she was very busy, preocuppied and wore a boiler suit, something new in the department.

Later she went to talk to the Risk Manager, Ward Callahan Jr, in order to find out why the sick pay had not arrived. She has missed her first rent payment in four years and her landlord had threatened her to evict her. While they were discussing the affair the raccoon that had scaped jumped and chewed Ward´s eyes.

 

Chicken Soup for your Health Insurance Ass

 

Robert Sullivan who was a friend of Darren Jakobsen, learnt of his death that morning. The previous day he had dined with him and in the way home he had to call the police about a very suspicious Asian man wandering in his neighbourhood.

Robert was a Claims Investigator for the HMO and that day had a couple of meetings. One with a woman who claimed that was ill because she had been poised at work, and the other meeting was with Jerry Armantrout who needed a liver transplant which was not covered by his insurance policy.

He was quite affected by the news of his friend death and felt that day a special love for his daughter and his alcoholic wife. He decided to go and pick up his daughter from the day care center, but then remembered that Sally, Jerry´s wife worked there, and did not feel like seeing her after denying his husband the cover for the operation. Then he went into a sports bar and demanded something to eat and to drink. A few hours later he was dead for food poisoning.

No one went to pick up Robert´s daughter that afternoon, so Sally had to do extra non remunerated hours and take care of Robert´s daughter.

 

Chicken Soup for your Landlord Ass

 

Darren Jakobsen made a living through the rental of property, and things were going well for him. He enjoyed inviting his friends for dinner, doing parties by the jacuzzi and was going on holiday with his wife to the rain forest of New Zealand that year.

He had to evict the Washington´s because he did not understand how one family could not pay for the rent and did not want this happening in his business. To celebrate this, he invited his friends for dinner, Silam Paley, Robert Sullivan, Ward Callahan and Ward Callahan Jr. After dinner, he and his wife, Janine, had too many drinks and fell asleep in the jacuzzi which malfunctioned in the middle of the night and they were burnt inside.

 

 

 

 

 CHARACTER                       SPATIAL ANALYSIS          BACKGROUND                  CONCLUSION           WORKS CITED       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Academic year 2008/2009

© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López

©Ana Ruth Contreras Fernández

Universitat de València Press

          aconfer@alumni.uv.es