17 injured as marketing team pats itself on the back too hard

It was a regular day on the business floor of Dalal Inc. The keyboards clicked and phones rang, until suddenly, Debashish Das, head of marketing, ran out of his room waving around a paper at the entire office and declared that the deal had been sealed.  

Debashish's marketing team had managed to sell the company's dignity for 23.5 peanuts, and that called for congratulations.

Soon, the whole marketing team gathered around Debashish, who declared that they deserved accolades for being the provider of the oxygen, i.e the money, for this organisation, and that this achievement belonged to the whole marketing team.

That is when tragedy struck.

What began as a gentle show of appreciation as the members of the team patted each other on the back, quickly intensified as details of the deal emerged.

Project lead Hasan Shihab shared information about exactly how little money they had secured from clients in exchange for pawning off ungodly amounts of work to creative and product development, and the pats on the backs grew harder.

Hasan himself was the first to fall, as Tajreen Ahmed, CFO, smacked him in the upper back hard enough to dislocate a shoulder blade.

Hasan got off easy though, as he told us smiling through the pain with his hand resting on a sling, "Young marketing executive Rasheed Rahman came up with the idea to include a clause that stated that the client had full creative control and final sign-off privileges on all campaign-related content.

"The clients were willing to pay 0.0087 percent extra for these privileges, and to congratulate Rasheed on his success, the whole team went to town on his back. Marketing head Debashish Das procured a cricket bat and patted him on the back with that. His spine is now twisted, and he has lost sensation from the waist down, but I'm sure he'll be proud of his achievement."

This reporter tried to get Rasheed's comments but the doctors in the ICU of Dhoka Medical College Hospital would not allow visitors. Upon peering through the window, we did see that Rasheed was still busy at work on his phone, as he had not lost sensation in his hands. It later turned out that he was making a post on LinkedIn where he thanked God and every other person he has ever met in a professional capacity by name.

In total, 17 members of the 23-man marketing team suffered various degrees of back and shoulder injuries in this incident. Injuries ranged from herniated spinal discs, fractured vertebrae, to whiplash.

Those who remained uninjured were contacted for comment but could not be reached, other than one Senior Marketing Executive who would not reveal his name, but said, "I'm embarrassed. I've worked in marketing for 10 years, I've sucked up to every boss I have ever had, only to be snubbed when praise abounded. Yes, I was patted on the back, but clearly not hard enough."