After several successive quarters of modest losses, Kingdom of Darkness (NYSE:KOD) Chairman and CEO Bill Z. Bub announced a two major new initiatives instituted across the enterprise aimed at increasing shareholder value.
First, Bub announced the job title “manager” was reclassified from a salaried position to a combination salary and commission position. “Even though we had all of our managers read The Purpose Driven Life last year, we found that we still had to do something to fight the tendency of our middle management to be bloated and beaureaucratic, particular in the customer-facing portions of our business. By making sure they have some skin in the game with part of their salaries tied to performance, we believe our managers will become more productive. If not, we may have to bring in a consulting firm to help us streamine our processes.”
Next, to make KOD more customer and family friendly, Bub indicated that they were eliminating the “demon” job title in favor of the friendlier “associate” title, a decision reached in part due to KOD’s recent merger talks with Wal-Mart. “Yes, we’re in talks right now with Wal-Mart about a potential merger. Wal-Mart stores are the new temples of America, the community centers of American religion if you will. It makes good business sense to leverage our vast spiritual resources with their material resources to give our customers more choices,” Bub offered in response to the rumored merger talks.
As for renaming of the job title demon, Bub said the negative connotation associated with the word had long plagued the KOD, yet demonic activity remains one of KOD’s core competencies. “We wanted to sustain the core, yet look to the future. By using the word associate, we will remove a lot of the stigma attached to demon. Our Marketing department focus group studies indicated that few people mind being possessed or oppressed by an associate, but over 52% of Americans are repulsed by the idea of being demon-possessed.”
To support this key initiative, KOD has enlisted the HISREV Consulting Group, a team of historical revisionists from the Union Theological Seminary in New York. They are in the Middle East looking for ancient manuscripts that suggest "associate" is in the semantic domain of meaning for the word "demon." “As with several of our other projects in recent years, we find HISREV always manages to find the historical data we need to support our recommendations, even if they have to make it up. I mean, none of us were there, so who’s to say associate and demon couldn’t mean the same thing. Nothing is impossible with HISREV.”
Except for historical information contained herein, the statements made in this release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Kingdom of Darkness and its management regarding the company's strategic directions, prospects and future results, involve certain risks and uncertainties. Certain factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including economic and other conditions in the markets in which we operate, governmental regulations, our competitive environment, strikes, work stoppages and slowdowns, increases in aviation and motor fuel prices, cyclical and seasonal fluctuations in our operating results, and other risks discussed in the company's Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which discussions are incorporated herein by reference.
First, Bub announced the job title “manager” was reclassified from a salaried position to a combination salary and commission position. “Even though we had all of our managers read The Purpose Driven Life last year, we found that we still had to do something to fight the tendency of our middle management to be bloated and beaureaucratic, particular in the customer-facing portions of our business. By making sure they have some skin in the game with part of their salaries tied to performance, we believe our managers will become more productive. If not, we may have to bring in a consulting firm to help us streamine our processes.”
Next, to make KOD more customer and family friendly, Bub indicated that they were eliminating the “demon” job title in favor of the friendlier “associate” title, a decision reached in part due to KOD’s recent merger talks with Wal-Mart. “Yes, we’re in talks right now with Wal-Mart about a potential merger. Wal-Mart stores are the new temples of America, the community centers of American religion if you will. It makes good business sense to leverage our vast spiritual resources with their material resources to give our customers more choices,” Bub offered in response to the rumored merger talks.
As for renaming of the job title demon, Bub said the negative connotation associated with the word had long plagued the KOD, yet demonic activity remains one of KOD’s core competencies. “We wanted to sustain the core, yet look to the future. By using the word associate, we will remove a lot of the stigma attached to demon. Our Marketing department focus group studies indicated that few people mind being possessed or oppressed by an associate, but over 52% of Americans are repulsed by the idea of being demon-possessed.”
To support this key initiative, KOD has enlisted the HISREV Consulting Group, a team of historical revisionists from the Union Theological Seminary in New York. They are in the Middle East looking for ancient manuscripts that suggest "associate" is in the semantic domain of meaning for the word "demon." “As with several of our other projects in recent years, we find HISREV always manages to find the historical data we need to support our recommendations, even if they have to make it up. I mean, none of us were there, so who’s to say associate and demon couldn’t mean the same thing. Nothing is impossible with HISREV.”
Except for historical information contained herein, the statements made in this release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Kingdom of Darkness and its management regarding the company's strategic directions, prospects and future results, involve certain risks and uncertainties. Certain factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including economic and other conditions in the markets in which we operate, governmental regulations, our competitive environment, strikes, work stoppages and slowdowns, increases in aviation and motor fuel prices, cyclical and seasonal fluctuations in our operating results, and other risks discussed in the company's Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which discussions are incorporated herein by reference.