Lisa,

Your Secret Santa has noticed that you have been working very hard lately in getting ready to move to the new office. You have done a particularly good job at selling all the old office furniture. You have so much talent and skill at doing this that I actually think you could become the company's next Vice President by forming a new business area called IFM - ISX Flea Market, where people can buy all the other junk around the office that sort of looks useful.

But before you become a Vice President, you have to get rid of a couple of current V.P.s to make room for yourself. Now, the first solution that might come to mind is to pick a Vice President (like Mark Hoffman, for instance), get a knife and cut his throat, and dump the body in the woods for the birds to eat the flesh off the rotting carcass. You don't seem like the type of person to do such a thing (though Secret Santa has considered it on a couple of occasions) and it would be a bit messy.

The more ethical alternative is to simply have a couple of V.P.s fired, and gift #1 will tell you just how to do this. I received part of this as a gift from another Secret Santa a few years ago, and it has been a tremendous help in getting rid of the idiots that I have to work for. Louis Rumanes, Christine Haapala, Larry Lafferty, Rich Armstrong, Eric Stephens, Glen Reece - at some point in the past I worked for all these people, all these people annoyed me, so I had them fired. Louis was a UGA graduate, Christine was incompetent, Larry always managed to goof up lunch orders, Rich was a jack-ass, and Eric needs no explanation. Now, some of them might tell you that they were "seeking new opportunities", but what really happened is Secret Santa manipulated the weak-minded fools into voluntarily leaving - which is the same thing as having them fired. (I actually enjoyed having Rich fired so much from ISX that I recently had him fired again, but that's another story.)

Open gift #1 now.["How to Fire Your Boss","Take Control of People"]

For gift #2 [Junk], I decided you needed some various resources for your new business area. It might look like your Secret Santa just cleaned out the desk, stuffed all the junk in a box, and gave it to you. And that is exactly what I did, but I am sure you can find a way to sell all of these things and make a profit for the company. Most of these items still belong to the company, so I am not really giving them to you but to your business area. The items still belong to the company, but now you are responsible for moving them to the new office.