Satire: Crocodile Trainee wants to whip executives into shape

Crocodile Trainee wants to whip executives into shape

Adventure travel operator Major Jeremy Billycock-Smythe announced plans today to weather the downturn in the tourist industry by teaching basic
commando skills to executives.

He unveiled the newest arm of his business, Crocodile Trainee.

"We see a number of good reasons for companies to send their executives to us for management training," an upbeat Major B.S. said:

" How can a boss expect staff members to jump out of an aeroplane or pole vault a razor-wire-topped security fence or dig a 100 metre escape tunnel if he has not actually done it himself? Or herself?
"I am pretty sure that companies can write off the costs of the course as part of their staff training commitment."
"As a free service to our clients, all people enrolled will be
automatically insured against loss of limbs or life."

Major B.S, a former British SAS officer and mercenary, has just returned from the Pacific Island of Nauru where he attempted to dig a tunnel to a refugee camp.

"Oh that?" Major B.S. said when asked how things went. "Um, er, well we had to make a strategic withdrawal from that one.
"Do you know how much rock there is on Nauru? No top-soil at all. Very hard
going.
"That said, I was very sad to have to leave.
"Unfortunately, though, I have
a business to run and things are not going as well with the mother company, Trojan Travel, we would like.

"It was bad enough before September 11.
"Trojan Travel suffered some minor setbacks in Chechnya [where a group of paying tourists were captured during a war-zone tour and the Nullabor desert where Major B.S. and his party got lost].
"Post September 11, we are seeing a very significant decline in the numbers
of people wanting to travel, let alone do anything adventurous.

"I am confident that confidence will return to the market.
"In fact, we have already examining new war-zone venue options that have
just opened up.
"However, like good soldiers, we really do have to refocus our objectives right now according to the circumstances we find ourselves in."

Trojan Training has yet to decide on a training base for its first inductees, likely, Major B.S. said, to come, ironically, from the travel
industry.

"Later, we do hope to attract some real high-flyers like Kerry Packer,
Rupert Murdoch, Richard Branson and Ted Turner.
"But we have to set ourselves realistic goals initially. Messrs Packer,
Murdoch, Branson and Turner probably are busy right now. Travel industry executives probably are not."

Major B.S. conceded that commando courses have been used at management training courses before.

"The difference is, we are not just talking about swinging on a tyre across a creek with our course," he said.
"We are talking about swinging on a tyre across a creek infested with
man-killer crocodiles.

"That sounds tough, but let's be brutally realistic about it.

"If someone slips, they were probably just a liability to a company anyway.
AND the employers get to claim the insurance.

"We will teach executives how to use the latest laser-guided weapons.

"We will teach them the finer points of unarmed combat, survival skills,
parachuting, tunnelling and fashioning their own pole from a tree using
only a Swiss pocket knife.

"By the time we are finished with them, they will have fighting skills
second to none. They should be able to survive and thrive in any office in
Australia, if not the world."

©November 22, 2001 John Martin. All Rights Reserved

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it