karaoke neon sign in Texas

Our culture is so weird.

I was listening to the radio, and the DJ, in a peppy voice, said something like, “This is such-and-such station, and here’s some music for your workday!”

Immediately thereafter, they played a song about a woman who gets so pissed at her philandering boyfriend that she goes psychopath on his swanky, upscale vehicle—totally destroys the thing, while congratulating herself on teaching him a lesson and preventing him from cheating on her, ever again.

Um. If this is good workplace music, like, . . . where do you work?

Carved My Name Into His Leather Seats

I confess, I absolutely love this song. “Carved my name into his leather seats . . .”—the woman in the song is even so brassy as to make it clear exactly who trashed the guy’s erstwhile beautiful vehicle.

It’s a perfect revenge fantasy.

And that’s all it is, fantasy. Because—try this in the real world, I dare you.

Actually, I don’t dare you. I’m not that mean. Sure, the woman will achieve her goal of preventing him from cheating on her, ever again. But she could’ve accomplished that by breaking up with him. But, no, she decides to also openly destroy his property.

Hello? You live in America. This dude is going to lawyer up faster than you can say “Carved my name into his leather seats . . .”—which, if you’re Carrie Underwood and singing the hit song Before He Cheats, isn’t all that fast. . . .

Carved My Name Into His Leather Seats . . . in the Workplace

I’m obviously taking this waaaaay too literally. But it was jarring to hear the DJ introduce the song as good for the workplace. I imagined how that business meeting might go:

MANAGER A: Our stats on the X Widget are worse this quarter. Y Company outsold us 5 to 1. This is bad. What can we do to boost our sales?

MANAGER B: I know, let’s go on over to the Y headquarters, at 2am, and just trash the place. Like, destroy it completely.

MANAGER A: Great idea! I knew we promoted you for a good reason.

MANAGER B: Why, thank you.

EMPLOYEE C: Yeah, let’s get our most athletic people, and break all their windows, and go inside and break all their electronics.

EMPLOYEE D: Let’s nuke the place!

MANAGER B: No, let’s not nuke the place. We want the outside wall still standing, so we can spray-paint our company name on the side. That way, they’ll know who did it. That’ll teach them a lesson. They’ll never dare to outcompete us, ever again.

MANAGER A: Another great idea! You deserve a raise. I’m putting you in for a raise.

MANAGER B: Why, thank you.

EMPLOYEE C: Let’s get Engineering involved. They’ll have some good ideas.

EMPLOYEE D: Let’s get Legal involved. They can—

MANAGERS A and B (together): NO LEGAL!!!!!!!!

Carved My Name Into . . .

Where do you risk carving your name?


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