Layoff Plants (Casualties of War)

I have to share this email thread from work. It actually made me laugh out loud--because it was so sad and yet (cynically) funny.

Let's call the first emailer John. 

Anyone interested in these 9-foot long vine plants from [someone who was laid off]'s office? I really have no interest, and I'd appreciate having them removed. 

But I'm not anxious to just kill them.

A plant lover would love to have 'em, I'll bet. If not you, maybe someone you know would be interested in sparing the lives of these monsters.

And the responder Jack.

John, 

We could add them to the 'lay-off' plants in the conference room next door. I water them on a weekly basis. :) The conference room plants are all homeless casualties of layoffs.

-Jack

I'm not sure what strikes me as so funny. Maybe it's that John is advertising these now-homeless plants. Maybe it's the mental picture that I formed of the conference room-turned menagerie resulting from the large number of recent layoffs. Maybe it's the fact that the previous owners have abandoned all these plants to their fates, and yet we have a Florence Nightingale-type plant rescuer (Jack), down in the trenches saving/nursing the casualties of the recent war (annihilation?).