OMAHA, Neb. — HR generalist Annie Washington claims she already knows who within the company is going to be fired for donning blackface this Halloween season, nervous employees report.
“When you work in corporate HR for as long as I do, you develop a skill to suss out who in the office is going to throw common sense out the window and wear blackface for an ill-conceived topical Halloween costume. And since this has become an ongoing issue thanks to these idiots popping up on social media, I started the termination paperwork now so they’re gone before the public finds out these idiots worked here,” said Annie Washington. “I’ve developed my own algorithm to narrow them down. If they’re between the ages of 24 to 29, were active in Greek life at a Southern college, and pay for a blue checkmark on X, then there’s a 99% they’re dressing up as Mark Robinson, Simone Biles, or a ‘Haitian Pet Eater.’”
The mood in the office has become tense after employees discovered HR had their eyes on specific individuals.
“Well don’t look at me, I’d never do a thing like that, even though I don’t understand why anyone would be offended over a costume. Someone else, I mean! Anyway, last time I checked this was America and we have a little something called freedom of expression,” said Junior Sales Associate Mark Donahue. “Annie can’t prove anything just because she overheard me at lunch talking about where to find grease paint and ‘Blacks for Trump’ merch. It absolutely doesn’t prove I’m going to do something to get canceled at my cousin’s Halloween party. Allegedly!”
Job coaches and recruiters have changed their tactics due to inevitable yearly occurrences of blackface costumes.
“Racist costumes were bad enough before social media captured everything, but anyone who does it now is a walking PR nightmare waiting to happen. Before we send any of our candidates to a work site, they have to watch a four-hour video introducing the concept of negative consequences and how dressing up as racial caricatures is bad. It sounds like common sense, but some folks need it beaten into them,” said Jenny Lanning. “We’ve lost clients because of multiple temps not knowing dressing up as OJ Simpson and posting it on Instagram was a bad thing.”
After some consideration, Washington had the employees she’d suspected fired preemptively after confirming their group costume would be based on the film “Cool Runnings.”