No one cares about foosball. Respect me. Pay me. Treat me like a human.

Sometimes I picture this scene in my head …

It’s a parking lot outside a corporate HQ. A taco truck is pulling in. Let’s call it “Tasty Tacos by Tom” to be generic. It’s a big yellow truck, maybe an old bus. Tom has that hustle going.

A harried middle manager races out of the HQ, waving his hands. “Tom! Tom!” Tom is confused. He pulls the truck in front of the building and comes to the window.

The middle manager is panting now. He’s really doing himself in. “Tom,” he gasps, “we don’t need these tacos right now. It turns out that (wheezes) these kids don’t want tacos and foosball. They want respect, opportunities for growth, and maybe health insurance.”

At that moment, a Goodwill van pulls up and the middle manager nods at her. “The ping pong tables are on the third floor. We’ll need them out too.”

Tom is confused by this, but nods at the middle manager and pulls away. And now we’ve reset. The middle manager is off to find some software solution, ideally priced under-market, that can allow for this foreign concept of “respect” to permeate his workplace.

This was written as satire, and it’s not even tremendously funny, but it’s also the premise of a good interview with author Dan Lyons called “How…