Boss Implements Open-Door Policy, Immediately Regrets It When Dave Won’t Stop Talking About Soup

When Mark Hennigan, regional manager of TriPoint Solutions, announced last Monday that he was implementing a bold new “open-door policy,” employees expected it would usher in a new era of transparency, communication, and empowerment.

Instead, it ushered in Dave.

And Dave, it turns out, really, really wants to talk about soup.

Act I: The Open Door to Hell

Mark’s announcement seemed innocent enough. “My office door is now open to anyone,” he declared at the weekly all-hands. “I want to hear your ideas, your concerns, your visions for our shared future. No topic is too small.”

He didn’t realize how literally Dave, an accounts receivable associate with a collection of novelty ties featuring otters, would take that invitation.

“By 9:06 a.m., Dave was standing in Mark’s doorway, holding a thermos,” said Angela in payroll, visibly traumatized. “He just… started. He said, ‘Mark, I don’t think we talk enough about soup.’ That was the beginning. That was the beginning.”

According to witnesses, Dave spoke uninterrupted for nearly 47 minutes about broth-based versus cream-based varieties before Mark could wedge in the words, “I have a meeting.”

Unfortunately, Dave took that as encouragement.

Act II: Broth-Based Knowledge Bombs

By day two, Dave was bringing props.

“He showed up with a ladle,” said IT specialist Jerome. “He told Mark it was ‘symbolic of the ladling out of ideas.’ Then he just… ladled the air for like fifteen minutes while describing the mouthfeel of clam chowder.”

At one point, Dave allegedly unrolled a hand-drawn flowchart titled ‘Soup: The Untapped Frontier’ across Mark’s desk. The chart included arrows pointing to words like “liquidity,” “synergy,” and “gazpacho.”

“Half of those arrows went nowhere,” Jerome added. “It was just circles of soup words. One bubble literally just said ‘soup soup soup soup.’”

Mark attempted to close his door during lunch on Wednesday. Dave stood in the doorway, thermos in hand, and said, “But the policy says the door is open.”

Mark has not eaten lunch in peace since.

Act III: Officewide Ripple Effects

The open-door policy quickly turned into what employees now refer to as “The Soup Crisis.”

“I can’t ask Mark anything anymore,” said Sheryl from Marketing. “If I walk into his office, Dave materializes within sixty seconds. I went in to ask about the Q3 budget, and suddenly Dave is behind me whispering about bisque.”

Others report similar experiences:

• A facilities manager entered Mark’s office to discuss a leaking ceiling tile and left an hour later with a recipe for mulligatawny.

• HR attempted to host a private disciplinary meeting with another employee, but Dave interrupted with a slow, detailed ranking of lentil soups.

• One intern described the experience as “Stockholm Syndrome with croutons.”

Act IV: Statistical Soup Analysis

A recent internal survey conducted by TriPoint’s analytics team found that:

• 78% of employee interactions with Mark now involve soup.

• 62% of respondents admitted they no longer know the difference between a work meeting and a soup tasting.

• 19% confessed they’ve started dreaming in chowder.

One anonymous respondent wrote simply: “Send help. Or breadsticks.”

Another added: “I used to be passionate about my job. Now I only feel things when I think about minestrone.”

Act V: Dave’s Manifesto

The Audacity obtained exclusive excerpts from Dave’s 148-page document, Soup: A Vision for the Future of Business. Among the highlights:

• “All-hands should be renamed All-Spoons.”

• “Quarterly reviews should include taste tests.”

• “The cafeteria’s chili is a false prophet.”

• “Imagine a world where we don’t ask, ‘What do you do?’ but instead ask, ‘What do you stew?’”

In a particularly alarming section, Dave suggests restructuring the entire company into soup categories: broth-based, cream-based, chunky, and “mystery.”

“Dave genuinely believes soup is the future of corporate culture,” said HR director Monica Patel. “I caught him drafting an email titled ‘Miso Management.’ I had to physically take the keyboard away.”

Act VI: Mark’s Breaking Point

By Friday afternoon, Mark was visibly deteriorating. Sources close to him reported that he has started muttering soup-related puns under his breath.

During one staff meeting, he opened with, “Let’s not let these problems stew,” then stared off into the distance as though horrified by his own words.

Coworkers report he attempted to barricade his door with office chairs, only for Dave to crawl underneath while whispering, “You can’t shut the soup out, Mark.”

The final straw came when Dave appeared at Mark’s house on Saturday with a Crock-Pot. “He said it was a ‘weekend work session,’” said Mark’s wife, who has since filed for temporary soup-related restraining orders.

Act VII: Expert Opinions

We reached out to Dr. Elaine Whitmore, professor of Organizational Psychology at the University of Michigan, who explained:

“Open-door policies often fail when boundaries are not established. In this case, Mark essentially invited chaos. And Dave, clearly, is chaos incarnate. Or possibly just very lonely. Either way, the soup fixation has metastasized into a workplace phenomenon.”

We also contacted Chef Antonio Rizzo of Brooklyn, who was less academic about it:

“Soup is fine,” he said. “But if this Dave guy tries to talk chowder to me for more than ten minutes, I’m throwing the ladle at him.”

Act VIII: Company-wide Fallout

The soup obsession has now gone viral beyond TriPoint Solutions. A leaked video of Dave passionately describing the “spiritual brothiness of pho” in Mark’s office has amassed 1.7 million views on TikTok.

Gen Z commenters have dubbed him “Soup King Dave,” and clips of his speeches are being remixed into lo-fi beats.

TriPoint Solutions’ stock has bizarrely risen 14% since the video leaked, leading some to speculate that soup might, against all odds, be “the future of business.”

Dave has since announced a TEDx talk titled “Soup: The Original Startup.”

Act IX: The Reckoning

Mark has officially rescinded the open-door policy.

“It was a mistake,” he said in a company-wide email. “The door is now closed. Permanently. Please stop bringing soup into my office. Especially you, Dave.”

The email ended with a single word in bold, all caps: ENOUGH.

Yet even as Mark attempts to reclaim his boundaries, Dave shows no signs of stopping. Witnesses report he’s been seen in the hallway whispering to coworkers about “soup speakeasies” and “broth undergrounds.”

“It’s not about the door anymore,” Dave allegedly told a colleague. “It’s about the movement.”

Epilogue

As of this writing, the office is divided into two factions: those who stand with Mark and those who chant “Soup for All.”

HR has hired a mediator, but she left midway through her first day muttering, “I didn’t get a master’s degree to argue about bouillon.”

And Dave?

He was last spotted in the break room, stirring a pot on a hot plate, announcing, “They can close the door. But they can’t close the flavor.”