We’re still not too sure what happened. Employee #301 was pulling some overtime, buffing and polishing the new dates for Neil Diamond, when it rolled through the Pollstar.com campus and lured our worker into its cold, damp embrace.

That’s 419 employees for this month alone. 419 dedicated tour routing specialists that have given in to the fog.

If there’s two things Fresno is known for, it’s tour dates, like the schedules for DC Talk or P.O.D., and fog. People come from all over the globe, including London, San Francisco and Toledo, to see our famous fog and pose with it for pictures to send to their loved ones waiting at home. But that was back in the good old days before the fog turned vicious. Back when the fog was still our friend.

“The fog comes in on little promoter feet,” wrote the poet so many long years ago. But now the fog claims our employees, filling them with wild-eyed fantasies of a better place. Fantasies, we say, because what could be better than sitting in a sometimes climate-controlled environment while slamming in tour info for Monte Montgomery and Capitol Steps? But go to the fog they must, like sheep to slaughter, their minds enraptured by its whispers of exotic far-off locales like Vegas, Disneyland and Battle Creek.

It’s gone now. The morning sun has burned off the fog like so many cancelled Guns N’ Roses dates. But it will return tonight, and we’ll be ready for it. We’ll manacle, chain, and Super Glue our workers to their cubicles where they can safely process tour itineraries for Chris DeBurgh and Jamiroquai. No longer will they be tempted by the fog’s claim that there’s a better world out there, and that nirvana can only be found in such places as Miami, Monte Carlo and Saskatoon.

Of course, it won’t be easy. We’ll have to listen to their pleas for the so-called freedom offered by the fog. They’ll cry, they’ll scream, they’ll whimper, for they know not what they are doing, only that the fog has convinced them that places like the Bahamas or Honolulu offer greater rewards than the satisfaction that only comes from entering new dates for Hugh Masekela.

And for those who break their bonds and rush headfirst into its cold, clammy grasp, we’ve positioned armed guards around the outer perimeter, trained professionals who will drop the fog-obsessed workers in their tracks, thus saving them from a fate worse than death. A fate without tour dates.

Yes, drastic measures for sure, but if there’s one thing we value above all else at Pollstar.com, even more than a firm schedule for Alan Jackson, it’s our employees’ safety. Don’t you wish your job could be as safe?