It's a common joke in situations like this. The form I'm familiar with is "the beatings will continue until morale improves". The saying is used to call out self-defeating treatment of a company's employees: that beatings hurt rather than help morale is the point.

https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/c4tu06/origin_of...

It's a riff on the old joke, 'the beatings will continue until morale improves.' It suggests that the problems are caused by poor management practices and has no deeper meaning.

maybe I'm missing a layer of sarcasm or two but that's the joke

That's exactly the point, and it won't get better anytime soon.

HOME # the user's position

FD 100

ST # show turtle, whose name happens to be joke

RT 90

PD # pen down

FD 10000000

it's A play on beatings will continue until morale improves. I'm pretty sure nobody likes beatings either.

“[some harmful shit] will continue until morale improves” is a meme.

When I took Admiralty and Maritime Law in law school, the professor handed us (aside from the syllabus) two sheets of paper on the first day:

1. “Admiralty and maritime law is a couple thousand lawyers fighting over a few dozen ships.”

2. “Beatings will continue until morale improves.”

It’s an older meme, sir, but it checks out.