The ConOps chart (fancy term for mission cycle diagram) for this thing, as submitted by Mission Architect Neil “Halliburton” Halbatron, who we simply love both for his bawdy humor and lifetime membership to the stupendous 18 holes at Oakmont Country Club, held much promise:

That is, at least until our Preliminary Design Review, where our fancy pants Mission Assurance Engineer Michelle Seishenholf had our Independent Review Board pick apart the design:

Yeah, bringing it back is the hard part—that’s the hard part with everything when you think about it.

And frankly, the sustainability movement is just out of control you know? Everything’s gotta be “Reuse this, reuse that, don’t throw it in the ocean/outer space anymore” to the degree it’s affecting our STAR BLZRZ Division (current owners of Project Transmorgify) here at Nectar Studios, our 17^th wholly owned subsidiary incarnated last Mother’s Day.

Plus everyone knows Michelle has it out for us and is eyeing a move to our most vaunted competitor, stealth-tech giant Mammotion, who are just dominating the wire-free robotic lawn mower space.

Also, we’re not sure why we have so many subsidiaries, it’s kind of a habit we just formed that perpetuates itself somehow, like leaving subtitles activated for all Netflix shows instead of just Peaky Blinders…or storing every Allen wrench that comes with our steady cadence of Amazon Basics office furniture orders in an old Gatorade bottle (last count we had 56).

But yes, Netflix shows. Walk into our very poorly lit (on purpose, to discourage breaks) breakroom and that’s all our employees are talking about. Crew Girl, I Survived a SerialKiller, The Gentlemen, and something called BEEF which should probably be on Cinemax, if that’s still a thing.

And Upper Management’s response to this loafing is truly impotent, as evidenced by our Internal Communication Director Jay Dragoni’s plan to “make a sign, like in Ted Lasso, but more punitive and discouraging, specifically focusing on anti-loafing behavior,” which hasn’t even happened yet because Jay is clearly interviewing to work at Duolingo.

(How does anyone retain employees these days, for like longer than a year or two? We hire all these smart people without—understandably—ever checking their references, instead just relying on the brand name of their most recent corporate employer, and maybe the most recent title they held—we’re a sucker for anyone with “Global” in their title…say it out loud…“Global”…it’s just so…omniscient—yet somehow corralling them into doing something productive is this frustratingly endless chore, then they just leave us for a better opportunity anyway. It’s madness.)

Thus our overall inefficiency in people management explains why Nectar Studios is just burning through capital like it’s a conifer forest in our newly annualized wildfire seasons. Or it at least explains one reason. Another, rather significant reason is we’re overly prolific with our ideas for Nectar, in no small part due to the fact Nectar’s Managing Director, Samantha Stubblefield, makes no qualms that she wants to be as famous as Astro Teller.

Who literally everyone in our Leadership Groups (which include The Excelsior C-Suite, The Captain’s Club, The Top Board, The Strike Force Idea Committee, and Darren down in Office Supply Procurement) had to look up; turns out Astro runs X, Alphabet’s “Moonshot Factory.”

Which made us mad because “Astro” appears to be his legit given name and not a super fake moniker designed to make him look awesome, and “Moonshots” just oozes coolness as well….way more so than “Nectar Studios” or even “STAR BLZRZ” for that matter. This work is so frustrating.

But yes, we’re burning through capital, due to Samantha’s quasi-angry ambition, and the fact we’re really good at brainstorming ideas, but slightly less good at operationalizing them since that requires thinking things through.

As evidenced by our current project list at Nectar Studios, of which 68% are stalled. Oh wait, Samantha says it’s now 70%, because we forgot to pay the power bill.

Official Nectar Project List

“Testing leads to failure, and failure leads to understanding.”—Burt Rutan 

“But try not to fail because it costs money.”—Zeus Dworkin, CFO

“You are seen and valued at this company though and will not be fired for failing.”—Panama Savannah, Chief People Officer

Project: Transmorgify, the multi-stage, reusable (sigh) rocket.

Why Stalled: Clearly we can’t figure out how to get it to not burn up in the sun.

Project: Symposium Primus, a civil engineering and industrial design collab featuring 5^th year seniors from Iowa State and Texas A&M with the goal of creating floating cities exclusively in the Gulf of Mexico, all built out of gently used loofas.

Why Stalled: The Iowa State half of the team had never seen an ocean, and the Texas A&M half just kept referencing the Gulf in terms of Spring Break.

Plus our research team discovered that, given our local oceans soaked up a record amount of heat last year, the loofahs would steep rather than float. Which led to the deeper discovery provided by Neil “Halliburton” Halbatron’s wife that this didn’t matter because loofahs naturally absorb water simply as a function of their general existence, which would be bad for floating-city building.

Project: Recycle Bot, our 96-gallon recyclable recycling can, because it’s weird to recycle things in a can that truly appears to be unrecyclable. What do they do with all those when they’re done? *Note to Waste Management, Inc. Your cans could easily fit into Project Transmorgify’s payload chamber.

Why Stalled: We hired a private detective who concluded all the big recycling players know under 10% of plastic gets recycled in the first place, despite the proliferation of that little Arrow-Circle-Of-Plastic-Life thing stamped all over the place. (At least we’re not the only ones who’ve misused a circular diagram.)

Thus Waste Management has not returned our calls, but their truck did take Recycle Bot on Tuesday because our intern accidentally left him out by the curb.

Project: El Niño Enterprise Solutions, a business-to-business service targeting the HVAC industry that licenses El Niño as an official (covered) warranty item on HVAC units. Subscribers get a branded “Due to El Niño^TM…” work order template and other documentation. Yes, this project is designed to generate revenue simply to fund the other projects.

Why Stalled: Market research was fantastic, but the problem is renewals. After each of the last two big El Niños, global temperatures just stepped up to the new normal and stayed there. Thus Samantha has asked whether we can at least trademark La Niña, the cooler one, because it’s underutilized.

Project: SkyPass Premium, a subscription service that sprays reflective particles into the stratosphere to shade the planet, billed monthly to individual continental governments once our tired ol’ nation-state idea falls apart.

Why Stalled: Our commissioned McKinsey study, to the tune of roughly $25M thank you very much for nothing McKinsey, found we’d been beaten to market by cargo ships, which spent decades accidentally reflecting solar radiation with sulfur-heavy exhaust until they were required to switch to cleaner fuel, and the sky got measurably less reflective.

AND, Astro/X/Moonshots is apparently already doing this, they call it a gigantic space snow globe or something. So we’re pivoting SkyPass Premium to be our new credit card offering.

Project: Blastmaster 500, a proposal to find and plug methane leaks from pipelines and wells and change some farming practices.

Why Stalled: Rejected unanimously by the Strike Force Idea Committee for being “not a moonshot,” “too doable/no VC interest/money,” and “not sellable as story to 60 Minutes.”

At least the proposal’s author, Gary from Facilities, fixed the breakroom sink, making it the only completed project in Nectar Studios to date. It is not on the list. (It is now on the list.)

So who knows how this will all shake out. There’s talk of mothballing Nectar Studios, or at least some of the divisions within, including STAR BLZRZ, The Wicker Knights, The Symbiotic Friend Network, and Samsonite® Revival.

But mark our words: where there is profit to be had, we shall prevail. Which is why we forced our speech writer, Madeline McCobe, to repackage all those division names as Netflix Series titles and pitch the streaming platform on the subsequent, respective story concepts.

Of which, of course, there are currently none. But Madeline seems like a really bright person, so we’re sure she’ll figure it out.

Do you like Flaming Dr. Peppers? So do we! Next time you’re at a bar order one, then ask the barback for their email address so you can sign them up for this newsletter. We’ll be watching.

Which is to say, on any given day, he “does” this:

P&L ownership

Full revenue/profit accountability for the entire business group (~$9–10B+ in annual sales blah blah blah)

Strategy

Set growth strategy, identify market opportunities, decide on investments and portfolio focus etc. etc.

Customer focus

Partner with manufacturers, infrastructure and transportation agencies, and safety engineers to solve complex performance something or other…

Operations oversight

Manage manufacturing, supply chain, R&D, and sales across (yawn) nevermind…

Leadership

Lead scientists, engineers, business leaders, and problem-solvers to “drive ownership of results”

Reporting

Reports directly to the CEO (one of only two Group Presidents running our entire operating P&L hot mess)

So, Ed’s legit. The guy is a big deal. Good at this stuff. Apparently.

But two of our Top Executive Leadership Monitoring Synthesizers, Samuel Alfons, Regulatory Engineering Risk and Compliance Supervisor, and Lisa Habberdank, Executive Chairman, were just having lunch with Ed—as they’re wont to do the third to last Tuesday of every month, and of course only at Mancini’s Char House in downtown St. Paul (if you’re ever in the Maplewood area you MUST go…the Relish Tray alone is stunning)—and after they got through the Blackened Beef Tip & Blue Cheese Salad, then the Herring & Crackers, started discussing the “major business units” Ed does stuff for, and, surfaced something we here on the Symbiotic Ultimate Leadership Board long dreaded.

Ed: “Man, (chewing), I mean…these beef tips are like…dynamite man.”

Samuel: “Ah, yeah, thanks Ed. So, well, what exact business units do you do stuff for?”

Ed: “Oh yeah sure. It’s Roofing Granules, and the cone thing…oh! Traffic Safety Systems. By the way we’re killing it on Roofing Granules in southeast Portugal right now.”

Lisa: “Hell yeah Portugal baby! Love that gazpacho!.”

Samuel: “Okay, so what exactly…and hey you got some sardine in your teeth. Ed, we need to know, like, what your day-to-day looks like.”

Ed: “Oh sure! Is this ‘cause you saw me smoking with Loretta in the garage? Sorry about that. I really just went to see her new Macan Turbo Electric, and she offered one up. Her new ride is Granny Smith Apple Green! Have you seen it?

Lisa: “Hell yeah I have, I vomited on it after Todd’s sauna party on Memorial Day.”

Samuel: “Woah.”

Ed: “Oh I know, it’s because I got all that guacamole on my laptop and it smelled so bad during our earnings call!”

Lisa: “I only saw the video of that, but no, that wasn’t a big deal.”

Ed: “Oh okay. So to answer your question, so like basically daily it’s review reports, meet with division VPs, take customer calls…ah…do strategy sessions.

Lisa: “Um, so you basically review memos, then take meetings at The St. Paul Hotel…what’s the bar there?”

Samuel: “Oh yeah that place is great. The St. Paul Grill! They have that drink with prosecco and Cocchi American and Hendricks…”

Ed: “The Dixon’s Girl! Loretta loves that one.”

Lisa: “Okay Ed, so this is all good, and by the way, we love your social posts about our Executive Washroom. But we’re starting to get jammed up in certain areas. Specifically revenue growth areas. And Our Beloved Board is asking questions, so while we want you to keep this work going, we also need you to…innovate.”

Samuel: “You know, come up with some ideas. Forward-looking stuff. Like new products, or re-envisioning existing products. Like that hand soap guy did by making it pink or whatever and putting in a curvy bottle.”

Ed: “Dawn?”

Lisa: “Dawn is blue dude. Method is the soap guy.”

Ed: “Method Man? Wu-Tang soap!”

Lisa: “No no, Method is the brand it’s pink and…”

Ed: “Hey they wash baby ducks with Dawn! I wish we could do that.”

Samuel: “You guys, yes, that kind of idea, baby ducks, pink hand soap, whatever, we just need ideas.”

Ed: “You mean like new ideas?”

Samuel: “Yeah, Ed, that’s the deal. When was the last time you had an idea?”

Ed: “I haven’t since I became Group President. I just write memos and take people to lunch. I mean, that’s what President’s basically do.”

That’s right; the machinations of our organization combined with company culture and the status associated with our corporate roles and functions created an idea desert, a complete lack of risk tolerance, and ultimately, a vacuum where there was once stellar development.

And all at the most important level: The People In Charge Level.

So without further ado, we post-hasted our 192^nd mandatory internal training program designed to break the schism past the impasse so we could get some ideas cookin’ in this place as if our lifestyles depend on it. Because they certainly do. These canapes aren’t going to serve themselves, and The Metropolitan Club’s dues aren’t getting any cheaper any time soon.

Granted, The People In Charge aren’t exactly keen on retraining, relearning, rethinking, or pretty much anything else other than certainty and knowing, so we made this program extra delicate and extremely white glove so as to certainly not offend their deep-rooted sensibilities:

TWO SNOWFLAKES FOUND THE SAME

The 14-month apex algorithm for developing the habit of generating ideas so you can keep your Executive Parking Space

MONTH 8   WORKSHOP What If We Were Wrong: Advanced Hypothesis Formation   ASSESSMENT Identify one assumption your division runs on that may be incorrect   TASK Sit in on a customer call without speaking   READING Good Strategy/Bad Strategy [Rumelt, Richard; 2011]

MONTH 9   WORKSHOP The Prototype: Making A Thing Before Say It’s Good   ASSESSMENT Sketch one product idea on paper. Paper is provided.   TASK Show your sketch to someone and do not explain it.   READING The Ten Faces of Innovation [Kelley, Tom; 2005]

MONTH 10   WORKSHOP Failure Is Information: Stop Taking It Personally   ASSESSMENT Describe one professional failure and what it taught you. Time limit: 4 minutes.   TASK Ask a subordinate what they would change about their job   READING Mindset [Dweck, Carol; 2006]

MONTH 11   WORKSHOP The Customer Is A Person: Intermediate Human Recognition   ASSESSMENT Role play: you are the customer. No prep. Go.   TASK Read three customer reviews without responding to any of them   READING Hug Your Customers [Mitchell, Jack; 2003]

MONTH 12   WORKSHOP Putting It Together: Your First Idea In Recent Memory   ASSESSMENT Present one original idea to the group. 5 minutes. No deck.   TASK Write down what you would change about your own job   READING Creative Confidence [Kelley, Tom & David; 2013]

MONTH 13   WORKSHOP The Long Game: Ideas That Take Longer Than A Quarterly Cycle   ASSESSMENT Scenario: your idea fails in Q1. Describe what you do in Q2. In writing.   TASK Identify one thing in your business worth being patient about   READING Range [Epstein, David; 2019]

MONTH 14   WORKSHOP Congratulations, You Have Completed TWO SNOWFLAKES FOUND THE SAME: Now What   ASSESSMENT Final: 500-word memo about one idea you will actually pursue   TASK Send that memo to someone who can make it happen, clearly empower them to do so   READING Whatever you want. You’ve earned it. Please go home

Given we initially scoped this thing for our 265 leaders worldwide, encompassing…

• C‑suite + Group Presidents + EVPs/SVPs
• Regional and Functional VPs
• Director / GM level (business unit heads)

…and we’re currently on month two, things aren’t going so bad, at least according to our intern Pamala Grier’s exit survey conducted at the conlcusion of month one’s “session”:

• 22 people retired
• 172 entered Dialectical Behavior Therapy
• 15 quit to become elevator mechanics
• 36 rekindled their passion for Jello molds
• 20 now handwrite inspirational notes to themselves in crayon

So we figure it’s going better than planned, come to think of it.

To the degree that Paula Thorn, our Manager of Hat Merchandizing & General Propaganda, claims we can spin this, and our many other training programs, into a commercialized Corporate Leadership Development Program. Something about licensing it and delivering it as a service thanks to research data showing “…prolific underdevelopment of leadership continuing education throughout virtually every American industry.”

We dunno. Commercializing this means we’d have to meet with our lawyers a bunch, which is just such a total drag, then of course HR, Product…all our “Strategists” if we can pry them away from their dry herb vaporizers…Finance, Sales, GTM…

Sounds like a lot of work. So we’re sitting on it for now.

But don’t fret: if this thing is ever available at an organization near you, and you think it would help, we’ll give you a call.

Did you know you can reverse The Coriolis effect simply by sending someone you find attractive, yet annoying, this article, then flushing your toilet while looking at it through two mirrors? Try it out, you’ll see!

We’re fine with employees running side hustles. You wanna…

• exercise
• have a kid
• take care of your kids
• run to the bank
• visit the doctor

It’s all fine. On Company Time even.

But not for more than 300 minutes per workweek. These blueprints aren’t going to draw themselves people. Go pick up that prescription on your own time please.

So we scheduled Linsey’s reprimanded for the quarterly Company All Hands.

We were so excited to make such a huge scene oh goodness we had this elaborate plan to make it seem like she was going to win an award—we even got a trophy—then *BOOM* we’d pivot to listing her offenses (402 minutes a week editing podcast episodes, using company computers even!) and otherwise make an example of her abhorrent behavior.

Complete with the over frequent use of the word “disappointed” to form a nice little mini monument to her malfeasance in hopes it would deter other employees from acting malfeasance-ly.

That is, until Panama, our Workforce Experience Designer, pointed out that we’re supposed to criticize in private and praise in public, not the other way around. And that we don’t want people to leave here in general, but rather “…grow and flourish and contribute…” etc. etc.

Sheesh. Workforce Experience Designers have a knack for taking the fun out of everything. She even made us disassemble the prop guillotine and platform Matt Carmichael, our Visual Operations Designer, custom made for the occasion in his garage.

We heard he almost got arrested loading it out of his GMC Sierra.

And criticize in very private, apparently, because it turns out, according to Panama’s research, even a mild reprimand during say a meeting basically eradicates all willingness to participate and/or contribute while “…creating a culture of compliance that kills companies in the long run.”

So our whole fun public execution got wrecked.

Then Theodore “Ted” Newport, one of our other High-Pressure Sales Leaders, stopped and checked out the podcast itself, and reported Linsey has 1500 subscribers and a 4.9 out of 5-star average rating on Apple Podcasts in the US, then delivered the unusually cheery evaluation of, “Hey, that’s a solid and promising independent podcast she’s got there!”

Gah.

So for now we let this Company Code Violation Class IV slide, particularly after we learned that Linsey refers to our company in her host bio, and thus we’re receiving “favorable market sentiment” purely from association, at least according to Dalton Humphries, the Competitive Intelligence Analyst on our Consumer Insights team. Who we normally don’t listen to because he smells like eggplant and always acts as if he knows important stuff we don’t know. Which he clearly does, which is why we’re all bent about it.

In the meantime, to inject some fun back into our operations management, we’re going to mess with our continuing education programs again. They’re too easy and logical and boring. That’s why we drew up an obstacle exercise based on the Marine Corps Leadership Reaction Course, where our teams must solve a physical problem under pressure.

It’s gonna be so great: Relocate a 10-foot conference table from the Meeting Hall to the exact middle of the IT Department without letting IT know. Our money is on at least five attempts that result in abject failure before anyone realizes the only way to make it work is interdependence and coordination.

They forget so easy. For the record, designing this obstacle course took approximately 600 minutes of Company Time across three planning sessions, which Dalton Humphries has already flagged. So we’re reassigning his parking spot.

Reglardless, we’ll let you know how they do.

Like, super pissed.

To the degree that last week she walked in on our Executive Boardroom Wednesday Weekly Bruncheon—where we exclusively devour chicken ‘n waffles because oh my God the syrup and the salt and the juice it’s like outrageous gluttony on display—and literally threw our 74-page Executive Do-AI-Now-Roadmap™ at Paul McCann, our interim Chief Operating Officer, who subsequently spilled his Mimosa all over his Hugo Boss Hesten Flannel Extra Slim Fit Suit.

Which, admittedly, we enjoyed because while Paul has good intentions, that kind of suit comes off as taking oneself too seriously…at least around here.

And Paula has every right to be pissed. We wrote our Executive Do-AI-Now-Roadmap™ almost three years ago to-the-day, as a completely panicked response to ChatGPT’s explosion.

The echoes of that distraught, April 15, 2023, Leadership Team conversation in our Executive Masters’ Boardroom still reverberate through these storied halls. Literally, we can hear it…it’s creepy:

Derek: What’s it called?

Lindsey: ChatGPT.

Paul: What?

Lindsey: It’s called ChatGPT.

Mike: What the hell is a GPT is that AI?

Zeus: No dude, calm down.

Richard: What about our investors? The money!

Zeus: Okay okay calm down.

Anthony: Hey, I don’t understand, it’s called ChatGPT? That’s a dumb name. It has a lot of syllables, and that needless requirement for capitalization. And, I mean, it’s not an empty vessel ready to hold our story about the brand.

Zeus: Shut up Anthony, don’t make this about marketing you always do that.

Mike: I’m going to puke chicken ‘n waffles if we keep talking about this.

Zeus: Everyone, everyone, look, it’s just a new thing okay? Let’s just talk about it. And we saw this coming, that’s why we are ready to write our Executive Do-AI-Now-Roadmap™.

Derek: Well what does ChatGPT do?

Lindsey: It basically makes it so you can write a coherent email, but like super fast. Fast email.

Derek: That’s it? Cool. Hey that’s good! This place sucks at email!

Lindsey: Plus it finds stuff for you like Google. So, you know, best screwdriver repair guy in your zip code and the like.

Paul: I need that!

Mike: But it’s just the beginning. Experts predict it by 2026 can do the work of 11,000 people in forty minutes. Untold possibility. It’s going to change everything. No more forklift drivers, no more free delivery pizza deliverers. No more zoos or teachers. They will all be dead.

Derek: Jesus Mike are you okay you look pale. Wait, is that a Hugo Boss suit like Paul’s?

Zeus: We got to start using ChatGPT before other companies do!

Derek: Okay! Like, just start using it? Is it free?

Richard: Hahaha oh my god “free” that’s great.

Carol: Wait, why “before other companies?”

Zeus: Because if we’re last we’re screwed. We’ll be sitting here like morons with hundreds of employees when we only need like two.

Carol: But isn’t that kind of what makes this whole thing work, you know, the people here?

Derek: Oh wait lunch is here. Sweet.

Paul: Thank you.

Lindsey: Thank you yum.

Paul: Hey! They put Swiss on my burger? Take this back!

Zeus: Paul it can’t go back it’s Uber Eats. Okay, for the people-being-important thing, you’re probably right but there’s no time to think. We got to get on this. Paula, what do you think? Can you work with Gabrielle and execute The Official AI Digital Tranformatrix Company-Wide Assimilation Project®? That will be Phase Alpha of our forthcoming Executive Do-AI-Now-Roadmap™.

Paula: Ah, Gabrielle? Isn’t she at home with the ankle monitor? I think she stole someone’s identity again.

Zeus: Yes, Gabrielle. Call legal, go break her out. Use a file or something. You have five weeks to make and deliver The Official AI Digital Tranformatrix Company-Wide Assimilation Project®, then six more to get everyone here using ChatGPT for everything. I mean everything. Especially immoral stuff.

Paula: I really don’t need the first six weeks, I can execute The Official AI Digital Tranformatrix Company-Wide Assimilation Project® in like a week. I mean, I’ll just use ChatGPT you know? All I need is a general idea of what’s in Phase Alpha of your Executive Do-AI-Now-Roadmap™. Even just an outline, or you can ad lib it to me right now.

Zeus: No no, six months, then six months to rollout. That’s a totally realistic and reasonable timeline. Then the long-term goal is that by 2026 we’ll be 100% AI-ChatGPT focused.

Anthony: Ah, AI-ChatGPT? It’s just ChatGPT, and it isn’t “AI” in and of itself. It’s a—

Zeus: Shut up Anthony, don’t make this about marketing you always do that.

Nothing Much Ado

So clearly we were inspired to take action. And action we did!

1. Paula delivered The Official AI Digital Tranformatrix Company-Wide Assimilation Project® in six weeks. Although we demanded revisions, which nobody accounted for timewise, and those took another three months with all the back and forth.
2. Once that was done, we formed a subcommittee without telling Paula—and revamped her plan on invite-only secret Zoom calls over the course of five months—which totally changed the plan to make it more agreeable to potential investors, Wall Street Analysts, and our The Board Members®…you know, because of the money.
3. Then it took about four months to agree on Our Plan Execution Matrix™. Who knew we weren’t aligned?
4. Then suddenly we realized summer PTO season was coming up and Ted had that late fall trip planned to Majorca, so we delayed launch for five months. But that’s okay, it was execution time, and man, do we know how to do that. In stages of course.
5. Stage 1, November 2024: Company-wide Slack announcement. “The Art Of AI ChatGPT Mandatory Bootcamp happening soon! Stay on this channel for updates.”
6. Stage 2, “The Art Of AI ChatGPT Mandatory Bootcamp” scheduled for January 2025 after several false starts thanks to those lawsuits popping up again. Attendance rate: very impressive. Energy: high. Quick reference guides distributed. Use case shared. AI glossary published to internal webpage. “Lean in” repeatedly used in all official “The Art Of AI ChatGPT Mandatory Bootcamp” comms
7. March 2025: Action items distributed — every employee should have set up ChatGPT AI-thing with role context by now, identified repetitive weekly tasks, saved the prompts that worked, and shared results in AI Slack thread.
8. April 2025: Due to extremely low adoption, we decided we needed an internal comms campaign to help our people along. Kickoff-to-launch was a mere eight months, and we landed our best campaign yet, aptly named:
   

   Bold. Urgent. Inspiring.

   It mostly featured posters saying as much plastered in the break room. They had a picture of Wilt Chamberlain on them even!

9. December 2025: Nobody around here does anything in December, but we refuse to give everyone the month off; instead bestowing two solid weeks off for anyone who claims to be overly religious, which turns out to be 100% of our employees somehow. Although the way these people drink and philander they seem more like heathens but whatever.
10. January 2026: The malaise that sticks around after the holiday break is impenetrable. Why does everyone seem around here seem so sad?
11. February 2026: Action items re-distributed. Same deal, get the tool, use it, etc. Shut up already.
12. March 2026: Paula attempts to request a ChatGPT license from IT so she can do the thing the action items told her to do by the deadline the action items gave her.
13. April 2026: Paula receives the following response from IT:

“All AI license requests should be reviewed by your AI Lead, and then the AI Lead will recommend approval (or not) to your respective executive. Requests are reviewed and assigned weekly. If you’re not sure who your AI Lead is, please reference this table.”

Paula Freaks Out

14. April 2026 (cont’d): Paula freaks out because her entire department, plus several more, are absent from the list. Storms into our luncheon, throws that book, then goes on quite the rant…although she was trying to control her rage SO MUCH this mostly came out threw her nose as she took huge, slow, breathes.

Looking at everything — the Slack posts, the memo, the use case share, the internal ad campaign, the approval chain response — here’s what I see:

Every communication is one layer removed from the actual thing.

The bootcamp talks about AI.

The follow-up Slack talks about the bootcamp.

The use case share talks about how to use AI to process communications about AI.

The approval email talks about the process for requesting the tool you’d use to do the thing the original email asked you to do.

The use case share is literally an example of using AI to process the volume of AI communications being generated by the AI rollout.

And the AI Champions got Slack badges.

None of this was in my work. You changed my work and instead built a small monument to the thing we were trying to prevent and made me look like an idiot. I’m leaving and working at Nordstrom.

Paula Is Nordstrom West Coast Sales Leader

Granted we were mildly offended by Paula’s apparent “rip off the band aid” approach to feedback, but given she literally left and never came back and is now apparently routinely in the Nordstrom President’s Club for Top Sales Achievements, we figure she’d be planning her departure long before we built our Executive Do-AI-Now-Roadmap™, and thus, ultimately, took no offense.

Meanwhile, something might be askew, because as of today the only people who’ve adopted ChatGPT are our cadre of college interns—even the ones from Colgate University—as if it’s no big deal. No handholding, no use cases needed, they just pick it up and go. So perhaps our helicopter-parenting/micromanagement of our Storied Employees’ AI adoption process is itself the killer of innovative behavior.

It’s possible.

Although right now we’re betting the interns’ success is due to their immature, underdeveloped brains, so we’re working on finding more people like them, but in adult form.

Luckily, we found a McKinsey consultant who’s top drawer. She submitted a seventeen-slide deck proposing a subcommittee to study why the interns are succeeding. We’ve approved it. Launch is Q3, pending alignment.

God what a mess. We’ve got so many job titles and job descriptions flying around this place it’s insane.

Plus one time we did this experiment where we seated all 109 of our Mid-Atlantic Employees—from departments including:

• Research and Development
• Psychological Weapons Enablement
• Marketing
• Human Resources…oh crap, sorry, our Chief People Officer tells me that’s now called “People & Teams” so there you go People and Teams
• International Relations, Greenland
• Shipping & Receiving

—in the auditorium, and asked them to stand when we read a given job description that covered their duties.

It’s Not A Fun Fact

Fun fact. At any given job description, 82% of our people stood. 82%

We even used drone footage to ensure the accuracy of the results.

So that tells us we’ve basically created one gigantic Barnum Effect at this place through our complete lack of clarity about what we’re doing or why anyone should be here.

You know, Barnum Effect, that thing where people find personal meaning in vague, general statements that could apply to almost anyone. Typically reserved for horoscopes, tarot readings, personality profiles, or similar ambiguous claptrap. But no, we’ve taken it to a new, professional, and utterly disastrous level. It’s a wonder we get any psychological weapons enabled at all.

So this new Senior Manager, Plant Operations (technically Employee #489, South Midwest Region) has the awesome name of Carlina Lettoni.

Super smart, laid back, super cool chick…ah sorry the damn People and Teams People tell us we can’t say “chick”… super cool she/her. She fits right in, pitches right in, doesn’t steal—all the stuff we strive for in terms of mission, vision, values, so on and so forth.

So great in fact, we had to press Yvette on how she found such a great Employee #489 for the South Midwest Region. That’s when Yvette said she bets on the crosswalk, every time.

You Can Tell A Lot About Someone By How They Use The Crosswalk

It turns out Yvette did a stint as a third-party recruiter in Elkhart, Indiana, likely because there was literally nothing else to do there. Plus at one point she was a part-time defense attorney because of something her husband did, thus she REALLY knows what to ask, how to ask it, how to respond, then how to ratchet up the pressure to see which parts of someone’s story stick, and which come cascading down like so many broken dreams.

But Yvette didn’t rise to the storied rank of Our Chief Operating Officer because of doing what everyone else does, no way. Meaning any Tom, Dick, or Harry can break someone’s psyche during an interview, that’s old hat. Which means old hat results. So to land someone like Carlina Lettoni? That takes…a magical way of thinking.

It’s Not Magical It’s Practical And Observant Is All 

About three years ago, after a we had a bad run of accidentally hiring horrible human beings across all departments, Yvette decided to raise our hiring standards.

Step one was holding all interviews in our Meeting and Séance room—located on our ground floor right next to the entryway but left of the marble statue of Dionysus—a room which happens to provide the perfect view of Southeast Ash Street’s mid-block crosswalk.

It’s one of those crosswalks with the big ol’ stripes and signs all over the place and green bike lanes and flashy, button-activated lights and flags and even lights in the ground so that it resembles an exploding Electric Daisy Carnival every time somebody crosses the street to buy more smokes at Mr. Bills Shop ‘n Smoke….Lord knows no one is crossing the other way to come here.

Except those poor interviewees.

Four Kinds Of Truth

Which is no accident as Yvette always has our People & Teams People tell candidates they can’t park here because the grease trap in the cafeteria is clogged again and makes the underground garage super dangerous to walk on. Which is rarely untrue, but indeed all part of Yvette’s elaborate plan.

She says it happens every time. On the way here, crossing, candidates are on their best behavior, hitting all the lights and waving all the flags and gingerly yet respectfully and visibly walking out until the “doing 51 in a 25” traffic Ash Street is known for finally stops to allow passage.

Implying they are normal, good citizens. Which Yvette consistently, systematically ignores, because it’s how they use the crosswalk AFTER the interview that matters.

That’s when Yvette gingerly, barely pulls open one of the black velour curtains that cover the 16-foot, street-facing windows of our Meeting and Séance room to find, what she calls, the “candidate’s truth.” Which according to her comes in four crosswalking forms:

1. Punch and Go Oblivious– These empty vessels hit the button and immediately step into traffic like they’re walking through an automatic door at Safeway. No glance left, no glance right, just pure faith that their button-pushing skills have activated some kind of force field. (They clearly haven’t.)
2. Reckless Risk– They see you coming. They know you see them. They hit the button, lock eyes with you through your windshield, and step off the curb when it’s pouring rain, you’re doing 35 mph, and they’ve given you exactly 12 feet to stop. It’s not crossing—it’s a power move with a death wish attached. Scientific fact: many of these Reckless Risk-types, man, woman, they, them, live in a constant state of arousal.
3. Wait and Go– They hit the button. They wait for the light. They look both ways like their kindergarten teacher taught them. They cross when it’s safe. It’s refreshingly revolutionary.
4. Arrogant Kill Me– They hit the button and assume the entire universe has ground to a halt in reverence. No eye contact. No acknowledgment of oncoming traffic. Just a slow, deliberate saunter across the street in their carefully curated street gear, projecting the energy of someone who believes crosswalks were invented specifically for them.

Imagine A World With Proper Crosswalk Usage

Yvette clearly states she hires for number 3, because numbers 1, 2, and 4 demonstrate a fundamental inability to assess risk, read a room, operate within agreed-upon social systems, or think of anything outside themselves.

Number 3 demonstrates situational awareness, respect for shared infrastructure and marble statues, and the rare ability to participate in collective functioning without being a liability or a narcissist.

For now we haven’t figured out a better way to determine the version of someone that will eventually show up here during our (sigh) meetings or (yay!) company happy hours (you have to sign a waiver), other than Yvette’s crosswalk soothsaying.

But so far it’s turned out pretty well so maybe we don’t need to change a thing:

• morale is up
• screamings down
• way fewer street drugs found hidden behind the refrigerator in the break room
• no crying
• etc.

Plus all the money stuff is looking better.

The only bad news is we have to hire more people, which means looking for a much larger office building…maybe even a complex or compound of some sort.

With a fountain in the courtyard, maybe some cherubs spewing water out their mouths as they ride some nondescript species of fish in what appears to be a series of frothing waves.

Come to think of it, that’s sounding more and more like a good idea too.

Do you ever sit on the toilet and run out of toilet paper then think what a horrible life you have because you have to go get more or yell at someone to go get more? Hey relax, it’s not so bad, there are way worse things in the world. Like not sharing this article with a friend because we might just make sure something happens to that nice car of yours.

• No sign on building (just the weather-marked outlines of marquees from the two previous tenants: Kohl’s, and Rod’s Guns ‘n Autos, the latter of which we wished still existed)
• Owned by 24 different LLCs and one Dubaian investment group we’ve never met in person
• Bank exclusively in Cayman Islands
• No social media presence (still don’t get that)

…and much more that we can’t disclose here due to fear of reprisal from various hate groups including the Vermont Department of Revenue, Internal Revenue Service, Department of Defense, and Toastmasters International.

So to keep Raul out of the joint we had to absorb his community service requirement. Not out of any altruism or loyalty to Raul, no way. Rather to ensure the spigot to our merchandise revenue stream doesn’t shut off. That would be a friggin’ disaster — it’s the only thing generating consistent revenue these days while we re-work our technological advancements, which turned out to be too spikey and pokey for consumers to use or even touch, as reflected by all the lawsuits.

So we proffered an idea to the magistrate and she bit because she knows first-hand this is a hot topic and frankly she wants the press, of which there will be ample.

Therefor and without further ado, welcome you to our official United States Corporate Employee Public Service Announcement, aptly titled (if we do say so ourselves):

Return To Office

Despite The Fact It Makes No Sense And There’s No Real Strategy Behind It Aside From Domination

Survival Tip Series

Tip #1 (of 20)

Treat Yourself To A Clipboard.

That’s Right, A Clipboard.

A Step-By-Step Guide To Your Impending Survival

For those knowledge workers begrudgingly donning clean underwear every weekday morning for the first time since 2020 so they can return to the office 3-5 days a week in a socially acceptable manner…it’s time to buy a clipboard.

Nothing says “major contributor/do not layoff” like briskly walking around your stuffy officeprison with a clipboard.

Ideally with a grim-yet-determined expression set on your beautiful countenance.

Here’s your plan:

1. Buy clipboard.
2. Steal 10 or so pieces of paper* from the supply closet or closest printer tray.
3. Use the following playbook.

* If your company no longer uses analog equipment like paper because they’ve over-indexed on AI tools including VR headsets, go to Office Max.

Sorry maybe you can expense it.

(Note: all times are approximate. For example, we don’t know where you live…at least in theory…nor do we know how simple or complex your personal life is….in theory…but yes you should dump him Sharon.)

 To be implemented Monday through Thursday (Friday is a rest day. You’ll need it. You’ll see.)

4:30 a.m. – 7 a.m.

1. Stumble around domicile confused, groggy, and cursing between gulps of black coffee or (god forbid) some lesser-effective stimulant like green tea or Yerba Matte.
2. Attend to pet(s).
3. Take unrelaxing shower.
4. Locate long forgotten underwear drawer, spend minimum of 10 minutes selecting appropriate cut of undergarment based on predicted thermostatic setting of office.
5. Spend a minimum of 40 minutes selecting rest of wardrobe based on the social forces that swirl about your workplace while forlornly eyeing sweatpants drawer.
6. Forgo desire to shop online for new, better outfits.
7. Get in car/on bike/train whatever. Hopefully it’s not the bus busses are gross. Don’t forget to lock front door.

8 a.m. – 8:40 a.m.

• Arrive after harrowing, maddening commute.
• Practice grim/determined expression in restroom (should be easy after commute).
• Load clipboard with paper in the following reverse chronological order, unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere since you must account for the Coriolis Effect, in which case use chronological order, but backwards.
• Page 1: Handwritten list of some kind. Include acronyms. And arrows.
• Page 2: Printout of pie chart from last Thursday’s PowerPoint presentation (10^th that week) you didn’t pay attention to because there’s way too much information packed in each and every slide.
• Page 3: Graph paper with 20 completely random squares shaded in with pencil
• Page 4: Printout of whatever Excel file or Google sheet is at the top of the “recent” list in associated app.
• Page 5: Doesn’t matter as long as it says BUDGET in all caps across the top in 44-point font of choice.
• Page 6: Picture of some other company’s leadership team…or any team really, from random corporate website. Note: does not have to be in your industry.

8:40 a.m. – 10:40 a.m.

Walk around the office. All floors. Sometimes you gotta look like you’re in a hurry or whatever. But be seen walking around with a clipboard. Note: you’ll find people get out of your way and/or reduce idle chitchat by 95%. This is normal and indicates you’re doing it right.

10:40 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.

1. Sit down at your computer and print some stuff. Always print graphs and charts first, especially if part of a spreadsheet.
2. Place on top of your paper pile.
3. Maybe ask closest coworker if they watched latest sporting event or Netflix series, depending on their preferences. This makes you human and engaged with various team-building metrics your organization is undoubtedly monitoring to justify the return to office.

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Walk around again for an hour.

Note: It’s VERY IMPORTANT you don’t take lunch at noon. Taking lunch at 12:15 (but no later, you’ll see why) shows that you’re dedicated and, like the clipboard itself, a major contributor/not layoff-able.

12:15 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Deal with any actual work while eating lunch at desk to imply that you work so hard you don’t each lunch. 90% of this should be responding to emails/Slack as fast as humanly possible. Use AI. Tell it your title, industry, and company sector, as well as the requestor’s, put in the requestor’s message, then say, “Claude, please respond, but over explain, ideally mansplaining.” VERY IMPORTANT FOR AI TO KNOW THIS. Because regardless of how you identify, this ensures you will not be messaged again by the requestor, which is the point. (If this is in any way befuddling to you read The Art of War by General Sun Tzu.)

1:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.

Fill out another piece of graph paper, but this time with numbers. In pencil.

Yes it sounds weird but think about it: are you really the kind of person who’d write numbers on graph paper in PENCIL just to look like you’re working on something important, EXCLUSIVE even, so urgent that there’s no time to type things out, like you’re part of a skunkworks, but really you’re not doing anything but ensuring you don’t get laid off?

Yes, yes you are. You’re in an office. This is the Theater of the Absurd.

1:15 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

At this point you gotta be able to ad lib what you’re doing depending on who asks. And you’re going to have to develop some resilience, some endurance, because this is the witching hour, you’ll be getting tired. It’s going to hurt, but it’s worth it, you’ll see.

For example, if an executive asks what you’re doing, always talk about money. So like, “Oh I think I know a way to shave 10% off the cost of the project I’m on. That’s good right?” and kinda smile and move on to signal your own inferiority while simultaneously deferring to the executive’s inherent superiority as far as the org chart is concerned.

Moving on is key. DO NOT WAIT AROUND. They’ll key in on the money saving thing, which comes in handy later.

Or if a marketing person asks you something, tell them you’re “Talking to sales and customer success for some information on our ICP, because we need more detail for [insert name of some senior manager]’s initiative.”

(A.) They’ll love it.

(B.) They will absolutely in no uncertain terms NOT want anything to do with another “initiative.”

3:30 – 5:00

Respond to emails and Slack utilizing the mansplaining technique described above. Responding to emails and Slack signals that you’re engaged/doing something, even if it’s not helpful in any way. Note: WE KNOW YOU WANT TO, BUT ABSOLUTELY DO NOT LEAVE AT 5:00!

NO!

5:00 p.m. – 5:25 p.m.

This will be the hardest part of your day. Your instincts will be screaming at you to pack up and leave. So much wasted time. Such an awful commute. Such gassy interns.

But you must not. The 5:00 p.m. – 5:25 p.m. timespan was documented by the Mayo Clinic as the most psychologically impactful time to be seen at work by senior managers, directors, vice presidents, and janitors. When seeing an underling busing themselves post 5:00 p.m., they receive 250 gallons-per-minute of the hormone and neurotransmitter Oxytocin: which supports social bonding, trust (the fools), and attachment; while enhancing empathy and warmth.

Which is code for, …”awwwwwww, Rod? No, we can’t layoff that beautiful personnnnnn…”

At least subconsciously. When the time comes.

Advocate for yourself: be Rod.

5:26 p.m.

Feign urgent phone call from wife/husband/spouse/partner/lover/pet sitter/neighbor/relative and quickly…but in a smooth criminal, efficient kind of way, pack up belongings and get the hell out of there.

DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH ANYONE.

GO!

7:00 p.m.

Arrive home.

Congratulations: you’ve made Raul proud and free from ankle-monitoring by completing Tip #1 of:

Return To Office

Despite The Fact It Makes No Sense And There’s No Real Strategy Behind It Aside From Domination

Survival Tip Series

A Step-By-Step Guide To Your Impending Survival

You may now microwave your favorite Trader Joe’s frozen meal selection and watch the sporting event or Netflix series of your choice.

Although we suggest a nightcap of fresh vegetables or fruit, just for the vitamins and stuff.

End Scene

Trust us. It seems like a lot, but this United States Corporate Employee Public Service Announcement was born from our wildly successful Internal Development Programs Internal Development Division, the second-most profitable part of our company after merchandizing.

It’s a skunkworks of sorts where we offer ongoing training modules (to anyone with cash) on real world problem solving for employees—a.k.a. pragmatic solutioning to organizational challenges none of us are taught in school—focusing on the theater/performing arts component of work life, particularly when it involves being in-office.

Because while what we do may not define who we are, we still must do, and that requires a little showmanship, a gimmick, to work around the parts we can’t control.

So we might as well retain a bit of that agency we’re encouraged to forget, even if only for a fleeting moment.

After all, the alternative doesn’t seem that appealing.

And who knows? If we all do it together, maybe it’ll catch on.

Do you like cauliflower? Gross! It’s so gross it’s crazy! And don’t come at us about “well-seasoned cauliflower steaks on the grill” this and “Oh this chef I know makes great cauliflower pizza crust” that…come on it should be banned!

Fine, whether you like cauliflower or not, share this story with someone with similar tastes. They’ll love you for it and possibly take you out to dinner.

As in, in advance, before he applied to the job.

Gah.

What the heck do you think this is mannnnnn? Do you know how hard it is to write a job description when no one knows what the heck is going on, ever?

Besides, we’ve noticed that everyone’s cramming eight million requirements/qualifications in their Oh-So-Thoughtfully-Written-Well-In-Advance job listings. Basically taking five different disciplines and cramming them into bizarrely hybrid specialist/generalist roles. Which is precisely why we stopped writing job descriptions ahead of time: why freak somebody out? Granted organizations are only doing this because they’re trying to figure out the future of work as they face mounting pressures that may or may not be real, but still, it’s agitating for the reader.

Indeed, our more thoughtful strategy is to simply let our junior staffers (the only normal people around here) woo these candidates, almost seduce them, by revealing how super cool we are. Well, they are, the junior people—they’re the ones that make this company cool. All the senior people around here are definitely not cool. How could they be? All they talk about is their kids and the weather and local news and traffic and return on investment and stuff.

Speaking of which, when it comes to senior people talking money stuff the name dropping is just insufferable: “[venture capital company name] ” this and “series B funding” that and “richy richy richy liquidity event blah blah.”

BOOOORRRRING. Is the game on? What’s the score?

Anyway, we finally got around to creating the job description for this new guy, Gerhart. Which of course led to a new policy/mandatory training program entitled:

Everyone Please Rewrite Your Job Description By Next Friday October 3rd 2025

Without Using Fake Business-y Sounding Words But Rather Really Describe What You Do

And Use The First Person Plural Because We’re All In This Together

Even Though We Get Paid Different Amounts

Which Might Be Unfair But We’ll Talk About That Later

Please Don’t Unionize

Or Sue

And a pretty sweet job description if we do say so ourselves….

Official Job Description: Do Not Throw In Trash Can

In Fact Make A Copy For Your Home’s Dedicated Filing Cabinet Room

Gerhart Pamplone

Official Senior Marketing Person

Don’t Kill The Magic LLC, XVII

A subsidiary of Lightning Strikes Investments and Casinos®, all rights reserved.

We currently help beloved tech brands convince millions of people to upgrade devices and/or software subscriptions they just bought last week. It’s brain influencing—which sounds sinister, but we promise it’s mostly just us staring into Figma while Googling “how to sound confident in emails and on the rare occasion when we’re invited to give a talk.”

As an Official Senior Marketing Person with an AI added to all that we do because there’s no way around AI at this point, we get to build campaigns that make people cry, cheer, or at the very least, open their wallets in a gentle, manipulated daze.

Before this, we climbed the marketing ladder the old-fashioned way: by attaching ourselves to smart people and saying things like “let’s circle back on that” with just enough fake enthusiasm to survive another Zoom call.

Over the years, we’ve led strategy for multi-million-dollar product launches, brand repositioning efforts, and more meetings than humans should endure without the expectation that they will vent their frustration through petty vandalism of local food truck pods.

Our superpower? Turning vague executive ideas into full-blown campaigns using nothing but caffeine, consternation, and an unhealthy number of sticky notes.

Outside of work, we routinely pick up our dogs’ poop with disconcertingly thin dog poop bags, aggressively correct friends when they say “less” instead of “fewer,” and pretend to like wine in certain company, especially if they’re from venture capital firms.

If you’re into talking shop, making something cool, or debating whether LEARN MORE buttons on websites will ultimately rise up and destroy us all, let’s connect. We promise not to send you a weird sales pitch or inspirational quote…unless the pitch or quote are like really good, we mean in that case you should have it, you know? You deserve nice things.

<End Scene>

Thus the template for all employee job descriptions was born, and man, are our intrepid employees having fun with it. Turns out it’s enlightening to describe what you really do versus what you’re either supposed to be doing or what everyone thinks you’re doing. AND, for the executive types, this provides clarity on what they, as leaders, are doing wrong, which is the sure-fire way to prevent layoffs, because layoffs only happen when management screws up. Or of course if someone turns out to be a horrible person but that’s FIRING not laying off. And man do we enjoy firing the horrible ones, no patience for that nonsense, no way.

The best part is Laura Fredelstein, our Official Senior Accounting Person, asked for a phase two of this job description nonsense ah we mean bonding exercise, where every employee writes the job description they’d love to have.

Now THAT is genius, because it turns out putting genuine effort into understanding your people – not just their “deliverables” but their actual human experience of work – creates the kind of confidence that keeps teams steady when everything else is chaos.

We figure this will be particularly handy as we plow through a time where the world seems to be telling us not to be calm. But why wouldn’t we be calm? It produces more value than it costs. And nobody ever wished they’d panicked more…so why should we?Do you have a burning desire to increase your societal standing in general? Of course you do! You have three options: get a better car, wear a better hat, or forward this to a mortal enemy. Let’s face it, we both know what best choice is, so what are you waiting for?

Which makes her quite grumpy as she feels management consultant-types are pure dooshes.

Oh wait, she says it’s not the consultants doing the work she abhors, it’s the senior managers/directors/leadership of companies like Accenture, who she deems “greedy, predatory, aloof, obnoxious, and smug.”

Which of course we love both hearing and piling on to, because there’s nothing as satisfying as judging people we’ve never met from afar, especially if they’re from New York and rich.

The Best Bathroom Ever

We surprised Paul last Tuesday when we walked into our secret Executive Retreat Meeting Room, Stay Out, MBAs Only, You Suck. This is an antechamber conveniently located next to the Executive Washroom, Advanced Degrees And G-Wagon Ownership Required, If That’s Not You Go Away You Can’t Pee Here, and it’s where we hide out to smoke cigarettes and tell bawdy stories of past triumphs, none of which are sexual because that would be creepy, weird, and lame.

You should see the air filtration system we put in this secret hideaway: no matter how many packs we smoke, it smells exclusively of bougainvillea, which we paid extra for.

So there we were, piling in, each of us holding a different flavor of American Spirit as signified by the delightfully joyful color variations of American Spirit hard packs in our hands, and much to our surprise and consternation there was Paul, scribbling away on our whiteboard which we only put in there for show. Even worse, Paul’s scribbles looked decidedly like something only someone smart would draw: kind of a combination Gannt chart/Pythagorean Theorem/sine wave type situation that instantly gave us both headaches and that particular kind of nausea that develops when being shown up in real time by someone who is clearly more talented, qualified, and capable.

It was all just too much to handle given our aforementioned plan to take a load off and screw around in general, as we always do between the hours of 11 a.m.-noon because work is hard and people are so serious all the time it just gets to be a drag.

But we were trapped, and thus Paul got us right in his crosshairs and started babbling about the importance of understanding feedback loops.

Thanks For The Feedback

Paul’s spontaneous, clearly unwanted dissertation involved lots of animated hand gesturing, sweating, and tap-tap-tapping on the white board with a black dry erase pen which was incredibly irritating, particularly because we all wanted to smoke.

Yet he brought up some interesting points about feedback loops, and how paying attention to them is a superpower that most of us don’t have because we don’t pay attention much of anything that doesn’t involve solely ourselves, or possibly the local celebrity chef’s global twist on classic comfort foods.

In fact, we found Paul’s points so impactful that we created yet another in-office-only, inspirational workday poster proudly displayed on every vertical surface that would accommodate its absurd size, which is approximately 18 feet x 17.5 inches:

Beloved Employee Feedback Loop Field Guide: Pay Attention, And You Get A Prize*

• The Universe Has Two Ways to Tell You You’re Screwing Up: Negative feedback loops (your thermostat, your mother) keep you alive through constant nagging. Positive feedback loops either make you rich or destroy everything—no middle ground.

• All the Fun Stuff Gives Instant Feedback: Likes, purchases, sugar rushes, getting into Twitter fights. Your brain thinks these matter because the dopamine hits immediately. Think about that next time you judge a junkie.

• All the Important Stuff Takes Forever: Savings accounts, exercise, team morale, climate change. By the time you get feedback, your car’s repossessed, your pants don’t fit, half your staff has quit, and a polar bear has eaten everything in your freezer.

• Modern Life Is Rigged Backwards: We’ve accidentally designed a world where bad decisions feel immediately rewarding and good decisions feel like punishment until much later. Well, maybe we’re accidentally partaking in this world that was clearly purposefully engineered to always make us reactionary mouth-breathing imbeciles.

• The Strategic Move: Build systems where smart choices compound faster than dumb ones can kill you. Make the good stuff addictive and the destructive stuff boring. Start by putting the destructive stuff down.

• Why This Matters Here: Everything we’re building should create positive loops that reward long-term thinking instead of quarterly panic attacks. NO MORE QUARTERLY PANIC ATTACKS WE’RE ALL SICK OF IT.

HEY EMPLOYEE: The trick isn’t fighting our nature—it’s designing systems that make the right choice the easy choice. Now get on with it.

There Is No Mary Poppins

The weirdest thing is, three days after we plastered all available vertical office surfaces with this latest installment of our perpetual behavioral science-inspired organizational psychology employee motivational corporate communication/instructional promotion, Paul stopped showing up. Then Laura Kracklestein realized his net-60 invoices totaling $102,000 based on his billing rate of $850/hour (he was supposedly a “Senior Consultant-Accenture”) lacked a direct link to the Accenture Billing and Payments Engine.

And worst of all, our various multi-colored packs of American Spirits were replaced with friggin’ Nicorette lozenges AND prescriptions for Varenicline (brand name Chantix) from some doctor in Toronto.

Despite the obvious correlation to Mary Poppins and the widespread (and highly distracting-from-work gossip) amongst all our teams that Paul was some kind of ethereal spirit guide, we on the Executive Team decided he was merely one of those overzealous weirdos who gets off on simply helping people, and is probably out on parole from some lux federal prison, probably for financial crimes.

Although, we must admit, it’s been kind of nice to disrupt our collective nicotine feedback loops, and it kinda proves you can redesign entire systems to work for you, instead of against you, if only you’d pay attention.

Now excuse us while we go chew some lozenges.

The Hard Return.

Slack, Discord, iMessage, that creepy IBM Watson AI one…all of it, rife with Hard Returns.

Okay, after conferring with Valentina, who heads up our ever-active “Crisis Communications” strike force and apparently studies the impact of technology on our lives as a side hustle, it turns out that the problem is less about the Hard Return and more about the chat’s human engineered interface that forever encourages the proliferation of the Hard Return.

But first, to be clear, let’s define the Hard Return.

What A Hard Return Looks Like

It looks like this:

That’s right, literally thousands of sober German data scientists in Luzerberzerstien Daseschberg confirmed that the code that represents a Hard Return, when run through Don’t Kill The Magic’s proprietary Turn Code Into Animals software that we sell exclusively to scientists in northwest Germany, comes out as a blood sucking death eel worm in dirty water.

What A Hard Return Actually Is

Striking the “Enter” or “Return” key whilst typing to create a new line, breaking up what should be a continuous sentence or paragraph (a.k.a. “thought”) into choppy, fragmented pieces…not unlike the process a butcher uses to transform chuck roast into stew meat, although eventually stew meat is coalesced into a single, identifiable menu item, whereas the results of a hard return simply lead to a chaotic potpourri of frustration, confusion, anxiety, and panic.

 What A Hard Return Looks Like On Any Chat Or Messaging Platform Including On Your Phone

Sarah Chen – Marketing Director Today at 2:47 PM

Hey team

So I was thinking about the Q3 campaign and I think we need to pivot our messaging strategy

Because the current approach isn’t really resonating with our target demographic

Based on the latest market research data that came in yesterday

From the analytics team

What do you all think?

Should we schedule a brainstorming session

For early next week?

Let me know your availability

Thanks!

What That Sounds Like To The Recipients

Ping

Ping

Ping

Ping

Ping

Ping

Ping

Ping

Ping

Ping

But it can get worse….

What A Worse Hard Return Looks Like On Any Chat Or Messaging Platform Including On Your Phone

Brad Douche – VP of Strategic Initiatives Today at 3:23 PM

Team

I wanted to circle back on our omnichannel customer journey optimization initiative

We need to deep dive into our core value propositions and really drill down on our low-hanging fruit

to maximize our ROI

and drive synergistic solutions

That will move the needle

On our KPIs

Let’s leverage our best practices and think outside the box

To ideate some game-changing

paradigm shifts that align with our

North star metrics

Can we touch base offline to socialize this vision

And get buy-in from all stakeholders?

Let’s make sure

We’re all on the same page moving forward

Thanks for your bandwidth

 What That Sounds Like To The Poor Bastard Recipients

Ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping

The bottom line is typing your message all spasmodically while you’re sweating and adrenalized and expecting that it will be clear, understood, helpful, or even read is the equivalent of shouting into your phone on speaker during the halftime show of the Super Bowl, particularly when the artist is say Beyoncé or Travis Scott, and expecting to be heard.

 What A Person Who Is Hard Returning Is Feeling While They Are Hard Returning

That’s right. They’re tantrum-ing, freaking out, stressed out, drinking buckets of cortisol, auguring in, imploding, exploding, or whatever other word that describes “losing it.” Because their poor little brains think there’s ABSOLUTLEY NO TIME TO GET THE WORLD’S MOST IMPORTANT MESSAGE ABOUT A TASK OR SPONTANEOUS MEETING OR RECURRING MEETING OR GROCERIES OR THE BAHN MI THEY JUST ATE OUT THERE AS ONE COMPLETE THOUGHT SO IT’S OKAY FINGERS JUST GO FOR IT SMATTER SOME STUFF ON THAT KEYBOARD I’LL CATCH UP LATER AFTER I DIE.

Which our aforementioned reclusive German scientist/customers trace to the oxygen-less state of the brain given the mounting fear people experience as they frenetically try and do 20 things at once (the primary cause of the Hard Return) causes any dedicated multitasker to hold their breath—as in, literally not breathe.

Granted they’re unaware they are not breathing, but still, they’re holding their breath. Literally, sometimes for an entire workweek. Or career. It’s super unhealthy.

What A Person Who Is Getting Hard Returned Is Feeling While They Are Getting Hard Returned

That’s right. The outcome of reading and responding to a chaotic potpourri of frustration, confusion, anxiety, and panic is exhaustion, surrender, apathy, and ultimately only semi-discreet web searches for “how to become a successful drug trafficker” followed closely by “cheap, single-engine Cessna flight training” because frankly, it just doesn’t matter anymore.

The Real Culprit: Chat Is Basically a Psychological Weapon

According to Valentina’s extensive research (which she conducts between crisis communications emergencies, 100% of which involve our dino robots), the Hard Return isn’t actually the villain.

The real villain is the chat interface itself, which was apparently designed by Nazis who deeply understood human psychology and decided to weaponize it against us.

With each Hard Return, we get little dopamine hits. Our brains think we accomplished something. Meanwhile, the interface, what with its dead eyes and preference for sucking our life force given that’s the only way the interface can continue to exist, is sitting there like our former Health & Wellness Director’s crack dealer, offering just a bit more dopamine for just a bit more of our attention.

Plus, these apps train us to think in fragments by making every single line break feel like a complete thought. The little typing indicators, the immediate delivery confirmations, the way messages stack up like digital Jenga blocks—it’s all engineered to make us think we’re having a conversation when really we’re just machine-gunning our consciousness all over everyone else’s screen.

It’s like if someone designed a pen that made us feel accomplished every time we lifted it off the paper, so instead of writing complete sentences, we’d just dot dot dot and draw phallic symbols as a way through life, thinking we’re were being productive while actually creating an incomprehensible mess that would make a Jackson Pollock painting look like a technical manual.

The interface has basically turned us all into digital toddlers having emotional outbursts in text form, one fragmented thought at a time.

But There’s Good News

Actually that’s not true: there is no good news. You can go home now.

Wait!

We have this new Director of Strength Training from Romania, Mihaela Petrescu. We hired her because we literally want to beat up this one start-up company that looks like they will be a threat to our market share.

Anyway, she just said she got into another fight with our obnoxious interns (that’s what you get for hiring college kids from the Bay Area) over how they overshare their personal info on social media, and they caught wind of this Hard Return ailment affecting our team morale, and they said they’ll lead our latest Continuing Education For Management & Leadership Ultimate Paradigm Program class, and they call it:

Why. Not. Us.

If air traffic controllers, pilots, firefighters, Navy SEALs, and all those other service disciplines can train their people to be calm on the radio—which they do because they know, scientifically, that calm breeds calm—why can’t we train our labor costs…ah, we mean, our beloved team members…to be calm in the first place, and thereby resist the cunningly over-engineered temptation to do the chat tool’s dopamine generating bidding?

We’re all for it. We’re even making NO HARD RETURNS t-shirts, coffee mugs, dog vests, soup ladles, and water coolers, and distributing to staff for free*.

(*A small service charge will automatically deduct $5.72 per pay period per employee for ten years, but hey, somebody’s got to keep the lights on.)

And of course we’ll turn this into a NO HARD RETURNS business-to-business e-commerce webstore so other struggling organizations can benefit from our storied work. Plus we’ll use that revenue to help pay for our former Health & Wellness Director’s mounting legal fees—they’re really piling up.

Hey, today just got way better for a bunch of people!

Want to know what to do next? Who doesn’t? Maybe read one of Oprah’s books, we heard she’s real good and determining the next best move. Once you’re bored of that go ahead and share this article with your most despised Hard Returner: maybe they’ll get the message, maybe not, but what else can you do, you know?

“The people are great.”

We’ve heard that from our customers at least four times after we prompt them to say so.

Although, surprisingly, some mystery person left a decidedly unprompted Yelp review that said as much. Clearly this wasn’t one of our grumpy investors, and based on the timing, wording, and reviewer’s profile, sounded an awful lot like the UPS dude who has a crush on our receptionist Bridget. But whatever, a win’s a win.

Bottom line: there’s nothing more rewarding than hearing your people are “great.” That’s what we’re all here for right? Hello?

Mediocre Companies Don’t Care About Their People

In fact, virtually every website that represents some form of professional organization paints the perfect pretty picture of simply phenomenal employees functioning flawlessly in fabulous fellowship. Typically happily gathered around laptops atop a polished oak conference table or possibly clustered before some techno-wizardry display screen with hundreds of data visualization outputs portrayed in 4,000 colors.

So it simply must be true. We know it’s true for us, because we only hire great people, thanks to our secret sauce: Recruiter Class XVII, Ingrid Van Dorian.

Ingrid Is Super Scary And Probably Originated From A Wolf Pack

At which point we put away our official AI-Everything: How To Replace The Great Unwashed spreadsheet that contains detailed analysis of all our AI-tool adoption options including cost, benefit, return on investment, how many staff would be “impacted,” not to mention a teeny tiny microscopic section on data security and ethical guidelines we didn’t spend too much time on because we figure nobody else is.

Indeed, it’s much better to follow Ingrid’s lead, partly because we’re terrified of her, but mostly because she has this insanely practical way to learn about a candidate’s character traits and attributes to determine if they’d be valuable and useful within a given job description.

Speaking of which, despite our constant urging for Ingrid to move faster, she for some insane reason insists on pouring over a given job description in microscopic detail with both the responsible department head and manager so she fully understands what we’re trying to accomplish with the role. A posture she communicates by stomping into our boardroom, looming over our conference table, and stating, “Listen you morons, need to go slow to go fast. Stay out of my way and let me run my show.”

Terrifying. Paul McCann, our interim Chief Operating Officer, who’s admittedly quite uptight, literally stands in a corner listening to his Calm app immediately after she storms off muttering profanities to herself.

The Matrix Of All Matrices

The Dinner Test: Take every serious candidate out to eat—not some fancy place, just the local diner—and watch how they treat the waitstaff. You learn everything you need to know about someone’s character by observing whether they’re decent to people who can’t do anything for them career-wise.

The Keeper Question: After every hire, the hiring manager asks themselves monthly: ‘If this person told me they were quitting tomorrow, would I fight to keep them?’ If the answer’s no, we part ways immediately with a nice severance. Better to cut bait early than waste everyone’s time pretending it’ll work out.

Values Over Procedures: Who cares if someone can recite our mission statement backwards—care if their actions match our mission, vision, and values, and that they own the outcomes. Give us someone who is enrolled in why we’re here, but thinks for themselves, over someone who follows a checklist any day of the week.

High-Autonomy Assessment: During interviews, present real scenarios and see if they wait for permission or take initiative. People who thrive here don’t need their hand held—they need to be comfortable making calls and living with the consequences.

The Openness Factor: Look for people who can give and receive feedback without their ego imploding. Feedback is not about the person, it’s about the work. If someone gets defensive when we challenge their thinking, they’re not going to survive our culture where we actually tell each other the truth.

You Should Be Doing It Like This

It does wonders for the vibe around here too.