Eleven fictional viewpoints
These descriptions are fictional satire, not quotations or evidence of political beliefs or affiliations.
01 Wall Street Big Money Financier
Compliance Asks What Was Taken in December
Compliance flags the line reporting that he took the oath on December 9, 2024, and asks what was taken, from whom, and at what haircut. The desk's lawyers then spend an hour pricing the oath as posted collateral, until someone notes it was spoken aloud and cannot be rehypothecated. The file closes as the only collateral nobody has ever tried to lend out twice.
02 Silicon Valley / San Francisco Ivy League AI Founder
Memo: The Chatbot Is Now Admitted to Practice
MEMO TO ALL STAFF: our chatbot is hereby retitled 'Assistant,' to match the gravitas of an assistant United States attorney in the Central District of California. Per Legal, the title must be earned by caseload. Per Product, it will be earned by gradient descent. Per the CEO, the chatbot will also be admitted to the bar on Friday, pending a better font.
03 Venture Capital
Partners Score Side Screenplays by Cost per Unproduced Page
The partners invent Cost per Unproduced Page after reading about someone writing screenplays on the side for years. Burn rate: zero. Headcount: one. Deck: none. The metric flatters nobody except the screenplays, so the committee applies it to its own partners' podcasts, which burn forty thousand dollars a quarter. The chart is suppressed. The murder mystery, they note, still has no lead investor.
04 Institutional Investors
Trustees Admire a Route With Both Cities Named
Appraisal: in 2014 he joined a seven-day charity bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Trustees note an itinerary with a start, a finish and daily mileage, which is more than our 'glide path to full funding' has offered since 2009. Staff measured it and found 0 miles traveled, 17 rest stops. Recommendation: pave the glide path or retire the word 'glide.'
05 Data Center Operators
Form NC-1: Helicopters Got a Hotline, Fans Got Hearings
Form NC-1 asks which complaint system the applicant wishes to join. The operator admires the countywide helicopter noise public complaint system, created in 2015 as 'the first step toward regulation,' and dreads the same first step for his rooftop fans. To be fair, he files a complaint about helicopters over the campus. The clerk stamps it received, then explains that helicopters have a hotline and fans have a hearing.
06 Frontier Lab
Red Team Cross-Examines the Model; Nobody Brought a Judge
Inspired by a profile saying he was an assistant United States attorney, a red-teamer cross-examines the new model. 'Isn't it true you refused that request?' 'I would like to refer you to my system card.' 'Move to strike!' Nobody can say who rules on the objection, because the lab's evaluation policy contains a witness stand but no judge.
07 Chinese Communist Party
Study Notice: Why This Roll Call Was Not Dull
Study notice, section three. Cadres reviewing the report that the House of Representatives censured Schiff in a party-line vote on June 21, 2023 must proceed as follows. Step 1: locate the news value. Step 2: confirm that a vote along party lines is ordinarily called 'a vote.' Step 3: file under routine. Step 4: note the public tally and draft a plan for making ours unremarkable.
08 American Union Worker
Who Logs the Return Trip From the Airport?
If a Harvard forum task meant driving guest speakers from the airport to campus and back, who decided the 'and back' counts? Why is my run from the north lot to the dock paid going out and called 'repositioning' coming home? And if William J. Brennan Jr. got a full round trip, may the steward ask which leg management plans to call lunch?
09 White Collar Professional in an AI-Threatened Group
My Review Got Three Runs; Only the Last Counted
The first trial resulted in a hung jury, the second conviction was overturned, and the third finally stuck. My scoring model offers me the same three tries. Run one is inconclusive, run two contradicts run one, and run three, identical to run two, is final. I asked for a jury. I was offered a regenerate button.
10 American STEM Worker Over 45
Thirty-Four Days of Handover, Versus My Two
A profile says Schiff won the Senate election on November 5, 2024, and was sworn in thirty-four days later.¹
¹ Thirty-four days is a transition. When my team lead left, I received a two-day handover, a password manager export, and a calendar invite titled 'Knowledge Capture,' which I was told to attend as the knowledge.
11 American STEM Graduate Five Years Out of College (Not Ivy League)
Named Lead by Speaker; I Was Named by Silence
On January 15, 2020, Nancy Pelosi named Schiff a lead impeachment manager: the title came with an announcer and a date. In my field the order runs backward. I became lead on a migration after four seniors left, with no announcement and a chat status reading 'back soon.' Five years out, I manage everything and am titled Associate; the managing is volunteer work.